Some of the things that you can do to make your home-based business more successful take time, effort, money, or a combination of the three. There are other things, however, that take little to no time, effort, or money yet still have a significant impact on the success of your home-based business. One of these “free success tools” is proper spelling.
Believe it or not, something as simple as spell-checking and carefully proofreading all of your communications with the outside world can do a lot for your business image. Last week, I had a conversation with my manager about spelling. I work outside of the home two days a week and I just happened to be working on the day that the manager was doing an extensive revision of event-planning materials that she distributes to the public. She mentioned that she was glad to have found the time to work on revising the materials because the people that developed the materials a couple of years ago did not share our view on the importance of correct spelling and proper grammar.
While my manager was working on revising the materials, I checked the company email and saw a copy of a weekly email that had just been sent to our customer email list from another department. It was a mess, complete with multiple misspellings, sentences that did not make sense, and a : ). I’m not kidding. There was a typed-in smiley face at the end of one of the sentences. Needless to say, my manager and I discussed that too, and we are working on getting everyone on board with the idea that we have to be careful about the image that we present as a business. We have beautiful facilities and excellent staff, but if the image that we present to the public is not polished and professional then potential customers may not get the idea that we are a high-quality establishment.
The wonderful thing about all of this is that no matter how large or small your business is, you have control over how you present yourself to the outside world. Spell checking outgoing emails, web site content, and other communications does not take long and costs you nothing. Proofreading your communications also helps you to ensure that you are communicating clearly and effectively, and can help you to catch any errors that may have snuck through the spell check.