Why use domain based email for your business | Ep. #18

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We did not know Huckleberry was an actual fruit. We’re drinking Laughing Dog’s Huckleberry. BGC and Nealey are also talking about domain-based email for your business. For the love of all things good in this world, don’t use an @gmail for your business email. If you get anything from this episode, let it be that.

Transcription of the episode

Errors courtesy of automation and lack of time

00:00 You are listening to episode 18 of craft thinking today we’re talking about why use domain based email for your business guys, I’m nearly and I’m BGC and we’re just going to absolutely rock your world today, but as always we’ve got to drink some beer. Today’s beard. A little interesting. I’d have to say. Yeah, I’m deals, you know, deals with a berry that I didn’t even know existed. I thought it was just like a name from a book from a book, but apparently it’s a real barrier. Huckleberries, what it is brewed with. Um, I don’t know what they are, what they taste like, but we’re going to find out this is actually by a laughing dog brewery out of Idaho and the beer is called huckleberry says it’s an Ale fermented with huckleberries. So if you know anything about huckleberries, feel free to a post on our facebook page, too lazy to look it up, you know, in this case we are, you know, so I think we should open these up because I’m not too lazy for that.

01:18 Yeah.

01:19 Interesting. So it was like a blueberry to me.

01:21 Yeah,

01:23 you should know is various tastes like Chanel is berries.

01:26 Yeah.

01:28 It tastes like a mild blueberry to me. What about you?

01:34 Ah,

01:35 like I can taste it. It has some other type of in it. I’m not sure. It was like a fusion. I don’t know. This is weird and there was a lot of like pause. We’re looking at the audacity feed right now. There’s a lot of just dead air is a lot that we might cut that. Yeah, we’ll fix that in post as they say in the industry. Uh, the can is not the best made the, the wrapper, the rally. I took the sticker and like fun mine. The um, by laughing dog. It’s all like wavy. The sticker was put on. So I’m not the biggest fan of this beer. I think it’s a little weak, honestly. Reminds me of like a light with little fruitiness in it. Of course it with some blueberries in it. Yeah. The corps light, healthy coors light, I mean, water’s healthy. Blueberries in it. That’s infused right there. Good. Sell this at high end salons as infused water. The more I drank it, the worse it gets. It’s staying at a constant for me. I’m just not impressed in general.

02:39 Yeah.

02:41 Sorry. Laughing dog. You might have in some other good ones, but this one was interesting. I think this person a male on the show, I think so. 18 beers. Beers down at least a. yeah. You know, I’m not going to give us a horrible rating. I’ll say like a five point five. I gave it a three. A three [inaudible] higher than that. Yeah. I’d rather drink the LAGUNITA’s you’d rather know. I’ve got them in my fridge so I’ll pull it out. I know I saw it in your fridge and I was like, that’s been there for awhile because I. There’s no way that you see that’s like a three point five. We didn’t read it last night. I didn’t read it and ETA’s over this. It sucks less.

03:38 Yeah.

03:39 Yeah. That’s the definition. When you came up with it, it sucks less than normal ips.

03:46 Yeah.

03:47 I can see. Is that that that a three is personally I just don’t like the aftertaste and it just sits in your mouth. It’s just, it’s not for me. This is not for me. I could see this as like a decent summer beer. It’s a hundred 20 degrees outside. You want something that’s a little refreshing, something that tastes good, tastes horrible. I think we could disagree on this one a little bit. There we have it. Neither of us. By the way, this is not a great beer in my personal opinion. You know, listening to this post your favorite Idaho beer that we can get in Arizona. Let’s represent Idaho better than those guys.

04:42 Plus we have the ability to get an Arizona unless they’re gonna. Ship it down to us. We’re okay with our budgets. Sorry. Yeah, this is very, very low budget, so I think we can finish talking about this or I don’t think it needs to be more airtime. Now. Let’s move on. Move on. Okay. The episode. I’m a big fan of Mark Twain and uh, was a great character. Tom Sawyer, great character. Huckleberries. I’m sorry. You are invoking Mark Twain and that’s what it is. I really just am frustrated with this beer called huckleberry rebellious in general, a solid year. Anyways, built rebelling, good taste. That’s true, but not in a good way. All right. Let’s talk about domain based email and why you should use it. I think domain based email is more under utilized compared to business owners getting websites. I think a business owner is less likely.

