If you really think about it all, it’s honestly kind of wild how quickly people size up a business. Well, it’s great, of course. Like, someone can be an absolute genius with the most brilliant product ever, but if the presentation looks like it crawled out of an ancient printer, or something like that, well, that kills the ‘whole vibe” if you want to use that terminology. But nowadays, there’s no true reason to have a bad presentation, be it shipping, giving receipts, or well, anything. Besides, there’s thermal shipping labels that are affordable, stationery is cheap, and most business equipment is pretty affordable too nowadays (well, at least most are).
But it’s not even just affordability, because small teams get judged even faster because everyone assumes a tiny business means low quality, which is honestly so unfair, but yeah, it happens. And that whole “fake it till you make it” thing isn’t even fake. It’s literally just showing that the business cares about how it shows up. Because customers notice that stuff way faster than they notice how smart the service actually is. And yeah, it’s annoying, but true.
But what exactly can businesses do, though, to look as professional as the big players?
It’s About the Brand Confidence
Which, of course, probably doesn’t sound all that fun, and this part doesn’t really have that “pizazz”, but it’s true, though. So, you know when you walk into a place, or even just land on a website, and you instantly think, “Oh wow, they’ve got it together.” It’s always super impressive, right? Like, you instantly think it’s a giant corporation or something majorly successful that owns this website?
Well, it might be, but it also might one a solopreneur with a great website. So, it’s about presentation, it’s about having a confident brand. But you need a professional look into to have that confident brand. It’s the basic things too, like consistent branding, good photos (professional, not from a phone), no spelling errors, no AI images, just consistency.
Print Quality Says a Lot More than Expected
There was already one example earlier in the intro; it was the presentation itself. Now, sure, nowadays, not every business really needs to print, well, not often at least. But it doesn’t matter if you’re printing daily or only once a month, if something represents your brand and others see it, well, it better be good.
This means a high-quality printer, this means high-quality ink like Canon ink, and this means high-quality paper. For example, if you’re shipping out products and have a thank-you card, then you need cardstock for the paper instead of a thin, basic sheet of paper (like what a shipping label or receipt would go on). The moral here is that all these little details actually matter; they might not seem like much, but customers do judge.
Nobody Cares About Team Size
Well, your average person at least doesn’t care about the team size. While major companies might have tens, hundreds, or even thousands of team members all around the world, so what? It’s fine if it’s just you, it’s fine if it’s just two, three, or less than 10 or 20, or whatever.
But your average person doesn’t instantly discredit your business just because there aren’t that many staff (or any at all). You can be just as big and just as professional as the big player. A business is a business, regardless of size. Remember that.
