I don’t do much consultancy work, but a couple of months ago a longstanding member of EC paid several thousand pounds for me to help him construct a marketing campaign for a new service that he was launching in his business.
The campaign was extensive – 13 separate steps plus an email auto-responder campaign, AdWords, banner re-targeting, Facebook ads … the works.
In total, the gentleman concerned was investing close to £20,000 on marketing to get this thing up and running, which was a sensible sum considering the returns available to him. He was intelligent, well thought through and smart… or so I thought. 
You see, one of the primary calls to action in the campaign was for potential customers to call his office. The problem was that the office wasn’t manned all the time and even when there were staff present, there were only two phone lines (although he has got six actual phones – all plugged in – and seven staff).
What our foolish marketer had done was skip that most important marketing pillar – the foundation pillar. Pillar Number 1: Get your phone system and call handling sorted out BEFORE you run the marketing campaigns.
We all know how difficult it is for people to take action. Only when it happens to you, or else you hear such a vivid story of it happening to other – more stupid (!) – business owners does it begin to resonate and sink in.
Just because he had six telephones doesn’t mean he could have six people on the phone all at the same time; because he’s only got two phone lines. Doh!
Once they’re both busy, all his potential customers get is an engaged tone. (He doesn’t know they’ve got an engaged tone of course. He’s blissfully ignorant. Bonkers)
And the really sad thing is … it doesn’t have to be this way. Sorting your telephone infrastructure is NOT A MAJOR INVESTMENT in either time or money.
Mark Rose and the guys at Boosh 365 can sort you out a phone system that will scale with your business for a lot less cash than most people realise.
Similarly, Graham Hill and his team at Verbatim, or Jacqui Frost and her Office Genies can handle your calls.
For goodness sake, even if you only have them taking calls when your lines are engaged… I mean, it’s insane not to do this.
Now, our longstanding member knows all about this article. He has proofed it and signed it off because he recognises the idiocy of his actions and he wants his story to be a lesson to others. I’m grateful to him for that. Respect.
Too many entrepreneurs are blissfully ignorant of their prospects getting that engaged tone. They never know about it.
Without call tracking numbers and call handling overflow in place, you can NEVER KNOW FOR SURE that you’re not missing calls.
Many of you will have heard me talk about the dentist several years ago whom we put call tracking numbers in, only for him to discover that his receptionist was killing over 40 calls a week in the first second, because she didn’t like answering the phone (she was wearing a headset so the phone beeped in her ear rather than ringing and disturbing the patients. There’s no way he could have known that without deploying this simple bit of technology).
I spoke at the last National Event about missing 2 foot putts. Not answering your phone (or at least having it answered by somebody) is the equivalent, in business terms, of a golfer missing a simple 2 foot putt. It destroys his score for that hole and when you do it two or three times in a round, then everything is screwed up … and so it is with business.
You have to get the basics sorted first. You can’t get carried away with all the bells and whistles and all the funky, sexy marketing until you know for sure that when people want to speak with you, somebody is answering that call.
It’s like setting off to sea in a leaky boat. Stupid right?
Yet many readers will smile wryly at this piece and then move on thinking that it doesn’t apply to them. I promise you it does.
And that includes you.
Have a great month.
