Mag and Pat's On-line Show

ivy · Groupie Joined: 17 Jul 2007 Posts: 322

Like it or not, there is still a segment of the population who will erroneously conclude that you and your business are less than professional and competent just because you run your business from home. Here are a few golden tips that might just save your reputaion and still make them your potential clients.

@@ INCORPORATE @@ .
First, incorporate . Not only does this appease your potential client, there are some very good tax and other advantages to incorporation, which are well worth the modest cost. Talk your lawyer or accountant about this.

@@ OFFICE ADDRESS@@
The next concern is that you dont want your home address to give you away. The answer is a serviced office. These dont have to cost a lot of money if you use them pretty much as a post office but they CAN give your business all prestige your potential client is looking for. An additional advantage is that you can see your serviced office ot meet uo with your potential client.

@@ TELEPHONES@@
Only give your home office number to existing clients. They already know that you are a professional and competent and should not have any issue with the fact that you work from home. For anyone else , give out the number the call in your company name and can tell callers that you're in a meeting with another client and take a message. Your serviced office will offer this service as well. You can then return the call at a time when you know tell tale background noise wont give you away. Once your potential client becomes an actual client and you've proved to his/her satisfaction that you are a professional and competent, you can tell him/her that you've decided to start working from home to reduce unneccessary overheads and give her/him your direct telephones number. No matter how enlightened yor client base is a general rule, it is imperative that the telephone by answered ina businesslike manner. So, have a seperate telelhone line for your business and lay down the law to your household that NO ONE is to answer it , but you.

@@ E-MAIL@@
Something else to think about is the image of your email address. It worth spending some money on your own domain name just for the professional email address, even if you never intend to create a website. But, since you are going to have yoru own demain, why NOT create your own websites?

@@ STATIONERY AND PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS @@
It goes without saying that your stationey, business card and other promotional materials should reflect a professional corporate image. If you have incorporated your business, this is a good start. A company name on letterhead and business cards cant fail to convey a professional image provided they are professionally printed on quality stationery stock.

@@ OFFICE EQUIPMENT @@
There's no point having quality stationery if you're going to use a cheap and cheerful inkjet for your correspondence. Invest in a medium quality laser printer instead. They dont cost a lot of money these days and you can get a unit that triples as a fax machine and photocopier as well.

Regardless of what your potential and existing clients may think about the concept of businesses run from thier owners' homes. FIRST IMPRESSIONS DO COUNT.