Virtual Office Case Studies

Case Study: Christina 

Type of Business: LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker)

Location: New York; Greece

Services: New York Virtual Office, Mail Forwarding Service, Mail Scanning

Christina is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW).  She’s had a physical office in Columbus Circle since 2015, where she would work directly with an impressive list of patients.  She would commute from the Upper East Side to Columbus Circle, from an apartment she shared with her cousin. Her cousin, Anastasia, a Greek National, who worked as a New York representative for a company based in Greece.  Anastasia travelled back and forth to Greece often, and Christina would go with her as often as work permitted.

Then March 2020 happened:  The Pandemic, Coronavirus, Covid-19 Lockdowns, Quarantines.  Within weeks, New York City would become the epicenter of the worldwide pandemic.

Christina panicked.  Her patients needed her more than ever.  What was she going to do?   She talked with patients and colleagues to see what would work and what their options were.  Phone calls wouldn't work, Christina needed to see her patients' faces;  Zoom’s video conferencing platform was the answer.

With the help of video conferencing, Christina was able to meet with patients from home and talk to them face to face.  But what about her office?  Under the strict New York State mandates, Christina was not able to access her office.  With her office sitting alone, and the extremely high and infamously expensive Manhattan rent, she knew changes had to be made.

Since Christina’s practice was no longer bound by traditional face-to-face meetings in a brick and mortar building, and video conferencing appointments had become a norm during the pandemic, she contemplated taking her practice virtual - at least for the time being. 

Christina started to search on Google for a virtual office space for LCSW in midtown Manhattan and opened a virtual office account with us at ManhattanVirtualOffice.com.  She now had access to a brick and mortar location, managed by our dedicated staff, who made it possible for her to be completely virtual.  She closed her Columbus Circle office, changed her address to her new virtual office address, and most importantly she had a NYC office address for her LCSW license.  Planning ahead, Christina also knew that post-pandemic, she had access to private meeting space at our facilities..

The best part about this is that Christina made lemonade from lemons - or in this case - ouzo from grapes (grape-marc): in July she headed over to Greece indefinitely with Anastasia.  Christina’s practice is completely virtual for the time being: she is physically working from Greece, connecting with her patients (who don’t mind she’s no longer physically in New York City) virtually with a New York office address for her practice.

We are proud to call Christina our client and are honored to assist her with her New York business presence.

Case Study: Doug

Type of Business: Day Trader

Location: Usually South America

Services: Virtual Office Business Address, Mail Forwarding Service, Voice Mail with Email Forwarding

Doug is a day trader and an avid traveler. He grew up with dreams of traveling the world and knew that’s what he was destined to do. Question was – how could he do it? Turns out he had a knack for the Financial Markets.

Knowing that with a good internet connection and professional trading program he could trade from virtually anywhere, he left his home in California and hit the road. For a few years now Doug has been living in long-term hotels/apartments around the world. Last month he was in Bogota, Colombia, and in a couple of weeks, he’ll be in Quito, Ecuador for about a month.

Since he was never in one place for more than several weeks at a time, and only came back to the US every few months, he needed to maintain a home base, an address within the United States. At first, though he realized this would burden his mother, Doug would have his mail sent to his mother’s house – he especially hated her having to go to the post office to forward his mail internationally. Doug knew it was time to get a professional solution.

Doug subscribed to ManhattanVirtualOffice.com’s virtual office business address, mail forwarding, and NYC voicemail with email forwarding of messages. He would have his mail forwarded on a monthly basis to his current destination. Being that he was never in one place for more than a month, ManhattanVirtualOffice.com would be forwarding his mail to a different destination on a monthly basis: Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Barranquilla, Guayaquil, Santiago – Doug sure got around.

Having a local number in the US was also a necessity for him. He always has a US mobile phone on hand, but often finds himself in an out of service area and needs to use a mobile phone with local service, and that means another phone number. He uses his NYC 212 voice mail number from ManhattanVirtualOffice.com as a main contact number to centralize his messages. All messages are sent as a .wav file to his email address and Doug listens to them on his laptop.

Day trading is how Doug makes his living, but he also is an avid traveler and posts all his travel musings, recommendations and tips to his travel website. He is using the virtual office address as a contact for his travel website which is starting to turn a profit. Doug is now nurturing what is becoming an unintentional side business – which could ultimately give him all the freedom he desires. He is currently in plans to write a travel guide.

We are proud to have Doug as one of our esteemed virtual office clients.

