The image of your company is essential for its success.  Potential customers make buying decisions,based on who is selling as much as what is being sold!

If you provide a service or a product, even if there isn'tmuch competition now (in which case, is there a demand?), there soon will be -and if your company isn't moving in a forward direction, it's going backwards!



Business owners will often say how expensive products andservices that are essential for their business are however, with a bit of timeand effort spent on research, enormous savings can be made which can be pumpedback into the business hence avoiding cash flow problems which the major causeof most SME's that fail.  However, forthose parts of your business that are essential for ensuring that you meet yourclient's expectations it is vital that you don't mistake ?value for money?purchases with ?cheap? ones!

Say, for example, that you are about to purchase someessential business IT hardware and you find two IT companies.  One appears to offer the same solution as theother but for a much lower cost but, when you phone them to ask aboutsomething, there is no-one available to answer your calls for you. Yourconfidence in this supplier and therefore your likelihood of purchasing fromthem would diminish greatly - You would be thinking "what if you have a problemand aren't able to contact the supplier to fix it.  The costs that you incur through this problemcould be much greater than your original savings, not to mention the potentialdamage to your company's image and reputation.



Your (potential!) customer will have the same concerns whendeciding who to buy from, regardless of the value of the product or servicethey are contemplating buying as your product/service could be of massivelyimportant to their company) and so it's absolutely essential that your companyalways conveys an image that is professional and consistent.

The great news is that it doesn't have to cost the earth topresent a strong image but ensure that you do put aside part of your time andbudget to have the fundamental resources in place.  Must-have's for any business include awebsite that looks professional ? it doesn't have to be overly complicated orhuge but must be clear, easy to navigate and invites your potential customersto contact you.



Another essential requirement is making sure that at thetimes you are open, is performed by a real person ? how much business could youlose every time the phone isn't picked up and your (lost) new customer callsyour competitor instead.  Professional is essential but if you are running a business, there willbe times when you can't answer the phone yourself (because you're with a client,making an outbound sales call, having lunch...!) and at this point one costeffective solution which can offer a great deal of flexibility is to use a who will answer your calls in your company'sname, take orders, answer enquiries - and usually for a small fraction of thecost of employing staff (even on a part-time basis) and without the ongoingoverhead of staffing costs or the problems associated with it such as findingholiday cover.

Once your customers come rolling in, it is vitally importantthat you keep them! There are loads of customer Relationship Management (CRM)databases, (of varying quality) that are available, 'out of the box' for under?100 and these can prove to be exceptionally useful for keeping up with yourcustomer's and suppliers needs, problems and requirements.  It is vital to business success to avoidcomplacency with existing customers but to keep them happy by excellentcustomer service!



Even with the most amazing website and a top notch telephoneanswering service, superb IT and so on, if your potential customers have abrilliant impression of you from the outset, unless you offer a qualityproduct/service and are able to match your customer's expectations on servicelevel, they will very quickly go elsewhere.

Finally, it is important to remember that there are numerousother companies out there doing what you do and probably doing a good job,that's why it is absolutely essential to exceed expectations and be far betterthan just 'good'!