Answer the Phone

I spend a lot of time on the phone. It is critical for success as a freight broker to make a lot of calls and take a lot of calls. I make calls to find loads, to find carriers and to keep up with my freight broker school graduates. Here’s about.com’s home office advice on your business phone needs.

Use a Dedicated Phone for Your Home Business

One of the many benefits of working from home is having reduced overhead. However, the initial savings from sharing a phone line with your home and business can ultimately cost you. A home phone is less professional and may allow clients to question the legitimacy of the business. One of the common pitfalls of using a home phone is having to share voice mail that uses a message from both family and business. It confuses customers. Likewise, when sharing a phone, you risk having a child or other family member answer the phone, giving the impression that you are not running a real business. It is best to use a dedicated phone line for your home office. Of course, this can include using a cell phone, or a VoIP (Internet-based) phone.

Since my kids are now teens they never answer the home phone…their cell phone might as well be glued to their head, or text finger. So my home phone now doubles as my business phone. I believe in the business call always being answered by a person if at all possible. I use a phone service that has voice mail and forwarding so that I can forward the phone to my cell or to an associate who can take the call. In freight brokering and in education it is paramount to be available to field calls. You will miss countless opportunities if the call rolls over to an answering machine or service to often. You will also miss the opportunity to connect with someone in a personal way.

I can’t say enough: Success as a freight broker depends on relationship building with carriers, shippers and support companies. Face to face contact is the best, but a close second is the phone.

Moving forward,

Jeff Roach
www.brooketraining.com
www.justintimefreight.com
www.transportationtraining.com