What kind of impression is your email address making?

[Nerd Scale: 0 out of 5 pocket protectors]

In business, it's important to make a good first impression.    And then it's important to make a

good second, third, and forth impression.   That first impression, though, is pivotal.  It's difficult to forget a good first impression and nearly impossible to forget a bad one.

People judge us quickly and for reasons that have nothing to do with what we offer as a business.  This is why we wake up in the morning, brush our teeth, comb our hair and put on a snazzy outfit.   It is important to impress.

When you walk into that business meeting or networking event, flash your million dollar smile, give a firm handshake and present your business card, are you making a great first impression?

 

I network with a lot of small business owners.  I pass out and accept a lot of business cards.  I am surprised at how many business owners do not use their Domain Name in their email addresses.  For example, this morning I was at a networking event where I met an independent Financial Planner I’ll call Bob. When Bob gave me his card, I took a look at his email address and sure enough it was listed as bob@aol.com.

Bob just made a bad first impression. And although he was dressed to the nines, had a great smile and an even better elevator pitch, I couldn't stop thinking, "Why doesn't Bob have a business email address?".  

Using a free email account is the fashion equivalent of wearing flip-flops with a business suit and gives the impression your business is not a real business. You never want to give the impression your business is a fly-by-night organization or even worse that you don't have a good IT Guy.

Migrating from a free email account to a corporate style account is a fairly easy process, and is surprisingly affordable. For the cost of double decaffeinated, two percent Americano, you can purchase a monthly subscription to Microsoft's Hosted Exchange or Google's Business Apps. That's about $4 per month per mailbox. With that, you get cool features such as Shared Calendars and a mailbox that will sync properly with all your devices.

As it turns out, Bob has hired Binkley IT Consulting to migrate his free account to a Hosted Microsoft Exchange account.  By this time tomorrow, he can purchase new business cards that display his email address as bob@fbnfinancials.com.

 

That's one less worry Bob will have as he tries to make a good impression.

Now if I could only get him to get that piece of lettuce out of his teeth...I'm sure there's an app for that.