Case Study: Leonard and Kiara

Type of Business: Medical Placement Agency

Location: Hoboken, New Jersey

Services: New York Virtual Office Address, Meeting Room Usage

Leonard was a headhunter for the office furniture industry in the Tri-state area. He wasn’t doing very well in the current economy – he had tons of clients, but no jobs to place them in. He knew he wanted to start his own business, but wasn’t sure exactly which direction to go in.

Kiara was a Human Resource director with a medical company. Budget cuts and layoffs were a part of her daily routine. Not only was her spirit breaking because of the constant bad news she had to deliver on a daily basis, she knew her days at this job were also numbered.

Leonard and Kiara met through a mutual friend. They got to talking about their careers; a headhunter and an HR director! It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and a successful business partnership.

Leonard and Kiara were from completely different sectors, but their combined connections and knowledge-base would eventually be the basis for a placement firm. They got to talking and the ideas just fell into place. With support from their respective spouses, family, friends and business associates, Leonard and Kiara got to work.

They knew they were starting a placement firm, but weren’t sure if it should be general or cater to a specific niche market. They wanted to specialize, but didn’t want to exclude any potential candidates. In the end, they decided to to start off the firm specializing in placement for medical professionals and make use of Kiara’s massive contact list and Leonard networking skills.

Leonard and Kiara had their business plan and website in place. Since they were still working at their respective day jobs, they didn’t have the time, money or resources to rent an actual office. A physical presence was a necessity: They needed a professional environment to portray their corporate identity and to interview prospective candidates. That’s when they contacted ManhattanVirtualOffice.com and subscribed to our Manhattan business presence including rental of an office address and meeting room usage.

The company was ready to go! Leonard worked on placing ads to find candidates and Kiara sent out announcements to her contacts in the medical field promoting their new venture. The buzz they created churned out fantastic results: responses were flowing in from both directions! It was time to start interviewing placement candidates.

Leonard and Kiara contacted ManhattanVirtualOffice.com to find out if the office was suitable for conducting a condensed flow of interviews scheduled at 15 minute increments during the entire workday. They asked if we had places for people to wait for their interview and a private room where they could interview candidates… Of course we do – they started renting the available office space for an entire day at a time.

On the day of their first rental, they arrived early to speak with the receptionist. The receptionist was given a list of the candidates and their appointments. The receptionist was to note that the interviewee had show up, and at what time, for their appointment. She was then given a packet of documents, including applications and disclosure forms that the interviewees were to complete prior to their interview. A resume was to be requested from the applicant, as well as a photo ID and any licensing documents. The receptionist was then to make copies of this information and attach to their paperwork package. The package would be given to Leonard, who would greet the applicant in the reception area, and escort into the meeting room for Kiara to conduct the interview.

Their first day was a success! So much of a success they currently religiously book the meeting room at least twice a month to conduct their mass interviews.

Leonard and Kiara are thrilled with their success: The idea worked! They have since branched out into other non-medical sectors. For just a nominal amount of start-up capital they were able to create a business that currently supports both of their salaries and covers all business expenses. Always expressing appreciation for our service, they are amazed at the quality of services they’ve received from ManhattanVirtualOffice.com – their New York office.

We are proud to still call Leonard, Kiara and their placement firm one of our valued clients.

Case Study: Donald

Type of Business: Publisher/Author

Location: Scottsdale, Arizona

Services: New York Virtual Office, 212 Manhattan phone with voice mail to email, 212 fax number with email forwarding of messages, NYS Incorporation, NYS Registered Agent

Donald is a professor by day, but by heart and soul, he is a writer, an author. He spends his summer and winter breaks researching and writing novels that transport the reader to faraway places with page turning suspense. Donald had been publishing his own books for years. After realizing that many of his associates, also authors, were coming to him for advise on publishing their own books, he decided to start his own publishing company.

After extensive market research, Donald realized that the best and only fitting option would be to establish a New York presence for his new publishing company; Manhattan, being the capital of publishing companies, was the obvious choice. After researching his options online and contacting several virtual office service providers, Donald selected  ManhattanVirtualOffice.com to manage his New York business presence. Why ManhattanVirtualOffice.com? He liked how detailed and prompt our responses were to his emails, he also appreciated our extensive experience and our no-nonsense customer service approach . We also had all the services he required to get him up and running quickly and efficiently.

Donald started off with subscribing to our New York Virtual Office address service. He added a 212 Manhattan phone number with email forwarding of incoming messages and a 212 fax number with fax forwarding to email. Checking into the office was a simple as checking his email each day. His voice mail messages were emailed to him as a .wav file and faxes as a .tif files. He could save, delete, print, and store his New York messages at a whim. A few days later he sent us the paperwork to process and file his new Corporation with the State and selected us as his New York Registered Agent. His New York publishing company, was filed with the State within days.

