Our article is published in December 2012 issue of the Comox Valley Business Gazette, “Five Things Every Start-up business Needs.”
“As business owners, we all have many ways we can spend our precious start-up capital on marketing. Do we start small and build as we go, or burst onto the scene with a splash and get the jump on our competition?”
Kris Trudeau is featured in Comox Valley Business Gazette’s Women In Business Feature.
“Kris Trudeau, owner of PixelPoint Design and Consulting, has been going far beyond simple website and graphic design for 12 years. She recognizes that good design is more effective when paired with a compelling, meaningful message and she brings it all together in creative solutions her clients rave about.”
Many business owners feel stuck between a rock and hard place when it comes to the appearance of their business or organization. They work so hard to provide great service to their customers that little time is left at the end of the day to ensure their own business sparkles.
We’ve created a list of five quick things you can do today to make your business shine:
No room in the budget to order letterhead? You are not alone. In the meantime, create your own letterhead in your favourite word processing program. Add your logo and contact information to the header or footer of your document. Save the document as a template file. Next time you go to open your word processing program, open it by double clicking the template file and ta-da! Your fresh document will have your letterhead built in. When you print or create a PDF, your letterhead will output as part of the document.
Email signatures are a great way to add polish to your correspondence. Add your name, title, website address and other important information. It’s easier than you think and there are lots of online instructions that can show you how. Remember, less is more and keep it professional; no background images or fuchsia text!
In the same way both your socks should match, so should your domain and email address. Addresses provided by your internet service provider like Shaw, Telus or free email addresses like Gmail or Hotmail lack professionalism and if you ever change providers you will be forced to change your email address. If you own your own domain, you can have a matching email address for as long as you own that domain, regardless of who provides your internet.
Depending on your website hosting package, you may be entitled to a certain amount of free email hosting. Call your website host provider to see what your options are. Alternatively, you can route your email through Google and still keep your matching domain email address. You may have to pay a small setup fee, but using Google is free, easy to use, accessible anywhere.
While we’re on the topic of emails, proper grammar, capitalization and spelling is a must! Thanks to intuitive email software, most spelling and grammar is easily cleaned up but reread your emails and other correspondence. It’s not being marked by your grade 7 English teacher but the impression you make is being evaluated by your recipient.
Is it clear? Do you state your business name? Can you give any indication of when you’ll be able to return messages? Perhaps leave a tip your users may find useful.
It’s hard finding time during the day to evaluate the impression your business makes on the world but by knowing where you want to go and by making changes as best you can, you will eventually get there.
