Perception is everything in the world of business, and this is especially true if you’re a small business trying to make it work whilst swimming against the tide.
You may be an expert at what you do, but that on its own doesn’t guarantee success when turning that into a successful and profitable business. How you and your business come across to potential new customers can mean the difference between them coming to you and going elsewhere, so it’s vital that you make that all-important good first impression.
With that in mind, I’ve put together some of the most common pieces of advice that I give to small business owners, which will help you to avoid common pitfalls. Follow these tips and you’ll immediately lift the level of professionalism on which you operate which will literally pay dividends!
(If your organisation is a charitable organisation, rather than a company, most of this article still applies to you and will help you run a more efficient and effective organisation.)
1. Don’t get a good-looking domain for your website then use an amateur, freebie email address
This is one of the silliest mistakes many small business owners make, and yet one of the easiest to avoid. You pay the fee for your domain name (eg. mynewbusiness.co.uk) and proudly display the URL for your shiny new website, www.mynewbusiness.co.uk and yet go and plonk a free advert for your old email provider on your shop front: mynewbusiness@btinternet.com or mynewbusiness@yahoo.co.uk – it makes no sense, and it looks AWFUL!
Speak to whoever set up your website and ask them about setting up G Suite so that you can create as many mailboxes as you like (eg. for different staff members eg. your.name@mynewbusiness.co.uk, as well as generic eg. sales@mynewbusiness.co.uk)
Your business, and all your marketing, signage, business cards etc. will immediately look much more professional, and you’ll give your customers the confidence that they’re dealing with a proper, well-structured company. Plus keeping everyone on the same domain makes managing the operation much easier.
BONUS: I have some discount codes to give you 20% off your first year of G Suite. Get in touch if you’d like one.
2. Don’t set your email “From” name in all-capitals
Staying with the email theme, remember that IF YOU TYPE IN CAPITAL LETTERS PEOPLE THINK YOU’RE SHOUTING!!!!!! YES, YOU MIGHT STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD BUT IT’LL BE FOR THE WRONG REASONS!!!!! AAAAAARRRRGGHHHH!!!
(and…. breathe….) So, when you’re setting up your swanky new professional-looking email account, don’t undermine half your hard work by putting your name in capitals. Whenever I receive an email and the sender’s name is all in capitals, I feel like they’re shouting at me and I’m immediately taken aback – imagine if your customers thought that about you?
Wrong: From: JOE BLOGGS
Right: From: Joe Bloggs
3. Don’t miss off area codes for landlines
Unless you’re really going for the ultra-local feel, you should always include the area code in your company’s landline number when you advertise it anywhere. You’ll have to do this soon anyway as the UK is running out of numbers, so you might as well get used to it. Plus, you’re making the massive presumption that the person reading your advert actually knows what the area code is! What if they’re just visiting the area and want to call from their mobile?
4. Don’t advertise your personal mobile/landline – use Telecoms Cloud
Businesses that only advertise a mobile number immediately look like a little one-man-band operation, and whilst there’s nothing at all wrong with being a one-man-band, sadly the public’s perception is immediately tainted when they see this. They think Rogue Traders. Have a mobile number as an alternative, by all means, but not the only number. And under NO CIRCUMSTANCES should the number you advertise be your own personal mobile or landline number – you need to keep work and personal stuff separate. (“Hi mate! Oh, er, sorry…. good afternoon {my new business} how can I help?”)
You can still answer business calls on your personal mobile or landline though. How? Through the awesome power of cloud-based telecoms. Head over to www.telecomscloud.com and you can get a professional-looking telephone number (such as an 0800 or 0333 number which are free for most people to call) which allows you to distinguish and answer your business calls on the same phone you take your personal calls (no more carrying 2 phones – yay!) You can also do lots of other amazing stuff like having calls ring on several phones at once (a team of 5 sales people maybe?) and things like call recording and automatic call routing depending on the time of day (match your opening hours – no more annoying customers calling at 10pm “just in case”!)
5. Don’t mess up spaces in telephone numbers!
You don’t have to drive very far to see some fairly wild and wonderful formatting of phone numbers around, with either incorrect and inconsistent spacing or no spacing at all. If I see a builder’s van or get handed a business card with a nicely formatted landline number and then a mobile number with no spaces in at all, I’m always curious to know why people do that.
For example:
Call us now: 0151 123 4567 or mobile 07123456789
Now, I don’t know about you but the way my brain is wired means I find it really difficult to read and enter in a number if there are no spaces. I get confused and mixed up, and not sure where I’ve got up to. Hardly a great start for your customers, is it?
For landline numbers, you should always put a space after the area code and depending on the area and how many subsequent digits there are, a space between the two halves of the last bit may help to make it more readable. And for non-geographic numbers (eg. 0800 or 0844) the part that designates the number type acts as the “area code”.
For mobile numbers, the first 5 digits are the area code, after which there should be a space (or pause, if you’re reading it out). Anyone who tells you, or does, any different is wrong! Make life easy for your customers by reading out mobile numbers in the correct way, as it’s surprisingly difficult to confirm your own mobile number if read out incorrectly with pauses in the wrong place.
It might sound like a small issue, but it’s one that can really make a difference to people, albeit subconsciously – but that’s where a lot of their perception and feeling about your business happens. For more help, read this Wikipedia article.