Donald’s new Publishing Company, a small start-up, now had a business presence in New York just up the block from world renowned Macmillan. Location, Location, Location! Impressive!

Donald was his Publishing Company’s first client, he was writing a novel a year. The new Publishing Company handled all the press, publicity and technicalities for their first client, Donald. Remember Donald’s writer friends, who kept coming to him for advice? They jumped on board with the new Publishing Company as well.

The new Company was getting busy. They needed to start answering their 212 phone calls on the spot. Donald contacted us to see if it was possible to upgrade his number to call forwarding. Surely! He had us forward the calls to his home in Scottsdale. Donald’s wife, a retiree, would be answering his calls.

Donald’s Publishing Company is still going strong – their books have been picked up by bookstore chains and by Amazon. He receives all his checks and correspondence at the office which are are then forwarded once a week to his home in Scottsdale.

Always expressing appreciation, Donald sends us a few autographed copies of each book his Company publishes. We are proud to still call Donald and his Publishing Company our clients.

Case Study: Siobhanne

Type of Business: Talent Agency

Location: Greenwich, London, UK

Services: New York Virtual Office Business Address Rental,  Meeting Room Usage, Mail Handling

Siobhanne lives just across the pond from New York in Greenwich,  a suburb of London. A former model and retired actress herself, she parlayed her expertise and experience into running a small talent agency out of her home office. Her work brought her to the United States every few weeks – client opportunities in the States were starting to show a profit.

Siobhanne needed a New York business address to receive  correspondence. Initially, she unwittingly rented what turned out to be simply a mailbox service from a “virtual office” company right here in Manhattan. She ran into huge problems when potential talent clients would attempt to visit her office to drop-off head-shots and found a room of mailboxes, how embarrassing! She knew it didn’t portray a professional image; she needed to rent an actual business address, with facilities to receive both her mail and guests in a professional office environment. That’s when she contacted ManhattanVirtualOffice.com.

After several emails containing detailed questions, phone calls, and  viewing facility photos, Siobhanne was confident with the environment and professionalism of the employees who would be running “her” office. She signed up for our business address rental services online.

She gave precise instructions, to be left on file with the receptionist,  on how to deal with any talent that would show up unannounced to drop-off head shots. After the talent left their packages with reception, the resumé and head-shots would be scanned and emailed to Siobhanne. All mail and packages received would then be forwarded, at the end of each month, via courier (flat rate envelope) to her home in Greenwich. She would pickup her mail herself while in New York.

Two weeks after opening her account, Siobhanne made an  appointment to rent the private office facilities for a few hours during  one of her trips to New York. She was thrilled with the accommodations, size, brightness, and privacy of the meeting facilities! ManhattanVirtualOffice.com provided exactly the service she needed! She was confident her business was in good hands.

We are proud to call Siobhanne and her talent agency one of our valued clients.

Case Study: Kris and Erica

Type of Business: Agents Representing Artists

Location: Los Angeles, California and New York, New York

Services: New York Virtual Office and 212 Manhattan Call Forwarding Phone Number.

Kris and Erica are business partners that manage and represent renowned makeup artists and photographers. They both live with their respective families and commute to their brick and mortar office in Los Angeles each day.

They wanted to grow the photographic representation part of their company, but weren’t able to attract more photographers and or magazine editor attention in New York. All the magazine companies were located here, in NYC, and most of these wanted to see the Photographer portfolios right away. It was costly to overnight large and heavy portfolios back and forth from Los Angeles to New York. They needed a cost effective alternative to keep costs down and profits up while living 3,000 miles from their target audience.

They immediately contacted ManhattanVirtualOffice.com for assistance.

Their budget was small and they wanted to start off small to test the market. Their first purchase was a 212 Manhattan voice mail to email phone number. At only $10 per month, the cost wasn’t a deterrent issue. Incoming messages were sent via email as a .wav file simultaneously to Kris and Erica. They added the phone number to their website, got new business cards and were ready to hit the New York market.

Good news: It worked! They were attracting new clients to represent and starting relationships with Manhattan publishing companies.

Three months later they contacted ManhattanVirtualOffice.com again with the possibility of upgrading their phone number to better cater to their new needs. They wanted to answer their calls personally. Since they were all setup with an assistant and an intern in their Los Angeles office, they had more than enough people to answer both their LA and NY calls. They even considered the time zone, and made a rotating schedule of who would be in the LA office at 5:30 am to start answering any New York phone calls during Eastern Time. We said “sure, no problem” and upgraded their phone for only $5 per month and they started to get their 212 Manhattan phone calls directly in Los Angeles.

