By the Numbers

How Many Businesses Are Working From Home?

More than 60% of US small businesses are home based according to the SBA Office of Advocacy. That is the norm, not an embarrassment, and no customer thinks less of a business for keeping overhead low. What they react to is the address itself. A residential street in a subdivision or a PO Box in a strip mall gives a stranger a reason to hesitate at exactly the moment you wanted them to feel confident.

What Does a Home Address or PO Box Actually Cost You?

Credibility first. Either you are advertising a PO Box or you are using your home address, neither of which screams professionalism to a customer comparing you against two other options. Then the practical problems stack up. Many licensing boards, insurance carriers, lenders, and business banks will not accept a PO Box or a residential address. Couriers cannot deliver a signed agreement to a box. Your mail sits unattended while you are working. Anyone who looks up your business can also find your home address, and most owners would rather that stayed private.

The Other Half

An Address Gets You Considered, the Phone Gets You Hired

A real business address does as much for your reputation as any single thing you can buy, and a warm local voice answering the phone does as much, often more. The address is what a prospect checks. The call is where they decide. Roughly 62% of small business calls go unanswered during business hours. A polished address will still bring you the call, but if nobody answers it the work goes to someone else. The address and the phone work as a pair.

On the Ground in Boulder

What Your Address Says About a Boulder Business

Boulder has a national reputation in software, climate tech, natural products, and the outdoor industry, and being genuinely located here is worth something when you are raising money or courting a partner. A real Boulder street address backs that up. A residential address makes a company look pre-revenue whether it is or not, and a PO Box will fail outright when you need to register a corporate entity, open a business bank account, or receive a signed agreement by courier. Founders usually discover this at the least convenient moment.

The Solution

What Does a Real Business Address Give You?

A commercial street address you can put on your website, your listings, your cards, and your filings, with staff on site to receive mail and packages. Intelligent Office adds the pieces that make it a working presence rather than a mailbox: receptionists who answer your business calls, meeting rooms when you need to meet someone, and mail handled by people rather than piling up in a metal box.

• A real commercial street address, not a PO Box
• Staff on site to receive mail, packages, and courier deliveries
• Your home address off your website, your listings, and public filings
• Live receptionists answering your business calls at the same address
• Meeting rooms available when a customer wants to meet in person

Watch

What a Professional Business Address Includes

This clip covers the professional business address service, what you get with it and how the mail side works. It is the practical version of everything described above.

Why Intelligent Office Boulder Is Built Around Real People

The address makes you findable, and the phone decides what happens next. Our Boulder team is staffed by real receptionists who answer your business calls, so a partner, an investor, or a customer reaches a person instead of a founder on a trail. We handle your mail, provide a real Boulder business address, and open a meeting room when you need one.

Learn more about Intelligent Office Boulder

Sources

Figures in this article are drawn from the SBA Office of Advocacy small business profile, published missed-call statistics and TransUnion consumer phone channel research.