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My small business is one of many and of the many out there I would technically be considered a little fish in a big pond. However, that doesn't mean that I need to appear small to my clients and by doing a little homework and looking around online, I have found a couple of ways in particular that I use to make my small business look big for very little money each month.
Custom Invoicing
When a job is complete and it's time for me to send an invoice to a client, the last thing I want them to see is an unprofessional invoice that I slapped together using Word. So, I found a company called FreshBooks that allows me to custom make my invoices and send them to my clients as I see fit. They work with payment processing companies like PayPal, have a place for my company logo to be inserted and even calculate all of the math for me including sales tax if I want.
I actually started using them for free as they allow you to do so for up to three clients. They have several pay versions but I am more than satisfied with their $19.95 per month package which is good for up to 25 clients. Now all my clients receive great looking invoices and I don't have to worry about looking weak at the end of a job.
Toll Free Number
Another simple trick I use to make my small business look bigger is the use of a toll free 800 number. I use RingCentral and after trying their service for free and loving it I signed up for their $9.95 per month package. This gives me my toll free phone number, 100 minutes to use and then I am only charged about a nickel for every minute thereafter. However, I have yet to go over my minutes as I don't advertise my toll free number on anything but my business cards.
By placing the toll free number on my business cards I am giving my small business the look of a much larger corporation. While toll free numbers used to be the sign of a huge company and represent lots of money just to get set up, today anyone can get one for almost nothing. Best of all the $9.95 I pay covers any phone I want to use the toll free number for and there is no special equipment to buy or lease.
Tax Deductible
Both of these "big strategies" cost me less than $30 per month. While that is not bad in itself, I am also able to use both of these expenses as tax write-offs at the end of each year as they are both used exclusively for my business. So, by doing a little bit of research and spending a little bit of money, my small business has a lot of the same perks as a big business, at least it looks that way from the outside looking in.
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