Home : Blogs : Skye Hawk, NAR Certified REPA : One Arizona Real Estate Virtual Assistant's Tip, Tricks & Advice for the Savvy Real Estate Professional

What does your email say about you??

What does your email say about you???

You would be surprised to know that sometimes the smallest things can make the biggest difference when it comes to you and your business. Now I am sure all of us want to be portrayed as a professional in our industry but you may be hurting yourself and not even be aware of it.

In this post I am going to talk about how your email address may be affecting your business. Did you know that one of the biggest traffic driver to your website is your email address? Why? Well let me show you, lets say for example that you are wanting to do more research about a company and all you have is their email address, Most people will automatically assume you are associated with the name in your email address. Let me show you, if you get an email from JaneSmith@REMAX.com you automatically assume that Jane Smith works with Remax and that you can find out more about her and her company at www.REMAX.com, correct? Well not let's say you get an email from JaneSmith@gmail.com now if you want to find out more about Jane Smith where would you start to look? We all know that Gmail is Google's free email service, well Jane Smith doesn't work for Google, so how do we find her? It is simple we don't!!!

I can't believe the countless number of Realtors® who want to be seen as professional but they don't portray that professional image and they don't make it easy to be found online. Now if you were to receive an email from me one from skyeh_99@yahoo.com or one from skyeh@atyourservice-va.com which one looks more professional? Well it is only obvious the Skye with At Your Service! looks more professional than Yahoo Skye.

So how is your email hurting you? Well there is two ways one is the obvious if they don't know where to find out you wont be found and two I would rather work with someone who gives the professional image over someone who dose not. When a potential client calls you and is looking for a professional to assist them in the selling or buying of a house don't you think you should give them that professional image that they expect to receive?

Now I know many of us try to save money and like to use as many free services as we can, trust me I am guilty of this as well. But is saving a little coin costing you more in the long run. Many Realtors® have a website, and if you do some investigating you can find service providers that offer free professional emails to go along with your website. GoDaddy does this MSN does this as well as Yahoo for business. It is easy now to find a company that offers several email accounts with your website. Find them and use them, many of the free services make it easy to switch to a new email address as they offer a "forwarding" service. Much like the United State Postal Service they will forward your emails to your new email address and many of them will send an email to the sender giving them your new email address as a good email address to reach you at.

Make sure you have an email that matches your website address so you can be easily found by potential buyers/sellers and don't loose out like Gmail Jane to Remax Jane.

Skye Hawk

At Your Service!

Virtual Assistant Specialists

www.AtYourService-VA.com

Skyeh@atyourservice-va.com

Posted by Skye Hawk, NAR Certified REPA on 07/27/2007 10:57 AM

Comments (13)

marketing you, promoting you, email

Post is included in group: Point 2 Agent Sites

13 Comments on What does your email say about you??

Very true. My website & my email address match. I think it is more professional and also helps to brand you. Good post!

07/27/2007 11:13 AM

by Kelly Sibilsky ~ Lake Zurich RE/MAX Real Estate Agent (RE/MAX Unlimited Northwest)

very true, I was using hotmail when I started. My uncle kept razing me about it, saying why would some one write an agent back with a hotmail account. so I went to my broker and got Thermopoliswyomingrealestate.com email. what do you know it worked :) Great Post.

07/27/2007 11:15 AM

by Chris Fuller your Home Town Realtor Real Estate for Sale in Thermopolis WY (Properties West, INC. )

Good observations, Skye. If you want to use a service like gmail for times you're out of town, you can have your "professional" email forwarded to your gmail account. You're right, though, perception is so important.

07/27/2007 11:16 AM

by Sharon Simms St Pete Florida CRS CIPS CLHMS (RE/MAX Metro)

Thanks for the tip. At Sugar Pine Realty each agent has an email with the company name (ie. johndoe@sugarpinerealty.com). I never thought about how important that is, but it is!

07/27/2007 11:21 AM

by Sugar Pine Realty/GMAC

Thank all of you for your comments. I to started off with a hotmail account although I had my business name at hotmial.com it still wasn't the image I wanted my potential clients to see. There had to be a change. And I did and it seems to be working.

07/27/2007 11:34 AM

by Skye Hawk, NAR Certified REPA (At Your Service! Virtual Assistant Specialists)

Good point! I have always thought this as well. Uniformity does make a difference.

My email and my website...heck even my logo are all the same...MyNewNCHome

07/27/2007 11:42 AM

by "JT" Prevatte, REALTOR, ABR, ASR ~Fayetteville, NC Real Estate (ERA Strother Real Estate, Fayetteville, NC)

Michael Findling Michael@salemglobal

I would love to share a new tool with your readers. BigString is a free email service that allows a user to easily send, recall, erase, self-destruct and modify an email after it has been sent. BigString users have unprecedented control over all of their email, whether they choose to send it through the BigString.com website or even Microsoft Outlook.

It is inevitable. At one point or another in your life, you’ve sent an email to a colleague, client, family member or significant other that’s been highly regrettable. Even before pressing send, you knew it was a bad idea, yet you rolled the dice and clicked anyway, only to cringe at what you wrote later on.

07/27/2007 02:01 PM

by ethanw

Well my current email is more in fun and to the point of what my business does;

(iseemold@yahoo.com)

But I am still using the yahoo server (which I know is not the right way) But my website is under construction and soon my email will be iseemold@newworldinspections.com..

Great Post!!

07/27/2007 02:30 PM

by GEORGE "THE MOLD EXPERT" GARCIA (New World Inspections Inc. )

Well Said Skye!

I have used that exact approach when wanting to find out more about a person or the person's business. Having a good email address says that you believe in yourself and in what you are beginning to undertake in a business. When I stepped out and purchased my domain name and email, it really made me focus and become more accountable to the success of my business. I had spent the money to do this, so I better invest sometime to make it work. Great post!

07/27/2007 05:42 PM

by Courtney Fontenot, NAR Certified REPA, REW™ (Alpha Prosperity Management)

Thank you everyone for the posts, I am glad to see I am not the only one who sees things this way. Also please visit my other blog post http://activerain.com/blogsview/158198/Wanna-get-something-FREE and enter the drawing to receive 5 free hours from myself.

07/27/2007 05:54 PM

by Skye Hawk, NAR Certified REPA (At Your Service! Virtual Assistant Specialists)

Skye, excellent post, I have told realtors in my office for years to stop using aol. ? Why don't they get it ?

I hope this helps others, I rated a 5 because I think many more agents than we want to admit use these free services.

07/27/2007 07:04 PM

by Missy Caulk Ann Arbor Real Estate (Keller Williams Ann Arbor, Michigan)

Missy~ Thank you for the rating and the comment. I agree, I know we all like useing the free services that are out there but there comes a time when you MUST spend a little money to make a little money. Thanks for the post!

07/28/2007 09:34 AM

by Skye Hawk, NAR Certified REPA (At Your Service! Virtual Assistant Specialists)

Excellent post. I have actually heard clients say they check business cards to see whether they have a hotmail/yahoo/shaw/telus email address, rather than one at a domain.

It looks so unprofessional - and it's usually free to set up email forwarding from a domain to go to your, say, hotmail account if you want.

07/28/2007 09:47 AM

by Mike Fotiou, Calgary & Area Real Estate (First Place Realty)