A full business autosignature on all your e-mails does two things: First, it tells anyone to whom you e-mail that you are serious about your business! Second, it gives every single person to whom you e-mail the option of finding out more about you. My full autosignature looks like this:
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Best regards!
Dhyan
Dhyan Atkinson
Satisfaction By Design, LLC
303-415-0243 – Boulder, CO
Dhyan@SatisfactionByDesign.com
www.TheFiveEssentialSkills.com
Business Blog: http://www.TheFiveEssentialSkills.com/blog
JOIN ME ON:
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/DhyanAtkinson
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/dhyanatkinson
Google Profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/DhyanAtkinson
Providing business skills training, consulting and business coaching to English-speaking small business owners around the world. Learn the business skills you need to be successful and get help using them out in the real world to find new clients!
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Overkill, right? I should blush when I look at myself in the mirror, yes?
There are several things I have to say about including “everything” in your autosignature.
- If you announce it, you better keep it up to date! For example, I have made a commitment to staying current on my business blog, Facebook and Linked In. People will also not go to one of my blog and find that I haven’t written any posts in the last six months. Keeping current with the links and blogs you announce is a critical part of maintaining the professionalism your auto-signature implies.
- An auto-signature IS effective. I have had my friends, clients, and business colleagues forward my auto-signature to people they are referring to me and my business. By the time the person actually calls me, they have usually clicked on every link to take a look! The fact that they have continued the process by calling me immeasurably shortens the selling process. They are already more than half way there to hiring me!
- You don’t have to use your full auto-signature on every e-mail. My auto-signature can easily be deleted between the tagline at the bottom and my e-mail address when I e-mail a friend or someone who hears from me all the time.
- Even if you think someone HAS your contact information it is a good idea to include it with every e-mail you send out. Make it VERY easy for people to contact you without having to look your contact information up. I don’t know how many times I have gone to e-mail first hoping that it will be a shortcut to contacting a client or friend only to find they didn’t bother to include their contact information because “I know them.”
FOR OUTLOOK USERS: I use Outlook as my e-mail provider. I can’t speak for all the other options, but in Outlook you set up an auto-signature by going to the “Tools Menu,” clicking on “Options” and then selecting the “Mail Format” tab. Then select “Signatures” on that drop down menu and off you go! One more tip: Unlike Microsoft Word the links will not automatically “go live” when you type them. Select your e-mail address or url; click on the little “chain links over the world” icon, click “existing file or web page,” click “ok,” and the link will go live.
