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Editorial Keeping Up Appearances Like a lot of other people, you run a successful business. You may sell a product or you provide a service. It doesn't matter which. The  difference is that you run this business from home.   Your office is set up, you have the phone, the fax, the computer connected to the Internet. Beside you, or behind you are the  bookshelves, the filing cabinets, the corner window on the world outside. Your inventory is at hand, whether it be the products you sell  or the services your provide. You are ready to face the world. But, are you keeping up appearances?   Do you start your day as you mean to go on? Do you dress for success? When you get up in the morning, say goodbye to your partner as he/she heads off into corporate land, kiss and hug the kids as they head off for school, do you turn around and "plonk" yourself at your desk, still half asleep, dressed in your night attire, hair all askew?   Having a home based business shouldn't mean that you give up on dressing correctly.   Imagine this. There is a knock at your door not five minutes after saying goodbye to the family and it is a current or potential client!  and you are still in your dressing gown and slippers. How will they react seeing the "real" you. Will they still have respect for you and  your business seeing you in this "new" light?    Each new day should start with dressing for success. Ensure that you are as ready to face your business world as you would be sitting in a city office. Dress appropriately every morning so that you can be assured of providing any unexpected visitors the same respect as they  would get going to visit any other business.   Now I am definitely not saying that you should be dressing in your best outfit. But ensure that you are dressed in clothing that is suitable  for the business you are in. Sweats and jeans are not the best choice if you are providing a service, but corporate wear may not be  appropriate either. Your best choice is going for business casual. Nice skirt or slacks, wrinkle free shirt and comfortable shoes are best.  Ensure that your hair is tidy and makeup (if used) is not "over-used". Remember, you are going to the office for the day and are not relaxing  at home. If you are spending the day in your studio, designing or packaging products, wear an apron or coverall to keep your business  clothes clean.   Being dressed for work also helps when dealing with telephone calls. Your voice and manner coming across on the phone are reflected in your  appearance. You will project more self-confidence to your callers when you are in your business dress than you would when you are casually dressed.   Now I hear you say "I don’t get clients visiting my house". That doesn't mean it won't happen. You may not promote your personal address online but it only takes word of mouth about your business to spread locally through friends and family for it to become public knowledge.   You just never know when you are going to get a knock on your door. ~ Jo ~
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Guest Article Who Answers Your Business Phone? Your Small Business Image can be Shattered by Your Phone by BIG Mike McDaniel Business to Business relationships come to expect a certain level of professionalism, from the first telephone call to the final delivery.  Your business can be on the Really Big 500 list, employ only a handful of people, or be a business of one but what is said by that business to  other business customers will reflect the personality of that business. It can be a PR boost or a PR blowout.   Have you called the telephone company or your long distance provider lately? Chances are you will get a machine telling you to "listen closely because the menus have changed" (as if they know you called last year). When you do listen closely, chances are there is not a choice on  the menu that sounds like the reason you called. Worse, you could choose a selection and be directed to an area that does not answer with no way to get back to real people.   What does that say about the company? Terrible impression.   Only the company's bean counters will argue that all that "select and press" boogie-woogie is good for the company. Word of mouth is faster  and cheaper than any other form of advertising, and very widespread. Have you talked with anyone that thinks voice mail menus are nifty? Same if you have to call an insurance company, or credit card company. Now, it seems, more and more calls are greeted with the "all our agents are busy, please hold" message. Can you imagine how that one got started? "Look, Herb, if we put the main line on voice mail, we can trim our customer support staff in half, just have the machine say 'everyone is busy helping other customers', we can save really big bucks!" Not much for PR is it?   Even worse if they ditch the 800 number and make you pay for the call.   For years I have told my clients to look to the big boys to see how they do things. Now I hedge my advice, by pointing them at the big boys that are doing it right, because so many have made more than one wrong turn on the road to a professional, caring image.   The telephone is only one part of the puzzle, but one of the most important parts. I tell my clients with small to mid size businesses to call the office from time to time to see how the phone is answered.   I cannot count the number of times I have had to ask to person answering the phone to repeat the mesh of words that just flew by. Hundreds of times I have been ka-thudded on hold with not so much as a "Hang on Bub!"   It is true, you can hear a smile on the other end of the phone. You can also hear indifference and the easy one to spot is outright disgust. One bored telephone person can do more to undo what took years to do more than any other company asset (or liability).   What if your company is you? Staff of one with a home office.    