How to Make Your Home Business more than “Homemade”

One of the toughest obstacles we face when working from home is making it appear that we are not working from home. When clients call and there are kids screaming in the background, pets barking and meowing and timers going off for laundry and cooking, it doesn’t appear professional.

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The truth is that there are ways to make your home business appear more professional and this is what we are going to be discussing in this article: How to Make Your Home-Based Business more than “Homemade”.

Get a clean, professional website with your own domain name

This is the best starting point in today’s businesses, especially online businesses. Do not, under any circumstances, have a “free” website that is hosted on another domain name with other companies’ ads all over the place. This is one of the biggest no-no’s out there if you want to be seen as a professional business!

Decide, instead, that in order to appear professional, you must invest in a professional website of your own. If you aren’t skilled in web design, hire someone to do it for you or collaborate with another home-business owner who does web design.

Luckily, that is one of the services we currently offer to businesses at AClasses Content Academy and we also have a lot of online courses if you want to do it yourself.

A good strategy is to choose a domain name that is closely related to your business’s name and you will reap the reward in the end.

Invest in a separate phone line or in a distinctive ring tone for that line

You have probably never thought of this but it’s very important for your business. Most phone companies offer a plan where you can have two or more numbers ringing to one phone line with distinctive rings.

It’s usually better to have a separate phone line in your home office, in order to avoid after-hours phone calls from clients. This also enables you to “shut the door” on work when you are not there.

You can also use a professional voicemail message or answering machine message and check the messages often so you can respond to the most important ones.

Think about how to display your business address

How are you going to display your physical location? There are a few different options available. Most home business owners will say that they accept meetings by appointment only, to discourage clients from “dropping in” while they are still in their jammies and haven’t had their morning coffee yet.

That is not a bad idea if you really think about it.

If you don’t want your customers to know you work from home, two other options are using a P.O. Box or attaching a “Suite” number to your address. If you use a P.O. Box, you will have to give your home address out for packages and anything they want to courier to you, but it does provide anonymity and discourages drop-in visitors.

If you attach a suite number to your address in order to make it appear a “business office,” make sure you mention to your postal carrier that you are running a home- business and that’s why there’s a different address on there.

Define your office etiquette rules for your family

What are the rules going to be for your kids and family members when you are on the phone or meeting with a client? Are you going to set a timer so they know when you will be available?

Are you going to have set office hours and not meet with clients outside of those times? Are you going to have a play space in your office? This is especially important if you are going to have small kids playing nearby (quietly) while you work.

Whatever the situation, just make sure it is clearly defined so that everyone knows what is going on and how to comport with the conditions.

Invest in professional-quality promotional products and marketing pieces

Don’t print off business cards from your home printer, unless you have a top-of-the-line printer. Invest in professional-quality business cards and brochures. It will be a good idea to have some letterhead printed up, too, for contracts, letters to prospective clients, and any correspondence that is business-related.

If you are printing promotional products like T-shirts or apparel, coffee mugs, mouse pads, etc., check the quality of the products put out by the printer you wish to use. Don’t just “price-hunt,” look around for the best quality and invest in your business. Remember this is your business and what you put out for people to see matters a lot.

Your key takeaways how to make your home-based business more than “homemade”

It is important to make your home business look as professional as possible and there are a lot of things you can do to achieve this.

First, you should create a website for your home business. You can use a site like Squarespace or WordPress to create your website. If you want to save money, then you can use a site like Wix or Weebly. These sites will allow you to build an attractive and professional-looking website without spending any money upfront.

Next, you should think about what kind of logo or branding will represent your company best. You don’t necessarily need to hire someone to design this for you because there are plenty of free logo-maker tools that will allow you to create something that looks professional and unique in just minutes!

So go out there and practice what we have discussed in this article, you will see a change in your home business.

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