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Five Methods for Making Your Startup Business Look More Professional

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Startup|Five Methods for Making Your Startup Business Look More ProfessionalIn order to lead your startup business to success, it needs to look professional from the very beginning. Professionalism will be the difference between drawing clients in or pushing them away.

Here are five key and simple methods to promote more of a professional image for your business.

1. Create a Business Email Address

If you’re an entrepreneur who is working at home or from a personal location without a team of staff, chances are you’re using a lot of your current personal information to get things moving, which might include your own personal email address.

Even if your personal email address is nondescript, such as just your name, it still reveals what it is: that you’re a startup using personal information.

Instead, form a new business email address as soon as you can, ideally one which includes the business name or something generic such as ‘contact@businessname’. It’s a simple task, but it can make your correspondence seem significantly more professional.

2. Design an Impressive Website

When researching a new business or product, most people turn to an official website first. Your business can be judged within a matter of seconds based on what your website has to offer and how it appears. A professional website could be the difference between a visitor remaining and browsing, or clicking the exit button straight away.

First impressions count, especially for a start up business, so you need the first impression of your website to be an excellent one. If you’re unsure where to start, you can consult with professional web design in Lichfield and have experts help you develop it.  Alternatively, you can outsource your entire website build to a website development company.

3. Get a Separate Business Line

This means either a direct landline for your business, or having your current cell phone number fitted with a second line. This means that you can answer business-related calls professionally with a formal greeting, and keep your personal calls separate with an informal ‘hello’. To answer a business call informally can make you seem unprofessional.

4. Keep on Top of Invoicing and Payments

Correct and prompt invoicing simply screams professionalism. Invoices which are missed or incorrect will make your accounting system seem undependable and shoddy. It can be difficult to keep on top of accounting when you’re a startup, especially if you are doing everything else and finance isn’t your forte, but it’s important to set up a system which works for you. Scheduling and reminders will be a huge help, and you can easily download invoice templates to fill out accordingly.

This can also help you to keep on track with payments owed to you, to ensure that clients don’t try to delay payment or ignore them entirely.

5. Create a Social Media Presence

After checking out your business website, the next port of call for consumers will be your social media profiles. If you don’t have any, this can seem strange within the current online climate.

Even if you create a very basic, professional profile on each social media platform, it still shows that you’re present online and that you care about getting involved with social media. You can always add to and build your profiles later.

Succeeding In The Food Industry

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Food Industry| Succeeding In The Food IndustryIf you are thinking of setting up some kind of a business within the food industry, there are many different kinds of business which that might be, and many things it might entail. The truth is that the food industry is one of those areas of business which has its own kind of regulations and so on which you need to pay homage to, and that you can’t simply ignore. If you are hoping to make sure that you can succeed in the food industry, then that is going to mean that you are able to know what you need to do and why, which is something that takes a while to get to the bottom of. The fact is that succeeding in the food industry requires you pay attention to a few key things, and in this article we are going to look at what those key things might be. As long as you are aware of the following, success for your business can’t be too far behind.

Getting Your Niche

Just as with many other kinds of business, you are going to need to decide on a niche if you hope for your food business to do well. However, this can actually be much harder than you might think, and it’s the kind of process which can take a long time to perfect too. It might however be that the niche is obvious and presents itself to you easily, based on the fact that you know exactly what kind of food you will be serving, establishment you will be running, clientele you will be serving, or whatever else it might be. These easy ways into your niche are absolutely valuable, as are any steps you can take to ensure that you are going to get there more quickly. However you do it, having a good sense of your niche is essential if you hope to succeed, so make sure that you do this early on.

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Food Industry| Succeeding In The Food IndustryResearching

In order to know whether that will work out, however, you are going to need to think about research. Most of the time, you need to look into ensuring that you are going to be able to make enough money and that your business can survive, and that requires a lot of research early on before you do anything. This research is something that comes more easily to some people than to others, and if you are not the kind of person to whom it comes easily, you will want to make sure that you are going to find some help to give you whatever assistance might be necessary for this. The research should ideally indicate what it is that you hope to do with your business, who is likely to respond as a customer and a client, or even a partner, and what kind of profits you can expect in your first quarter or first year. Then there is the research based around the food itself, for which you might need a whole team complete with lab and deuterium, to ensure that your food safety is going to be up to scratch. The more research you do, and the more time you give yourself to do so, the more likely it is that you will be able to make this work out as well as you can.

