You Can Fool Some of the People Some of the Time

I l @ ve RuBoard

There's an old adage about "fooling" people. And the fact is that sometimes you can make your home office appear as professional and competitive as a large corporation. With professionally printed letterhead, a good phone system, proper business cards, a website, and so on, you can seem to the outside world as if you are actually working in a high and mighty corner office ”when in fact you are operating from your dining room table.

For telecommuters, obviously people in your on-site office are going to know precisely where you are ”at home! However, sometimes even telecommuters may want to seem to clients or potential clients on the other end of a phone call as if they are in a standard office. Perhaps it's the remaining bit of stigma that if you're working from home, you must be sitting at your computer in your bathrobe and talking on the telephone with one eye focused on the Jerry Springer show. Thankfully, corporations and others are moving away from the idea that working from home means you're wasting time, sitting around eating chips, or spending the morning perfecting your golf swing. Still, some people are reluctant to reveal they are a home office worker.

For people who are entrepreneurs, they may actually be competing with those in high-rise offices with a legion of assistants. Erica, for instance, wrote sporting goods radio commercials during the famous baseball "Subway Series," and she competed for the chance to write them against a large PR/advertising firm in the midwest. These types of competitive situations can make a home office person leery of letting people know they're at home. Will I seem less professional?, they wonder .

In addition to a fear of not being taken as seriously as a corporation in an office building, there is simply the reasonable ambition to seem as professional as one can be. After all, when pursuing business, if people are going to choose your budding company or you as a sales representative, and so forth, they are going to want to know that they are dealing with a professional in every sense of the word. And even more so if they are cutting you a big check!

Over time, Erica and Kathy have chosen to clue in some of those people we were "fooling" to the fact that we were at home. Some may have figured it out already. (Admittedly, if someone calls our homes close to the dinner hour , there's no mistaking the chorus of kids ' voices and background chatter.) But the main point is whether you choose to let on that you are a home-based worker or company or not, you want to give off the air that you are a real pro. This chapter will tell you how to do that.

I l @ ve RuBoard


The 60-Second Commute. A Guide to Your 24.7 Home Office Life
The 60-Second Commute: A Guide to Your 24/7 Home Office Life
ISBN: 013130321X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 155

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