Email Addresses, am I in a minority....

[cdugger 4]

I would disagree with the professional email address some are so damn long they have a hard time getting them on a business card. Besides it has not been that long.....especially for an old fart like me....that a po box or street address was the only address there was. If I judged the professional appitude of everyone by a email address I probably would not have work or work for a lot of people. I was at a repair shop today getting a muffler on one of my vans they had a bulletin board with about 50 cards only three out of them had a business email address.

I would argue that the reason they have to "advertise" on a bulletin board is because they don't know how to be professional. I throw away business cards that have a free email account like gmail or yahoo at my "real" job in transportation. Especially when you are going more towards high-end clients who will pay the extra, I believe it is very important to have the look of being committed to your business. have all the emails forwarded to your personal, but at least have the professional email address if you want to be taken seriously.

[gcextreme 475]

My email is gcextreme-at-gcextreme.com pretty dam easy...but it gets forwarded to my hotmail account.

[mabscotthandyman 1,410]

I would argue that the reason they have to "advertise" on a bulletin board is because they don't know how to be professional. I throw away business cards that have a free email account like gmail or yahoo at my "real" job in transportation. Especially when you are going more towards high-end clients who will pay the extra, I believe it is very important to have the look of being committed to your business. have all the emails forwarded to your personal, but at least have the professional email address if you want to be taken seriously.

I have a website and address but as far as being professional it takes a hell of a lot more then a professional email address to really be professional. Any jackass can buy a domain name for a little bit of nothing that does not make them proffesional or more affluent the someone with a yahoo address. I throw away business cards that try to put up a facade of being a larger more prosperous company by using some fancy website. Hell i have been doing this long before websites and your professionalism was judged by your ethics and the quality of the service you provided for the customer. Hell if i had have known that i could have set up a fancy website with a fancy professional name and been lax on every thing else. I just found out i have unprofessional for 45 years of owning my own business.

[gcextreme 475]

So having yur business card or flyer on a bulletin board is "unprofessional"...if so thats so f'n stupid.

I have my card at on the board at my local barber shop, my local supermarket, laundrymat, and post office.

Theres nothing unprofessional about it.

Now you wanna here about advertising that is unprofessional yet really genius! Around here its called "Stare Advertising"..its placing boards and business ads on the wall right infrontof the urinal in public restrooms! So as im holding my manhood and peeing i can read local and statewide business ads!

And trust me...i would rather hear "oh i saw your ad on the board at the supermarket"...than this "hey man i saw your ad as i was taking a piss".

Also look up the term "professional"..it varies depeing on the said "profession"..

Our profession is essentially graphics and advertising with such graphic media..so anyway that we can inform our potential customers of our service should be "professional".Thus having a card or flyer in a high traffic public area is professional. Nailing my card to a tree in the woods would be unprofessional..as not many people are gonna see it.

And anyone who passes up free advertising is just stupid!

So i dont think having my card on a bulletin board is unprofessional at all.

Any way of getting your name to potential customers is a plus..

[Arcbeat 19]

I think there no winner and looser in this but all i can say is that when I started my business and was using my gmail account , a lot of people and specially friends with business advised me to drop the gmail and use a domain name. My point is that email doesnt show your skills or work.  if you dont want to spend to much money on your own domain just user godaddy.com they hosting services starting @ $3.49 a mon + free domain name. And always make sure you choose a short domain name.

[cdugger 4]

I was re-thinking about some of this today and there is always a level of interpretation of what is OK with certain people and what is not and I guess we can never please everyone all the time. Just like the business people who won't give someone a job based upon whether they wore a blue or black suit with a white shirt underneath. We can always find a reason why something won't work; as entrepreneurs we should focus on how we can make things work and support each other in the process.

 

Some things I've ran across in case anyone reads this later that is getting into the industry:

 

I have a hosting account with several domains for various reasons like my business, my brothers, a non-profit I am on the board for, etc. There are multiple emails under multiple domains set up. Like a lot of people have said, GMail is quite popular and you can link up to 5 (I believe it's 5) other emails you own using either POP3 or IMAP. After fumbling through that at the beginning you can pick which email address you want to send from and it all goes through GMail and it looks like it comes from your website. Just a thought.