05:54 Yeah, you’re, you’re obviously you have a budget and some, some businesses don’t, can’t justify buying email with a Romanian and they go, oh cool, I can just get a gmail. It’s free, right? It’s fine. It’ll be okay. Um, just because they’re all the same, like say you needed a work truck for your home remodeling company. Just because it has an engine for wheels doesn’t mean a truck is for what happens when you use a personal product for industrial usage. It just doesn’t end very well or begin well or like in the middle. Well, the process you have sacrificed your sacrifice on this is going to be customers 100 percent. So I’ll give you that kind of an example scenario. So a construction site. I go to a site, I’m interested, I reached out to him form, know how much I’m going to trust him. You guys wouldn’t trusted bank wells Fargo, Bank of America. I don’t care. Email in email from someone who is trying to be a company is not going to have in your head it a business card, some numbers in it or numbers in it. It still doesn’t make it any better and then they compare the other business card or any other website and ends at their domain name. Which one would you personally see? More professional [email protected].

09:15 It really is the g mill itself. It just looks like he don’t care. Like you don’t care enough to consistent back a couple of episodes. You’re branding well enough and you care about making sure that your email secure, reliable. So you give your customers a consistent experience with what your kind of putting out in the world.

09:37 Exactly. It builds trust and when. When you talk about your business, you should be branding for your business and your business alone. Who are you branding for?

09:47 With a website, with like a duck, your domain with your name.wix.com.

09:53 Yeah. Your branding for somebody else, who do you want a brand for? Google does not need your help. They have an advertising budget and they use it and they use it really well. Unless Google is paying you email address, you’re giving them free advertising. Google Pixel here. They got me. I use android cell phones, right? Yeah. They’re probably listening to this right now. They’re going to know about this a month before, but also keep in mind, Google doesn’t really offer free business. Email. Email is meant for personal usage. Go the Google business apps. Google themselves are telling you don’t use Gmail. Use our google business email

10:55 and it’s not to sell you on stuff guys. It’s to add value to your business. The people you touch. Again, we kind of went back to it like the whole thing is you have to build trust, especially as a solo or a small business. It’s tough to build trust and if you’re sending emails, nobody’s going to trust whether you’re legitimate or not. If you’re an actual business, if you’re just running some sweatshop somewhere, uh, you guys have to be consistent with it and it’s not that expensive to. If you really think about it, most emails like per user is about a cup of coffee a month.

11:29 The thing we need to put in perspective what it is, you’re getting a, an email server which costs thousands of dollars if you do, if it’s an exchange license, which last time I checked what 10 grand for that, even if it’s half the cost for that within an it person who went to college for you that you need to have them 24, seven, three 65. So you need to pay good 60 grand to a hundred grand. That’s a stressful job. They need vacation, they need benefits. They need all of these things because that’s a very white collar position. So you could go and spend $250,000 and have, have all of that. What the giant corporations are investing in because they’re spending hundreds of thousands. A lot of times millions of dollars just for this type of email or. Yeah, for most 15, $20 a month, as little as $4 a month to pay on the email plan you get, you’ve got that business class email that is meant to help your brand and that tends to have more tools and resources at your fingertips to make your day more efficient. You should be investing in that.

12:44 I liked the, uh, the extra tools in efficient, especially when you start to add on different people to your business, your organization, you’re going to want to make sure you have the tools to kind of collaborate with them to start off. You can’t keep creating extra at Gmail, at dre addresses for your, your business. You want to make sure you can actually create sally at dgcm nearly at, at kraft thinking dot [inaudible]. You want to expand on that?

13:11 Do you want him to be consistent in, look, if you keep creating more email addresses, you have to go with what’s available and it’s not gonna look standard and uniform. It’s a horrible. It looks super sketchy and you’re not going to be able to. For example, I, I can’t get [email protected], but if I want to a young creative thinking, I could have brain and aircraft thinking [inaudible] or BGC aircraft that you’re not calm way Justin get justin [inaudible] he can get, probably got like Justin, 19, 38 at Gmail Dot com, Justin craft thinking that’s a giant waste and it’s not consistent with the brand message whatsoever. And then as you mentioned, the, the actual tools themselves with collaborating, you know, we use, um, use this Microsoft planner, which is part of the office suite basically, right? You’ll get things like storage that you can share with the other employees and you can make sure that they’re up to date on any tools or resources that they need to use on the go, on their smartphone. You can sync your calendar with them and you can update their calendar. If an office manager, they can have access to everyone’s calendar and you are all on the same page. Right? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of these plans include so much more. They’re going to help you out. Now, is this something we should talk about? Ge sweeper versus office 65 or should we put. Should we put that in its own episode?

