Building Business Systems for Fun & Profit

Let me ask you something: when you're dealing with someone in a business context and you notice they have an email address like joe.bloggs@yahoo.com or party-dude@hotmail.com, then what sort of assumptions do you make as a result?

Lately I've been noticing the number of people I communicate with who are still using a free email account or an email address from their ISP. I can't help but form some preconceived ideas about them as a result, and surely I'm not the only one?

I mean: come on! It's 2008 already, if you haven't even registered a domain for your business then I'd question just how serious you are? You can register a domain for only $7 to $40 per year, and a reasonable hosted email account can be had from only $10 a month.

Of course, without a domain you can't have a website either - even the most basic 1-page brochureware website...

So if you won't even make the modest investment of time & money to present your (Internet) self in a reasonable light by branding your communications with your own Internet domain, then how can you justify asking for my business?

No more excuses! You wouldn't have launched your business without at least a phone number for customers to call you and a postal address for them to send the cheques to. So you shouldn't be trying to do business in the 21st century without at least a basic Internet presence and that means a domain, an email account that uses it and a website. Hop to it!