One of the hardest things about starting a small business is making people pay attention. The issue is not just that you don’t have the marketing budget of a company like Apple, but also because many clients and customers are wary about offering their business to a company that’s not very established. Even though you might be providing the best possible service that they can find, if you seem like a small company then many customers are just going to assume that you don’t know what you’re doing or that you’ll do an amateurish job at best. It’s a sad truth, but that’s just the way things are. This can be very discouraging since it can seem impossible to fix that problem. Clients aren’t interested until you’re well established, and you can’t become well established without clients. It’s enough to make some small business owners want to give up entirely. Fortunately, hope is not lost. Technology and the internet have created plenty of new opportunities to help smaller business seem bigger and more established than they are. Here are just a few that you will want to use for your own business.
Web design services
Nothing can cripple the image of a company faster than an awful looking website. If a client is looking for the service you provide, but your website looks like it was designed by a teenager in 2002, then it won’t matter one bit how good your business actually is. It might seem a little bit shallow, but if your website doesn’t look professional, then neither does your business. Make sure that the design of your site is clean and elegant. Don’t make it too busy by filling it up with graphics and colors. These days clients and customers aren’t interested in flashy websites. They want something that is clear, simple and easy to navigate. Plenty of software offers free web design templates that will allow you to create a sick, user-friendly website without having to learn endless amounts of code. Of course, you can always hire a professional to do it for you.
A virtual office
If your business is particularly small, then there’s a chance you may be running it from home. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Plenty of the biggest companies in the world started out as nothing more than simple home business. The problem is that it’s very hard to convince clients that you’re the real deal when you don’t appear to have an office or business address. If a client calls and they get your personal answering machine, a great deal of credibility for your business could go flying out of the window. Your Virtual Office London is a leading provider of virtual office addresses that can lend that extra legitimacy to your business. There are plenty of services that companies like this offer, including mail forwarding and personalized call answering. It’s a small touch, but it can really make a huge amount of difference to making your company seem bigger.
Email services
Nothing can make a business seem amateurish faster than sending an email that looks like it was sent from a home computer. Fortunately, there are plenty of services out there that allow you to create emails that look professional and put out the impression that you really want customers to have. Similarly, you can use services like Mailchimp to creating mailing lists to market to your customers effectively. Not only does this save you a create deal of free time but lends an air of professionalism to all of your communication with clients and customers. It might seem a little counterintuitive, but if it seems like you’re trawling through all the emails yourself, customers might see that as amateurish. Using services like this allows you to project an air of professionalism that will make a huge amount of difference to the way that you’re perceived.
Remember, you shouldn’t apologize for being a small company, remind clients that they’ll be getting an extremely personalized service from you. Use the size of your business as an advantage. It will allow you to create a stronger, more personal connection with your clients that can go a long way to fostering strong bonds between you and them. Don’t let anyone tell you that the size of your business makes any difference to the quality of service that you can provide.
[Image credit: Image 1, Image 2]
