Whether you call it a virtual business, virtual company, teleworking business, or remote corporation; it’s all essentially the same thing. So, to keep it simple, I’m going to refer to it as building a virtual business. My company used to be a brick-and-mortar business, at least up until 2002. That’s when I developed a better way for service-based and eCommerce businesses.

Back in 2005, I rebranded my company to Virtco® with the intent to help other businesses become virtual businesses. So far I’ve done that by building services that help enable businesses to move many of their functions into a virtual space. However, I can’t build all the services you’ll need to make your business virtual. Even the largest SaaS and software companies can’t do that. But I can advise, coach and educate. Showing you which tools and methodologies work, and which ones fit your business best.

Obviously, some businesses just can’t go completely virtual. You can’t manufacture goods virtually or work as a dental clinic or be a restaurant without bricks and mortar. But even those businesses can put some of their operations into a virtual space. Move sales, marketing, customer service, tech support, making reservations or appointments, finance and HR out of the office and into a virtual environment.

Now is the right time for many more businesses to go virtual. Especially with the changes forced on many businesses by COVID-19.

How to start a virtual business

By far the easiest way to start building a virtual business is to begin from day one as a virtual business. But that’s by no means the only way to go, you can start as a small brick-and-mortar business and then expand virtually. You can build out as a hybrid, with some functions of the business virtual and some functions brick-and-mortar. Whichever way you go will largely be dictated by what your business is planning to do, and how you want to work.

Converting to a virtual business

Rather than building a virtual business from scratch, you could take your existing brick-and-mortar business and convert it into a virtual business. You will certainly see some cost savings and probably some productivity improvements too.

If you currently have a brick-and-mortar business you will have been experiencing some significant challenges recently. As a result of COVID-19 businesses around the globe have had to find new ways of working. More people than ever before have been working from home instead of from an office. Many businesses and employees have seen great benefits to working remotely. No commute is one of the biggest time savings for employees. But many businesses have also been struggling with the remote model, mostly because their mindset hasn’t been able to adapt so easily and they’re not as familiar with the modern communication tools as they could be.

No permanent office space or fixed base has huge cost-saving implications for any business. If you don’t need to pay rent then you can re-purpose that money into more value-added areas of the business. Even if you own your own office building, the capital can be released by selling it. Alternatively, generate income by renting it out to boost the bottom line.

That’s without taking into consideration energy costs, water usage, waste management, local taxes, building maintenance, office furniture, telephone systems, car parking… the list goes on and on. It’s not just savings for the business, but also savings for the employees.

Virtual-only business model

At the extreme end of the spectrum we have virtual-only businesses, they don’t have a fixed base. Everyone in the business works either remotely from home or is mobile. Sometimes employees never meet each other, but it can be a good idea to have in-person team-building events now and again.

The virtual-only model does have some significant advantages. If you spread your team around the globe, it gives your organisation 24-hour follow-the-sun coverage. It means you can hire whoever is going to be the best person for the job no matter where they are. Take advantage of differences in cost-of-living and local salary expectations to keep the wage bill down, or keep it the same but hire more talented people.

You and other members of your team can be truly mobile, so long as they have access to the Internet. You don’t need to keep “office hours” because there is nobody having to open up and lock up the office. That makes it possible to work when it suits you, so if you want to spend time with your family between certain hours why not.

Virtual-physical hybrid business model

One of the simplest virtual-physical hybrids is where a company manufactures products. So they need somewhere to actually make the products. But perform all the admin, finance, design & development, human resources, marketing and sales in a virtual space. When needed the business has a physical base where staff can meet. But that space doesn’t need to be anything like as large.

Another good example of a virtual-physical hybrid is a software development company. Where it makes sense to operate with co-located agile/scrum teams. Keeping most of the other business functions like marketing, HR, admin and finance, all virtual.

Building a virtual team

So when you’re building a virtual business how do you go about building your virtual team? There are many ways, it can be just like hiring for a brick-and-mortar business, you can use a recruitment agent or a platform like LinkedIn. Alternatively, use one of the many freelancer platforms such as Fiverr, Upwork or PeoplePerHour. That way you can try before you commit.

Hiring virtual team members

Hire someone for a specific job or project through a freelancer platform. If they perform well keep using them, if not then next time try someone else. When you keep going back to the same person over and over again, then maybe they’re a really good fit. Perhaps they’d be willing to join the company as a full-time employee.

Depending on what the job is and who you’re looking for, you could identify candidates using social media. Find talented individuals in the area you’re looking for and then send them a direct message or email inviting them to join your business as a virtual team member.

Managing virtual teams and remote workers

When assigning tasks to your virtual teams and remote workers you need to ensure that you communicate what you want them to do very clearly. Sometimes there may be language barriers, so keep your language simple and be prepared for questions. Give them SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) so all parties know the requirements and the deadline.

If you have a team who isn’t co-located then use a video conference to communicate the tasks to the team. Give them the requirements, but also leave time for Q&A so they can gather details from you that may be important to them but you didn’t consider.

Another really excellent tool to use for remote teams and workers is a shared Trello board, it’s a kind of kanban board where you create lists of tasks and sub-tasks. Assign the team members specific tasks which they check off when done. Have them attach files for other team members to then download, or share links to a shared Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or Dropbox.

Make sure you give your remote workers the tools and access they need. A good practice is to keep a spreadsheet or database of all the services you use in the organisation. Specify in that system who has access to what and why. Then, if you’re managing the services make sure you regularly review and remove redundant access.

Trust your team members to do a good job, nobody comes to work with the intent to do a bad job. So long as you let them know what’s expected you should get what you wanted.

Communicating effectively

The number 2 most important thing when you are building a virtual business is communications (number 1 is sales in case you were wondering). You have to be able to communicate effectively with both external contacts and internal team members.

External communications

You have to manage your external communications with your clients and suppliers. Especially with clients, you need a consistent tone that they recognise. You don’t want everyone and anyone from wherever all sending stuff to your clients. Have a clearly defined format and templates you use, with a virtual assistant (VA) or team of VAs that format and manage the communications. They will need training to communicate the way you want them to, but it will be time well spent.

Certainly use a CRM system that captures all your external communications with your clients and maybe even your suppliers. That allows you to see correspondence with a particular client in one place. Some CRM systems will even manage your calendars, send bulk emails, and integrate with other systems.

Internal communications

Internal communications must be free-flowing and accessible. If you have organisational broadcasts consider using streaming video, video conferences or private podcast feeds. Have an internal website with internal-only blog posts and forums. Even consider using a Wiki.

Collaborating within teams and across the organisation

Teams, Slack, Trello, Asana, Planner

Managing time and productivity when working virtually

Time recording to projects or other activities

Managing projects

Project management challenges many businesses, co-located or virtual. There are tools we use in virtco that make managing both large and small projects easy. Most challenges from project management center around communications. But, with a virtual business, good communications are essential or it won’t work at all. So that takes away one of the biggest blockers in project management.

Managing clients

CRM, lead conversion to sales. Project management

Developing products

How we can help

As I said earlier, the best way I can help when entrepreneurs and business owners are thinking of building a virtual business is by advising, coaching and educating.