How to Be Professional

There are numerous steps and online tools which can assist you in establishing a professional tone from the first few moments with a potential client.

It is these moments which can break your reputation or make a sale.

In this article, we will explore the first few steps of launching your online presence, and a few online communication and scheduling tools available to you without cost.

Domain

The first important step is to register your domain. You can do this through goddaddy.com for around $10 a year.

While you are setting up your domain, I would highly recommend another $5 subscription with Google business apps (Gsuite) or Office 365.

These services offer a wide range of beneficial business tools as well as managed mail under your new registered domain.

Nothing says unprofessional like kickingitwithsammy82@gmail.com when you could have Dave@StackdDesign.com.

Such a simple thing will often make the difference between a potential client reaching out for a second interaction.

When people receive email from your new address, this is the perfect opportunity to hit them with more professionalism and allow them an insight into where they can learn more about you.

Email Signature

Sure, email signatures are easy to setup in most programs but I’m not talking about a simple text signature.

You want something that looks incredible; great layout, colour scheme, links to social media and more. You can quickly generate a high-performing email signature at wisestamp.com.Besides building healthy relationships, it’s also very important to focus on communication.

Communications

When there is a lack of effective communication, it becomes difficult for people to express ideas and suggestions.

Your job is to guide your clients and help improve their business but it can be almost impossible if you are unable to communicate with them.

When it comes to understanding what your client needs, clear and direct communication can be a true blessing.

Some tools that help with communicating with your clients are Slack, Google Hangouts, Skype, and Zapier.

These tools help you remain connected with your customers all through the day.

They are easy-to-use messengers that allow video and audio calling as well.

Zapier allows you to connect all your apps, so it becomes easier for you to focus on what is important.

Integrating your client in your work allows you to constantly remain in contact with them.

This leads to easier communication, helping you prevent unwarranted mistakes or missed delivery dates. Once your client becomes a part of your work, it becomes a two-way process. You, as a business coach, will guide them and teach them business tricks and strategies, while your client will guide you on what they essentially need and how they want their jobs done.

This saves both of you a lot of time and guesswork. When there is a gap in communication and integration, you can be rest assured that errors will occur.

Integration also allows you to improve your marketing tactics. Integrated marketing communication works much better than traditional methods of marketing.

This helps your rake in new customers while maintaining healthy long-term relationships with your current ones.

In order to be more productive in managing your client base, it is important for you to understand and embrace a concept called ‘scheduling’.

Typically, a calendar and a to-do-list are used for all kinds of organizing and scheduling tasks.

In your to-do list, you list down all the tasks that need to be done and the calendar is used for identifying the date and time when you would undertake those tasks.

For business coaches, it is vital to meet your clients on a regular basis so that they can guide them in business management, strategies, tactics etc.

How do you manage multiple clients at once and keep a track of your meetings/appointments with them?

How do you decide when to plan the next appointment and who to include in the discussion at hand?

Here are some brilliant tools to help you with scheduling and keep you on top of all your tasks and appointments.

NeedToMeet is a fantastic organizing tool that allows you to schedule a meeting in three quick and simple steps.

If you’re struggling with unending email chains or time zone issues, NeedToMeet is definitely a saviour tool. It allows you to schedule and organize meeting dates and time at the blink of an eye.

Here’s how you can plan a meeting from an app, the web or even an Outlook Add-In!

1. Simply type in the details of the meeting you wish to schedule.

2. Choose the date and time of your preference.

3. Invite the attendees.

Once you’ve set up the meeting, your available date and time will be displayed on the ‘Meeting Poll’.

This way every attendee can indicate whether he/she is available at that specific time or not.

After receiving a response from all attendees, you will be able to identify which time slot works for all those invited so that you can send them a calendar invitation.

Had enough of email tagging?

Say hello to ‘Calendly’.

Calendly contains the most intelligent and user-friendly scheduling features including ‘Calendar Integration’, which can check your Office 365 or Google calendar for any potential conflicts.

This means that you’ll never end up double-booking. This feature is also capable of automatically updating your calendar with any new events or meetings.

Calendly is also great for scheduling and organizing group events like workshops and webinars as it can establish your capacity and allow multiple invitees to book the exact same slot.

Personally, I love to add my calendly scheduling link into my email signature so that clients can quickly book a phone conversation in without my engagement.

This consistently saves me days of back and forth each month.

When it comes to your own personal business processes and tools that work for you, it is going to be an ongoing discovery full of minor and sometimes major tweaks.

Don’t step into this thinking it needs to be perfect from day one… in fact, expect some teething issues.

Establishing a professional tone from the onset will increase your conversion rate and put you on the right foot with every client.

Dave Spicer - Entrepreneur and musical artist.

As a musician, Dave has been playing piano since he was four. He has toured the world with many groups and supported some of the biggest names in the Australian music scene. He has played on television, festivals for 50,000+ audiences in stadiums to smaller concert performances and private performances - such as the Queen and her excellencies dinner parties! He has 12 years as a teacher for Griffith University, Conservatorium of Music and is one of four official sponsored Kawai artists.

As an Entrepreneur, Dave has been involved in businesses across the music and recruitment industry. He has helped launch a referral model business and has advised on the board of a few companies.

A few years ago, he launched an online music course which has been taken by 30,000 students worldwide and viewed by over 3 Million people. Most recently, Dave is the founder of Stackd Design - a web design firm in Brisbane Australia.

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