Months with an R are best for oysters, they say. Well, there are lots of Rs in Road Warrior, so perhaps the world is your oyster!

Not so long ago, the man-on-the-move was tethered to the office by an assistant or the company’s voicemail system. No longer. In fact, to be out of the office is expected, because you can continue to do business from just about anywhere.

We have the cloud to thank for that. We now can access email, files, even databases from just about anywhere there’s an Internet connection.

Many people haven’t yet realized, however, that small businesses – even the one-person startup – can have full access to a comprehensive phone system that’s fully mobile. These are cloud-based voice over Internet (VoIP) systems and they act just like the old-fashioned PBX, or private branch exchange. A PBX is, at its essence, a switching system that centralizes your office lines, and gives you all those features businesses expect. Voicemail, call forwarding, voicemail-to-email, and often other features are included in hosted VoIP phone systems.

There’s no desk phone required. That means you save even more money by taking and receiving all these calls on your mobile device.

You can keep your old number, too. Or if you’re a startup, get a new one that sports the area code in which you’ll do most of your business. It doesn’t matter if it’s just one person or if there are dozens of employees being reached through this number.

Essentially, these hosted VoIP systems forward calls to your mobile device, but all the associated features are stored in the cloud. This is not unlike what you’re already used to with your mobile carrier, but it does give you a business-specific phone number – and an answering platform with your own business message.

Best of all, it’s really inexpensive. Starting at just $5 dollars per month, you can have your office phone number sent strictly to your mobile. It’s great for your professional image: no matter where you are, your customers will think they’re reaching you at your office.

So whether you’re shopping, at the beach, or shucking oysters, your professional image stays intact with a mobile-hosted VoIP phone system.

Shaun Olsen is the CEO and president of CloudWyze. CloudWyze was created to help businesses focus and perform at their optimal level by crafting and executing custom technology plans for businesses of every type and size. To learn more about CloudWyze, visit www.CloudWyze.com. Shaun can be reached at [email protected] or (910) 795-1000.