The key thing in any business is communication, this also is true for a home based businesses. Quite often, written communication in some form is actually what brings fresh clients in, so it is best to make sure that you catch their eyes and yet do not appear to be overbearing. The two main forms of written communication for today’s home based business to focus on Email and Instant Messaging.
Email – If, like most home based business, you possess the ability to communicate online, your biggest tool will probably be email.
First of all, you are going to want to create an email address which is professional and serious. It should reflect your company as well as what your company does, while also making you appear approachable.
Instant Messaging – Whether you use AIM, Google, Facebook, ICQ, IRC, Microsoft Live, MySpace, Skype or Yahoo, you are going to want to create a user name just for your business.
It is a good idea to make sure that you have access to all of the available messengers. In this way, people can choose which one to use if they want to talk to you quickly. It certainly is not convenient for them to have to open an account on a service they are not already using just to be able to contact you.
Trillian Astra and Miranda IM are both great programs which allow you to use all of your messaging services on one application instead of running them all separately.
Like your email account, you want your user names to be serious, reflecting your business and it’s professionalism. You should want the first impression that people have of you to be a positive one, consequently make certain that your email and instant messenger accounts have professional sounding names which will in turn let people know that you are really serious about your home business.
Thank you for the reminder. I do need to register for more instant messenger accounts. Will do one today for sure! And I did not realize they could be combined to one service. Thank you!