Afraid of answering the phone

Goku770 · Sep 19, 2016

This is a legit question, I know how to rank websites locally and I've recently started an SEO agency. My phone literally rings 5 times a day with 1-2 voice messages about my services but I'm afraid to answer the phone. Is their a way to hire someone to do the talking for me, like a salesman? How do I find one?

Colan Nielsen · Sep 19, 2016

Congrats on starting your agency! Glad to hear your phone is ringing.

What part of answering the phone makes you feel afraid?

In my experience, agencies have a receptionist, or someone from customer service or sales answering the phone. But that's not always feasible when you are just starting out.

Eric Rohrback · Sep 19, 2016

Like Colan said, you could hire someone to do smaller tasks like that. If you have the budget, you could hire someone locally to do tasks like answering the phones or data entry. The thing you would really need to think about is time spent training and setting up process docs. Do you have that already set up or would you need to create those?

Linda Buquet · Sep 19, 2016

The guys had some good advice about hiring out something you are not suited for.

Goku770 said:
This is a legit question, I know how to rank websites locally and I've recently started an SEO agency. My phone literally rings 5 times a day with 1-2 voice messages about my services but I'm afraid to answer the phone. Is their a way to hire someone to do the talking for me, like a salesman? How do I find one?

But try thinking like this. You are not a salesman. You are a Dr.

Someone is calling because something is wrong and they think you can help them.
Do you like helping people? Answer the phone. Hear their concerns. Ask some questions to help you "diagnose" their problem. Be a friend. Care. Build rapport.

Explain in layman terms the problem they are having. Then if you have "treatment" options that would help, simply explain the options, like a Dr or consultant would.

If you take the pressure off selling and turn it into helping, would that help you pick up the phone?

Like any phobia, tricking yourself into doing it the 1st time or 2 is key.
Once you are in there "helping" people you'll realize it's not as bad as you feared.

Signed,

Dr. Linda

heckler · Sep 19, 2016

If you're nervous about it, create yourself an outline to follow and modify it as you learn more how to handle inbound. Remember you're the expert (or 'doctor'

).

That outline can later be used as a process doc to hand off that responsibility (when you're ready to scale) to someone else where you've made sure all the important pieces of information you'll need to RX a treatment are covered.

You can also '5-hour work week' it if you're not at a point where paying someone to handle your phones makes sense by funneling people into email. Doing that can help you communicate more effectively if you're severely introverted.

Good luck!

James Watt · Sep 19, 2016

Depending on your budget, another option is Ruby. I haven't used them personally, but I've known business owners in the past that liked them. It's sort of like a secretary time-share... a bunch of business owners with a lower budget can get someone working for them more affordably, by sharing. Like I said, I haven't worked with them myself, but it's an option.

In my experience, SEO work takes quite a bit of trust given the potentially long time frame it can take to see results. This is a hole you will want to cover, and 'personal growth and sucking it up' isn't the best option. If this will never be an ability of yours, or even if it's not sustainable for you to be the one manning the phones, it's time to start planning now how to compensate for it before you sabotage your business.

Afraid of answering the phone

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Colan Nielsen

Eric Rohrback

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Linda Buquet

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