14:40 Let’s just kind of give a taste like so guys, the, the main, main contenders there. Really the only ones out there. There are obviously a little niche email for business, but it’s office three, 60 or Gmail and a lot of it’s going to really go and come down to preference because they have some of the same functionality. Some has different ones, but that’s has to be a different episode because we can kind of go off on a tangent with that one.

15:04 That’ll take a long time. I mean, I’ll, I’ll say which one I prefer. I tend to prefer officer three, 65 honestly. Um, I mean Google’s a stable as all get out for sure. Uh, but I think office aside from the interface is more convenient because you’ve probably. Everyone’s probably interface, but choosing something to Jessica interface. I’ve worked for a lot of companies that choose something for employees because the interface that then takes me 10 times longer to get a job done and I feel officers, g five is made for the small, medium and large corporations all in on getting things done efficiently.

15:43 I’m gonna agree with Brandon there and I prefer Microsoft office three 65 for email. The only thing I like really with Google is google drive. That’s mainly because my phone syncs all my stuff to google drive and it’s super simple

15:58 word document. That’s good though. That’s the problem. So I think so I just thought it was more convenient on on other aspects. You’re going to have three benefits offices to five for that one. Phenomenal seeking benefit office with all my other stuff. Everything. She’s 65 would sink like I could easily more easily access like my excel documents, powerpoint, stuff like that. I’m sure that it’ll get better. We’ll talk about, again, we go off on a tangent so you know when it comes down to it.

16:31 Another thing when you’re using gmails, understand that. Then prove it to your business, to what you’re doing internally. Why? Why do you think they give you for free? What is Google get out of it. They’re scanning every single thing that you do so they can understand you, so freaking well so they can market to you and make you buy stuff and make your customers buy stuff. Right? Exactly right. So when your customers are

17:03 sending an email to you and then they log into their facebook or browsing online

17:07 ads, they’re going to notice that the things they sent you an email about or the things that are being advertised towards and that doesn’t look, that doesn’t look good and we’ll just talk about the effectiveness. Actually interview with Steven Aldrich. That was on small business [inaudible]. I’ve actually never heard of this site but that seem incredibly credible. The main biggest domain based email, but the main thing is they’re interviewing someone who’s very credible. Steven Aldrich is a higher up over at go daddy and the stuff that he brought based off of their research goes multi billion dollar company that can do that type of research and get it done right is

17:50 that they are your potential customers are nine times more likely to choose a business domain based email. Nine Times more likely. That is been. It’s insane and here’s the deal. Only 20 percent of small business owners actually had domain based email, so you have a chance to be ahead of your competitors. Do you want to be below the status quo just because everybody’s doing it or do you want to be above the status quo with more influence because you’re doing it the right way and your customers don’t see us. Someone who cuts corners who can’t even figure out in this day and age, how to get you an email address and domain name. All those things go through their head when they see your Gmail address as they’re coming up with reasons not to use you and come up with reasons to use a competitor who might be larger size company that just gets it or another small business that is ahead of the curve compared to the trends, which side of that do you want to be on?

18:48 We’re talking about things like gain it and lose, but having a gmail or yahoo or non domain based email is for what it’s costs. A couple hundred dollars, a little over $100 a year. If you don’t have it, you’re losing so much money a year on lost customers is opportunity cost. You’re losing an opportunity cost depending on the size of your business, depend on how long you want to be in business. If this is something that is meant to pay all your bills, that type of thing. Understand we’re not just talking about $100 a year. You’re losing here. We’re talking about potentially losing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or a lifetime of your business. Millions of dollars

19:29 because you chose to cut corners where you shouldn’t have. It’s

19:35 goes to sign up somewhere, get it set up A. I’m sure you have a domain name, wherever you bought that domain, they likely have email service of some sort. Just get something set up. Don’t do an email forward. Do not do an email for privacy of your customers. They did not consent. The email will be sent outside your domain name, so if you guys don’t know what that is, is it you’re basically faking the email address. So say I have justin aircraft thinking, but it’s an email for. And so it was like someone sends a message to me, it goes to that and then redirects to my personal gmail address and then I reply from my personal gmail address. Then that customer is like, what the hell? I did send you an email. Oh, did that person get hacked or steal my, uh, or sell my information in that. All of a sudden there’s so many questions about the integrity of your company. I’m sure that nine times goes way, way up.

