Yori Galel With Opus Virtual Offices

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in South Florida. It’s time for South Florida Business Radio. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of South Florida Business Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Yori Galel with Opus Virtual Offices. Welcome.

Yori Galel: Good morning. How are you?

Lee Kantor: I am doing well. I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Opus virtual offices. How are you serving folks?

Yori Galel: Sure. So opus virtual offices, we provide a complete corporate presence without the overhead, so for only $99 a month, our services include professional phone answering where we answer the phones live under the company name, a corporate address where we receive mail and packages, transfer the calls anywhere the client is. The program also includes phone and fax number local. It includes voicemails that converts to email faxes that converts to email. Some locations even have digital mail notifications, and many have conference rooms for meetings. So basically, it’s really the ultimate office solution because you don’t need the expense of a traditional office, and you can operate your business without a full conventional, traditional office.

Lee Kantor: Now, what type of individuals, businesses, entrepreneurs would kind of be the right fit for a virtual office as opposed to maybe a co-working space or, you know, a permanent office, like where what’s kind of that Venn diagram of where virtual office makes sense?

Yori Galel: So it makes sense for a lot of markets, actually, that’s probably our biggest challenge is to introduce it. Say that 97% of people that can use it don’t even know it exists. But we cater to from the small to the medium sized companies. So small company, let’s start with potentially Joe Painter that needs somebody to answer his phones while he’s on a ladder, painting a wall, or needs a package to be received. Needs doesn’t want to use his home address, but wants to have a full corporate presence on that end. We take it to the next level. If somebody wants to expand into a certain market and doesn’t want to have the overhead until he’s confirmed that it’s actually a good market. So potentially go. I mean, we’re all 50 states in Canada. We have about 650 locations. So the footprint permits people to test markets that traditionally they would have to pay quite a bit of rent for. We have international companies that come in and want the presence in the US will have attorneys that potentially are let’s use Florida, Florida barred and maybe have an office in Miami, but could expand into Orlando and could explain into Tampa, could explain to Naples, could have a full nice footprint throughout the state without creating, you know, tremendous overhead. So it caters to a lot of different markets.

Lee Kantor: So what was the genesis of the idea? Where did you kind of see the opportunity? What was was there something for you that was happening that you’re like, hey, this this might work instead of what’s out there?

Yori Galel: Well, we we operated it. We owned commercial real estate and we operate it. You were mentioning earlier co-working. We had co-working, executive suite type space, and people found that they were traveling. They were spending a lot more time outside the office and really didn’t need a full time office. What they needed is a full time presence. Um, having somebody assist them by answering their phones, receiving their mails, giving them an opportunity to have places to meet. So have the conference rooms, but after that, didn’t need to spend the money. One, but also didn’t need the actual office independent of the cost. So able to be anywhere in the world and still have an office in a certain market to develop a presence is, uh, something that as technology grew, I mean, we own a lot of our software and be able to create a seamless transition from a full time office into a virtual office.

Lee Kantor: So, um, so say I’m a like you described, I’m a painter in a local market, and I notice that while I’m painting, I can’t answer the phone. Obviously, when I work with opus now as an opus person saying, hey, this is when they answer the phone. This is, you know, Joe Painter, and then they just take a message. Or can they answer questions like what is kind of the scope of their, um, service?

Yori Galel: So we we have a variety of ways of addressing it. When, uh, give you the first part is, uh, you are a painter, you’re out there painting. If you do not have opus as your backup. Um, and I need my house painted, I will call and go straight to voicemail. I will call the next painter, or I’ll call the next plumber, or I’ll call the next electrician. I’ll call the next party planner. I mean, they’re just, uh, we’ll, uh, reach out to the next person because nobody actually answered the phone. So starting with, we will personalize, customize the way we answer the calls. The screen will give us quite a bit of information. When the call comes in, the screen becomes very customized and personalized to the client. So if the client cares to share some additional information as we’re running certain specials, or we are specializing in residential painting but do not do commercial either way, all that will come up. So the receptionist doesn’t just come out as a robot, but actually is, uh, very personalized and feels like it’s the personal secretary of that painter. Uh, when we transfer the calls, we transfer the calls to the painter. If he happens to be available and he answers, the system will ask him if he wants to accept or reject the call. So he knows it’s an office call. He sees the caller ID coming through of the caller. If he is unavailable, it can revert back to the receptionist who can take a message. But traditionally we’ll go into a voicemail that then converts to email. And the beauty of that for me is, um, not only do you get your message and you get to listen to it, but it comes in an email format which you can forward to someone else. So potentially you have multiple partners in a CPA firm. Everybody works from home, and you just want to share this client’s message. To get me taken care of. All you have to do is forward the email. So there’s a lot of advantages to it from a technology standpoint as well.

