Don’t believe all the guidelines and hype about running a business from home.
Some of the rules, set out in books and columns such as this one, are sound.
Others are hype, horse-hockey or oft-repeated nonsense. Here’s a short list of
what’s true and what’s false among the work-at-home myths.
Dress Up Like You’re Going to a Meeting The most common myth says you should dress up like you’re off to a pricy
lunch meeting even though you’re working from home. This is the
most-frequently-propagated myth in home-business literature. No, you don’t have
to dress up in meet-the-client clothes to call prospective clients. Supposedly,
when you’re sitting in your living room in business attire, you’re more likely
to sound professional over the phone.
Come on, a client-contact call is about attending to your customer’s needs.
If you can’t focus on their needs while you’re in your bathrobe, you have bigger
problems than the way you’re dressed. Calls to vendors don’t matter at all. You
could be sitting in your vendor’s office delicately draped in garbage bags and
your vendor doesn’t care. When you’re calling a customer on the phone, focus on
your customer with all your attention and you’ll sound perfectly professional.
Fighting the Commotion in the Background If you’re selling – no noise. If you’re buying, who cares? There is a
hard-fast rule about the noise of children in the background when you’re making
business calls. If you’re selling, any commotion in the background is
impermissible. If you’re buying, the whole house can be coming down around you
and it’s just fine with the caller on the other end. One trick that solves this
problem without resorting to daycare is hiring a teenager to distract the kids
during phone calls. The kids still get the benefit of being at home, while the
sitter helps keep your sell time quiet.
Not All Genders Are Equal Unfortunately for struggling at-home moms, men seem to have an easier time
communicating credibility in the biz-at-home setting. If you assume there is
equality between the genders, you do so at your peril. Women repeatedly tell me
it’s more acceptable for a man to have the sound of small children in the
background. They say a man’s professionalism is not as likely to be questioned
when kids scream. I’m getting this information on a hearsay basis, but women
insist it’s true. They are adamant that a man is more likely to be forgiven,
even praised, when a client overhears kid noise, particularly if the customer is
a woman. I don’t know this first hand, of course, but I hear the same story
continually – women have to work harder to establish the credibility of their
at-home enterprises.
Books
by this Author
Home Is Cheaper for Everyone This one’s true. Whether you’re an at-home employee or you’re running your
own business, home is the cheapest place on earth. If you’re trying to convince
your boss that you would be more productive at home, explain that it will also
cost less to equip you at home than it does at the office. The savings in office
space alone is tremendous. The cost-savings argument might help you overcome
your boss’s need to watch you work. Don’t underestimate the powerful need
employers have to watch their minions plug away. It takes a big bag of great
arguments to overcome this age-old, tenacious need.
The Hidden Devil of Procrastination Procrastination is the greatest enemy of at-home productivity. Some
work-oriented tasks are more pleasant than others. Reading the Wall Street
Journal is infinitely more fun than answering all those emails. When it comes to
making cold calls, scrubbing up kid-glop on the kitchen floor is significantly
preferable.
The best way to get past the business-killing roadblock of procrastination is
to put your least desirable tasks at the top of your to-do list. Promise
yourself a dish of ice cream when all the tough tasks of the day are done.
Believe me, you’ll enjoy your favored tasks with a delightfully clear conscious
if you get your cold calls over first.
Rob Spiegel is the author of Net Strategy (Dearborn) and The
Shoestring Entrepreneur’s Guide to Internet Start-ups (St. Martin's Press). You
can reach Rob at robspiegel@comcast.net.
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