What happens when a call comes in and you are not there to put on your best voice? Does a machine get it? In how many rings? What does the machine say? Does your machine make sense if you call from a pay phone?   It only takes a few minutes to draft a script for the answer machine. So much better than an ad lib. Even the pros write it down. Forget about  that "I'm not here" stuff, any moron can figure that one out. No need to lecture them with "..say your phone number twice" or "talk slowly, I am not a stenographer". Record it over and over until it sounds bright, happy, and clear enough for Grandma to understand.   How do you feel when you make a business call and a machine answers to tell you "if you want to send a fax, press start now!"? Makes you  question the quality of the business, doesn't it? Can't they even afford a separate fax number?   You see it on printed material, too, "..for fax, call first so we can turn on the machine". It is hard to imagine such a setup being used for more than one or two faxes a year. The impression that a lack of a separate fax number gives is negative in every respect.   The ultimate professional faux pas is to use your home phone number as your business number. This might work if you are the only one ever to  answer the phone and your machine always answers if you are away (even if the house of full of kids and an in-law or two). What usually happens is a child, or grandchild, will answer "huh-whoah?"   "Is this Acme Consulting?"   "I'll get my Mommee (clunk) Mommeeee"   Neat first impression. Consider the ramifications if a teenager in your house has figured out how to dial out.   Here are two simple ideas to help give your business a professional front, telephone-wise.   If you already use a separate line for the fax machine, but still use your home phone as your business line, start using the fax number as  your main business number. Make sure no one else answers it. Put your answer machine on it and leave the home phone alone. Put your new number on everything and send email to those that may have the old one. The transition won't take long.   You won't lose any faxes because you can get a free fax number from several sources that send the faxes to your computer. No banner ads to  read, just free fax service. I have had one for years. I have a dedicated fax number and don't pay a penny.   My fax number converts any fax to an eMail attachment and it arrives in my eMail box. I can read my faxes from any computer, worldwide. In my office I can read and pitch, or  print and read. I don't buy fax paper anymore. Some folks call them electronic faxes. The point is, you can  get a fax number all your own, without extension, that anyone can use, 24 hours a day, for free. No hidden costs or startup fees.   The two most popular are http://www.jfax.com and http://www.efax.com but any Internet search for "free fax numbers" will bring up a bigger list.   If you don't have a fax number at home, call the telephone company and order a second residential line. Just tell them you want a second line,  no need to explain. Once it is installed, make it your main business line and get a free fax number.   Now your business card can show a main line, a fax line and a cell phone and your mother-in-law can't run off new business.   If it walks like a pro and acts like a pro... ©2004 BIG Mike McDaniel, Professional Speaker and Former Major Market TV News Anchor. The BIG Ideas Group helps small business grow with mastermind groups, seminars and sales training. MailTo:Mike@BIGIdeasGroup.com http://BIGIdeasGroup.com Subscribe to "BIG Mike's BIG Ideas" Newsletter MailTo:subscribe-956603364@ezinedirector.net ****************************************************************
Tiptop Tip Choose a Champion Client (or two) Which one (or two) of your clients is your best client? Either from a  revenue standpoint or from a partnership standpoint? A good partner  client is one that may or may not give you a lot of business, yet - but  they understand your value, the work they give you is clear and they are good to work with.   Now focus your efforts. What is this client's business? How can you help them succeed? Perhaps they need more clients too. Do some freebie research and send it to them, saying "Is this the kind of research that would help you reach more customers? I would be happy to follow through on it by signing you up for some free resources, and perhaps design a good advertisement for the referral system at this site."   This way, you champion your client's success. Instead of waiting for  direction from them, take the initiative and 'own' the client's  business. By doing so, you'll not only generate more billable hours immediately by initiating tasks your client can't resist having you help  with, but you'll earn the unrelenting support of your client. This is  the key to becoming a truly remarkable Virtual Assistant. Clients can never resist raving about their remarkable Virtual Assistants and that's  why they are the ones with full practices, and waiting lists as long as  your arm.	Web Site http://www.allbusiness.com/ All Business.com call themselves the champions of small business. And I guess they have a right to that. They do provide a wealth of  information, resources and guides. Sections of interest included ideas  and advice from starting a business to enhancing sales and marketing and much more in between. There was a good section providing a wealth of forms and agreements suitable for small business but the bad news was that they have a fee for using these.   The site is jam packed and will take more than a quick look, so I would  definitely mark a good hour in your daily diary to even just skim the  surface.   What I did like about this site is that everything was accessible from  the home page. There was no time wasted in hunting and pecking through the site trying to find information. It is all there in black and  white.    Take a trip and have a look. There is definitely something there for everyone.
