In many ways, running a home business from the comforts of your own home has its advantages.
You don’t have to suffer the rigours of the daily commute. You have the benefit of all of your home luxuries. And yes, you can even work from your pj’s if you really wanted to. It’s a dream come true for many of us.
But there is one problem. Your home business can look unprofessional. If you really want to make money from your blog, e-commerce site, or whatever else it is you are offering to the customer at large, you need to be taken seriously. That won’t be the case if you haven’t taken some of the steps we mention in this article, so pj’s or not, you might want to make changes if anything we say relates to you.
4 Tips On How To Make Your Home Business Look Professional
Set up a custom domain.
Free blogging sites and website builders will incorporate their own name into the web address, and that can make your business look a little cheap! To give your business the professional touch, it’s worth paying a small fee to set up a custom domain.
There is advice on how to do that here. You need to avoid copyright issues of course, so ensure there isn’t another business with the same name first. However, when you have successfully found domain names that are all your own, your business will have instantly gained a little more credibility.
Set up a business email address.
Your personal email address is fine for your family and social life, but when it comes to business, it might look more than a little unprofessional. Especially if you have chosen Hippychickgirl88 or some other such wording for your Hotmail or Gmail account, then you are going to be seriously short of credibility when dealing with customers or business clients.
As with your website then, set up a business email address, incorporating the name of your company into your address to both properly identify your business and increase your professionalism.
If you’re looking for how to align your business, grow your exposure online, increase website traffic and social following then we highly recommend auditing your business. Our easy to implement guide can help you make huge improvements to your business.
Set Up Secured Payment Transactions
A lot of transactions are now made digitally. With this, online hacking, phishing, and other cyber crimes are also increasing. So if you are managing an online store, make sure to secure your e-commerce transactions and optimize your checkout page.
You may install anti-fraud tools, use data encryption, and utilise SSL on your website. Implementing preventive measures for your home business will provide you with a larger customer base and maintain good relationships with your target market.
Set up a virtual business address for your home business.
You might be working from home, but do you really want customers and clients knowing where you live? And besides, your home address might belie your professionalism as well. Therefore, consider paying for a PO Box with your local Post Office, or go the virtual route, with a PO box with online access to make life easier for you.
With a virtual business address, people won’t know where you live, and they might assume you are sitting smartly in an office in a fancy and upmarket business district, instead of slouching in your apartment or suburban home dressed only in your pj’s!
Set up social media profiles for your business.
Do you really want your clients and customers browsing through your holiday pics? Do you want them discovering something embarrassing about you that might ruin your reputation (such as those party pics your mates tag you in)? No, of course, you don’t.
Therefore, set up separate social media accounts for your business needs, remembering to post regularly with updates on information that is purposefully written with your customers and clients in mind.
So, whether you are sat in your pj’s or not, you can take steps to give your home business the professional touch.
Your business will have the credibility it needs to keep it in competition with all those other businesses that are similar to yours, and unlike those other business owners who have dragged themselves to their commutable office blocks, you can relax at home with a cup of tea and a biscuit, right from the comfort of your bed or sofa!
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Do you have any tips for being more professional when it comes to your home business? If you do we’d love you to drop them in the comments section below. As always, if you’ve found value from this article we’d love you to share this on social media with your friends and family.
