You either love it or you hate it: the telephone. Great Canadian invention, lifeline for teenagers, nemesis of harried workers everywhere, the telephone can none the less be a lifeline to sales, so you simply have to deal with it.
How you deal with it will determine if you get those sales or not.
The first big question is: do you want to do this yourself? There are phone services that will be happy to take all your calls for you and present them to you as text messages or however you prefer. They give a professional appearance and make your company seem larger and more established than it may be yet. They’re not cheap, though.
If you’re looking to offload more than just phone duty, consider a Virtual Assistant. They can handle admin tasks like payroll, invoicing, scheduling and more depending on your budget and their individual specialization. They range from about $5 for offshore workers whose English may vary in quality to $50 for a fully experienced executive assistant in the same town who can do tasks in real life as well as virtually.
If you do this on your own, the first thing you need is a smartphone. I won’t lecture you on this other than to say pick either Android or iPhone, so you have access to the full range of apps to help you run your business on the road.
Configure your phone to go to voicemail in no more than four rings. Make the message professional; check it after recording and do several takes if necessary. You want to sound relaxed, assured, and competent.
Check your phone regularly, once an hour at the very least; people will call you and then go on to your competition if you don’t return their call promptly.
When you return calls, make sure you’re not out of breath or distracted; the (stationary) car or truck is often a good place to make calls, as it forms a portable sound-proof booth and there’s not much to do when you’re not driving BUT return calls.
If you keep your notes on your phone, it’s difficult if not impossible to refer to them in the middle of a call; that’s why many pros have both a tablet and a phone with them when they’re away from the office. It’s an investment that pays for itself over a year, as long as you don’t leave it on the seat and lose it when you park in a bad neighborhood.
With these few tips you should be well on your way to turning the phone from a torture device to a money faucet.
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