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Answer your phone!

Topics relating to managing people and relationships

Knugs

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Answer your phone!

Seriously, I just had another one that left me on ring. Will I be calling back later? No, I just rang their closest competitors and arranged the appointment that I needed for my car. At least call back asap.

This isnt the first time. It happens to me to roughly 1/3 of all enquiries I send. Small businesses and freelancers not answering calls or ignoring e-mails. Rarely I have been called back. Replying late is as bad as not responding at all.

We had a design contract worth roughly 10k and I contacted 7 providers. One emailed and called back immediately. Two emailed in 24 hours, two emailed 5 days later to arrange a call for the next week and one had given no response. We picked one contractor after speaking to three in less than 48 hours. But calling me back a week later to ask for more details when I have already received a wireframe from the guy that I contracted to do the job? Thats just bad.

Every time I do a B2B enquiry this happens.

If your communication is already bad in the sales-part I dont even want to know how bad it gets when we have closed the deal. Not answering calls, not calling back, not e-mailing back or replying e-mails late are all red flags. In this day and age with everybody having a smartphone and e-mails on the phone you have to reply!
 
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Longinus

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Some folks just have plenty of work and couldn't care less about extra clients/sales/headaches. And most of these calls are mainly to ask price and compare anyways.

It used to frustrate me, but now I'm in the same position.
 

Knugs

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Some folks just have plenty of work and couldn't care less about extra clients/sales/headaches. And most of these calls are mainly to ask price and compare anyways.

It used to frustrate me, but now I'm in the same position.

If they are comfortable and dont want to scale I understand. Thats one way of running a business. But for me every lead is a potential client. Categorising them into "ask price and compare" sounds to me more of failing to convert a lead.
 

Timmy C

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Sometimes it works out better for them to just not respond.

I've had people want to buy from me to do Google ads for him, I told him no seya later.

From our 1 minute conversation I could tell he was not worth my time due to his attitude and personality.
 
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Longinus

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If they are comfortable and dont want to scale I understand. Thats one way of running a business. But for me every lead is a potential client. Categorising them into "ask price and compare" sounds to me more of failing to convert a lead.

Once you have an abundance of leads, you start recognizing headache clients and start to realize an extra lead isn't always worth it.

I'm simply done quoting for people that expect I work for 10% of my price. Maybe one day you'll get in that phase as well.
 

Knugs

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Sometimes it works out better for them to just not respond.

I've had people want to buy from me to do Google ads for him, I told him no seya later.

From our 1 minute conversation I could tell he was not worth my time due to his attitude and personality.

You qualified your customers. But how are you supposed to know the quality of the customer when you are not qualifying them. You have to either pick up your phone or reply and thats what you did. Unless of course the e-mail itself is so obviously randomly generated & unserious.

There's just too much soliciting/spam/robocalls to waste time picking up a phone call. I always answer emails/DMs within 12 hours though.

which might be okay depending on the type of business. So many online businesses without a number to ring. 12 hours response rate is fair and you still reply.

Once you have an abundance of leads, you start recognizing headache clients and start to realize an extra lead isn't always worth it.

I'm simply done quoting for people that expect I work for 10% of my price. Maybe one day you'll get in that phase as well.

How do you qualify leads without qualifying them? How do you know that person e-mailing you is a "headache client" without communicating with them? For you to know you have to qualify them (phone/email etc) unless its so obvious from the email itself that its an unserious enquiry.

It sounds like you qualify your prospects and then decide not to work with them because they want low quotes. That isnt the same as not answering a decent enquiry in the first place.

In which case just to preserve your professionalism you take 10 seconds out of your time and drop a one-liner. Nothing to do with undervaluing your services.
 
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Longinus

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How do you qualify leads without qualifying them? How do you know that person e-mailing you is a "headache client" without communicating with them? For you to know you have to qualify them (phone/email etc) unless its so obvious from the email itself that its an unserious enquiry.

It sounds like you qualify your prospects and then decide not to work with them because they want low quotes. That isnt the same as not answering a decent enquiry in the first place.

In which case just to preserve your professionalism you take 10 seconds out of your time and drop a one-liner. Nothing to do with undervaluing your services.

