No matter how enlightened your client-base is as a general rule, it is imperative that telephone be answered in a businesslike manner. I don't care how sympathetic, supportive and admiring your clients are of your decision to balance your work and family commitments by running a successful business from home, there is nothing cute about a five year old answering your business line. It's unprofessional, not to mention downright annoying.

Speaking for myself, I also find it annoying and unprofessional for a spouse to answer business line. I'd much prefer to leave a message with your answering service than your wife or husband, thank you very much. At least I can be sure you'll get message. But that may just be me ... decide for yourself.

So have a separate phone line for your business and lay down law to your household that no-one, NO-ONE, is to answer it but you (unless, of course, you're employing your teenage children in your business in which case they should be instructed on how to answer telephone in a professional manner). If you're away from your office, divert your calls to your answering service.

EMAIL

Something else to think about is image of your email address. Which is Potential Client to consider more corporate/professional: maryann@isp.com or m.entrepreneur@mycompanyllc.com?

It's worth spending $35 a year on your own domain name just for professional email address, even if you never intend to create a website. Mind you, if you're going to have your own domain why NOT create your own website? But that's another article ...

STATIONERY AND PROMOTIONAL MATERIALS

It goes without saying that your stationery, business cards and other promotional materials should reflect a professional corporate image. If you have incorporated your business, this is a good start. A company name on letterhead and business cards can't fail to convey a professional image provided they are professionally printed on quality stationery stock.

OFFICE EQUIPMENT

There's no point having quality stationery if you're going to use a cheap and cheerful inkjet printer for your correspondence. Invest in a medium quality laser printer instead. They don't cost a lot of money these days and you can get a unit that triples as a fax machine and photocopier for only a few hundred dollars.

So, what do you think? You may be thinking "I wonder whether it's really worth effort to try and please just a small number of potential clients". Is it worth it? Maybe. But look back over suggestions I have made. Are they really anything more than basic, common sense, professional business practices? Regardless of what your potential and existing clients may think about concept of businesses run out of their owners' homes, first impressions do count. Wouldn't above approach be a good one to take with ALL your potential clients whatever their personal disposition? Just something to think about.

You cannot be effective in developing your business unless you have mastered service knowledge. You need to know features of your products or services so that you can tailor benefits to prospective customer's needs. Be sure you know difference between features and benefits. If you're selling bar stools, a feature of stool is that it has three legs. The benefit is that sitting on it will stop you hitting floor. Remember: features tell, benefits sell.

Now, once you've identified features and benefits of your product or service, develop a fifteen second commercial that you can trot out on cue whenever someone asks you, "So what do you do?". Most people are unprepared to answer a question like this effectively and so it is a golden opportunity to set yourself apart. Your fifteen second commercial will help you seize moment and put your best foot forward. Use your fifteen second commercial to let each person you meet know exactly what you do and why you and your business are so special.

A fifteen second commercial for our web site optimization service might go something like this:

Prospect: "So, what do you do?"

You: "I run my own business, "Web Site Optimization". I tweak clients' web pages to optimize them for various search engines. By creating a web page that appears in first thirty search results for a particular search term, client gets a huge increase in traffic to their web site and their sales go through roof."

When should you use your fifteen second commercial? Each and every time you are introduced to someone new. Get in habit of delivering your fifteen second commercial to as many people as possible. The more times you deliver it more chances you have to create rain.

You also need to develop a uniqueness statement to respond to question, "What's different about your service compared to your competition?". Use a three step format for your uniqueness statement. Step one is to briefly overview three features and benefits that you will elaborate on in step two. Step two is to use three tailored features and benefits to explain your uniqueness to potential customer. Select one about your business's services/ products, one about something your business has accomplished, and one about you personally. In step three, summarize what you've just told prospect.

Here's an example of a uniqueness statement for our web site optimization service:

Prospect: "So what's different about your service compared to your competition?".

You: "I'm glad you asked. What's different about "Web Site Optimization" is depth of our service, our results and our people.

"Unlike most of our competitors, we don't just create one web page for all of search engines. Each search engine has different criteria for pages to rank well. We create a different version of each page specifically designed for each main search engine. For example, one of our clients' rankings on Alta Vista increased from 75th position to 15th in less than a month. He's experienced a 500% increase in traffic and sales as a result. I have a background in software engineering for Yahoo so I have access to inside information about how search engines work that most of my competitors just can't get.

"So, in answer to your question, what's different about us is depth of our service, our results and unique experience of our people."

It will take many rehearsals until you have your fifteen second commercial and uniqueness statement down cold. At first it will feel unnatural to you to give people a rehearsed speech but over time it will feel less awkward and you'll be able to deliver it with an ease and assurance that will sound perfectly natural.

PLANTING SEEDS

"A network is an organized collection of your personal contacts and your personal contacts' own networks. Networking is finding fast whom you need to get what you need in any given situation and helping others do same." Harvey Mackay

=> Your Existing Network

Now that you know what to say, you have to find people to say it to. To establish your network, start with who you know. These are your existing personal and business contacts ... people who will always take your call and who can help you reach your goals. Consider people such as your attorney, accountant, doctor, agents, sales people, family, colleagues, friends and vendors.

Schedule a meeting with who you know for express purpose of exploring ways you can help each other expand your respective networks. If there's a fit, create ways to support each other. You are not looking to sell other person on your product or service. Instead, you are establishing a genuine relationship with this person. It doesn't matter that although you may be able to help this person directly, he or she may never be in a position to reciprocate. The reason it doesn't matter is that this person has a network of his or her own and may therefore be able to put you in contact with someone else who can help you.

Noticing strengths in others and communicating them is one of greatest relationship-building skills a rainmaker can have. Much more than just paying idle, often shallow compliments, effective networkers focus on helping others focus on their strengths by using evidence to back what they're saying.