When to Pick Up and When to Let It Ring, for Anyone Working Alone
You are on a ladder, or mid-appointment, or three quarters of the way through a spreadsheet for someone else, and the phone goes. You have two bad options: stop and answer, or leave it and wonder. Most sole traders swing between the two all week, and neither feels good.
A better approach is to decide in advance, so you are not making the choice with a tool in one hand.
Sort calls before they arrive
Not every call deserves the same response. A simple three-way split is enough:
- Take it: a client you are already working with, anything safety related, a call you were expecting.
- Return it within the hour: a new enquiry from a number you do not recognise. These are the ones that go elsewhere if you wait until evening.
- Return it at your next gap: suppliers, sales calls, anything that can sit until the end of the day.
The middle group is where the money is. A new enquiry is someone who has not yet chosen anyone, and the first person to respond sensibly can easily get the work.
Make the rule visible to the caller
If your voicemail and your messages tell people when you will ring back, they stop treating the silence as a no. Something like: "I'm on a job at the moment, I'll ring you back by one o'clock. If it's quicker, leave your postcode and what you need." A postcode alone lets you judge the job before you call.
Work it through with a number. Suppose a typical job is worth C$250 and you lose two new enquiries a week to the next person on the list. Across a month that is around C$2,000 of work, whether or not any single week feels like a loss.
Protect the work you are doing
Constant interruptions cost something too. Every time you stop to answer, you lose the thread of what you were doing, and quality slips. Fixed call-back slots, once at midday and once at the end of the day, let you finish a task properly and still reply quickly.
Where an assistant can help
If you would rather not run this routine yourself, Edwin, a digital assistant, can answer the calls you forward to your Edwin number while you are busy, write down what the caller wants, and give you a summary to act on. He is always upfront that he is an AI, and nothing goes out without your say-so. You can join the waitlist to be among the first to try it.