Three Ways to Make Your Company Project a Big Image

In nature one of the strategies animals use to achieve success—where “success” means not being eaten by a predator—is to appear bigger than they really are.

The same strategy works in business.

Established companies, and especially large companies, often won’’t work with smaller companies. I once heard about a guy who took over his father’’s offices just to impress a group of potential clients. He had signage made up and his own people placed in strategic cubicles. When the meeting was over they took the signs down and went back to morning get-togethers at Starbucks.

While his elaborate ruse worked out well for his startup, you don’’t need to go quite that far. However, you should consider these three ways to make your business seem bigger than it really is.

Expand your phone extensions

Some of the most important strategies to make your business seem bigger than it really is center on your phone service. While it’’s great to give clients immediate attention via your cellphone, if that’’s the only way prospects call your company, it screams “Acme Widgets is just a guy with a cellphone and laptop!”

Get a toll-free number (800, 888, or 877) and sign up for one of the virtual phone systems. Also, establish extensions (and make them multi-digit extensions) for several departments, or consider phone numbers with area codes corresponding to different cities where you do business. All the calls can route to your cellphone or, as your team grows, to various individuals. It might also be to your advantage to sign up with a virtual receptionist service for the incoming calls.

There are a range of these services that offer all or some of these features, along with other options, including Grasshopper, Ooma Office, and others. Google Voice, although it doesn’’t offer extensions, has some nice business-friendly features.

Also consider the “outbound” side of this equation. If your business depends on sales or making contacts via the phone, you can increase the productivity of your team (and therefore give your company a bigger “footprint” in the industry) with a predictive dialing service like the one offered by Calltools.

Rethink your physical location

If you’’re working from home, or starting out in a co-working environment, you may need to feign a larger, more permanent location. There are several dimensions to this that change depending on your business model.

If you’’re working from home, a mailing address like 123 Elm Street, Apartment 3, doesn’’t project a very good image. Something as simple as a Post Office box or one of the mail centers could suffice. If you have a good network of professionals and other business owners, you might ask if you can use their location for a mailing address. If these people are located around the country, you could have “locations” in several cities.

When you need to meet with people, if you’’re brash enough, you could use the strategy I described at the beginning of this article, or you could sign up with one of the many services that rent office space and conference rooms on a short-term basis.

Carefully groom your public image

If you get an impressive phone presence and physical location but circulate amateur-hour promotional materials, you’’re back at square one. First on this list is your website. Get your own domain and a professionally designed site. This can be a WordPress site, but take the time to have it customized with your branding.

This brings us to the topic of branding, which will carry through to my next point as well. Your logo is a major component of your brand. Pay to have a good one developed and remember that you’’ll be living with it for a long time, so give it the attention it deserves.

There’’s a good chance you’’ll have printed materials—letterhead, brochures, and business cards (omit “title” on your cards so you have some flexibility)—that need to reflect the “gravitas” you want your company to enjoy in the eyes of your prospects. Don’’t opt for the lowest-cost options on any of these, whether you order them from an online source or head down to a local print shop. These printed materials last for years. By the time you’’re ready to reorder, with any luck you’’ll actually be as big as the image you’’ve been trying to project!

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