Dodo Loves Marketing

Now that you have the start of your brand new business at your fingertips, let’s take a look at you and your attitude to being in business.

Let’s make it professional. Don’t fool yourself with the idea that working from home will be easy. While you won’t have to join the morning rush-hour traffic to work, you also won’t have the benefit of the discipline that a 9-to-5 office day and a bevy of co-workers imposes on the rest of us.

You won’t have a boss breathing down your neck when you stop to have a chat — and you’ll find that can be a distinct disadvantage.

Because now you’ll have to impose that discipline on yourself, from making sure you start your working day at a reasonable hour, and following jobs through to the last detail (there’ll be no one but you to check for errors, or to blame when something goes wrong), to resisting the temptation to take the morning, the afternoon or the week off when a sunny beach beckons.

You’ll also encounter a perplexing belief among others who, because you are running a small, part-time business from home, will expect you to have a small, part-time business attitude to match. They won’t believe in either your abilities or your determination. It’s up to you to prove them wrong.

So if you are going to provide a service, or sell products from your home, the following points are extremely important:

Behave professionally. Women must at all costs avoid playing the ‘little woman doing a little pin-money’ role. No matter how small your business may be initially, you’ll be competing with other businesswomen — and men — who mean business. Being girlish, wimpish, hair-brained, giggly or silly is unforgiveable.

Your clothes should always be appropriate to what you’re doing. Don’t for instance turn up to serve a business lunch in a boardroom in satin shorts and halter top.

Set a schedule — and stick to it. Self-discipline is vital to a one-person operation. If you set yourself a firm timetable and stick to it, you’ll find everything that much easier. Set yourself a minimum number of working hours a day, and let nothing get in the way of achieving it.

If you’re a mother and the kids miss the bus, or the char doesn’t turn up, don’t let it stop Plan A — swing Plan B into operation immediately.

Obviously, you have home and family commitments (otherwise you’d be bashing away at some boring office job, wouldn’t you?) and you can’t throw them all out of the window. So you must use one of the advantages of having your own business — in-built flexibility — sensibly.

Don’t plan to start at 7.30 in the morning when the family is screaming for school uniforms and lunchboxes. Your business day can start at 8.30 when the family’s gone and your char has arrived — and all your potential customers are sitting calmly at their desks waiting for the day to begin. Shut up shop at 4 p.m. before everybody starts clamouring for food.

Open mail immediately. It may be orders or cheques (nice), complaints or bills (nasty), but either way they should be dealt with immediately. Depending on the amount of mail you receive, set aside an hour first thing in the morning, or an afternoon every other day, to deal with it.

Throw out the junk mail first. Write the cheques into your analysis or cash book as well as into the bank paying-in book, clipping the cheques firmly to the top of the page. Sort the orders onto a big bulldog clip for attention.

Sort the bills into those that must be paid immediately (and do it), and those you can safely leave to the end of the month. If there are queries or complaints, deal with them right away.

Telephone answering — Provide an efficient way of dealing with telephone enquiries. Nothing is more off-putting to a prospective customer than to have the phone answered by a five-year-old sucking an icecream who can only repeat `Mummy’s not here . . .’, or by a domestic worker who cannot take down a name and phone number.

If possible, arrange to get another telephone line, for the business, one that only you or another responsible adult will answer. Threaten the children with violence if they dare to touch it.

If you are not going to be around to answer the telephone much of the time, put in an answering machine. Don’t go in for lengthy or `cute’ introductory messages on the tape — that’s another irritation for a lot of people. A simple ‘Bennett’s Window Cleaning Services — Bill Bennett speaking. Please leave a message after the tone and I will return your call as soon as possible‘ will be fine.

Check the answering machine the moment you get home and return those calls immediately. When people make phone calls, they want something now — information, services, answers. By leaving it until you’ve had a cup of tea and put the washing out, or even until tomorrow morning, you could lose a client to the opposition.

Working space — Provide yourself with an area in your home that is dedicated to your business, and make it forbidden territory to everyone else, especially the kids. If possible, keep all your paperwork, samples, ledgers, etc there, as well as the business phone and answering machine if you have one.

I used to have a small table under the stairs in my home, that was allegedly my ‘office’. It also carried the house phone and the telephone books, the post was invariably dropped on it, as well as anything that anyone was carrying on their way to the kitchen from the front door.

Within a short space of time, my working papers, reference books and typewriter had disappeared under a collection of newspapers, homework books, wellington boots, lunch boxes and junk mail. When I did manage to find what I needed, it was usually covered in scribbled phone numbers because no one ever had paper handy when making phone calls.

I graduated from there to a small space outside the upstairs bathroom, through a cupboard and shelf in the lounge, before settling into a boxroom with a lock on the door, but I never again allowed ‘my’ area to be part of the general family space. Everyone learned very quickly that what was mine stayed in my area (on pain of death to the borrower) and what wasn’t mine was thrown into the garbage bags.

Never break a promise to a customer — Promise only what you know you can achieve, and then make certain you do it.

Never accept an order that forces you into an impossible deadline, no matter how temptingly lucrative it is.

Letting your client down is far, far worse than negotiating a more realistic delivery date, price or whatever, right at the beginning. Everyone wants everything yesterday — and even when a client knows he’s being unfair, by promising the impossible you’ll get the blame when things go wrong.

Be businesslike about meetings — Prepare yourself properly in advance and have the necessary paperwork on hand for discussion. If you plan to show samples, have them neatly finished and attractively packed. If it’s services or products you’ll be discussing, have a clear price list available, with delivery dates, etc accurately prepared.

If the meeting is with a client, keep it brief and to the point. Equally so if it’s with your accountant, lawyer or any other professional advisor. Business time costs money and often you’ll be the one who will pay for it.

Be punctual — In fact there’s nothing wrong with being a little early when you have an appointment. You’ll have the chance to familiarise yourself with the feel of the company (if you’re trying to sell something) or run your eye over the figures one last time if you’re in there asking for a loan.

Unfortunately, you’ll have to accept that others don’t necessarily follow the ‘don’t be late’ maxim. If you’re kept waiting while someone finishes a phone call or parks the car, be gracious about it. If it really runs over time and you’re getting dangerously close to being late for another appointment, explain politely to the receptionist, or whoever, that you have another meeting and will phone later for another date and time. Leave some of your samples or brochures if possible, unless it really is something you’d prefer to discuss face to face.

Don’t panic — Whether you meet with a minor hitch — or a crashing disaster. Yes, I know that’s a lot easier to say than to do. But panic never solved a situation yet. Rather keep a cool head, stand back a bit, and examine not only what went wrong, but what’s required to put it right. Most problems can be solved with a bit of effort, provided they are not ignored until everything really has gone down the drain.

Swallow your pride and ask for help the moment you feel you’re getting out of your depth. There are lots of people out there, qualified to help and offer advice — some of them, amazingly enough, will do it free of charge.

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