Whether you run your business out of your garage, studio, or own a store, you can present yourself with the professional services of mid-size to large companies. From the customer's perspective, they will choose a business based on the confidence they have in the company. You do not need a huge marketing budget to get there. Here are some more simple ways to round out your company's branding:

Voicemail

Voicemail provides a mechanism for storing messages from people calling your business when you are unable to take their call. Operating hours or heavy call volume could route a caller to your voicemail system. Voicemail has advanced since the answerphones in the 60s. Today's voicemail can send you an email with either an attachment containing the message and/or a voice-recognition transcription of the message. You can receive the email from your home computer or smartphone, giving you the option to respond immediately, if necessary.

Professional Answering Service

You might not be able to take calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When your business ends its last shift for the day (or night), don't abandon your customers. Current and future customers may still need support. Professional answering services can help get messages from your clients to you when your next shift starts. The level of service these companies provide range from taking messages to answering a script of common questions, to providing enterprise-level helpdesk support.

Faxes

Some businesses still rely on faxes as a means of communication. If you choose to send a fax, ensure your company's name, phone number, and date are captured in the header of the fax. Keep in mind that if you send international faxes, spell out the name of the month and use a four-digit year so there is no confusion regarding the date.

Email

A more flexible method of transmitting documents than faxes is the use of email and attachments. You may want to use a Digital ID for security, like what Verisign or GMail S/MIME offers.

These technologies are not terribly expensive to implement. What they offer is a better presentation of your business. You may not want to adopt all of these technologies. For the ones that you do, develop an implementation plan that sets the guidelines for a successful implementation.