Is Your E-mail Address Killing Your Business? 

by Marty Marsh

What's your email address saying about you? Are you inadvertently killing 
potential sales and interest in your business with an inappropriate or 
unprofessional e-mail address? 

Recently, I attended a networking event and struck up a conversation with 
someone who was offering a unique service and I was very interested and 
could immediately see great potential for this business concept. 

We exchanged business cards with promises to stay in touch, so it wasn't 
until I went to enter her e-mail address in my system that I was just stopped 
dead in my tracks and was totally turned off by the e-mail address she was 
using for business people to contact her. I found it offensive to be using 
such an address for her business. 

She presented a perfectly professional image in all other ways. Her business 
card was four-color and on a nice quality stock. She had obviously put some 
time into the development of her image. She even presented herself as the 
consummate professional and I bet she is. 

But she blew any goodwill she had garnered with me entirely when I 
encountered her e-mail address: hotsugarmama@blahblah.com 

Now on a personal level, I would not have been offended by that and may have 
been mildly amused. But to use that professionally just reeks of -- well -- 
unprofessionalism. 

And so of course, my next thought is how unprofessional might she be in her 
business because the service she is selling involves contact with very 
sensitive personal information of her clients. 

Some other e-mail addresses I've seen lately were along those same lines:

• thedeadrule@blahblah.com (the guy was selling insurance but was a big fan 
of The Grateful Dead)

• liquidlover@blahblah.com (an owner of an upscale private clothing seller) 
I didn't ask the meaning of that one.

• chewchewhuhhuh@blahblah.com What? 

Do you get the idea of how inappropriate these e-mail addresses are for 
business? 

Now another pet peeve of mine is business people using Yahoo, Hotmail, Juno, 
and AOL e-mail accounts for their business address. 

Now, I have nothing against those providers per se, but they do not project a 
professional image for your business. Plus they often severely limit what you 
can do with your e-mail accounts.

Best thing you can do right now is to register your own domain name and start 
using that as your e-mail address. Like mine: marty@martymarsh.com or yours 
would be yourname@yourbusinessurl.com. 

If your budget just simply does not allow for this and you must use a free 
e-mail account, at least use something tamer in the name portion of the 
address, preferably your own name or the name of your business. 

These days, you can register a URL very inexpensively and get email service at 
the same time even without a Website. I personally like GoDaddy.com and 
Register.com.