In the beginning you do, you remain friendly and try to explain it's probably not gonna be a good match.

After dealing with this for a while, you just trim the fat of your time and you are tired of even putting 10 seconds that you will never see back in your life for saying "no" to somebody.

Priority over professionalism.
 

kaywilder

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I haven’t answered my phone in 18 months. When someone rings, it goes to voicemail asking the customer to fill out a online booking form. Sure, I lose customers but I just hate answering phone and taking booking. Also, now the business is on a back burner that gives me semi passive income. But I understand your frustration.
 

Kevin88660

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Answer your phone!

Seriously, I just had another one that left me on ring. Will I be calling back later? No, I just rang their closest competitors and arranged the appointment that I needed for my car. At least call back asap.

This isnt the first time. It happens to me to roughly 1/3 of all enquiries I send. Small businesses and freelancers not answering calls or ignoring e-mails. Rarely I have been called back. Replying late is as bad as not responding at all.

We had a design contract worth roughly 10k and I contacted 7 providers. One emailed and called back immediately. Two emailed in 24 hours, two emailed 5 days later to arrange a call for the next week and one had given no response. We picked one contractor after speaking to three in less than 48 hours. But calling me back a week later to ask for more details when I have already received a wireframe from the guy that I contracted to do the job? Thats just bad.

Every time I do a B2B enquiry this happens.

If your communication is already bad in the sales-part I dont even want to know how bad it gets when we have closed the deal. Not answering calls, not calling back, not e-mailing back or replying e-mails late are all red flags. In this day and age with everybody having a smartphone and e-mails on the phone you have to reply!
The default communication in where I live has shifted to whatsapp/text message.

Whereas a call from unknown number has a good chance to be ignored as a scam call.

But I am not making excuse for not answering phones. If you are in sales or taking sales order just pick up the phone. You can always hang up ten second later.
 
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minivanman

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In my cleaning business, I answered the phone 24/7. And if you think that isn't true.... people would call at 2:30am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning wanting a job or wanting to book an appointment for me to come give them a price. It would happen at all hours of the day and I thrived on it :moneybag::cash::moneybag::cash::moneybag:

I've had other businesses where I was in charge of the phone and I set certain hours I would answer the phone and I always either answered or called back within minutes.

With my appliance business, I never take a phone call. If you call and get the voice mail it says..... Text me please. Thank you. And normally when people text, I get back within seconds or minutes. But sometimes I get in the 'I don't want to work for 10 days mode' and I just don't answer the texts. We are heading to the beach for 3 days and I let 5 texts go today. Yesterday I told 8 people I was out of washers & dryers because I didn't feel like working.

I do know your frustration though, that's why I started a mowing business. I could never get anyone to even answer their phone so I bought a mower and started my own business. I actually did that 3 times. I sold all 3 of those and now they are all closed..... prolly because they didn't answer their phone :inpain:
 

GravyBoat

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I pick up every call I get because alot of them are business (people wanting to pay me money).

I hang up on spam callers or any salesmen unless I'm bored, driving in my car, then I entertain them. Yes a few have gotten me but 99% is hot garbage.

The only calls I fear are callbacks from customers, but even then, they can usually be solved quickly and painlessly. Nothing to get anxiety over.

It all depends what industry you're in. If you're an Amazon seller you probably don't need to answer your phone. If you're in a service business, you damn right you better answer.

If you're doing cold calls selling your services to business owners, yes, 95% of em will hang up or tell you to F*ck off. It's just a numbers game. It sucks, part of the reason why I don't cold call. I'd rather bring leads in that actually have buyers intent.

You aren't the first Joe Blow to figure out how to Google people and call their business, selling them services. I get multiple per day. I KNOW 95% of em are kids in their moms basement trying to "start an agency." That took a course on AdWords and think they can get leads. Not saying this to discourage you, I'm just telling you what the person on the other end of the call thinks.

So either push forward hardcore and don't care about the "no's," or find a better way of outreach.

That being said, I've realized most people would rather text (myself included). So I tell customers to text me right after the call. I can't think of a single one that hasn't.
 

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