Why Your Professional Email Matters

While on my journey of buying my time back, I found out how and why your business email matters.  I’m sure you may have heard that quote “You only have one time to make a first impression“.  If not, you’re welcome!  This is not only true when it comes to how you present yourself (I’m still working on my dress code) but how others see you as well.  This is something that has caused me pain before.  The interesting part is that it happened while trying to gain clients for my company.

One of my many businesses is building applications and websites.  In the beginning, I found networking to be a pain in my ass.  I would offer my services and people would say “I already have my website” or “I don’t need one” and it would be true for most of them.  Selling branding or presentation vision was hard work and didn’t yield as much interest as I hoped.  That is until one day a business card I received seemed kind of strange.  Their email didn’t match with the company name.

Addam what are you talking about?  I’m glad you asked!

Your Professional Email

Listen your email will tell a lot about you.  For example, if you are a musician who takes your business seriously and your email is “daddyphatfingers1997@gmail.com“, as a professional that is a DEAD GIVEAWAY that you aren’t serious about “the business” part.   I’m not saying you aren’t serious about your money or gigs.  This is specifically toward your business and brand.

Networking

When I figured this out, I started going to gatherings and networking events to do nothing more than get business cards.  At times I would collect 30 or 40 per event IF people even had them.  From there I would sift through them looking for emails like “mycakestorm@aol.com” or the half-baked “creativelydesignednotuglyflowers@yahoo.com” with a website of “www.creativelydesignednotuglyflowers.net“.  I can go on and on but you get the point.

When I would receive business cards with issues like that I would get EXCITED!  Those were the people I was after.  Why!?  Because your business identity isn’t set up for the way people think and move today.  It was a dead give away that you needed my services.  A simple sales pitch with some stats and boom I was in business.  Over time I had to get creative with the pricing because the flip side is many of these “businesses” didn’t want to pay for anything.

Branding Advice

If you have your own business, brand or thinking of becoming an owner at some point, I recommend you do the following:

Buy a Domain

Buy a domain!  Click this link and head over to DreamHost.com.   Here you can buy a domain name and get a free email address for VERY little money.  I’m talking like $11.95 A YEAR!  This way your email and domain will match.  It could look something like “Addam@buymytimeback.com” instead of “buymytimeback@earthlink.net“.  See how much better that looks!?  great!

Don’t stress yourself out about hosing, designing a website or anything like that just yet.  You need to get this together FIRST before you do anything.  The reason why I say this is because items like business cards, letterhead, envelopes, pens, t-shirts and anything else you can put your name on will probably be completed before your site is done.  Once this is secured you can start to place this as your branding (or part of).  Good so far?

Once you’ve gotten all of that straight and want a website, DreamHost can provide that for you as well for a small cost similar to the domain name cost.  They offer designs you can choose from to get you on your way. There is always an option to pick from the plenty of designers and companies that offer help in this area.  I won’t dive too deep into that for this post. Just know it’s there and not too difficult to do on your own.

Secure your Social Media Name

Social media is probably the largest information gathering spot for potential clients to contact and get more information on your business.  I recommend you pick a name you can use on ALL social media sites.  Don’t get stuff like “mycakestacks89” on Instagram, “cakestacks” on Facebook and “@thecakestacks” on Twitter.  NO!  Secure the same name on all platforms.  If your particular name isn’t available on one or more, that’s ok.  Just pick 1 for all.

Conclusion

I want to make sure that YOU and whatever organization you represent take the necessary first steps to be properly set up.  This goes for the self-employed cake baker, musician, handyman, accountants (CPA’s), consultants, etc.  All the way to large corporations, churches (places of worship), corner store, local businesses, pop-up shops, food trucks, online boutiques and everywhere in between.

This is a VERY low-cost initiative that will yield much better results as you grow in whatever adventure you are in.

Hope this helps!