Your Business Image

As a woman in business how do your customers come in contact with your business? Do they arrive through word of mouth, through direct contact with you, business card or perhaps by stumbling upon your website?  All of these methods project some image of your business. What that image is, including your business name, reflects your position in the market. Would you expect specialty chocolates to be dropped into the bottom of a brown paper bag when you purchase them? You must decide upon the image you want your business to project.

Think about how you present yourself. This is most critical if you are a service business. The impression you create in face-to-face contact must reflect your position in the market and create a market opportunity for your business every time you speak to others. People are seeking your credibility on the product or service you sell. Convincing others of your credibility requires two key elements:

1.      Knowledge – You must be seen as knowledgeable about the product or service you are selling or promoting by providing expert information.

2.      Trust – Customers must believe you will act with their best interests in mind.

Credibility and visibility go hand-in-hand. You need to demonstrate your expertise, trustworthiness, and concern for your customer’s welfare. How will you do this? Marketing yourself is an active process. It requires you to assert yourself, make your audience aware of you (even if it is only one person), grab their attention, and then focus that attention on your credibility.

Business image is extremely important to customers who have many choices in deciding where to spend their money. It also affects whether or not someone will return to you in the future. Customers will leave you for many reasons, but almost 70% leave due to a poor attitude exhibited by employees of the business. This is easily avoidable if you understand what the customer wants and then communicate the image you want to project to all of your employees. Remember to talk periodically to your customers about what you’re doing right or wrong.  This is a good way to make sure that your customers view the business in the way you want it to be seen.

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