And you only need $30.00
When you are building your own brand, you need to make it as official and professional as possible – here’s how to do it without spending thousands of dollars.
1. Google Business Email Account
This is such a weird pet peeve of mine, but I hate gmail addresses. They don’t look professional to me, especially if it’s coming from someone for business. Get yourself a google business email account. It’s only $5.00 per month per user, and well worth it. All you need to get started is your domain, which brings me to my second tip.
2. Domain
A domain is what your website would be. My recommendation for domain’s are GoDaddy. It’s about $12.00 per year and if you go to their website, create an account, search for a domain, add it in your cart, and don’t buy it – they’ll email you with a coupon code to try and get you to get it… and if they don’t you can get a code from RetailMeNot, so it’s only going to be $10.00
Once you get the domain, you can sign up for the Google business email account. My domain is Jendeleon.com, my email address is info@jendeleon.com
Now, doesn’t that sound so much cooler and more professional than jendeleon@gmail.com?
3. Website
Whether you are an artist, journalist, graphic designer, etc., it’s always better to have a website than to send someone 10 different links to your work. People are lazy! Make things simple and have everything in one location. When you have a website, you can have your work and socials all in one. I highly recommend WordPress. Super easy to use, and it’s free. Don’t freak out if you don’t know how to code or anything, they have free templates.
4. UPS Mailbox or P.O. Box
Alright so when I was looking for mailboxes I didn’t know the difference other than that a P.O. Box was cheaper, so I obviously wanted to go that route. The difference between a UPS mailbox and a P.O. box is that UPS is a street address, while a P.O. box is at a Post Office. When I started my LLC (I’ll save that for another blog), they wouldn’t allow me to have a P.O. Box, and they said street address only – but, I wasn’t about to put my home address so I went with the UPS mailbox. I pay about $25/month for my mailbox but that’s because it’s a business one. You can get a personal for $10-$15/month.
Another plus for a UPS mailbox is that I feel legit when someone asks for my “office address” when my office is at home lol, but no one is going to know that – well, except for anyone reading this blog. On that note, my “office address” is below:
11271 Ventura Blvd #359
Studio City, CA 91604
5. Office Number
Phone bills and extra lines are expensive, but you don’t need that to have an office number. Check out Sideline, an app that allows you to have a second number linked to your phone. It’s like Google Voice, but way better, and it’s free. (One thing to know about me is that I always find the best deals because I got school loans and debt to pay lol). Anyway, with sideline you can choose the area code you want, and then the service is used through your main line. The only thing you really need to know is that if you don’t use your number for 60 days, the number expires.
Hope these tips helped you out!