 |
Common small potato tip-offs—
- Saying “Make the check out to me,” alerts customers
that maybe
you’re not a “real business,”
and are either
fly-by-night or evading taxes.
Since serious businesses
don’t operate that way, you just let them
know you aren’t
one
- Lacks a fax number or uses the same number for telephone
and fax
- The business is called “and Associates” or
“Enterprises,” or other
names which are interpreted as
thinly-veiled attempts to look bigger
- Doesn’t take credit cards
- Deals with money in a too-little-too-late fashion
- Pays bills through their personal checking account
- Its Web site has a very long address (after
several ///s),
instead of it having its own domain name
- Answers the phone without identifying the business name
first,
or lets family members answer customer calls in a
casual way
- The business card doesn't state what the business does,
and it
looks just about like the competitions’
- Uses a clip-art logo that everyone has seen lots of times
elsewhere
- Places a full-colored, Yellow Page ad near the
back of their telephone
directory category
And you’ll discover hundreds more in Stop
Looking Like Small Potatoes
Small Potatoes lapses aren’t a big deal if looked at one by
one. But as they accumulate they tell people in unmistakable
terms that you don’t have your
act together—and
that is a big deal!
(c) 2003, Off the Page Press
Dr. Lynella Grant is an expert on the signals that make up
the body
language of a business. Author of The Business
Card Book and
Stop Looking Like Small Potatoes
http://www.giantpotatoes.com
Off the Page Press (719) 395-9450
Return to document
| |
|
|
