The Freedom to Work Wherever
Tue, 4 September, 2007 – 5:56 pm
The other week we were down at my parents from Tuesday to Sunday. My Mum was due to come up to us but my Dad's car got caught in the floods and they've only just got it back, plus a new engine! So as I pointed out that there was no point in them paying out over £100 to hire a car for my Dad so that my Mum could come up to us, when we could easily drive down to theirs. So we drove down on the Tuesday and spent a few days taking it easy a little but still continuing with work as and when we needed to. This is the beauty of working for yourself, working from home and being able to take your work with you.
Of course for some people the problem with moving to a different location is phone calls. Sure, we're in the mobile phone age but a landline phone number does give you that professional look that a mobile, on it's own, doesn't. This is where we have even more control as we use a virtual Switchboard from dmClub. What does this mean? Well we pay £5 a month and have an 020 7 number (inner London code). Clients call this number and hear my charming voice giving 4 options to get to either myself, Dave or my accounts (aka my Mum!). It's all controlled via the web and when we're out for the day I can simply change the telephone number where the option sends the caller to, or set it to go straight to voicemail, which is then emailed to us as an MP3.
It also means that when we want to move location for a few days, we can update the switchboard to send the calls to a different phone number. Which means that we don't get back home to find several messages left from minutes after we left asking for a call back, or an urgent issue (usually the case). When we go on holiday we'll also be changing the switchboard to send the callers to my Mum to deal with any calls, leaving our time away a little more stress free (hopefully!).
We do have an 0870 number pointing to this number too, however for my existing clients I've given them the London number as it's usually cheaper or free for them to call that via their free mobile minutes, and it's easier to explain to them that we're not located in central London, which would be the first assumption made usually!
The other big bonus is that we barely get any phone calls now! Before the switchboard we'd be disturbed up to 5+ times a day for people dialling the number wrong for Natwest Stockbrokers. Ours is one digit different (08700 instead of 0870) and plenty of people would add the extra zero and get us. Some would apologise, some wouldn't believe we weren't the stockbroker line (no seriously!) and some were just rude and put the phone down on you. However now, 99% of them realise they've dialled wrong (we do still get the occassional caller who clearly didn't grasp who we were, or weren't, even after 4 options all including a business name that isn't Natwest!), and it is so much quieter, it's fantastic.
Sure, there are drawbacks with a virtual switchboard. It costs £5 a month to have, you get X minutes free a month (20 I think) and then it costs you to receive calls. One chatty client and your money can disappear. However those few drawbacks are outweighed by the flexibility and control it gives you, the ability to divert calls off to different people in different parts of the country if necessary, and the fact that in theory the switchboard could divert to where ever you are. If you run a home office it's certainly an idea.
I'm with you Sarah. In 2 weeks I am traveling to the states for 3 weeks. It's not a vacation because I will still be working, but I will be visiting family and friends. It makes me very grateful I work for myself.
By sara on Tue, 4 September, 2007
I used to go to Austria every winter for the ski season (about 4-5 months) and could easily work from there via a computer and mobile phone if needbe! Providing no one phoned me of course
Enjoy your trip and hopefully you won't have to work too hard
By Sarah on Tue, 4 September, 2007