A professional email address is your most important branding element

How do you communicate professionally with clients and colleagues? If you’re like most everybody in the world, email is the first choice every time. Your email address is often the very first piece of personal branding anyone sees.

Your email address says a lot about you and your business. And more importantly it is the very first impression you ever make. Well before somebody goes to your website or reads your message they will see your email address.

As someone who works with consultants, trainers and professional speakers I interact with potential clients frequently over email. And so I’m always shocked when an otherwise professional email comes from an address like BigDaddy89678@hotmail.com. It’s worse if that’s the address on the business card.

Gmail, Yahoo, AOL etc are all fine and dandy for communicating with friends and family. But in a professional setting they hurt your credibility. And if your business relies on you being a credible person, you can’t have that be the case.

I understand that setting up an email address that comes from your domain can seem a bit overwhelming if you’re not a techie. But it is a necessity if you want to be taken seriously in the marketplace.

My recommendation is to create a business account through Google’s G-Suite and run your emails through it. This will allow you to send and receive emails natively through Gmail and it’s apps on any device.

For example my email address is Aidan@ShortCircuitMedia.com. For me to access email I simply log into Gmail with my password. I’ve got it on my phone, my tablet and my computer. I also use this account to manage Google Docs, Slides and Sheets related to my business.

So in addition to looking more professional to my prospective clients, I also enjoy the added benefit of better organization of my content in a centralized location.

Here is a video from the Big G itself on how to set up your email to run through Gmail. It’s simple to do and it will immediately boost your credibility and the perceived value of your correspondence.

Remember, building a successful business requires making yourself look like a credible partner to prospective clients. So dump the personal email and make every outreach you take more professional with an email address that ties back your business brand.