[I am totally indebted to this post at the Oatmeal “What your e-mail address says about your computer skills” for stirring my creative juices on this topic]

You are a small business owner.

You have a computer that you use for multiple tasks across the course of a normal day.

You communicate with your clients and prospects by telephone, fax and e-mail.

So far, so good!

You use a generic e-mail address from one of the “free” services to send and receive e-mails from your clients. It’s something like “[email protected]” or “[email protected]”.

What?

Do you know what this says to your customers? This says “I don’t really believe in this Internet stuff and I think it’s a fad just like Pet Rocks and Hula-Hoops!” More than that it might also say “I know I should be doing something about getting my own domain and/or website but honestly I’m just too lazy!”

Honestly, it’s not that hard or time consuming or expensive in 2011 to register your own domain name and get an e-mail address that reflects a professional image for you and your company. If you need help with something like this ask someone – hey ask me!

And once you get your own domain name make sure that you do something with it beyond just establishing an e-mail account. If I visit one more site that says “Under Construction” or “Welcome to the future home of…” I think I’ll scream…but that’s a rant for another day!