Lee Kantor: So then, um, so then the person answering the phone can answer some questions. They’re not going to be able to sell somebody something that’s not their role. Their role is just to capture this information and transfer it to the appropriate person.

Yori Galel: That’s correct. I mean, we don’t want them to go too far out because, uh, uh, providing the wrong information will kind of one shatter the image. And it’s a lot easier for our staff to when they reach a point where they’re unable to answer, we’ve trained them to go, I’m just the receptionist. Let me transfer you to somebody who can help you as opposed to saying the wrong thing.

Lee Kantor: And then for the person, you mentioned that coworking space a little bit. So if I do need an office, you know, once a month, once a quarter, I have access to an office or obviously that’s an additional fee, but there is a place for me to go if I need a office or a conference room.

Yori Galel: That’s correct. So you have access to you conference rooms within the specific office where you’ve, uh, acquired a virtual office. And in addition to that, you also have access to, let’s say, the top 15 cities in the country where if you may have an office in with us, a virtual office in Miami, but you can still use the Atlanta or New York or LA or Chicago office to have a meeting as well. So it expands your market a little bit. That’s not available in every single location. So if you were to go to Kenosha, Wisconsin, uh, you may not have the full service that you would have in New York City But for the key markets, even if you have a virtual office with us in a specific location, you can expand and go and have a meeting in a different market because you happen to be in that area. So then it’s for a nominal fee.

Lee Kantor: So my membership gives me access to other offices if I need it on a kind of a day by day basis.

Yori Galel: That’s correct.

Yori Galel: Not all 650, because some of them are not as equipped with it or do not have enough space to accommodate your entire client base. But the larger markets, being the top 15 cities in the country or largest, busiest cities certainly provide that. So by being a client in one location, you have access to others as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, is it difficult for you in these all the local markets that you serve to just kind of educate the marketplace of, hey, you don’t have to just use your cell phone as your office? There’s you know, this is a super affordable way to have a presence in the market and have a professional answering the phone for you that this is going to be a great benefit. I would imagine, like some of the painters aren’t really going to appreciate that unless they’re kind of educated about it.

Yori Galel: Right? I mean, our biggest challenge, I mean, yes, I mean, you mentioned painters. I mean, a lot of professionals. That’s probably our key market. A lot of attorneys, a lot of CPAs, insurance, um, you know, entrepreneurs of all kinds, um, use mainly the virtual office. But like you said, many of them do not know. And it is our biggest challenge, uh, going in through associations, uh, if it’s the American Bar Association or if it’s, uh, you know, SBA for being a small business association or, uh, a whole variety of markets just to promote and let people know that you can compete with larger companies. I mean, you’re talking about if you were to use a personal injury firm as an example or a larger firm offices throughout the country, and now you’re a smaller firm and a little more difficult. And if somebody gets injured in Orlando and you have an office in Miami, uh, you’re certainly not calling the attorney in Miami if you’re based in Orlando. Now that virtual office, for a few hundred dollars a month, you can have four or 5 or 6 offices, um, throughout the country, throughout the state. And you can really attract a certain market and still give them the service they deserve and the attention they deserve. So it gives you a lot of opportunities. So it makes us feel really good because we’re helping a lot of businesses as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there an advantage like maybe from a search engine standpoint, like am I going to have presence on your website locally in those markets so that my address comes up, as you know, that local Orlando address or the local Miami address so that I’m going to be found like in Google, my business locally there or things like that.

Yori Galel: You will.

Yori Galel: I mean, you actually getting a physical address with us in a physical presence. So it’s not like you’re going to be under the opus virtual offices umbrella. You’re going to be under the actual your own, your own company at that address with your own specific suite number. And you can certainly use it for search engines. You can certainly use it as a physical presence and you can let your clients know as well. Maybe they need to drop something off. Um, so there is actually, you know, presents. Well, so I dropped the keys at your office, so I dropped the contract at your office. Uh, there’s always somebody there, which is also nice. So, uh, you know, some people travel, some people will start working from the beach. I mean, you can do it from just about anywhere and still have the backup, knowing that you have staff that we manage on your behalf for a nominal fee, of course.

