Three Steps to a Professional Image. Small Business Secrets: Self-Confidence Can Be Arranged.
One of the biggest reasons home-based business entrepreneurs often fail to attract customers is that they also fail to create a professional image. A professional image is an element of your credibility and without credibility winning customers is an uphill battle.
Think of it this way: would you give your hard earned money to a guy selling products out of an alley? Probably not. For one, you would wonder where the good had come from. It would also be inconvenient because your method of payment options would be limited. You would also not have the peace of mind of knowing you could get a refund if it turns out that your purchase is defective or does not live up to your expectations. Just as you would have these concerns, so will your customers if you do not create a credible image.
Many home-based business owners feel they can't afford to create a professional image on a small start-up budget, but not only is creating that image possible even with limited funds, it's something you can't afford not to do.
Here are a few ways to create that image:
1) Provide Multiple Payment Methods
Most modern shops and businesses accept a variety of payment options, including cash, checks, and credit cards in order to make it more convenient for customers. Money orders and debit cards are also payment options widely accepted. You should try to accept as many of these payment methods as possible.
Additionally, online stores must be prepared to accept international funds or risk losing a percentage of their audience.
Accepting checks is the easiest method you can incorporate into your business. However, keep in mind that most people will be wary about making the check out to an individual when they feel they are doing business with a company. So you will need to create a business checking account. These accounts can be opened at any financial institution.
Unless you have officially registered your company through the government and received an identification number, your account will be listed as you doing business as (dba) your company's name. With the account, you will be able to cash checks made out to you or your business.
Credit card, debit card, and international funds, on the other hand, can be more difficult matters. At least initially, you may want to use a service such as Paypal to handle these transactions. A PayPal business account will cost you nothing to open, but a small percentage of the funds will be automatically subtracted for each transaction. You can also use Paypal to accept electronic check payments.
2) Provide Detailed Contact Information
Customers like to know who they are doing business with and how they can reach them if there is a problem with their purchase. However, many home-based business owners don't want to put their personal contact information online where it is accessible by millions, and you do want to protect your family's privacy. So instead, you need to create business-specific contact information.
First, you need to rent a post office box. Various sizes are available, and payments can be made every six months or every year. You can use your post office box for all of your business correspondence and can safely display it on your web site.
Second, you should either get a second phone line or a cellular phone which is dedicated to your business. Not only does this allow you to keep your family's privacy secure, but it also prevents your children or loved ones from answering important business calls in an unprofessional manner.
Also consider investing in a fax machine or using an online service such as efax. Including your fax number with your other contact information, not only provides customers with an additional method of communication, but also creates an image of professionalism.
3) Deliver on Your Promises
It can be easy to start taking customers for granted once they have paid for their product. After all, once you have their money, the hard part is over, right? Wrong! Customers can become repeat customers if they are treated well; they can also bring additional customers your way via word-of-mouth referrals.
Treating them well
means delivering on your promises, including shipping products on schedule, standing behind your guarantee, providing effective customer service, and promotion products honestly. Doing these things sends a message to your customers that says not only that your company is professional but also that you care about your customers.
These three ideas are just the beginning but they will help you begin developing the image you want and need your company to have if it is to succeed.
Vishal P. Rao is the owner of: http://www.work-at-home-forum.com/ An online community of people who work at home.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
At first blush this idea might be difficult to wrap your brain around. That's because you've been taught that self-confidence is achieved through mastery of knowledge or skills.
If you've been an employee for someone else most of your life, you've actually been rewarded for getting your self-confidence from expertise. As an employee, the higher your mastery of a set of skills, the higher your salary. You move logically from a hopeful novice at the entry-level job, to a more confident and higher skilled employee at the intermediate job level, to the highly confident master at the senior job level, and then back to the hopeful novice level when you are promoted out of the role of individual contributor and into management, where you begin the cycle again.
Sound familiar? How many times have you moved through this cycle from novice to master in your life?
So here you are now: self-employed and perhaps not feeling very confident in some areas of your business. That's because you're still relying solely on expertise to build your self-confidence. In today's economy you can't afford to rely on expertise to generate the confidence you need to build and operate your business. You haven't got the time for that. However, you have another way:
You can arrange to have the self-confidence you need.
You don't need to rely on yourself to create your confidence. Nor do you need to wait until you have attained mastery of your services or skills. You can arrange for support structures and encouragement, and can design situations that feed you the confidence you need. For example:
- Instead of sitting there staring at the phone with dread because you know you need to call someone you've never met about the possibility of hiring you, arrange to bolster your confidence first. Call your most ardent business supporter, ask her or him to tell you why they believe so strongly in you, let them encourage you and bathe you in their support. When you're feeling great again, thank your supporter, hang up, and immediately make the call to pitch your services to the person you've never met. Your relaxed, optimistic tone will come thru in your cold call and affect your success.
- Another technique you can use for those important cold calls, is to call your business coach and role play the call until you feel confident that you're ready to handle any direction in which the call might go. Then immediately make your cold call.
- Or, identify the important points you want to communicate during the call and create a checklist for yourself. Remember, the person on the other side of the phone call can't see that you're using a checklist. But don't let the checklist be a distraction �½ use it only as a guide. Be open enough to let the conversation flow in a different order than what you might have put down on your checklist.
- If you'll be giving an important presentation, make arrangements to walk through the facilities a day or two in advance. If you usually jot notes on a whiteboard during your presentations and you find that the conference room in which you'll be presenting doesn't have a whiteboard, you can arrange to bring a portable whiteboard with you on the day of your presentation. And you'll be more confident in your presentation working with the tools that are familiar to you in a setting with which you are familiar.
- One way to arrange for confidence during your marketing talks is to invite a business supporter or colleague to attend these sessions with you. Your colleague can help break the ice either by responding to your questions during any prolonged silences or by asking you for clarification of specific points. And you'll always have their supportive, friendly face to look on if you get a bit nervous during your talk.
- If you're feeling a lack of confidence in your marketing planning, strategic business planning, or other such internal business issues, join a success team of individuals who are working the same issues in similar businesses. You don't need to reinvent the wheel all the time. And ten though you are a soloprenuer, you don't need to do it all alone and all by yourself. Let the synergy and power of the group work for you.
Those are just some ideas to get you jumpstarted in thinking about how you can arrange to generate self-confidence. Have fun with it!
Copyright 2004, Rose Hill, Inc
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Rose Hill, Founder and Owner,of Biz Whiz Expert (http://www.SoloBizVille.com) and Team Member of Solo-E.Com (http://www.Solo-E.Com) has been self-employed since 1990. Knowing how to run corporate departments and how to market corporate entities, products, and services did nothing to prepare her for successfully running and marketing a one-person business. That is why Rose created the SoloBizVille and SoloBizU community - to specifically to help solo entrepreneurs jumpstart their business success without all the trial-and-error learning.
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*********** Find more articles like this at http://www.Solo-E.com - Keeping Solo Entrepreneurs Juiced in Business and in Life. Our team of Solo Entrepreneurs are comprised of small business experts who support others in finding business success with the flexibility and freedom to have a life, too. Network with other freelancers, self-employed and Solo Entrepreneurs in our forums, enjoy our articles and newsletter, and find other online training opportunities. ***********
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/
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