Getting Down to the Basics in Business

It absolutely drives me nuts when I’m working with a professional or small business owner and they are using a hotmail, yahoo or gmail account as their email address. I am amazed that so many professionals and business owners don’t have the basics in place for their business.  It may seem like a very small thing, however, when I see this, it does affect my decision whether or not I want to do business with them.  I think, “if they don’t have the basics together, what other things do they not have together?”

Let me go over the first things I look at when analyzing the technology of a business.

First things, first, do they have a website? No website means no or little business. Before a website is created, a domain name, url is needed.  Although GoDaddy.com is a popular place to purchase domains, I prefer Moniker.com.  Moniker is not only cheaper but is also a lot more simple to use especially when managing multiple domains.  Do not be afraid to purchase multiple names, domains roughly cost less than $10 a year, It’s kind of like purchasing virtual real estate.

Choose a domain name that has your business word somewhere in the title. You may really like a specific URL but if doesn’t have your business anywhere in the title, it will be hard to rank in the search engines.  Ranking pertains to the ability of your potential clients are able to find you.  Ex. if you sell cookies, your website should not be purplefeathers.com.  If you are a Real Estate Agent, find a domain with the words house, home, Realtor, or Agent in it.  If possible, purchase .com instead of .net and avoid using numbers in the url.

Once you have your domain name, you’ll need a functioning, client driven, easily update-able website. Your website is NOT all about looks, it can look great, but if it doesn’t attract clients for you than it is not working.  Your website has to have the content necessary for a potential client to want to work with you.  Your website should be easily updateble.  If you  constatnly need a third party to update it or you need to hire a webmaster to make small edits it’s probably not the best solution and it will cost you more money in the long run.  After using many content management sites, Wordpress is my system of choice.  It can do everything I want it to do, and if ever I want to make quick easy changes, I don’t need to hire someone to do that for me.  I just log in, and edit my site similar to editing a document.

If you’re still using gmail, or hotmail for your business you have to stop. It’s hard for me to take a business seriously when they give me their gmail account.  If this is you, you’re sending out a subconscious message that you aren’t really serious about your business.  Creating email accounts is easier than you think.  All my business email accounts are gmail based, meaning it looks and operates exactly like gmail however, it uses my business domain name.   I use what is called Google Apps for Businesses (http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain/new).  It’s free to use and it can store up to 7GB of email storage per email address.

Whether you are a Realtor, Insurance Agent, doctor, dentist, business owner coach or author, you need to have a business presence. Having a good URL, website and proper email address are the first steps to building a successful business.

Need help with the basics?  Call Anne-Marie today for coaching.