Each week in our BNI lunchtime meeting, I am expected to get up and tell other members and visitors a little bit about my work in a sixty second snapshot.
If you want to find out a bit more about our weekly meetings, skip to the bottom of this page.
Here's what I had to say this week:
"My name is Jon Ewing and I'm from inframes.com ltd in Reading, a design and development company that builds websites for businesses.
"You should refer business to me because I have been helping people to use the internet to generate new business for nearly eleven years.
"This week I have been setting up email accounts for fellow BNI member Trevor Walton of the TPW Group. Trevor has a portfolio of companies offering building services and opportunities for investors in property development. On any given week he could be doing deals worth millions of pounds and yet he didn't own a domain name for his company, just a free Yahoo! Mail account.
"There's nothing wrong with using a service like Yahoo!, Hotmail or GMail to manage your email, especially if you are on the road a lot. But does handing out a business card with a generic, free email address send out the right signals to potential customers? In most cases, I'd say not. In fact it may lead the more cynical buyer to suspect your credentials.
"But looking professional is neither expensive nor difficult. With a single 'phone call, we arranged the purchase of tpwgroup.co.uk and set up an email service for Trevor at a cost of only £3.99 + VAT per month. And best of all, Trevor can continue to use Yahoo! Mail to send and receive email, so he doesn't have to change the way he communicates with existing customers, but his email address looks much more professional to prospective ones.
"This week, have a browse through your business cards to see if there's anyone you know whose email address doesn't do them justice. And let them know there's someone who can change that for only £3.99 a month.
"To find out how good your website could be, look into inframes."
What's BNI?
I am part of a growing new chapter of the BNI business networking group and we're looking for other Reading-based small business professionals to refer business to.
We meet between 12.15pm and 1.45pm on Wednesdays. If you'd like to come along to a lunch, please drop me a line or give me a call and I'll put you in touch with our organiser.
There's absolutely no commitment required – you just pay a tenner, which covers the cost of lunch at the Strada on the Oracle Riverside - and you'll have a chance to meet existing members and other visitors, introduce your business and of course hand out business cards.
