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Are you riding the "Email Bus" to work?
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Do you use your own vehicle to drive your customers to homes they might be
interested in, or do you herd them all to the nearest bus stop and wait for the
next bus to arrive?
Recently a problem was posted in the
All Things Outlook group I started on
RealTown. The
problem was "When I am using a wireless connection at my office, I cannot use
Outlook to send email. I have to go directly to the Internet and by pass
Outlook."
Some answers were posted in the group, and also on the RealTalk listserv, on how to
fix this issue. I didn't mention them because they simply "patch" the real
problem, they don't "fix" it. While you can get the information you need
to change your email account settings in order to get around an issue that is a
plague to many professionals, it is an indication of a problem that you should
be solving with a different solution than getting someone else's permission to
use your own email account. Oh yeah, I forgot, that email account isn't
really yours is it? Are you the master of your own destiny, or just
another slave at the mercy of a higher power? You just might be figuring
out as you read what I'm saying, that using someone else's choice in ISP's for
you is putting you at their mercy and removing a huge level of control from your
hands and placing it in theirs.
The real problem is, you either don't own your own domain, or you don't use your
own domain the way you should be using it. Oh, you might be saying to
yourself, "I have Google, Yahoo, or some other so-called "free" email service
and I can use it anywhere. I never have these problems. Or maybe the
broker or that big franchise brokerage gave you your own email address and a web
site too. Well that's really nice of them... until you leave. How
long before that email address is pointing all incoming email to their "catch
all" account and you no longer have access? You really think you are going
to spend the rest of your professional life working for the same company?
What if they go out of business? Come on, you can think of other things
that can change just like I can... I could make a list for you, but you really
don't need that.
If you are using your personal email account the ISP you use at home, or work
for that matter, has given to you, you should be changing that right
now. And I mean immediately! You are putting your professional
career at risk by allowing someone else to control one of the most valuable
things you currently own... your email identity. Doing this doesn't mean
you have to give up those other email addresses. If you want to hang on to
that AOL or Hotmail account you've had for years, that's fine. But you
shouldn't be using those in your professional career... it's not "professional"
is it? Any good real estate coach or trainer you might have met in
your career training, will tell you what I'm saying right now. Brand
yourself! Use it! Set up your own domain email address and start
using it. Forward all of the other accounts to your domain email.
Since you can set up any number of email account names on your own domain, you
can even forward email from these various accounts you may have to special email
accounts on your domain. Then you can decide what email address to use
when you respond to these messages. Send everyone you know your new email
address using your new account. And, even if you can't contact them because the
mail bounces, you still have those old accounts forwarding your email.
Stop using the email account at the brokerage, unless you own it of course.
You need to start using your own account. There is no better time to start
than now. I don't sell web sites or email accounts so I don't have any
special interest in anything other than giving out some free advice from things
I have figured out after 30+
years in the technology business. And I practice what I am preaching here.
If you don't have the faintest idea of where to start, start by calling the
folks that host the RealTown
site, Saul, Mike, John ... they have their own solutions that can help you, and
you know they will take care of you. But, no matter what you decide,
decide something that changes this situation if you happen to be the one in it.
Don't wait either. Some life changing event could be just around the
corner that might take away any control you think you currently have over your
professional destiny.
Get off the bus, and start driving your own car!
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