Planning It Out

All businesses require some degree of planning or another, and you need to make sure that you are planning your business as well as you can if you hope to make it work out well. Planning your business means that you have to have a clear sense in mind of where it is going and why, along with what you hope to get out of it, and how long you think it will take to do so. A plan should be detailed and clear, and there should be no concerns or possibilities of it having two meanings. You should make sure that you go over it and over it until you have determined exactly what is going to happen, along with a backup plan for various steps along the way too. If you can do that, you will find that you are much more likely to succeed, and that you will be making everything so much easier for yourself too. There is never anything wrong with wanting it to be easier, so this is a great reason to get planning early on.

Customer-Driven

Good food businesses are always customer-driven. Whether you are running a restaurant, a fast food truck, or creating cookbooks, you can be sure that you are going to need to think first and foremost about what the customer wants and why they want it. You need to make sure that they are going to get exactly what they expect, and that they won’t be disappointed. That means much more than ensuring the quality of the food. It also means being aware of the kind of price that they can expect to pay, and ensuring that you keep that as fair as possible. Then there is the customer services side of things, which is important in all businesses, and especially in food businesses where the customer really is king. Make sure that you are focused on achieving all this, and you will absolutely find that it helps your business to succeed.

StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Food Industry| Succeeding In The Food Industry


Legality

There is a lot of regulation surrounding food, and you need to make sure that you are keeping within the law at all times if you want your business to be successful and to be allowed to carry on at all. Ensuring this is a simple matter of getting hold of the regulations that you need to pay attention to and making sure that you build those things into your working culture. Do that, and you will be able to remain legal at all times, thereby keeping yourself free of any concerns over legal issues and ensuring that you are doing everything in an above-board kind of way.

How To Be Taken Seriously As A New Startup Owner

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Times are tough for new startup owners. Not only do they have to compete with the bigger businesses on the block, but they also have to contend with the myriad other startup owners beginning in business, each one hoping to be the next big thing in whatever industry they are venturing into. Challenges await.

Should you be a new startup owner, you have a long way to go before you find true success. It doesn’t happen overnight, and to get there, you need to find ways to be taken seriously by others. From clients to potential business partners, you need to know that there is no room for unprofessionalism if you want others to appreciate you and get on board with what you have to offer.

You need to be passionate about your business. If you’re half-hearted about it, other people will notice and possibly ignore you. So, in the way you talk about your business to others, in the way you market your product or service, and in the way you act on a daily basis, make it clear that you have faith in what you are doing. Because if you can show this faith, other people will get on board with what you have to offer and develop faith in your business.

You need to make a good first impression. They say that people judge us within five seconds of meeting us, so be mindful of first impressions in the way you tackle your business. When you’re meeting a new client, make the effort to dress smartly, and turn up on time. Take advantage of the business resources available to you to enhance your credibility, using professional looking invoice templates, for example, instead of quickly drafting up something yourself. And do your homework about the industry you are getting involved in, so when you’re networking with potential clients or investors for the first time, you will be taken seriously because you are able to speak with authority.

You need to be honest about your weaknesses. You don’t need to be able to do everything within your business. Many startup owners attempt to tackle everything themselves because they don’t want to appear weak and thus lose credibility. But this is where they fall, because in the areas where they are weakest, others will notice because of the lack of quality given. To be taken seriously, you need to confront your weaknesses and do something about them. Train yourself up if you need to or outsource aspects of your business to others. You will then be able to give your clients and customers quality work, and that will enhance your credibility.

You need to find a mentor. As a new startup owner, you won’t know everything about the industry you are involved in. There is the potential for mistakes and wrong turns as you navigate your way through your first few months in business. But if you can find somebody with more experience than you to give you advice and support, you are less likely to make any blunders and consequently, hinder your reputation. You will also have somebody with credibility in business, so if they publicly show faith in you, then others might look upon you more favorably in the process.

Final word

To succeed in business, you need to find ways to be taken seriously when you’re just out of the starting gate. With competition around you, there isn’t a lot of room for mistakes and bad first impressions. Follow our suggestions then to give you a fighting chance, and continue to do your research online for other ways to enhance your credibility as you strive to be taken seriously in business.