The myriad of work-from-home job opportunities open to the self-motivated entrepreneur through today’s ever-growing sphere of web and phone technology has created a demand for a home office space that comes with all of the bells and whistles of the traditional workplace. For micro-enterprise moguls who are just starting out, a professional space without a professional price tag attached is fundamental to success. So what does a home office need, and how can it give your home business that essential edge over the competition?
As work from home mom and freelance writer Sara Stringer discovered in her quest to create a self-sufficient home office, one of the most important aspects of successful home business is the construction an enterprise illusion. If your one-man (or woman) home company appears to be a real brick and mortar business, employers and customers are likely to feel more comfortable in using your product or service. Creating this illusion can be as simple as activating a multi-line phone system. You may well ask, but how many phone lines can one person possibly need? Well, let’s take a look at the lines that Sara Stringer and other self-employed entrepreneurs like her use to keep their home businesses up and running:
Main Office Line: A primary office line is a must-have for every home worker. Through this line, your traditional customers and clients can contact you without clogging up your home phone.
Secondary Office Line: Home business owners who receive high volume call traffic may want to install a second office line for outgoing calls. Using a separate line for outgoing and incoming calls is a handy way to avoid that irksome “call waiting” beep--just make sure to program your system so that incoming calls to your outgoing line forward to your primary office phone.
Mobile Line: It can be tempting to keep your mobile line private, but forwarding calls to your mobile device when you’re out of the office is a great way to keep your business going while you’re on-the-go. If you don’t want to be chained to a desk all day, a mobile line is a must-have. Receiving business calls on your personal device outside of business hours can certainly be an undesirable intrusion, but with a good forwarding system, this need not be an issue--simply program calls to forward to your mobile device during business hours, and to your answering machine if you’re taking some much-needed time off.
International Callers Line: If you’re beginning to recruit international clients, or simply want to expand your business reach, try setting up a line exclusively for international callers. Since international calling can be expensive, you may want to consider using a virtual calling system, that can route international calls through VoIP rather than traditional phone lines. Virtual calling systems are third-party hosted, which can really help to give your home business a big-business feel. By using virtual phone lines, you can even tailor the number that your international clients call to their area code. For example, if you think that there’s a market in China for your product or service, you can set up a line with a Chinese are code that actually forwards to your home office phone, creating the impression that you have an international office location without necessitating a move to China.
Is four lines enough? Maybe, maybe not, but with a good virtual phone system you have the scalability to add lines as your business grows, without having to pay the installation and additional line charges that come with traditional phone packages. Once you have your phone system set up, you’re well on your way to success--just throw in a good, reliable wireless connection and you’ll have all you need to conquer the world of D.I.Y business.
