If you’re a small business with limited time and resources, rather than react to random phone calls, have prospects arrange to talk using an embedded website calendar system.
I recently took my mobile phone number off of my website. There’s several reasons why.
For one, chit chatting on the phone with people who are just “tyre kickers” (even though they pretend they’re not) is, well… tiring. 😓
Time wasters, price buyers, discount seekers, brain pickers, ear benders, scammers, salespeople, liars, manipulators and lunatics can and will run you ragged, especially if they reveal themselves to be a “carrot dangler” which I assure you is not as weird as it sounds, but rather, is someone who likes to talk in terms of offering you an “opportunity” when in reality, the only opportunity is for them to get you to give them free consultation under false pretences. 🙉
Why does this happen?
Because it was so easy for them to get in touch by phone.
“But my business is different,” I hear you say. “We get all our work/sales through the phone. If we remove our phone number, we’re dead in the water.”
Is It Your Job to Answer Calls?
Some businesses are staffed by teams of receptionists or inbound call handlers.
These people are paid to be on the front lines dealing with whoever happens to ring up. These call handlers are usually employees and they spend all day answering questions, setting up appointments, and acting as gatekeepers. 🛑
Not all of us can do this, though.
Some of us wear ALL the hats in our business, which means we’re stretched out more than Stretch Armstrong himself, and he was BUILT to be stretched. Don’t hear much from him these days do you? Apparently he went out of business because too many people were taking the piss and stretching him all day long.
If you work by yourself or as part of a tiny team, the whole phone-number-on-our-website thing needs to stop.
At the very least, remove your mobile phone number. Put a landline number on your website etc, and set up your phone system so that any unanswered calls forward to your mobile after say, 30 seconds of it ringing.
This way, you protect your precious mobile number from Joe Public and still get to have the mobile number in play without revealing them digits! You don’t want scammers and weirdos getting hold of your mobile number because it is often an unguarded gateway to your private life.
I use SwitchboardFREE as my phone system (a replacement for Skype) and, thankfully, it has call forwarding abilities.
Think Before You Advertise…
The situation becomes orders of magnitude more aggravating when you spend large sums on advertising campaigns. You’ll be opening up the floodgates to swathes of random people who all want to “have a chat” for reasons that might not align with your own.
These are usually the ones who are on a fishing expedition for free advice or quotes so that they can play you off against a competitor, which usually means it’s about price. 🤥
Time to take off all those hats and just put on the thinking cap.
Fewer Calls But More Time Better Spent
It pays to be clever in how you choose to approach the use of the telephone. ⏱️
With some savvy repositioning, you could end most of the hassle I mentioned above and begin setting yourself up as a more serious outfit that won’t engage with The Great Unwashed, aka Joe Public.
What should you do? Three things:
- Stop plastering the phone number all over the website
- Stop talking in terms of “taking enquiries”
- Install and manage a calendar booking system
For most people, this is a scary proposition. They’ll find that their phone is ringing much less than it ever was before, and that’s an uncomfortable feeling.
But that’s the point.
Instead, your website will guide people toward a contact page with an embedded calendar featuring bookable time slots, which means you’ll only ever agree to speak on the phone to someone if you know who it is and what it’s about.
When someone books (by jumping through some easy-ish hoops), you know they’re more likely to be actual prospects and not these suspects we’ve been talking about.
Not only will you be having more meaningful conversations in a more predictable manner (although there will be less of them), it also stops you looking like some kind of order taker.
TidyCal: Better Value Than Calendly
You can use Calendly or TidyCal or something else for this. They both have paid and free tiers, but I went with TidyCal because it’s better value than Calendly.
Great thing about TidyCal is that you can have multiple calendars for different purposes, such as if you’re on site or in a consultation.
You can have people book any kind of call or session and all the calendars communicate with each other so that accidental double booking is impossible. 🚥
There’s a PayPal and Stripe integration option too, which means payments for paid bookings can be taken before you actually deliver a session.
The Google Calendar integration is fantastic too, and means my personal obligations and family matters can be added to my private schedule, which, in turn, means that it’s not possible for someone to book business chats or business consulting sessions if I’m otherwise engaged, indisposed, etc. ⛔
Summary: You Can’t Print More Time, So Spend it Wisely
I guarantee, very few, if any of your competitors, dare remove a phone number, but that’s because they’re aping one another, and THAT’S because they believe “that’s the way it’s done”.
Sometimes I receive enquiries on LinkedIn or Facebook, and if the person expresses interest in talking, they are given a direct link to whichever TidyCal calendar is appropriate (usually the 15 minute one), and everyone is happy because they DO get my phone number but in a controlled manner. ⚙️
People who respect their own time tend to command respect from others, so stop being so available. Stop being so easy to get hold of.
Of course, there’s a difference between putting your phone number out there and then never answering when people call (which is annoying) versus not putting your phone number out there at all because there’s an alternative, more efficient way based around systems and processes.
This changes the market’s perception of you, which is known as “positioning”. If you haven’t figured it out, positioning has a lot to do with your earning ability. ⏳
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