Time Killer & Resource Waster
No one understands time constaints more than a business owner and no other simple detail wastes more of your personal and business resources than paper mail. It's the invisible time killer because like many other habits, receiving paper mail is the way it's been done for centuries and generations without questioning the sensibility of the matter as all business owners should. Paper mail is so woven into our fabric it's become a very bad completely invisible habit.

In the words of Tim Ferris, "Never delegate what you can automate and Never automate what you can eliminate." This is the invizibiz mantra and I couldn't come up with a better one.

Slipping Through the Crack
Have you ever had an important IRS notice, state taxing authority letter, insurance cancellation letter or some other critical notice slip through the cracks and create monster headaches? I know you have your own good story because we all have one. Breakdowns are actually blessings in disguise if they cause enough pain and corresponding motivation to make sure it doesn't happen again. If continuous breakdowns don't motivate you then you haven't experienced enough pain yet.

Paper Entrapment
Paper mail is still issued in cetain industries such as insurance, banking, mortgages and lending, municipal utitlities, state taxing authorities and the IRS. Every business has to deal with some or all of these types of vendors so every business is effectively forced to manage it. It seems like we are in an electronic world but we are not thanks to the industries refusing to realize we are in the 21st century.

What's your address?
That's the proverbial question of carelessness to which every new vendor or customer will eventually ask or obtain from your company. It's also the question to which I answer, why do you ask? Or which address are you asking for?

It's a question of carelessness because some systems only allow for one address, the person asking doesn't care about your addresses the same way you do, the company doesn't have a process for managing multiple addresses or a host of other nuances.

You have to guard your addresses like you're guarding cash if you want others to use your addresses based on your company's policy. You have to be intentional and specifically tell others how to use your addresses.

How many possible addresses are there? And what's big deal? A business can have some of the following address:

• Mailing address
• Shipping address
• Physical office address
• Registered agent address
• USPS PO Box (or similar in your country)
• Receiving address (for carrier shipments)
• Main corporate address
• Retail location addresses

Virtual Mailbox Solution
If paper mail is all we have ever known, what is the 21st century solution? There are some great virtual mailbox services also known as a virtual address. It's like having a PO Box online without having to go to a PO Box. You can forward mail or recieve mail directly using your new address. Let's understand the opposite of paper mail by reviewing it's insanity.

Paper Age (Getting the Mail)
In the old fashioned stone age model the Postal Service delivers mail to a PO box, business, personal residence or private mailbox such as a UPS store. Every time you want to get your mail from a PO Box or private mailbox you or someone else gets in a car, drives there, gets out the car, goes inside, takes the mail form the box, gets back in the car, drives back, gets out of the car, goes inside and puts the mail in a pile to open at a later time. I too would defer opening the mail until a later time because I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Paper Age (Opening the Mail)
Now that you're rested from getting the mail, you can start wasting your time or someone else's by opening all the mail. You pick up one letter at time, open the envelope, take out a multiple page letter, assess the letter, put it in a pile, pick up the next letter and repeat the process, recycle the envelopes and filler paper, maybe scan some mail, maybe pay a bill, most likely move the pile to another desk and defer the pile because you hate dealing with it. Alternatively, the AP clerk you've hired to deal with the mail goes through the same process because they get interupted or have something more ugent to deal with.

True Insanity
How many times do you or someone you've hired fumble and flip through the same pile over and over again looking for a letter or bill in crisis mode before the pile finally gets dealt with? This is an utter waste and explains why most savvy people fail to realize the true lifecycle cost of managing a paper bill can be more than $25. You can't deal with paper mail efficiently because it's an impossible exercise in futility. As always the hidden costs are hard to identify and slowly sink a business.

The Gottacha's of Paper Mail

1. - Paper mail is a very bad habit
2. - Paper mail is the single largest waste of time resourses
3. - Paper mail is expensive to process
4. - Paper mail is still preferred in certain industries
5. - Paper mail is inescapable (at least for the time being)
6. - Paper mail is the least value added business activity
7. - Paper mail is more suseptible to fraud
8. - Paper mail is not easily sharable (and this is a big one)
9. - Paper mail is constant clutter

 It's Time for a Virtual Business Address
The irony is the paper mail paradigm can be easily transformed into online access with some great technology. Just create an account, get your new address, give it to your vendors, customers and other stakeholders as necessary and enjoy the freedom of your new paperless virtual mailbox. The paper mail still happens the same way except the service scans the mail and puts into your PO Box online.

Defense & Cost Reduction
The first line of defense against paper mail is to establish an addressless relationship with a new vendor. We'll cover how to do this in another blog. A virtual address should only be used to handle paper mail that can't be received electronically. The pricing is based on a fixed fee covering a flat number of mail pieces and storage therefore extra mail pieces will incurr additional charges. If you minimize the mail you receive you will minimize your monthly cost.

Golden Benefits of a Virtual Mailing Address

1. - Virtual mail gets magically scanned
2. - Virtual mail sends an email when it arrives
3. - Virtual mail is always accesible
4. - Virtual mail comes with internal controls
5. - Virtual mail can be forwarded to you or another party
6. - Virtual junk mail can be recycled with a click
7. - Virtual mail as checks can be deposited virtually (an additional fee applies)
8. - Virtual mail can be saved as a pdf
9. - Virtual mail can sync with bill payment platforms
10. - Virtual mail can be sent to muliple virtual addresses with the same account
11. - Virtual mail can be linked with cloud storage like dropbox, box and google drive
12. - Virtual mail business subcriptions can be set up for mulitple employees
13. - Virtual mail is everything that paper mail is not

Now I'm sure you can't wait to get setup so here are the best choices for a virtual mailbox serivce:
1) Earth Class Mail 2) Traveling Mailbox

Employees Who Never Get Sick
You can't justify paper mail any way to spin it. Your business can't affored to wait another day. If I said you could hire someone who never gets sick, always does what they say they are going to do, never complains, you never have to speak with them and they go get your mail and scan it for you for $50 per month, then you would sign up without hestitation. Get started now and don't stay stuck in the old model. Go on more vacations with all the time you save and enjoy your new office with a only a desk, a computer and a zen rock. Kirk out.