Yesterday I had a call with a reporter who was doing an article for the New York Times. The topic was how to make yourself look big. Apperance is important when you are selling your products / services because most people do judge a book by its cover.
Here are some suggestions for you to make yourself look professional and potentially bigger than you actually are:
Create a fantastic website – If you have a great looking website people will assume that you are an established, reputable business. You no longer need to spend the big money on the marketing fliers and brochures as long as you have a fantastic website that you can reference. Spend your money where it counts!
Hire people to work part time – The first person I hired was for one hour per day. As I grew I could afford more hours and I could also tell my customers, partners, media, etc that I had people working for me (I just did not say full time). You do not need to make the leap to full time right away, especially if money is tight, hiring part time can be a great way to get some of the tasks you hate doing done.
Share an office – If you do not have the money to rent an office yourself, share it with another business. If that is not feasible and you need an office to entertain a client, borrow one from a friend. Especially in the B2B businesses, customers will often want to meet with you at your office before making a purchasing decision so you have to look good!
Align yourself with experts – For one of my businesses I contacted all the top people in my industry and asked them to contribute one article for a Guide to Professional Success. I also wrote an article and put it all together into an ebook. I immediately became associated with all of these experts and it was a huge credibility boost for my new business.
Bring in friends – I once did a media interview with a television station in my early years and only had one person working with me at the time. I wanted the place to look busy so I brought in my friends. They dressed up in suits and pretended to work behind me while I was on camera doing the interview.
Have professional business cards – Do not print your own business cards on the tear-away sheets. It makes you look like an amateur and people will not take you seriously. Through companies like VistaPrint you can now get very nice looking business cards for practically nothing. You no longer have an excuse for not having a good business card.
These are just some of the things that I did when I was first getting started to look bigger than I was. I hope the New York Times uses the material from the interview!
Do you have any additional tips that have worked for you?
Evan Carmichael
Good advice. Another tip might be to get an 800 number with various mailboxes. You can then set up “departments” for your company. When someone calls they can choose between those departments. Gives the impression that there are a few people working at the company, at least.
You could also use our Small Business Infrastructure (www.winweb.com) to keep your overheads down, have a look.
Like your site will link to you from my blog: http://www.sme-blog com
Keep up the good work.
Stefan
Being able to product a website has allowed many small business to flourish online. It has definitely helped my small company that operates out of a college apartment
Really good pieces of advice! Could someone guide me on networking with a few young entrepreneurs?? I’m on the verge of starting my venture and i’d love to seek guidance from those who’ve already taken off!
Ajmal May, good luck for starting your new business. You can get a cool website for your business from my company at a very low cost.
That thing about bringing in friends for the news footage is really funny LOL. I plan to rent an office if my business does well this month.
Hey guys,
There are some pitfalls of making yourself look big. I know a friend that jumped in and quickly made a great image. He was producing smaller handcrafted items (High end chairs and tables). He had a fair amount of experience in his field, so much that he had a really hard time getting employees that could produce the quality of work the job required. Long sorry short he ended up burning himself out trying to keep up with orders, without being able to find the craftsman he needed.
one tip that i can offer is to try and post client testimonials on any media that you use. whether it be websites, brochures, or anything that a potential client can see, adding positive tetimonials not only aids people with making a buying decision, it gives your company credibility.
Im glad I found your site. Please post up more pictures!
I enjoyed reading your post since I am also a small business enthusiast and starting small back then was a hurdle to bear.Thanks for keeping me fresh on these ideas again.