How to Make Your Small Business Seem Bigger: Get Help
Unfortunately, just like you can't be in two places at once and you can't answer every single business call you get. The good news is that someone can. There are call centers and answering services that can screen, sort, and direct your calls for you. Determining which service is right for your company requires a little bit of research. A few things to look for is to make sure they understand your business, inquire about their features and find out about the quality control procedures. Companies such as AmeriCall, PCMSI, and AnswerConnect are a few places to start.
If you're considering something smaller, and free, try Google Voice. It's a pretty innovative way to customize, record, transfer, and transcribe all of your calls. It's easy to set up and allows you to associate your Google Voice number to your other phone numbers.
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How to Make Your Small Business Seem Bigger: E-mailing
After you've set up your business e-mail address, using a tool to help you manage it could really help. Tools such as MailChimp, Constant Contact, and Vertical Response are specifically designed to help businesses communicate with a large group of customers and clients. Simons uses MailChimp but also recommends trying AWeber. Each tool also has an e-mail newsletter services as well.
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How to Make Your Small Business Seem Bigger: Scheduling
Long gone are the times when relying on your secretary's handwritten appointments on a paper calendar was enough. Depending on the size of your company, you may not need anything extravagant. Many people swear by the free calendar-management tool, Tungle.me but another popular one is TimeTrade, which is an appointment-scheduling software that many businesses purchase. Ray suggests using Google applications for your calendar would also suffice, if you're looking for the basics.
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How to Make Your Small Business Seem Bigger: Social Media
Considering you already have a company Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn page (and you should) instead of hiring someone to log on several times a day every time they want to tweet or post something, make it easier. The great thing about MailChimp is that if you have a company newsletter, you have the option to create link versions of it to you social media pages.
Additionally, creating an account with either HootSuite or TweetDeck will help you manage multiple accounts in one setting. Both are considered to be social media dashboards that many businesses use. Though there are pros and cons to both, each makes managing your accounts easier than before.
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The list of useful pieces of technological tools could go on forever (Ray suggests BatchBlue, for managing a high volume of contacts and Ring Central, an alternative phone system for businesses) but you should certainly be aware of the common ones that many of your competitors are taking advantage of. And if you have the means, it may be a good idea to hire a technology consultant to help you walk through which technology tools will help you best optimize your company's reach.
Ray notes that there are a few things to remember: "One, DO NOT be afraid of technology, INVEST in [it]; Two, BACKUP your technology [and] get experts to help you use it better; Three, STOP using old technology; Four, every six months consider refreshing your technology; Five, DO NOT just replace it but at least consider what's new. And six, get educated about technology so you can use it better."
