Keeping up Appearances
No…this is not a reference to Mrs Bucket (pronounced Boo-Kay), this is serious!
When we first moved from the “big smoke” to the country, we taunted our city friends with the laid back life style. We even took a photo of an ironing board, emailed them and said “we found this in the cupboard, thought it was a surfboard and threw it in the dam…it sank!”
All fun aside, appearances are very important. If your TV maintenance man arrives in a totally unironed shirt, stained pants and thongs (tween toes for our US friends) what is your first impression? Yep not so good. So, even though we live “out here” as opposed to “back there” we still make sure we keep our appearance appropriate.
Luckily a suit is not in order here, but clean moleskins, an ironed business or smart casual shirt and jacket meet the need. We make sure our business emails are well dressed too, as are our ads, our correspondence and anything that has contact with our customers. It all counts.
An often neglected item, especially for small business is the simple art of answering the phone. How many small business have you rung who just grunt hello when you call, prompting you to have to ask at least one question to determine if you have called the correct number? The same goes with answering machine messages, make sure they identify the business clearly, and if at all possible make sure you have a phone number for the business that is separate from your home. Even worse, if your business is run from home make sure your kids don’t answer your business phone! It may seem cute, but customers will make a judgement about your professionalism based on this interaction.
Signage - Nothing looks worse that a hand painted cardboard sign. If you need to have a sign with easily changeable text make the investment in something with a bit more class, it will pay off!
Stand back and take a look at your business through the eyes of your customers. Everything they see, hear and experience creates a ‘branding image’ in their mind. It’s what they think, feel and believe about your business. This is why it is so important to get your business branding image right from the ground up!