Establishing your own business can be both frightening and thrilling, just like all great adventures! Building a business from the ground up requires getting up early and going to bed late. It means making daily sacrifices and persevering in spite of setbacks. However, knowing that you’re going to confront obstacles and overcome challenges doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take advantage of those tools and resources that can make your journey easier. The solutions you find to help you successfully strengthen your business are almost as valuable as your own will to succeed.
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A Separate Business Phone Line
One tool that many new business owners appreciate is the second phone line. This tool improves your ability to communicate efficiently. An effective line of communication can improve productivity, reduce the number of mistakes, and lead to a stronger customer base. In the past, a second phone line may have required additional phones or complicated systems of transferring between lines. Today, however, a business phone number can be easily accessed through your existing cellphone. How does this work? What are the benefits? Is it really worth the money? Explore the answers to these questions and learn how a business phone number could impact your business.
A Business Number Connected to Your Phone: How It Works
When you sign up for a business phone number through your cellphone, you can often choose your own local number or create a vanity number. You’ll link your phone number to the system, create a greeting, and then get access to helpful features:
- Separate business text messaging and calls from personal calls, helping you decide whether to interrupt soccer games or business meetings for unrelated calls
- Link several phones together and give your entire team access to phone calls
- Set up an auto-reply feature, so frequently asked questions are taken care of
- Call tracking and analysis lets you understand where improvements could save you time and money
- Real people who can answer the phone if you or your employees aren’t available
There are many possible features, so carefully review the options as you consider business phone systems.
The Potential Benefits to Your Business
As your business grows, it will outgrow your existing phone line, especially if you’re conducting business through your personal phone. If you’ve hired employees, found yourself answering business calls outside of business hours, answered the same questions countless times, or been plagued by calls that don’t lead to sales, a separate business number is the answer. Other successful business owners have found that a business phone system can save you time and money, offer many valuable features in one place, allow you to be connected at all times, and filter calls that deserve your immediate attention while other calls are answered by an AI or automated message.
Your Cost-Benefit Analysis
With just about every decision that business owners face, there are a few important questions to consider:
- How much will this cost?
- Will it help my bottom line?
- Will it increase my revenue?
As you consider the cost efficiency of a separate business number, the ultimate goal is to determine whether the ratio between cost and benefit is positive for your business success. Several metrics are used to help you measure that outcome, including basic calculations, quality of life, and cost advantages.
A basic calculation or cost-benefit analysis would look like this: cost-effectiveness = cost/benefit. In other words, how much will it cost? How much are the benefits worth? Consider the value of your time spent answering calls and whether it could be better spent in other ways. Another way to determine benefit is by estimating how much business you’ve lost because of inefficient communication systems. When you use the quality of life metric, think about your work/life situation. It’s a challenge to keep the two balanced as a business owner, but when you get a business phone number linked to an effective system, you can ease some of the strain in this area. Finally, cost advantage is your business’s ability to offer products or services at less cost than your competitors.
A Conveniently Simple Tool With Great Impact
You’ll face many challenges as you take your passion and pursue the ultimate rewards of being a business owner. Some of those challenges will require a lot of risk; setting up a business phone number isn’t one of those challenges. It is quick and simple to arrange, and linking that number to your cellphone is almost always a positive move.