Lee Kantor: And then if if I’m not in that Orlando office, do you mail me whatever it is or are you obviously on anything digital or you can, um, I guess, scan and then send me the mail. Like, is that how that works?

Yori Galel: So, um, as far as mail comes in, uh, we set it up. We can certainly forward you the mail. Uh, we can scan the mail for you. Uh, we have in many of our locations now have what we call digital mail notification, where we basically take a photo of the envelope, uh, send it to you, and then you can give us instructions via the app or via an email and let us know. Uh, no. Destroy this. Please open and scan for me. I’ll pick it up later. If you’re local or, you know, include it in my weekly mail forwarding. Any of it is all available to you. So we find that a lot with international clients. You may be in the UK and you have an office with us in Chicago, and a piece of mail comes in that you need it. Uh, forwarding it is going to take way too long. So you have the option to ask us to just can you just open and scan it for me so I can see what this is all about? And certainly we can do that for you.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you started this, when did you kind of get the the feeling like, hey, this is really going to be a good service because I wouldn’t imagine you didn’t flip a switch and all of a sudden you had hundreds of these things. You probably started and then it expanded over time. Can you share kind of that aha moment for you where you’re like, hey, this is going to be something that’ll be scalable.

Yori Galel: Uh, well, it started locally in Florida and then expanded slowly. But as we originally were, partnering with certain locations in certain markets and utilizing their space found the need for it. But the biggest moment was Covid. Um, you know, as much as, uh, people were either furloughed or let go and needed to do something. So everybody decided to start their dream job, right? An opportunity for $99 to explore, an option to maybe start a business they always wanted to start. And prior to Covid, people were not. I mean, our client base did not really share with their clients that they were in a virtual office. It wasn’t so accepted to work from a virtual office. Uh, maybe didn’t make the company so legitimate. So none of our centers actually said virtual office, and it actually only had suite numbers on it. So if you stop by, brought a client and you can create your own illusion any way you wanted to, uh, Covid made, uh, working from home acceptable, of course, that people had no choice and post Covid it became a trend. So a lot of people are working from home now. And um, that helped create quite a bit of opportunity for people to now expand into a virtual office and not have to pay crazy rents, um, either for the short or long term, depending on their business. And, um, so I’m not exactly sure if there was a aha moment where we just said, ah, this is really going to benefit. We always knew we would benefit with just, uh, the volume of people that are actually coming in now is, um, grown quite a bit just because of people accepting the fact that you can work from anywhere and still provide a good service.

Lee Kantor: And that $99 a month price point is that’s much lower than other your competitors, I would imagine, in local markets.

Yori Galel: Right. So so we are probably the most competitive for the all inclusive. We make it up in volume. But the idea behind that is we want to treat people the way we want to be treated. And what that really means is to run an all inclusive, not have any limits on the number of calls, not leaving limits on number of mail, not any limits on number of voicemails, really, uh, create a number and not nickel and dime our clients. Um, and we also even go further than that. We don’t do the 12 month agreement. We do a short term agreement. So we do a three months and thereafter it’s month to month. And the way we feel is, uh, if it’s right for you, you’ll stay. And if you need to leave, just tell your friends how great we are. And that’s much more important to us than obligating you and sticking you to a contract where maybe your business plan has changed. Maybe you’ve absorbed by a different company. Uh, there are so many different reasons why you may need to leave us. And, uh, we don’t want to obligate you to that. We prefer we have clients that have returned after, you know, for multiple types of businesses. We have clients that are with us for over ten years and it’s fine too.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the best way to connect? Is there a website?

Yori Galel: There is a website. Opus. Virtual offices. Com or opus. Vo com. Um, certainly. I mean, the website is pretty informative. A lot of videos, a lot of information on there. Certainly follow us on social media as well. But uh, and then from there our team can jump in and, uh, explain. The enthusiasm is pretty contagious here. So everybody feels pretty strongly about the product.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Yori Galel: No, no, thanks for sharing it with your listeners. I think a lot of them could benefit. And thank you for your time.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on South Florida Business Radio.