The Icing On The Cake: Making Your Business Look Professional On A Small Budget
Whether you are an entrepreneur of the highest stature or you are just starting out, that notion of professionalism will separate you from many other companies trying to stake their claim. When you’re just starting out, you’ve got a lot of things to contend with, not least a low-budget! That means you’ve got to work out of your home the vast majority of the time, but when it comes to making your business look professional, it’s not the easiest thing in the world. So when you have a small budget, what can you do to make your business deliver the goods?
A Business Email Account
A small thing, but an essential one. You don’t want to send correspondence to potential clients from an email address like “[email protected]”! It’s about adding those little touches to make your business look like it is a force to be reckoned with. Many of us learn from our mistakes at the very beginning, especially when clients don’t even give us the courtesy of a response. A business email account is one of the first things you need to do. You can easily do this by choosing an email hosting service that will cover your needs the best because there are plenty of options to choose from here.
A Dedicated Mailbox
This is very important if you are working out of your home. Because if you put your home address on every item of correspondence, not only does it highlight the fact that you are working out of your home, but a residential address doesn’t have that same impact as, say, a company that’s based in the middle of London or Manhattan. There are many ways to do this, such as a virtual office address, where the added benefit of this is that they will pick up your mail and forward it to you. Having a dedicated mailbox also gives you some breathing space, especially if you are inundated with paper correspondence.
Someone On Hand To Help!
Yes, this is stating the obvious, but when it’s just you working at home, and you are putting in more hours than there are available, you’re going to need someone to, at the very least, read over your correspondence, just so you aren’t missing anything out. It helps to have somebody that’s brutally honest on these occasions. As far as a lot of the little components of a business are concerned, like admin, there are programs out there to help you, but you could also benefit from freelance workers like virtual assistants to put the finishing touches to these documents.
When you have a business that looks incredibly cheap, you can run the risk of losing a lot of potential clients. Not only is it about ensuring your business looks as professional as possible, via the website, and your own personal dealings, it’s about those finishing touches. The icing on the cake, as it were, is what could make the difference between you and a competitive at the same point in their development. Because there are so many small businesses out there that run out of their own home, we’ve got to find a way to differentiate ourselves. This is becoming harder with every passing year.