Going Virtual: Small Companies Reap Savings
Julia Hutton’s office is command central for a team of some 20 publicists working for Phoenix-based Orca Communications Unlimited LLC, the firm she founded in 2002, after years of doing in-house public relations work for corporations.
Yet unlike the offices of most of her competitors, Hutton’s operates on a near-virtual basis. Her publicists stretch from Las Vegas to Tampa, each with a laptop computer and working from home. They have clear work parameters; they must be accessible to their clients and to each other during daily business hours and file weekly reports that detail measurable results of their publicity campaigns.
Her firm’s track record stacks up against any of its rivals, she says, and indeed Orca’s clients – primarily start-ups ranging from pet care to consumer products- are featured in national publications and on morning TV shows.
Face-to-face staff meetings take place infrequently in a small Phoenix office, where the firm also brings clients when conference space is required. Otherwise, interactions take place on the phone and through a flurry of emails that begin early in the morning and can continue late into the night.
“I also knew that when you start a company, you need to keep your overhead as low as possible,” she says. “What better way … than not to have office rent and computers, etc., etc.”
The need to tighten budgets in a weakening U.S. economy may lend increased momentum toward going virtual, says Bruce Phillips, senior fellow with the National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation. High costs for gasoline and energy are becoming prohibitive for smaller companies running on tight margins.
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Photo by Mario Anzuoni.
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