Great news: This worked even better! Though they were actually answering their calls from Los Angeles, it was as if they were just across town from their callers in New York.

The huge influx of new clients caused them a new business dilemma. Editors wanted to see the photographers portfolios right away. The quickest Kris and Erica could get the portfolios to New York was via overnight courier. As noted earlier, they were spending a small fortune in courier costs to overnight huge and heavy portfolios. None of the portfolios would fit in courier boxes, so they were just shipping the portfolios, sans packaging, with just a courier label attached to the actual portfolio handle; it was costly and damaging! It was time… they now needed a physical presence in New York.

Once again, Kris and Erica contacted ManhattanVirtualOffice.com for assistance. They opened their New York real / virtual office in just hours. A few weeks later, Erica flew out to New York with 15 portfolios which would be based in New York along with a stash of promo cards and business cards and explained how they needed their New York presence to operate.

Initially they would send an email to our Customer Service department with an address where each portfolio should be sent to. We would forward the portfolios via messenger to each respective magazine editors’ office. When the magazine offices were done with the portfolios, Erica would then contact them and tell them where they should go next. We’d only see the portfolios back at the office if they needed restocking of business / promo cards or if the photographer was in town and needed one of their portfolios to meet with a potential client in our meeting room facilities.

Kris and Erica continued working from Los Angeles for the next few years. Erica’s trips to NYC became more and more frequent; she was quickly racking up those frequent flier miles! However, taking several cross country trips each month was exhausting Erica – they decided, someone would need to relocate to New York. Erica took the plunge and, along with her husband, relocated to New York. Thankfully it worked out well, her husband is an artist and has his work frequently exhibited in New York galleries, many right near the office in Chelsea. It was a no brainer: Erica and family’s move to New York was a success.

Erica kept her days busy in Manhattan lunching with prospective clients. She worked mostly from home, and would come into the office occasionally for a quick meeting. Any mail that came in for Kris and Erica was now forwarded to Erica’s NYC home.

They toyed with the idea of opening their own office in NYC, but decided it was unnecessary. By having a virtual office serviced by ManhattanVirtualOffice.com, they were saving on the exorbitant costs associated with opening their own brick and mortar office: rent, payroll, insurance, utilities just to name a few, in Manhattan, is a costly venture. Our virtual office service, including a physical business office address with meeting facilities, was exactly what they needed at an unbeatable price.

Years later, Kris and Erica’s business is still successful. Erica and family are still in New York. We are proud to still call them our clients.

Case Study: Sela

Type of Business: Graphic Designer

Location: Long Island City, New York

Services: NY Company Formation, NYC Virtual Office, Mail Handling with Mail Forwarding Service, and New York Registered Agent

A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Sela, an only child from a single parent home, moved to Long Island City while attending a famous NYC design school. It broke her heart to leave her mother alone, but they both knew it was for the best.

After obtaining her degree, Sela was immediately hired as a graphic artist at a local Silicon Alley company. After a few years, she was heading up the same department with a promising future with the company. However, her Silicon Alley employer was not doing well in the current economic climate and the company was heading towards closing their New York location. They offered certain employees the opportunity to relocate to their headquarters in San Francisco – Sela was on board.

Unfortunately, right before her big move to San Francisco, tragedy struck. Her Mother, out for a leisurely evening walk, was struck by a car; Sela left New York immediately. Her mother had a compound fracture in her right leg and it was going to take a long time to heal. Sela, a self-professed “Momma’s Girl”, knew that she was going to be in Jackson for quite some time. Sela’s employer gave her her remaining vacation and banked days. In the meantime, she started to wrap-up her New York life from a distance.

Her employer did not want to loose her – Sela was way too talented. They worked out a deal where they would hire Sela as a freelance graphic designer, Sela agreed. She would be able to work from a distance without a problem. She always wanted to start her own firm, needed to take care of her mother, and saw this as her golden opportunity to be her own boss!

Sela searched online for a way to make her situation work. She realized that forming her company and renting a business address with mail forwarding would work perfectly for her. During her searches she found ManhattanVirtualOffice.com's office perfectly situated just a few blocks from her former Silicon Alley office – She loved the neighborhood!

Sela hired ManhattanVirtualOffice.com to establish her New York business presence. She formed her LLC in New York, opened her virtual office, and selected ManhattanVirtualOffice.com as her Registered Agent.

