The ‘solo-preneur’ is one of the fastest growing segments in today’s economy. With today’s modern technology and capabilities, almost anyone can become a one-man-shop in pursuit of the American dream.
However, one overlooked trap that many solo-preneurs fall into is not taking the time to create a professional email address. Instead, their interactions with potential customers are via free @yahoo/gmail/hotmail.com addresses (for example: joesbusiness@gmail.com)
In the eyes of a potential customer:
Professional email address = you’ve created a real business
Your old gmail.com or yahoo.com email address = this is your weekend hobby, not a serious pursuit
The hard truth is that lumping yourself in with the other billion Gmail users in the world is not the best way to show commitment to your brand. Anyone, including scammers, can easily create a free gmail/yahoo/hotmail account and start pushing their wares. It just doesn’t look legitimate.
In order to be taken seriously, you need a professional email address that uses your own ‘domain name’ so that you’re not linked with any other business. For example - ‘joe@awesomewidgets.com’ is a unique domain and email name that’s not lumped in as a gmail account. ‘joeswidgets@gmail.com’, however, is not.
Many freelancers realize that they need a professional email address, however it usually sounds a bit too ‘techy’ to set up and they think it costs too much. Here’s the good news, though. It’s not.
Purchasing a domain name is easy. Several sites such as GoDaddy.com and Google Domains make it easy to pick out an available domain name. It’s not very expensive, usually topping out at about $12 per year. That’s one whole dollar per month.
Here’s the best part: If you were previously using an @gmail.com email address, you can use Gmail for your professional email as well. However, except instead of @gmail.com, your address is @yourcompanyname.com. For $5/month, you can get your professional email account hosted by Google and run your account just like a Gmail account.
But wait, there's more! You also get 30GB of cloud storage to store all of your business files, the full Google Docs productivity suite, video conferencing (think WebEx) and an awesome online calendar. Even better, all resources are available on all mobile devices (Android/iPhone/iPad) so your professional email/calendar/files/conferencing are accessible wherever you are and from any computing device. It’s an incredible value.
Your email address will often be your customer’s first interactions with your business. Make sure it leaves a good impression. If you need assistance creating a professional domain and transferring to Google, we can help.