Survival Of The Fittest

In a world saturated by competition, it can be the little things that make you stand out from the crowd. Sure, your product or service needs to top notch, the quality un-compromised and your customer service a real focus, one that you maintain at all times. But given all your competition will be placing an emphasis in the same places, start making sure you have the little things done to a high standard too. It is the little things, the little details, that will make you seem that much more professional. That’s how to make your brand completely watertight, and encourage your new and existing customers to do business with you.

Website

This is going to be your most active ambassador. This is going to be your first impression to new clients or customers and the go to place for current ones; the place they will go to see if you are offering anything new. As such, you need to make sure your website is the best representative it can possibly be. It needs to detail what you offer in a smart and professional way that also calls for a touch of personality, and that includes your domain name. Make sure you have a dot com if you can. No .wordpress or .tumblr. These will make you seem amateur.

Email

There is no point in having a snazzy website with all the bells and whistles if your email is going to let you down and give the game away. Your website is there to hook clients and customers. It is there as a landing page from which they can buy from you or contact you. So make sure you have a business email and not a [at] hotmail.com. This will put some doubt in their mind as to whether you are really as professional as you claim to be.

Office

It doesn’t matter if you have an office at home, in your garden, in a business park or on the 18th floor of a skyscraper; it needs to be professional. That means employing office cleaners, giving a place a new lick of paint, having some indoor plants dotted around the place, a seating area and maybe your company logo on the wall. If you are unsure of what you need to take this step up, why not make notes of everything you like the next time you have a meeting at someone else’s office space. Equally, why not make a note of everything you don’t like too.

Cards

A surefire way to look unprofessional is to be unprepared on the business card front. It could be that you are out a dinner party, or in the pub, or at a networking event when you start talking business, only to be asked for your business card, except you don’t have one. You will see i in their face. They’ll go from intrigues and excited to skeptical. So make sure you have some professional-looking business cards at hand.