When you’re going out on your own, doesn’t matter what the business, there are two things you need. A custom email, i.e. no yahoo, gmail or outlook, account and if you’re a fresh out of school, don’t use you’re school issued email. And a phone number that has the area code you’re doing business out of. This will instantly put a dash of professionalism on whatever you’ve decided to do.
Having a Custom Email
Nothing says you’re new to the business like having potential clients receive an email from your gmail or yahoo account. Yeah it’s not free, but I’ve had people say they’ve contacted me because I had an email that was from a custom domain and not one that had gmail.com or yahoo.com tacked onto the end of it.
As I mentioned above. It’s not free, but it’s not expensive either and you’ll need two things. A domain name and your choice of email service. I personally use google’s G Suite for my email service. It’s only $5/month per user. You’re also able to create an info(at), sales(at), etc email alias that will direct any emails from there to your email. G Suite also comes with a lot of other features as well. For your domain name you can register one at either godaddy, dreamhost or somewhere similar, which usually runs about $12/year.
An in Area Phone Number
It’s easy to use a phone number you already have, but, if you’re like me, you’ve had the same number for years and it has a different area code than where you currently live. This may not work in your favor as people now-a-days are always wary of phone calls from a different area code due to spam calls. So do yourself a favor and sign up for a Google Voice number. It’s free and it allows you to sign up for a number in any area code, at least in the US, you’d like. Google Voice even has a mobile app for phones that allows you to use your contacts book on your phone through your newly established number.
Once you have those two things up and running you’ll already look more like a professional that’s been around for years.
