3 Reasons Your Business Service Provider Isn’t Good Enough

  Your business depends on consistent communication, and much of your communication relies on quality phone service. It’s for that reason that the service providing you with a phone system cannot give you a barely adequate, shiny product that has minimal features and unreliable service.   1. Charging by the Minute A staggering number of virtual phone service providers still charge by the minute, and they are getting away with it for the sole reason that these providers have essentially made it customary; so, it’s generally rare to find a virtual provider that does not charge per minute. They use this pricing structure because they stand to gain a great deal of profit from businesses in overage charges. Charging a business by the minute for phone service is like asking a doctor to buy their own gloves and needles. It’s petty and insulting. When you use a virtual phone service …

Doing Business in a Direct-to-Consumer World

  Direct-to-consumer business is putting a lot of pressure on resellers. Until now, manufacturers, artists, artisans, and producers of all kinds have never had the platform to put their product in the hands of enough customers to support a viable business. Now, that vast divide has closed enough so that the intermediary of a distributor or reseller is often not even necessary. Is the consumer’s direct access to sellers beneficial for small businesses, or is it a disadvantage?   Is the World Getting Bigger or Smaller? It depends on how you look at it. In the sense that there is a massive amount of information available to far more people while the world population increases by billions over just a few decades, the world is definitely getting bigger. It feels smaller, though, for the same reasons. Now that we’re all neighbors growing closer together in a global economy, the channels …

Does a Virtual Phone System Have to Use VoIP?

  Virtual phone systems for business are steadily becoming more popular and more accepted, but they are still vastly misunderstood. This article is an introductory attempt to dispel some of the misconceptions that people have about virtual phone services. When you, as a business, set out to find the perfect virtual system, you might assume that you will be looking only at VoIP services, but today there are more options than that available.   Defining the Terms One of the main issues seems to be that people use the terms, “virtual” and “VoIP” almost interchangeably. To a consumer, the perceived definition of a thing tends to take precedence over the actual definition, which is why many businesses think a virtual phone service is automatically a VoIP service. That’s why it’s important to understand what “VoIP” actually means.   What is VoIP? VoIP literally stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol. When …

What to Do When Your Business Outgrows Your Cell Phone

  If you’re starting a new business today, then chances are, you’re running it from your cell phone. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, and it can work for you for a long time. As your business begins to grow, however, it will probably demand some kind of a system that is capable of managing your calls professionally and efficiently, no matter how many calls you’re getting. Here’s how you can handle your success as your company exceeds the capacity of your cell phone.   Make Sure Callers Don’t Get a Busy Signal As your business gets bigger and call volume goes up, the first thing you need to be concerned about is making sure that you don’t miss any of those calls. When all of your business calls are coming into your cell phone and multiple calls are coming in at once, some of those calls are going …

How to Pick the Right Phone Number for Your Business

How important is your business’ phone number? Outside of your website, it’s typically the first point-of-contact with your business for your customers, so… pretty important. Sometimes you just end up with a random number to serve as your main line, but if you have an opportunity to choose your number, then these criteria can help you to choose one that fits, practically and aesthetically. Local or Toll Free The first decision you’re faced with when picking a new business number is whether to use a number with a local or toll free area code. There are a couple of factors to consider here. Foremost among them is deciding if you want to give people the impression that you’re kind of a hometown company, for which local area codes are good; or if you would rather convey a larger-scale, national feel, in which case you’ll probably want a toll free number. …

Stop Paying Per Minute for Your Virtual Phone Number

Your virtual phone service shouldn’t cause you stress. It should give you peace of mind by supporting all of your business phone calls, every day, without forcing you to count the minutes you’re using to make sure you don’t get overcharged. There are a lot of virtual phone services out there today, and many of them charge for usage by the minute, which can quickly add up to excessive cost. It may be time to consider using a service that does not charge per minute, so you can start saving money. Reduce Your Cost by “Refinancing” In a sense, you can refinance your virtual phone service by switching to a provider that will give you all of the call time that you need for a better rate. Paying by the minute can get extremely costly if your business is growing and the call volume is steadily going up, and that’s …

This is Why Being an Entrepreneur Isn’t Glamorous

  More and more people are pouring into the arena of small business to earn the right to call themselves entrepreneurs, but how many of them stay in the game and produce a thriving small business? The title has always had an attractive quality, even more so now, but successful entrepreneurs know the staggering amount of work and sacrifice required is what really defines entrepreneurship.   Entrepreneurs are Like Firefighters without the Glory On a day-to-day basis, a business owner is not coming in for two hours in the morning and letting the team take it from there. In fact, there are owners who run their businesses like that, and they’re the ones who probably won’t be around for very long. Not only will you need to be at work for the whole day and then some, but you’re usually going to be, “putting out fires” the majority of the …

Can You Go Analog in a Digital Business World?

  Technology has enabled us to conduct business way faster and smarter than we ever could before. You’ll find no argument here that technology clearly gives us an advantage; that’s not what’s on the table here. This is about boosting creativity through making small changes in your workflow, methods, and techniques. You may find that setting aside some of the technology you use for your work can release potential for creativity, and even productivity that you could not achieve otherwise.   It Forces the Muscle to Grow The first principle of this philosophy is that applying shock to your brain causes it to adapt by approaching things from a different angle. A good analogy for this principle is how we use weight training for the body. Most of us know that how you build muscle is by literally tearing the muscle tissue during a workout, and then the body adds …

How to Respond to Bad Word-of-Mouth: Head-On

People talk. They always do, and they always have. How you respond to it as a business (if you should respond at all) depends on the nature and severity of what people are saying, and who is saying it. Your response to it should be essentially from two angles, and the first part will probably be painful: Take heed to the comments and actually make some changes, as needed. Then, directly interface with the people who are saying those things to address whatever problems they have with your business. Here is a pretty good action plan for dealing with bad feedback. Step One: Decide to Handle It First and foremost, don’t take the easy way out and just ignore negative comments. Mind you, what I’m referring to here is not just a random, one-off comment from an individual once in a while. You can probably ignore those. What you need …

7 Reliable Ways to Impress Your Customers

  If you want to really impress your customers, then you have to give them more than what they usually get from other businesses. It’s not necessarily grand gestures that will get their attention; the little things that prove to them that you’re devoted to taking care of them usually make much more of an impression.   1. Respond to Inquiries Quickly Whether it’s through an email, a phone call, or an in-person meeting, the time it takes you to get back to a customer always makes a huge difference. Most businesses are well aware of this fact, but we can underestimate how positively people respond to it because responding quickly makes someone feel that they matter to you.   2. Prove that You Care About Them Yes, of course you are in business to make money, and even though your customers are aware of that the whole time, they …