6. Don’t confuse your customers; Your Twitter feed is either personal or business
Twitter is a great tool for engaging with your customers and reaching new ones. Be careful when setting up your Twitter profile that you decide from the off whether this is a feed for YOU personally, or for your business (why not set up both?).
Don’t, whatever you do, create a Twitter profile of @mynewbusiness with your “My New Business” logo as the profile pic and description, but then put own personal name as the name of the account – it should be your company name! Way to confuse your customers…
The reverse applies too, so keep it consistent and your customers won’t get confused as to whether they’re talking to you the person or you the business.
Another very important point to note is that if you’re setting up a Facebook or LinkedIn page for your business, make sure you set up a PAGE and not a PERSONAL PROFILE! Your business is a person, not a living & breathing human being so make sure you don’t add it to social networks as a person.
7. Don’t mix up your business identity – is it a person or a business?
The last point leads on well to this one, and it’s not an answer that I can give straight away here. However, you need to decide whether you’re marketing the business as an individual offering services or as a company made up of a group of people. Obviously, for some small businesses this won’t even be an issue but if it’s just you (at the moment), decide if it’s always going to be just you and make the decision now.
8. Don’t just stick a F or T logo and expect people to find your social media pages
If you’re making flyers, designing an advert or decorating items within your business, don’t just stick a Facebook or Twitter logo on the bottom and hope that people will magically find your page. Sure, they might search and find it but they might also search and find a competitor’s page! Stick the username of your Facebook page or Twitter feed so they know what to look for.
9. Don’t put up with a huge long address – Get a proper Facebook URL
If you’ve got a Facebook page…. sorry, rephrase that… On the Facebook page that you do have (if you don’t, make one now!) you should get a proper Facebook URL as soon as you can so you can direct users to Facebook.com/MyNewBusiness rather than the horrible long address you get when you first make the page.
You usually need at least 25 “Likes” before they’ll let you have one, but as soon as that 25th person has clicked “Like Page”, you should head straight on down to https://www.facebook.com/username and then update all of your marketing materials. If there’s anything printed, eg. business cards, it might be a good idea to wait until you’ve secured your Facebook URL.
10. Don’t misunderstand Twitter; If you don’t understand social media and how to use it, buy a book and learn
Don’t just post advert after advert. Don’t post nothing at all. Don’t only post when you’re apologising. Engage with your customers and get your product out there.
If you want some good hints and tips, buy a book such as Social Media Marketing For Dummies
Update: Twitter now have a guide specifically for small businesses. Check it out!
11. Don’t use crap photos on “About us” or LinkedIn profile pages
It can be an exciting rush getting everything set up for your new business, but don’t use that as an excuse to use a terribly-cropped, terrible photo of yourself on that drunken holiday in Ibiza on your website’s “About Us” page or as a profile picture on websites such as LinkedIn. Far better to have no photo at all for a while, whilst you take the time to do it properly, than just a random photo from your hard drive of you going about your everyday life.
12. Don’t use incorrect terminology for things technology-related
Customers can get confused enough at the best of times, especially when it comes to technology and the internet, so be careful to use the correct terminology for everything in your business so as to avoid confusion and make sure everyone knows they’re on the same page.
13. Don’t stretch graphics out of shape if you’re doing your own in-house design
This is one my biggest pet-hates and it really makes things look bad, and yet is so easy to avoid (usually by resizing graphics from the corners or sometimes holding down a key such as Ctrl or Shift).
As money is tight when you first set up, it’s a good idea and very commendable to do some design work yourself if you have the skills. However, please please please be careful that with any graphics (especially if it’s your company logo) you use, you don’t stretch them either vertically or horizontally. It looks terrible and makes any potential customer think “amateur!”
14. Don’t make spelling/grammar/punctuation mistakes in your marketing material and on your website
This goes without saying, or at least it should do. This is one of the quickest ways to cause a potential customer to lose interest and confidence in your business. If you’re not all that confident in the spelling/grammar department, pay a proof-reader or get a family member or friend to help you out.
15. Don’t be a sole trader: register as a Limited Company
Lastly, whilst there’s nothing wrong per-se with staying registered as a sole trader, I’d strongly recommend to anyone running a business that they make a clean separation between personal and business by registering a Limited Company. This not only makes things easier by keeping your personal finances separate from those of your company, but the “limited” part refers to liability and therefore means that all your personal savings, belongings and possessions (including your HOUSE!) aren’t exposed to any financial risks that your business may be exposed to. (Unless you apply for a loan and put up security or a personal guarantee.)
It also looks far more professional so will cause your business to perform better, not to mention the fact that many larger organisations will only work with companies, not sole traders. You can still be the only person working for your company! Being a Limited Company already and having a payroll set up also means that when you’re ready to take on staff member #2, you’re all set and good to go…
There are also major tax benefits to running as a Limited Company rather than a sole-trader, so it positively affects the amount of money you can take home at the end of each month – which is one of the main reasons for doing the whole thing, isn’t it?!
It’s not massively complicated, but can be a bit complex in places especially if you’re new to it, so the best recommendation is to find a good accountant who can talk you through the best options for your circumstances to get you all set up.
Conclusion
So, there we have it. 15 of the most common Internet, Marketing & Social Media mistakes that people make when setting up and running a small business – if you take on board the advice above I hope it will help lead to some amazing success for you and your business. GOOD LUCK!
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