Six simple steps to get control of your email address!

What if you woke up tomorrow and your email address was suddenly yourname@bs.com?

If you use an email address that is controlled by your carrier it could happen. The operative word here being CONTROLLED. Entrepreneurs and self-employed people are well known for wanting to be the masters of their own destiny and the captain of their ship. There are tons of books and articles about how these kind of people struggle with being good managers because they have a hard time delegating because they can’t relinquish control. Yet every day, I see hundreds of these people putting one of the most critical communications and marketing tools of their business in the hands of a big corporation when their email address is something@yourcarrier.com. Why would you want to promote the telecommunications company you happen to be using every time you send or receive an email?

Why do I need to make this change?

Email may be the most important business communications tool of the 21st
How many emails do you send or receive every day? How many important documents do you receive or send each and every business day? How many new customers do you start to interact with VIA EMAIL? How important are those emails going back and forth between you and your customer base to keeping them happy AND KEEPING THEM AS CUSTOMERS? COME ON PEOPLE, THIS IS A BIG DEAL! Why in heaven’s name would you want to entrust that to a company that it takes you 45 minutes to get on the phone?

Sometimes YOU need to make a change!
Nothing in our modern society stays the same for very long. Change is the only constant. All kinds of companies are merging and changing their focus. After being one of the first companies in the world in the PC business IBM decided that they needed to be OUT OF the PC business. IBM started the PC business and helped change the way we do everything but now THEY DON’T WANT TO DO IT ANYMORE! The email at bs.com is an example I used to use during the old Bellsouth days. Lots of folks had bellsouth.net email addresses, heck I had one. What if they had decided to shorten it? Shorter is better, right? Hence bs.com. The point is, companies you deal with sometimes do things that are not necessarily in your best interest. When this happens, you may have to look elsewhere for that product or service. If your email is @yourcarrier.com IT BELONGS TO THEM! The Number Portability Act federally mandated that you be able to take your telephone numbers with you to whatever carrier you chose, EMAIL ADDRESSES ARE NOT COVERED! The carrier OWNS that dot whatever domain and owns YOUR EMAIL. If you need to change carriers, you can’t take that with you. Even if you are not planning on going anywhere, why not go ahead and get this taken care of for all the reasons I have already mentioned above.

You probably already have it.
Just about every company and organization today has a presence on the internet. You probably have some kind of a website at a descriptive domain name. yourcompany.com or ifixyourfaucetts.net or something else that helps promote what you do. Almost every web hosting company on the planet INCLUDES email at your domain in their packages at no extra cost. You probably have this and you are not using it. You are wasting money that you have already spent.

Hopefully you are on board with this idea now and are ready to make it happen. J

Here are the 6 simple steps to changing your email:

Get your new email up and running
Contact your hosting provider and get your new email set up. One of the benefits of email at your domain is you get to get rid of all the crazy extra stuff that you have to add because you aren’t the only John Smith on the system. Instead of being johnsmith154mz8911@whatever.com now you can be johnsmith@ifixyourfaucett.net or just john!

START USING IT NOW!
Forward your old email to your new one so that when you respond to email, they get your new email address. Change your printed materials and all your other advertising to reflect your new email address. Remember the old one is forwarded so you still get those.

Set up an autoresponder on your old email.
Auto responder is something every email has. It just basically sends an email to everyone that sends you an email an important message like “I will be on vacation all week.” Or “We got your message and will respond to it promptly” Just set this up on your old email to tell people that your address is changing.

Send an email to everyone you normally market to via email and let them know you are changing.

If you don’t have a list of emails that you regularly send information to you should. Most folks do. Send those people a message that your emails are changing. BTW send it from the NEW one and the old one.

Talk about the change.
Put it in your newsletter Post it on social media. TALK to your customers about it during your normal conversations with them. “Oh by the way Mr. Customer, we are changing our email addresses to whatever@yourcompany.com . “How hard is that?

Put up a sign in your office that notifies people about your new email address.
If you have foot traffic to your business put up a sign in the lobby or on the door or at the checkout counter or all the above.

If you follow these simple steps you will be surprised at how easy the change will be.

n start writing!