Good Googley News!

Google is now offering a 'preview' of an unpublished, unverified Business Page. Prior to this change, owners were unable to see how the Page would look until the verification process and publication time was complete. Often, three to five weeks would pass before seeing finally seeing the hard work in pixel.

A big plus to this change.... since you can preview before publishing, watch for any awkward images or wording you would previously have sees post-publication.  Sparing you the agony of editing the content and waiting another few weeks for the changes to publish.

From Jade (Google's Local Expert and liaison to people like me):

    If you’re creating a listing in the new Places for Business dashboard, now, you won’t have to wait to complete PIN verification before you can see the +page, for most businesses. Just follow the link from your dashboard to see the new page. You will be able to use Google+ social features on this unverified page, but please note -- you still need to complete PIN verification before the page will start showing up in Google Maps and across other Google properties.

    If you’ve got an unverified local Google+ page (made using Google+ in the local business/place category), then we still encourage you to PIN verify this page so that it can start appearing in Google Maps and across other Google properties.

    If you’re creating a local Google+ page (using Google+ selecting the local business/place category) for a business that we think is already in Google Maps, then you may need to go through both PIN verification and our admin request flow before you can manage the page.