If you run a small business, you can feel grateful for various advantages your company’s small size affords you – such as the lack of corporate bureaucracy and the closer-contact experience you can provide to your customers. Sadly, though, not everyone is aware of these benefits.
For this reason, too many of your target customers could reject your business due to its size alone. That’s unfair, but you can turn the tables further in your favour by readjusting your business to make it look larger than it actually is.
Work on the customer experience to foster a strong brand
It’s easy to assume that branding is largely in a company’s logo, typefaces or strapline – but, much more than that, it’s really in the experience that customers customarily receive from the firm.
Indeed, even your own company’s visual presentation alone doesn’t end with the likes of its brochures, leaflets and flyers; it also extends to such matters as how its workers dress or reply to emails. Therefore, you should endeavour to keep yourself and your staff in top form in these areas.
Give your company website a modern makeover
When you pique a potential customer’s interest, they are especially likely to research your firm by visiting its website. Unfortunately, though, too many company websites can look hurriedly thrown together or like they haven’t been updated since the 1990s.
Therefore, if your own site is a rather basic affair or hasn’t been updated in a while, why not look into refreshing or even altogether replacing it? A good web design agency could do either job for you.
Register a more prestigious address – without having to relocate
If you currently work from home, then leaving your residential address on your corporate site can be unwise or even dangerous, as writer and web designer Lucinda Honeycutt warns in an Inc. article. Besides, it might not be an address that, for your clients, is reassuringly close to them.
That’s where the rationale grows for booking what is called a virtual office – which, among other advantages, would let you include a big-city address on your publicity materials.
Arrange for a virtual receptionist to take calls
Another plus point of booking a virtual office is that it could come with a virtual receptionist service whereby calls can be professionally taken in your firm’s name but without distracting you from your work. This is the case with, for instance, a virtual office from BE Offices.
Look for an office provider that would let the receptionist forward calls seamlessly to you as necessary. This can give the caller the favourable impression that the receptionist is part of your company rather than the one providing you with the virtual office.
Make your business a limited company
This is a quicker, cheaper and easier process than you might have realised, and can leave you with less tax to pay. Nonetheless, Marketing Donut advises that you seek advice from a qualified accountant before you do proceed with incorporating your company or making a similar structural change.
