Tiny companies get creative to look larger

Tiny companies get creative to look larger

In business, looking too tiny is not a good thing. That's what Angela Ford thought when she started her Chicago real estate and property management firm.

Ms. Ford was working on staff elsewhere, and the last thing she wanted was for customers to think she was operating her business during her lunch hour.

To create the impression that her firm was bigger, she searched for a service that used live operators.

Customers would call Ms. Ford's home and be forwarded to the service. "The operator would say, 'Let me see if she's available' and try my cell."

"Perception in the marketplace is a significant factor to success," said Eric Siegel, a lecturer at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Technological advances can make it easier than ever. "Yesterday's meeting is today's e-mail," Mr. Siegel said. "You can have a little hole-in-the-wall office and no one would know."

Designing a sophisticated Web site is another trick.

Nick Nanton, an Orlando, Fla., lawyer, divides his work into areas of expertise and then forms separate corporations with separate Web sites.

Another tool is the phone, as Ms. Ford discovered.

Ms. Ford also got a voice line ending in a double zero, with a fax number ending in 09. "The implication is we have eight other lines."

Four years ago, registered nurses Anne Afshari and Laura Hagler started a company taking after-hours calls for doctors.

To make patients feel like they were reaching their doctor's office, they used a Web-based virtual private branch exchange, or PBX. Now nurses across the country log onto the site and program their phones to be connected to the PBX, which routes calls to that number.

Then there's Evan Carmichael in Toronto, who runs a Web site advising small-business owners. Four years ago, a local television station wanted to interview him, at his office. At that point, however, the firm consisted of Mr. Carmichael and one employee.

Mr. Carmichael had friends wear suits and look like busy employees while he was interviewed.

"I never said these people were my employees. They didn't ask me," he said.