Taking Control of your Website A series of tips and tricks to help you in the search for Search Engine Glory. (Part two of a two part series - read part one here) 5: Create Killer Title Tags Title tags are the information that shows up at the top of each browser window and these are extremely important in the scope of Search Engine Glory.  Critical as they are given a lot of weight with search engines.  Dont waste this important area by using generic terms such as "Home Page" or just your business name.  Think of them as another set of keyword phrases, as another area of meta tags.  Ensure that you use your keywords strongly. This area should reflect exactly what the page is about, using your keyword phrases that people might be using at a search engine to find your company. 6: Make sure your site is "link" worthy Other sites linking to yours is a critical component of a successful search engine optimization campaign, as all of the major search engines place a good deal of emphasis on your site's overall link popularity. You can go out and request hundreds or thousands of links, but if your site sucks, why would anyone want to link to it? On the other hand, if your site is full of wonderful, useful information -- other sites will naturally link to it without your even asking. It's fine to trade links; just make sure you are providing your site visitors with only the highest quality of related sites. When you link to lousy sites, keep in mind what this says to your site visitors as well as to the search engines.  Provide your site visitors with ways of linking.  Give them options of text links, graphic buttons or banners.  Provide them also with step by step instructions on how a link to your site should work. 7: Create Meaty Meta Tags. Meta tags have some value, but they are not a magic bullet. Create a Meta Description tag that uses your keywords and also describes your site. The information in this tag often appears under your Title in the search engine results pages, especially if the keyword phrase that was searched upon in the engine appears in your tag. The Meta Keyword tag isn't quite as important as the Meta Description tag. Contrary to what many people believe, what you place in the keyword tag will have very little (if any) bearing on what keywords your site is actually found under, and it's not given any consideration whatsoever by Google. Feel frëe to use this tag for technical synonyms or common misspellings if you want to, but do not obsess over it; it definitely won't make or break your rankings. 8: Be careful when submitting to directories such as Yahoo, DMOZ, JoeAnt, Gimpsy and the like. Having directory listings are a key component to getting your site spidered and listed by Google and the other search engines. Therefore it's important to read each directory's FAQ and follow it precisely. Most directories have very stringent rules on what can and can't be submitted and the submission process.  I implore you to read and re-read the information at least twice over before finally submitting your site.  Making mistakes in the submission process could cost you dearly as directory listings are difficult to change later in the game. Be cognizant of the fact that you will be dealing with human editors, and always think about how you can make their job easier when it comes to listing your site. 9. Don't expect quick results. Getting high rankings takes time; there's no getting around that fact (even with paid-inclusion). Once your site is added to a search engine, its rankings may start out low and then slowly work its way up the ladder. All search engines measure link popularity, and it takes time to really and truly become one of the most popular sites in your niche. Be patient and give your site time to mature.  It won't happen overnight but it will happen. 10. Don't constally "tweak" your site for better results. It's best not to make changes to your on-the-page optimization for at least three months after you optimize it. You certainly don't need to sit on your hands or twiddle your thumbs during this period, however. You should constantly work on adding new stuff to your site to make it better and better, plus you should always be on the lookout for other sites that might be interested in making your site available to their site visitors. If you've followed these tips and still can't find your site in the engines, the first place to "tweak" would be your page copy. If you added less than 250 words of visible text on your pages, this could be your culprit. Also, double-check your keyword density, and make sure that you only targeted two or three phrases per page. Eventually, you'll see the fruits of your labor with many top-ten rankings in Google and the rest of the search engines! The best of luck with your in your search engine glory.
Time Out The Wonder of It All Even if you don't, I urge you to take five minutes out of your busy  schedule and go visit this site. The Wonder of It All is just the most  peaceful and beautiful presentation I have seen in a long time. Some  pictures, some text and some relaxing background music have all be  brought together to make even the most stressful person relax.   Its nothing fancy but very enjoyable.   Go on, I dare you to take that five minutes and use it to your advantage. The Wonder of It All can be found at http://wonderofitall.com/	Giggle of the Month Signs that your e-mail account has been hacked! These are some signs that lead to the fact that someone's been using your e-mail account... "Honey, why is an 18-wheeler from Amazon dotcom backing into our driveway?" One Secret Service agent is sitting on your head while another is slapping cuffs on you. Apparently, your flame war with DonCorleone at mafiadotcom is about to turn ugly. When you log on, your computer says, "You've got lawsuits!" Sotheby's says the Rembrandt is yours and that you now owe them $71,000,000 and change. "The resistance welcomes your involvement. Your contact information has been forwarded to a local insurgent who will bring supplies and reinforcements to you immediately." Your wife calls you at the office to report that Pogdi, your Pakistani mail-order bride, has arrived. Author Unknown

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