Business Opportunities Weblog

August 1, 2008 by Rich Whittle | 2 Comments

BusinessWeek:

When Ilene Drexler was laid off as a corporate consultant in January 2004, she decided to launch a professional organizing business, The Organizing Wiz, out of her one-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

But gaining the trust of potential customers was a challenge at first, in part because she wasn’t running her solo operation out of an office building.

To compensate, Drexler offered free organizing sessions to friends and family at their homes and offices. It worked. “Their testimonials bridged that credibility gap,” says Drexler.

Drexler is one of roughly 16.5 million home-based businesses in the U.S. today, a segment of entrepreneurs who add more than $530 billion to the national economy each year, according to the Small Business Administration.

For such operations, one perennial challenge is establishing credibility without the luxury of an office suite or a corporate mailbox. How do these business folk persuade customers that the company can be competitive when the head honcho’s desk is five steps away from the head honcho’s living room?

Moreover, do these entrepreneurs have the responsibility to tell customers they’re home-based from the beginning?

The key, say home-based entrepreneurs, is to be honest.

Though owners need not proclaim that they are based at home, they do have an obligation to paint an accurate picture of their company for clients. “You don’t have to shoot yourself in the foot by saying, ‘By the way, I’m home-based,” says Thomas White, the Hilton chairman of business ethics at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

“But don’t overpromise in terms of your size or expertise—and make sure people are getting what they pay for.” While obtaining an 800 number is a courtesy to customers, giving them the illusion that you’re in an office suite is not.

“Ask yourself, if somebody found out the truth, would it create a credibility issue?”

Photo by enimal.

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Tags: Customers, Office, Work at Home