I just glanced down at a business card sitting on my desk that belongs to a friend of mine and I wondered two things:
1) Why didn’t she order her business cards from PrinterBees? This is a long-time friend and I can’t help but think how the quality would have been much better and the cost, likely much less.
2) Why does her email end with @sbcglobal.net??? Why??? Why?? Why! It makes me crazy when I think of the risk to her business.
The PrinterBees part allows me to take a closer look at our marketing efforts. I clearly haven’t done an effective job of marketing to her because if I had, she would have either ordered business cards from PrinterBees or possibly dropped me a line as to why she didn’t, such as… “I have to use the in-house printing company…, I totally forgot you print! or the worst case scenario, I used “you bees” before and you suck (Oh NO!!!)“ Either way, the marketing was lacking and I will need to take a much closer look at my personal communication with my sphere of influence, see where there is an opportunity for change. Thankfully there’s always room for improvement.
It was the email part made me crazy! Please hear me Realtors®!!!! Do not allow the success of your business to be in the hands of an internet service provider that could go out of business or change hands tomorrow. Home internet access accounts don’t provide much in a way of guarantees with anything considered critical, these type of home accounts are not intended for business-use, therefore not mission critical. When you build a business, a brand and a reputation with an email address that belongs to someone else, you’re building on quicksand. I learned this first hand when I had an @home.net email address, which was changed to an @comcast.net address without my permission when Comcast bought @Home and it “totally sucked”! I was so aggravated and completely powerless, I had built many business relationships and contacts with that email address and it negatively impacted my business. I had no recourse because I agreed not to use the account for business when I signed up. (Ahhh..the fine print!)
Realtors® are in the business of long-term relationship building. Many relationships are built over time and have a high level of trust based stability, consistency and longevity. Having the same phone, fax and email address will go a long way in a profession where the opportunity to provide your services as a Realtor® happens only once every 3-7 years, on average.
In this digital age your email address is essential to people staying in contact with you, in many cases it’s the ONLY way people may know how to contact you.
Think about this….How will it impact my friend’s business if @sbcglobal.net goes away with or without warning? Her business card says heremail@sbcglobal.net and she’s given away thousands of them, not to mention all of the marketing materials she’s produced over the years. What if she decides to relocate to an area where they don’t offer SBC Global as a service? When I lived in California, I had Comcast as my provider, thankfully I didn’t use my @comcast.net email account like my husband who used it as his primary email address. When we moved to Arizona where Comcast doesn’t offer service, he no longer had access to that account and many people lost contact with him as a result.
Be in control of your own destiny by owning your own domain name that can be hosted anywhere on the Internet and will remain the same, no matter what internet service provider is or isn’t in business. Owning your own domain not only shows professionalism, it gives you control of your own destiny and the freedom to “move about the country” as they say.
I have a friend who retired from one of the big real estate companies we all know by name after many… many… many years of service. She had used the corporate email address a good portion of her career and she used it exclusively. Still very active in real estate, but not as an agent, the company cut her email off because she was no longer an active agent for their company. It’s reasonable from a corporate standpoint (potential liability and such), but completely unreasonable at the same time from her perspective and there wasn’t anything she could do because it’s their domain, therefore their property. Her email address is their property.
Protect yourself and your business by owning your own domain. Make sure to read the article “How to avoid domain name disasters”, you’ll be glad you did before you buy that domain.
Always use an email address, fax number and phone number on your real estate marketing materials you own, that you set up personally and personally paid for. He or she with the log in and password is the owner in the eyes of the Internet, so make sure you register for these services yourself. Treat the purchase of your domain name as you would the purchase of an important piece of property, because that’s exactly what it is when you build a business on it.
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