So many entrepreneurs today enter their fields with an attitude of destroying their competitors, particularly large corporations (from which many of these entrepreneurs graduated). They devote a lot of resources to their planning process, they take a few key customers with the promise of delivering where the larger corporations fell short; Customer Service! These entrepreneurs possess the skills and attitude to succeed, but after a few slow months they often lose steam. A lot of these folks complain to us that they just couldn’t compete with their larger competitors or their former employers, the Big Bad Corporation. This is garbage.
Small businesses have an immediate and impressive edge over large companies. Financially, small businesses do not have the burden of heavy expenses; the savings on management salaries alone should be inspirational! Beyond that, small business owners and entrepreneurs not only have the right attitude toward customer service, but they have the means to deliver. After all, they don’t have the big bureaucracy to contend with. In saying that, small businesses and entrepreneurs typically don’t have the same deep pockets as large corporations, but they don’t need to. Small businesses can benefit handsomely from the inefficiencies of large corporations. So why haven’t they?
Often, small businesses emit a small presence and nobody wants to deal with the small guy when the small guy could be gone tomorrow. More often than not, a lot of customers don’t even know that the small business even exists; it becomes easier to remember that jingle on the radio — Call us at 1-800-BUY-FROM-US or whatever it might be. Consequently, prospects choose the bigger competitor because the small business forces them to! Which brings us to how the small business owner or entrepreneur can compete with the big corporation. While we promote a complete model to Build Presence, the one we find gets overlooked time and again is the toll-free number!
A toll-free number allows the smallest of small businesses to look big. Picture a prospect who needs your services and all this prospect can consult is a phone book. Who would you choose, the small company with the local phone number, or the company with a local number AND a toll-free number? Of course, a toll-free number doesn’t differentiate between great service and plain old good service, but you can’t blame the customer for picking the business with the toll-free number. This enables the customer, who is always busy, to obtain service while out of town or away. Sure, the customer buys locally, but she will expect service globally! Give that some thought.
The great thing about setting up a toll-free number is it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. With the advantage of technology, these numbers can be set up in a matter of minutes. Better yet, calls can be routed directly to your cell phone so you don’t miss a single call. Any unanswered calls will be answered by your existing voicemail (rather than an off-site service). This allows you to focus on other business development activities or to enjoy your free time. Sure beats sitting around your office waiting for the phone to ring.
The program Quote Stork endorses is priced at $39.99 per month. The no-frills toll-free solution gives you unlimited minutes (other services limit the usage and charge more for extra minutes), it works from anywhere in the US, and you can use your existing add-ons (e.g. voicemail) without special programming or additional costs.
The small business owners and entrepreneurs who aim to take down the Goliath(s) in their markets cannot ignore the importance of a toll-free number. Such a simple and cost-effective tool gives the small business an edge against similarly sized companies and brings them to the same level as their biggest competitors. The advantage for the small business? Customers that call their toll-free number know exactly who they will reach.
If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.
