Avoid Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail for Business Emails

Many Times I received mail that contain info like

Hi There,
My name is Julia Smith, and I am the owner of a web design and development company. We would like to promote our client’s services on your blog by purchasing a banner, We make websites and provide SEO services.
Please get back to me with rates and availability and we’ll discuss.

Mail looks perfectly fine but one thing that made me trash the email on the spot: the sender address. It was something like juliasmith12@gmail.com.

I mean, the guy owns a web design and development agency and is using a gmail account? Nothing against Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo and the like, as I have email accounts on all those services, but on a business communication like the one above using such services sounds fishy.

First of all it makes me wonder if the guy really owns a web design agency in the first place. In the case he does, he must have a website/domain, so how come he is not using it to send the email? Is there anything to hide?

Not surprisingly, when I did ignore those warning signals in the past and replied to the person using a free email account the results weren’t that good. Most of the time I end up not closing the deal.

Not only me, but also other do same thing. So buy a domain and server and be professional.