For a home based business to be truly successful, it has to have credibility. Customers have to have faith in your home based business products and/or your home based business services. Building up the credibility of your home based business takes time and effort, but by starting out with a good strategy for creating a strong reputation, you can ensure your home based business develops the credibility it needs to be successful.
One of the most important things you can do to help create credibility for your home based business is to offer a quality product or service. If your home based business doesn’t have a great product or service, then you can forget gaining any credibility in the marketplace no matter how good you are at all the other aspects of building credibility for your home based business. Products and services that are inferior just won’t survive in today’s competitive marketplace. Oh, you might make some initial sales on substandard items, but you won’t get the repeat business you need to make your home based business succeed. So should test your home based business product and service personally so that you know it’s as good as it can possibly be before selling it to your customers.
Another vital component to a building home based business credibility strategy is customer service. You want to respond quickly whenever someone expresses an interest in your home based business products and services. Then you want to follow through after the initial contact is made. And you should be aware that it usually takes several contacts before you make a sale.
So you want to be sure you have a plan for quick response and follow up as part of your home based business credibility strategy. Just be careful not to overdo in your enthusiasm. You want potential customers for your home based business to feel valued, not harassed. Respond quickly to every inquiry your home based business gets and then follow up with a phone call or email within two to three days. After that, you may want to alternate calls and emails once a week until you either make a sale for your home based business or it becomes obvious the person isn’t interested.
Your home based business advertising is another important part of building credibility for your home based business. This means you always tell the truth about your product and service in your home based business advertising. Consumers today are savvier than ever about advertising and don’t respond to exaggerated claims. And the other danger of overselling your home based business product or service is that you won’t be able to deliver on your promises.
Which is deadly to any business’ reputation, whether it’s a home based business or a Fortune 500 company. If you can’t deliver what you promise, then people won’t trust youif they don’t trust you, they won’t buy from you or use your home based business service, at least not more than once. Worse, they’ll tell other people. And they, in turn, will tell other people. So if you tell your home based business customers that you can deliver your product or service 24/7, then be prepared to deliver 24/7. Being honest in your home based business advertising will keep both your and your home based business customers’ expectations realisticwhich can keep you from being overwhelmed by demands you can’t meet and your customers from being frustrated and angry.
Finally, every home based business must put its customers and clients first. You want to respond quickly and positively to any problems or issues your home based business customers may have. It doesn’t matter to your customer that it’s Friday afternoon and you want to go play golf or get a manicure, or that an error wasn’t your fault, it was a shipper’s or an employee’s fault. If one of your home based business customers has an issue, you need to take care of it as diplomatically and speedily as possible, and you need to do it with a smile on your face.
Because if there’s a smile on your face when dealing with your home based business customers’ problems and complaints, there’s a much better chance you’ll be able to put a smile on your customers’ faces. And keep those smiles there. Which means it’s a lot more likely they’ll continue doing business with your home based businessand this is the best way to ensure your home based business has the credibility it needs to succeed.
Charles Fuchs
I grant permission to publish this article, electronically or in print, as long as the bylines are included, with a live link, and the article is not changed in any way.
Copyright 2006, Charles Fuchs, President of Vision Management Enterprise Inc., is an established online marketer who specializes in helping people start their very own
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