Cool Time by Steve Prentice

Author:Steve Prentice
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2010-05-10T21:00:00+00:00

USING CALL DISPLAY TO MAXIMUM ADVANTAGE

This is pretty straightforward, but still underused. If you don’t know who’s calling, you have the right not to answer. Call display gives you the opportunity to decide rather than react, to answer only the highest-priority callers—the top 20 percent—those whose importance outweighs the importance of the work in front of you, and to leave the rest for later. If you’ve ever stayed in a hotel, you know that a peephole in the door allows you the choice of whether to admit a visitor or not. Maybe you have one in the main door to your home. It’s a tool for personal security. Call display is your tool for time security.

As with all of the techniques in this book, it’s your choice as to how to implement them. If you are in sales, and you fear that passing up an unknown call may jeopardize a sale, then you may opt to take the call, in which case having your entrance and exit lines ready will at least allow you to control the call’s duration. But there’s always the “in-a-meeting” technique as well. What if you were in a meeting with a client when this new call comes in? Would you interrupt a meeting with a client to take a call from another client or prospect? Usually, that other caller would go to voicemail anyway, and you would get back to them pretty quickly. The strength of your outbound voicemail greeting would let them know you’re near, and your prompt return call will impress them all the more. Since they would go to voicemail anyway, the technique of passing over unknown incoming calls to avoid interruption, paired with a prompt callback for high-priority callers, has merit as a Cool way to stay productive and balance priorities.

One common argument is that call display is OK if the display identifies the caller by name, but what if it’s just a phone number that appears? If you’re waiting for return calls, keep a written list of the phone numbers of those you’ve called as the “hot-button-pick-up-now” numbers. If you’ve left a message for John at 212-555-1234 and he’s one of your top 20 percent of callers whom you’re willing to take immediately, then keep that number near the call-display screen.

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