Why You Should Give Toll Free Numbers a Try

Does your business have a toll free number? It’s understandable if you want to project a connection with your community with a local phone number, which is a tried and true strategy. Meanwhile, there are always toll free numbers available if you want to convey an established, national feel to customers. The following reasons are why you should consider it. A Variety of Area Codes Many people think that toll free numbers only have the (800) area code, but that’s definitely not the case. A toll free number can have the area codes, 888, 877, 866, 855, 844, or 833—and they are all the same type of phone number; there is no difference except for the digits in the area code. That gives you a lot of options, so that you’re much more likely to find the number that you want, as opposed to the limited selection you’ll find in …

When the Luster of Your New Business Wears Off

The dictionary literally defines luster as “a period of five years”. That’s one of its definitions, anyway, but the point is that it is temporary. When you open a new business that is well-planned out, there’s a good chance that you’ll have great success and hopefully, broad acceptance from the market. The challenge is that, for many small businesses, that initial period of massive popularity will be short-lived—probably a lot shorter than five years—after which the luster fades and revenue plateaus. This is extremely common, though, and it is a phenomenon that a company can overcome with the right strategy. Innovate The first and best way to overcome this obstacle is to continue to innovate. It’s really easy to keep on doing what brought you so much success in the first place, and whatever you’re already doing will bring you loyal customers who got in on the ground floor. But …

NOVA Landscape and Design

Ali Hashimi, Owner & Founder Talkroute User since September 2016 www.novalandscapedesign.com   Ali is not new to the game of running a business. He has decades of experience in his field, and like many small business owners today, Ali found that his outdated phone system could not support the growth of his business. He searched for a solution to his telephone woes, and he found Talkroute. Here is the story of how Ali transformed his business with a virtual phone system:   My name is Ali Hashimi, and I’m the President and Founder of NOVA Landscape and Design. We are a design build landscaping firm located in Dumfries, Virginia, and we have been servicing the greater Northern Virginia area for over 20 years. I first came across Talkroute while doing research for a virtual phone system for our growing landscape business. I spoke to numerous companies; however, none of them …

Spade Design

Matthew Martin, Project Director Talkroute User since March 2016 www.spadedesignlab.com   Matthew was gracious enough to share the story of his experience with Talkroute, and he brings up an interesting way to use our virtual phone system that many other businesses can benefit from. Using multiple Talkroute virtual phone numbers, they look at which calls come from each virtual number to track where customers are calling from, as well as how many are calling each number. Here is Matthew’s story:   Talkroute has allowed our workforce to be truly mobile. Our Account Executives can be on site with a client just about anywhere and still seem as if they were at their desk. It has also allowed us to implement a very successful “Bring Your Own Device” program that is much easier to manage and has saved us a lot of money. Not only do we use Talkroute throughout our …

Mama Kat’s Restaurant

Michael Herrera, Owner & Founder Talkroute User since February 2017 www.mamakats.com Running a restaurant is a tough business, and its phone system is one thing that has to be reliable. Michael found a way to make sure that his customers never get a busy signal when calling his restaurant, by using Talkroute to manage his calls. This is his story: My name is Michael Herrera, Owner and Founder of Mama Kat’s restaurant in San Marcos, CA. The restaurant is one of the most sought-after breakfast destinations in San Diego. We have anywhere from an hour to an hour-and-a-half wait, at times. Like most small businesses we struggled to manage our phone system with Call Waiting, and you can never hear the person on the other line because the Call Waiting is always chiming in. Without Call Waiting everyone gets a busy signal. Multiple lines are just multiple problems, and I …

Why Your Business Needs to Use Call Forwarding

  Call forwarding isn’t what it used to be. It has evolved into a fairly standard feature of phone systems and is far more variable and useful than it was with the local phone company. Whether your business has one cell phone to take calls, or 25 employees, call forwarding can streamline the way you manage calls.   It Is Becoming a Standard Tool Consider the analogy of music recording technology. 30 years ago, musicians wouldn’t even attempt to add complicated features to their recorded songs, and they had no way to clean up the recordings and make them sound professional—they had to go to a big, expensive studio. Now, there are tools available to everyone which, when applied to their recordings, put them on the same level as the pros. Those tools are now standard, freely available, and routinely utilized because they simply make everything sound better. The same …

7 Ways to Keep Resistance from Killing Your Focus

The idea, or interpretation of “resistance”, as it is used in this post, was originally authored by Steven Pressfield in his book, The War of Art. What is Resistance? For the purposes of this article, think of resistance as the invisible force that fights against you to keep you from completing your work, or to keep you from being generally productive. It takes many forms, and the greatest danger it poses is that, if you don’t actively watch out for it, resistance can destroy your focus, your work, and even your business. Take the following pieces of advice well to heart because this will keep it from beating you. 1. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff One of the worst things that can happen to you when you’re on a roll and blasting through a project is for some little distraction or irritant to interrupt your good vibes, like a phone …

6 Ways to Use a Virtual Phone Number

  Virtual phone numbers tend to still be a little esoteric, even though people who are running a business usually have some idea of what they are. In reality, there isn’t too much difference between a virtual phone number and a regular phone number, and in fact, it’s helpful to think of a virtual number simply as a regular number that happens to be hosted by a virtual service provider. Here’s what you can do with your virtual phone number.   Make Calls Even though a virtual number is not attached to a phone, you can make outbound calls from your existing phones, while showing your virtual number on the caller ID (as part of a virtual phone system like Talkroute).   Receive Calls People can dial your virtual phone number to reach you just like any other phone number, and the experience is exactly the same for the caller. …

The #1 Mistake We Make When Choosing a Phone Service

Whether you’re choosing your phone system for a new small business, or updating your existing system, there are a lot of factors to consider. Is a traditional wired system more appropriate, or is your business structure better suited for a virtual phone system? Do you need certain features, like multi-digit extensions or variable forwarding settings? There may be many different service providers that offer what you need; so, it can be overwhelming to choose between them. That’s why many people ending up bypassing the whole selection process and just choose the most popular service provider, which is usually a mistake. Pick the Right One, the First Time You might get lucky and find that the most popular service, with whom you chose to sign up on a whim, actually does end up being a great fit for you. If you’re not lucky, however, that service may not be able to …

3 Reasons Why Millennials are Good for Your Business

  It’s easy to discount their generation because it’s the majority opinion that Millennials have an undue sense of entitlement and are not willing to work for success. To believe this is to buy into a stereotype as unfounded as the belief that women cannot excel as CEOs. Just about every person I have met who falls into the “Millennial” category is driven and hardworking when presented with a real job. They are not turning down work; they are finding that the positions of gainful employment are few and far between, but jobs in the service industry are plentiful. Millennials, if they’re not already working in a dead-end job in food service or retail, are not interested anymore in working at a company with no vision.   1— They’re hungry. You would do well to hire a Millennial. For the most part, they are far more likely to push for …