Dress Your Business for Success

Every once in a while you come across a lawyer or other professional who has such a bad presence that you question whether they are real or competent. It is often because they do some basic image affecting things horribly wrong.

Here are a few things needed to leave a good impression, are often done wrong, and yet cost little or nothing to do right:

• Have a web site. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but needs to include basic info like what you do, where you are, and how to contact you. It also needs to look professional. Blog platforms like wordpress make this easy to do.
• Don’t use a generic email address ( [your name]@gmail.com, or [your name]@hotmail.com, …). Get a relevant domain name for your website and use it for your email address as well.
• Have a proper letterhead with your snail mail address, email address, and phone number. Yes, we still need letterhead, even if we only email letters as pdfs. Word processing platforms include templates that make this easy.
• Use a professional consistent email signature line. I don’t mean a long winded disclaimer of dubious effect – just basic name, contact info, and web site address.
• Create a LinkedIn profile.
• Word processors have built in spelling and grammar checkers. Use them.