Socially Confident in 60 Seconds by Deborah Smith Pegues

Author:Deborah Smith Pegues
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780736962308
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers

15

Your Home Office Image

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2004 more than 4.5 million people worked at home with a home-based business. As one who hates to drive, I find one of the greatest benefits of working from home is the short commute from my bedroom to the office. Having had a few years’ experience in working at home as a full-time writer and speaker, I am well aware of the pleasures and pitfalls of such a flexible environment. To keep professionalism and a spirit of excellence intact, consider the minimum requirements for operating your home office with finesse.

• Have a dedicated business telephone line—no matter how tight your budget. “Mom and Pop” status will be a foregone conclusion when your customers call and are instructed to press “1” for Papa Bear, “2” for Mama Bear, “3” for Goldie Locks, and “4” for the International Jewelry Bazaar. Go ahead and invest in the least expensive phone plan available and stop sabotaging your company’s image.

• Work smart. If you tend to lean toward workaholism or your body clock is slightly out of sync with the norm, try to make up for your work-until-the-wee-hours madness by sleeping until you wake up without the aid of an alarm clock. Your trusty answering machine can advise clients that you are unable to take the call and will get back to them promptly.

• Manage personal calls. Your family and friends will most likely assume you are available to chat or run errands 24/7. Why? Because you are at home! You’ll have to teach them that you only have limited availability by not engaging in personal calls or other distracting requests for more than a few minutes and only at set times of the day.

• Advise your Federal Express and United Parcel Service drivers as to where to leave (and not leave) your packages.

• While you can now ditch the suits, you’ll still want to dress in presentable casual attire to maintain your own professional mind-set. A former boss used to remind the staff that too casual attire yielded too casual an attitude toward work.

• Never flush the toilet while on a call. Enough said.

• Do not allow small children or anyone who sounds unprofessional to answer your business line. If you can’t take a call, let the answering machine do its job.

• Be mindful of computer keyboard noise when typing and talking on the phone. If you’re taking notes, let others know that you are doing so, lest they think you are distracted and working on something else.

• Before a conference call, silence all other phones in the house, including second lines, fax machines, and cell phones.

• When on a business call, make every effort to shut out environmental noises such as a whirring blender, the doorbell, sirens, ice cream truck music, a lawn mower/leaf blower, barking dogs, yelling children, etc. (One day I was on a radio interview and had gone to great lengths to ensure complete silence, only to have the UPS deliveryman ring the doorbell.

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