The only calls I take are from business partners, joint venture partners and friends. Customers, ahahhaah, no. There is no reason a customer should have to talk to me since I have a very complete FAQ page.

They think their questions are special, yet I only have like 15 different questions I am asked on a daily basis.

The solution I found was Skype-Out and Skype-In. It has worked out great for me and I find that on phone I can usually up-sell things.

It depends on how you set things up from your side.

Sifu Phil – You raised some great points. I initially wanted to stir the bee’s nest, but many of your points were areas I was going to address in the next post.

So here is an update:

Regarding emergencies… firstly, 99% of what we consider to be emergencies are NOT emergencies. However, the most important people have my mobile phone number, and if there is a genuine emergency then I will be happy to speak to them.

Regarding the buying of the website. This was very much the first stages of the process. Bear in mind I make many such requests EVERY day, so making international calls would cost me around $50 per day extra. Secondly, if each phone call takes an extra 20 minutes to complete, then I could easily be wasting 5-6 hours per week.

Regarding the social nature of things… firstly, this is business! I am good friends with hundreds of website owners, and I will bend over backwards to stay friends with them. I am NOT against being social, I am against being social for the sake of it, as opposed to getting something achieved.

In my emails I usually start with a friendly (social) opener, but on the phone this can often spiral into 10-15 mins of mindless natter.

On a sidenote, I just visited your website http://sifuphil.com/ it is very interesting.

Dean

With cell phones evolving into personal workstations, you can still catch emails “on the fly”, so perhaps that would balance out some drawbacks.

What I didn’t understand, Dean, is if you were serious about purchasing that website, wouldn’t the cost of the phone call be very small compared to the purchase and possible future income of that site? Look at it as an investment, perhaps – a cost of doing business?

As for the “social nonsense” – people are for the most part social creatures – witness the social networking phenomena. Doing away with the little things – the “Hi, how are you, how’s the weather?” ritual would, I think, alienate many people to the point where you begin losing friends and business contacts.

Some meetings can run into overtime, if thats the case – be sure to set an agenda and cover only those topics to keep the meeting flowing.