This is a collaborative post. All opinions are my own.

With so many people working from home now (and kids simultaneously home from school) it can be difficult to keep up professional appearances. Even if you've scheduled set working hours, established a morning routine, and have an organized home office, it can still be a challenge to stay sharp and productive. Personally, I work part-time from home, and I love the flexibility to spend time with my kids, take care of things like laundry, and go for a walk in the middle of the day. But I know it can be a struggle for a lot of people. Whether working remotely is a temporary situation or you're getting set up as a freelancer/home business, I rounded up some tips to make your WFH life look more professional...even if you're actually working from your front porch with a baby next to you, watching your kids draw with sidewalk chalk. ;)

Don’t hold meetings in the living room

Most of the time it's fine to work from wherever you're comfortable. But when you're holding a remote meeting over video conference, you should try to have the background look professional. Toys and dirty dishes in the background don't exactly give off a professional impression. Set up a space somewhere in the house with a blank background, where you can close the door off to noises like kids playing and the washing machine running. If working remotely is a more permanent situation for you, consider renting a co-working space that lends you a more professional looking environment. Eventually, for face to face meetings, come to them. Find a cafe near them or visit them at their office. This has the added benefit of looking like you’re willing to go the extra mile for your client (because you literally have.)

Invest in decent branding

If you're a home-based business, one of the best ways to make yourself look more established and professional is to invest in a high-quality website and professional branding and advertising services. You don’t need a huge budget, you just need to create some branding that doesn't look homespun. 

Have separate contact info for your business

Right now, almost everyone is working from home. But soon enough, most people will start going back to the office. If you're a freelancer or a small business owner who will still be working from home, you might want to consider a virtual office. This can create some separation (and protection) between your personal life and work life. Virtual offices give you a professional-looking address and phone number to get in contact with, meaning that you don’t have to share your private contact details with business partners.

Be active on your social media channels

Think of the "faces" that your business has. The website is one of them, and so is the phone line that people use to call you. Another "face" that is extremely important in today's day and age is social media. This can be how a lot of clients and customers find you and interact with your business. A dead social media channel with few posts is not going to give off the impression of an active, thriving business. If you don’t have the time or energy to keep producing posts and sharing content on every possible social media channel, it's better to choose 1-2 channels that you can commit to being active on, and close down the rest. It can also be super helpful to use social media management software that allows you to schedule posts, so you can get it all done when it’s most convenient.

Be consistent with your presentation

There’s one aspect of communicating with a particularly small business that can make it exceedingly clear just how small they are. That’s when don’t have a unified and consistent approach to how they communicate. If you want to give off the impression that you are a professional outfit, then set standards for how you communicate and stick to them. For instance, you can use document templates to make sure that any correspondence you send out is formatted in the right way, using the right fonts, images, and any other elements that represent your business. Similarly, you can work from email templates, changing the content to make it fit the recipient, but keeping the general language and tone as close as possible.

As you grow and your clients get to know you and see what you can do, the initial impression of your business might not matter as much for existing clients. However, it's always a good idea to be aware of how your outward branding and presentation affect people who might not yet be decided.

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