What your email address says about you

What The Tech? with Your Mate Matt<p><p><p><p>There's a small thing that quietly costs regional businesses work, and it's your email address.<p><p>I'm talking about the bob_plumbing_1987@hotmail.com situation. <p><p>Or the gmail one. Or, if you've been around long enough, the bigpond address you've had since the dial-up days.<p><p>Nothing wrong with those addresses. They send and receive mail fine. But when a customer's deciding whether to trust you with a few grand of work, the little signals add up. An email ending in @yourbusiness.com.au reads like a real business. One ending in @gmail.com reads like a side hustle, fair or not.<p><p>I see it most with trades and accommodation. <p><p>A bloke quotes a $4000 deck and the quote lands from a free webmail account. The customer doesn't think "scammer" exactly. <p><p>They just feel a tiny bit less sure. That hesitation is enough to make them get one more quote. <p><p>And one more quote is one more chance for someone else to win the job.<p><p>Good news is the fix is cheaper and easier than most people reckon.<p><p>If you already own a domain name (the yourbusiness.com.au bit your website lives on), you can almost always run email off it. Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 both do it for around $10 to $15 a month. You keep using Gmail or Outlook the way you already do. <p><p>The only thing that changes is what people see after the @ sign.<p><p>If you haven't got a domain yet, you can grab one for about $20 a year. <p><p>You don't even need a website to start. The email can come first.<p><p>One thing to dodge. Don't let your domain and email get tangled up with whoever built your last website, where only they hold the keys. I've had clients locked out of their own business email because it was set up under someone else's account years ago, and that person had long moved on. <p><p>Own your domain in your own name. It's the digital version of holding the deeds to your shop.<p><p>So here's your one win for this fortnight. <p><p>Look at the email address on your last few quotes or invoices. <p><p>If it ends in gmail, hotmail, bigpond or outlook, that's the cheapest way to look more legit I know of. <p><p>For the price of a couple of coffees a month, you come across like the real deal. Sorting it is an afternoon job, not a project.<p><p>And if you'd rather not muck around with it, give me a yell. <p><p>Sorting this out without the jargon is literally my job.<p><p><EM>Matt Rowlands runs Your Mate Agency, helping regional businesses get found online. Get in touch at yourmateagency.com.au or 0478 101 521.</EM>