Apr. 12, 2006 - Professionalism and the Email Address

How does one acquire the title of “professional”?  This is a subject often debated in real estate circles.  Are doctors professional? Yes.  Are lawyers professional? Yes.  Are real estate agents professional?  Are mortgage reps professional?

I am prompted to raise this point by the last two comments on a previous post.  An “anonymous” commenter asks if anyone is “kicking ass today”.  Dustin responds with “?”.  Seems to me this same commenter has raised the “kick ass” question before.  By following the trail to the source, one can assume that this commenter is in the mortgage business in Southern California.  One can also follow the yellow brick road to his email address which is at Yahoo.com

People often ask how they should select a real estate agent and/or mortgage person.  Maybe it is not fair to say that those whose email address is yahoo or hotmail or even aol are not “professional”.  But doesn’t it seem so?  Can it be as simple as that?  Often when I am caught in a transaction with a less than professional agent or less than professional mortgage person, I am dealing with someone whose email address is nastyboy69@hotmail.com.   So I think I will go out on a limb here and propose that one’s email address IS an indication of who you are dealing with. 

If you want to be perceived as a professional, if you want to be viewed as someone whose standards of practice reach the level of “professionalism”, then take the extra step to acquire an email adress with a professional domain name.  Conversely, if you choose a real estate agent or lender, or even a lawyer, whose email address is kickass4U@yahoo.com, then don’t complain when they appear to be less than professional when acting on your behalf.

Apr. 12, 2006 - email addresses and appearance of being professional

Apr. 12, 2006 - Professional Email