The great thing about the Internet is that it allows your microbusiness to compete with any other enterprise, irrespective of scale. You can benefit greatly from being significantly more nimble than a larger business when you’ve only got your own backside to kick in order to get a project started.
While that small scale can be a business benefit, there can be drawbacks when it comes to presenting yourself as a credible business if you’re a one-person operation. That’s where technology can blur the lines, giving you the capabilities or appearance of a big business without all the overheads. While it’s not a good idea to dive in well over your own capabilities, presenting yourself as minuscule isn’t great either. Here’s some pointers to get you started.
1. Get virtual help
Consider a virtual receptionist, or a complete virtual office. There’s no shortage of companies whose sole job it is to provide you with a virtual front desk and mailing address. Just because you’re based in Perth, it doesn’t mean you can’t have offices in Sydney, Melbourne, or wherever best suits your business needs for answering calls, mail or courier deliveries, or, if you do expand, even additional office staff.
2. Separate business and personal
If a virtual receptionist isn’t right for you for costs or appearance purposes, consider maintaining a separate phone SIM to your personal mobile. There’s nothing worse than answering your business mobile casually, just because it’s also your personal phone. A simple handset and inexpensive SIM plan can give you a number that you know is your business line, so whenever it rings you can get yourself into the proper business mindset, even if you’re actually doing something personal and mundane.
3. Get a proper business email
Register your own domain for email. Sure, Gmail or Hotmail is convenient — but it’s also an obvious flag of the size of your concern. The additional benefit of having your own domain for email is that you can then create multiple email accounts to cover sales, reception and any other tasks that may well fall directly to you anyway, but without having the appearance of being a tiny concern.
4. Build a functional and decent website
This maximises the appeal of your business in the first instance, but also makes it clear that you mean business, irrespective of your size. Skimping on design here could cost you a lot of potential jobs.
5. Establish a good social media presence
Social media can be a huge time sink at a personal level, but for businesses, if appropriately managed, it can build a very large influence for relatively small output, while also allowing you to communicate your message to a wide variety of clients, or attract new ones based on the clients you’re already communicating with.
6. Make the cloud work for you
A smaller business can be significantly more nimble with cloud-based systems. Whether it’s just for simple document storage and retrieval on the go, or a fully cloud-based service to cover any of your business needs in the office and on mobile, cloud solutions can give you the advantage you’ve been looking for.
The post How to make a 1-person gig appear like a big business appeared first on MYOB Pulse.