During the transition period from New York to Mississippi, Sela flew back and forth several times to vacate her apartment and put her furniture and belongings up for sale on Craigslist – with the help of friends. Sela had her mail from her Long Island City home forwarded to ManhattanVirtualOffice.com office in Manhattan. We would then forward her personal mail, along with any business mail to her mother’s home in Jackson.

Within a month from her mother’s accident, Sela was back in Mississippi, full-time, tending to her mother’s every need. While her Silicon Alley former employer continued referring her with new freelance jobs, Sela worked on growing her own client base to supplement her income. She found it simple and convenient to work from Mississippi with a New York business presence.

Thankfully Sela’s mother’s recovery time was better than expected. Even though her business was growing every day, Sela wasn’t about to leave home anytime soon. She was going to stay home, close to her “Momma” and let  ManhattanVirtualOffice.com run her New York business presence for her.

We are proud to still call Sela one of our valued clients – and congratulate her success.

Case Study: Carlos

Type of Business: Translator

Location: Formerly Manhattan, Currently Buenos Aires, Argentina

Services: New York Virtual Office Business Address Rental, Meeting Room Usage, Mail Handling, Mail Forwarding Service

After completing his degree in language studies, Carlos, a native of Argentina, worked as a translator in the marking department of a fortune 100 company in New York.

He freelanced during his free time, evenings and weekends for an international translating company, only taking assignments he knew he could finish quickly without interfering too much with his free time or his hectic daytime workload.

Seeing how easy it was to do a little work on the side, Carlos tinkered with the idea of starting his own translation service. He also missed his hometown and loved the idea of returning to Argentina to spend more time with his family and friends; he knew that starting his own business would be the only way to have freedom and financial independence.

Carlos hated the idea of debt and didn’t want to make any large upfront investments in this new venture, he figured the best way would be to use money generated by his moonlighting efforts to grow his business. He started a small website, noting all of his credentials and within a few months he started to get small translation jobs: letters, documents, contracts etc.

Any new income was immediately returned and reinvested into his new business. His translation service was starting to slowly and little by little, generate some profits. Carlos would be the first person to tell you that it took time; time to get picked-up in search engines and time to grow his client base, but he was determined not to in-debt himself by taking any up-front high interest loans to grow his business. He would do it himself, no loans.

After about a year, he started to get jobs where his larger corporate clients wanted to pay him with checks; he normally accepted Paypal payments for jobs. The problem now was: Where should his big corporate clients mail these checks to? He couldn’t have them sent to his day job… and definitely not to his home address. Not aware that he had any options, Carlos would visit the client’s office and pickup his checks personally. He couldn’t keep running around the city for checks, this was taking way too much time, not to mention it being exhausting. Another bump in the road came when a client wanted Carlos to translate audio documents; the client wanted to mail him CD’s with audio files and not email them because the files were too large. Carlos realized he needed a professional business address for sure and fast.

After learning about virtual offices, he started searching and comparing services online; he chose New York’s premier service, ManhattanVirtualOffice.com. Carlos opened his New York virtual office with ManhattanVirtualOffice.com, including rental of a physical office space. He finally had a company to run his New York business presence while still working and maintaining his day job. He was able to receive all his documents and correspondence at his New York virtual office and then have everything forwarded directly to his home. Every piece of mail he was receiving was either a check or an income generating project, so as far as Carlos was concerned, every piece of mail was paying for itself!

His translation company was surely growing. He was finally starting to get overwhelmed and began outsourcing some of his projects to peers. Who can’t use a little extra income?

Then the unexpected happened, Carlos’ day job announced they were downsizing several departments, his was one of them. This wasn’t good news. Even though he had worked there for a few years, he was still one of the most recent team members; his department was barely holding their head above water. Carlos had an idea and approached his immediate supervisor who, in turn, took his idea to the higher-ups: If Carlos accepted a layoff, would they consider outsourcing work to his translation company? After all, outsourcing is much more cost effective than keeping a full-time staff member. It was a far out idea but, it worked! They accepted!

Carlos is now happily not only back in his beloved hometown in Argentina, but he also remotely works from there! The best thing is, his clients don’t know he’s there – they think he’s working out of New York, NY. Even though he’s over 5300 miles away he does, after all, have a New York City business presence. The peace of mind, freedom and convenience offered by a virtual office service from reputable company is not only essential for Carlos, but priceless.

Carlos does come to New York about four times a year to meet with clients and to conduct interviews with potential freelancer translators in his New York virtual office.

We are proud to still call Carlos one of our valued clients – and congratulate his success.