How to Make Your Startup Seem Seriously Professional on a Budget

You can’t afford a top-floor office with mahogany paneling — but that doesn’t mean that your brand-new startup has to look, sound and feel like it is run out of a garage. Whether your customers are businesses or consumers, you should work hard to put a professional face on your startup, which will lend it credibility and earn greater amounts of audience trust.

But how can you make your startup seem professional if you are already working with a shoestring budget? Fortunately, here are a few tips to help:

Develop a Professional Brand

Branding is no longer a buzzword; it’s absolutely essential for any business. Branding helps establish a business within a market by giving customers cues about what the company is, does and stands for. It also helps a business’s workforce with direction and motivation, so the business functions as a cohesive whole.

Though you can hire a professional marketing firm to assist in your branding endeavors, you can cut costs by building a brand yourself. Much of branding is understanding your market and what your customers most want out of a business. This will guide the personality of your business as well as its visual identity: its logo, font, color scheme etc. These branding materials will be in use across your company, from your website to your stationary to your startup swag to the décor around your office space, so you need to devote time and energy to getting it right.

Acquire Business-specific Contact Info

Can you imagine buying something — especially something expensive — by calling a home phone number or visiting a person’s house? How would you feel communicating with a salesperson through their personal email address? Most people feel uncomfortable doing business this way; it makes the transaction feel less legitimate, which scares many buyers off.

Right now, you should register for a business phone line and a business email address, and as soon as possible, you should acquire premises for your business with an address separate from your home. Not only will providing your company with unique contact info lend credibility and professionalism to your enterprise, it will also help you distinguish between work and life — which is vital for the long-term success of any entrepreneur.

Invest in Your Website

These days, your company website is more important than its storefront. An astonishing 88 percent of consumers do online research before making any kind of purchase, and that research includes visiting company websites and reading reviews. Especially if you are using your website to sell goods, like in an ecommerce store, you need your website to look and function professionally.

It often pays to hire an experienced web designer to build your website. While plug-and-play website creators like Squarespace, WordPress and Wix are fine for hobbyists or soon-to-be newlyweds, businesses typically need something with more personality and functionality. You will save money over time by utilizing a web designer, who can make your website to your exact specifications, meeting all your business needs and fixing glitches with ease.

Utilize Business Stationary

While the world is increasingly digital, you shouldn’t ignore the physical. Even so-called paperless businesses still use hardcopies in many instances, including sending formal messages to clients or partners or creating invoices or paystubs. A professional company doesn’t use just any paper to send these infrequent and important communiques; they use professional business stationery that adheres to their branding. The stationary you’ll need includes business cards, letterheads and envelopes, at the very least. Fortunately, because your startup won’t need much stationary to get by in the beginning, you can splurge on the best quality paper and designs to wow your recipients.

Network, Network, Network

Finally, you need to set up formal and informal networks of business and client contacts. The more established you are in your field, the more your name will spread as a legitimate and trustworthy organization with which to do business. You should devote time and energy into exposing your brand at industry conferences, trade shows, local business gatherings and more. You should make connections with fellow businesses in your area and engage with your community through charitable works or other events. As your customer base grows, so too will your air of professionalism.

You don’t need to waste money on gourmet coffee, cutting-edge telecommunications or golden pens to make your business seem more professional. If you are focusing your time and effort on the right aspects of your startup, professionalism will come easy.