20:30 Yeah. It comes down to a play. The odds are nine times more likely to for them to choose your business or you choose email or hotmail or aol, nine times less likely

20:43 harder or work smarter, not harder, smarter to have

20:48 the that email, and I know you left the Gmail interface and it feels so good, but that doesn’t mean that it is right for your business and I know you like free. As you mentioned, free can be costing you tens of thousands of dollars. It could be costing you at least one customer every single month. It could be costing you 10 customers every single month. If you’re looking at growing and scaling your business and making it the main, your your main form of income. You are basically telling customers not to give you business. You are burning money that could be sitting in your bank account.

21:25 I don’t know about you, but I like money so I can do the things that I want to do,

21:29 right? Yeah.

21:30 Guys, at the end of the day, you have to build trust and the easiest way to do that is to have a domain based email. Make your customers feel safe and secure because that’s all we want. We want to make sure that who we do business with. It isn’t gonna. Isn’t gonna sell her information or is it gonna be shady or sketchy or whatever it might be?

21:49 Yeah, just it just didn’t. I have an exhibit extra step about a year ago. I just had to remodel my house. I didn’t touch my backyard in six months. Now I was told, Oh man, that are going to look at the backyard as far as jogging your house. So I’m like, there’s still someone coming over to my house, it’s going to see my backyard and it is bad. Right. So I had a bunch of landscapers put on my door, um, and most of the time I just throw those away, but I still had a few on my door. So I picked those up. Uh, there are about five or six companies in a google search I had, I had 10 companies and I brought it down just based off their domain based email down to two companies. Really just, I was only looking at small business owner. So that’s what I wanted to support and to have them, only two of them had domain based email.

22:38 I’m inviting them over to my house. I’m going to be at work, they’re going to be in my backyard. Well I am working, not. They’re able to see what’s inside my house. I am not doing to have somebody who do services at my house that cuts corners on me mail. There is no way that I think that they’re going to hire the right people, trustworthy people that they’re going to get the job done right. I’m this done. I had done right the first time. I couldn’t risk. That was somebody that came even figure out how to get it away from a g email address.

23:11 If they cut corners there, where else are they going to cut corners?

23:14 Exactly. So your brand reflects your work. Your brand reflects how people automatically think of you before even talking to you before you had the chance even selling them on anything. And when they see the email address at g mail, you are seen as someone who cuts corners, who’s not legitimate, who doesn’t get the job done right, and a whole lot of other negative things that it’s gonna be very difficult to overcome.

23:37 You guys have to have craft thinking when it comes to the domain based email guys. Uh, it’s what you do. Just be smart about it. We, we’ve talked to 24 minutes now about domain based email. When it’s super simple, go sign up and get it set up right now.

23:51 I will disagree with just one thing. Don’t just sign up with your domain provider, hosted provider. Uh, when it comes down to it, there are three protocols. Only one counts. It’s a popper. I’m imap. Stay away from it. Go pay the extra few dollars a month and get what’s called exchange base, email exchange, active sync. That type of email is going to be a lot more reliable. A, everything is instantaneous. The things that you expect out of it and usually requires a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the time calling, phone support. Trying to figure out if it’s your isp or their servers or your firewall blocking outgoing ports because it’s the same portal, the spammers. You so use exchange type. He Mold my recommendation.

24:37 Um, I agree with that. Uh, use Gmail or office who’s five [inaudible], Gmail for business, not [inaudible] email provider. We’ll call it google business anytime we’re talking about using Gmail. That, that’s weird to me. Anything is google business email is that, those are, those are two condensers. Um, if you have a, another one you’d prefer obviously do that. But those are our two recommendations. They’re legitimate companies. They’re using domain based email themselves obviously. But yeah. Um, question of the day,

25:11 one of the worst. A non domain based emails you have ever seen like, you know, I, I think that um, you know, for example, I’ll give you one, this one, that one was landscapers on my door. It was like, it was for landscaping company, but it was like hot stuff. Sixty nine, eighty five at live dot. Are you serious? Dude? The numbers aren’t I, I’ve modified what it was, but it started with hot stuff and I’m just, I looked at him like what type of services are they? Know the type of services are you looking, looking for those types of services for love in all the wrong that would be in the very much wrong place. So I just, I throw that away so quick. So what are some of the, were some horrible email addresses you’ve seen that business have chosen to use where you’re wondering how did you ever think that this was a good idea?

26:05 So, uh, with that, this is episode 18, why use domain based email? Make sure to subscribe on Itunes, leave us a review. It would mean the absolute world to us guys. I’m neely and I’m BGC. This is craft thinking.