When I decided to move forward after that wonderful event in the summer, I knew I would need a dedicated number. Trust me when I say, do not give strangers your home number. Keep control of who is calling you and when. I’ve had associates who have had to change their cell and home when an unruly prospect repeatedly called and harassed them and their family. But I digress.

I decided to go with VOIP. I love VOIP. I love its flexibility, I love that I can call LD and it doesn’t matter. I love the bells and whistles. What I found out is I was dealing with a call centre for support and they had no idea where Vancouver was. So they gave me a Victoria number. This may not seem like a big deal until one of my senior clients had to call me last week and complained about the number. I realized all my fixed-income people were going to have a problem.
So in spite of the fact that I have a website, and I’ve done some advertising and networking and printed business cards, I’m changing the phone number. Now that’s easy to do on the website – the number is now 778-200-2986. But now I have to consider appointments I’ve made with that number and re-do my business cards.
These are the kind of life lessons you can’t get any other way than by experience. Who knew that a company that appears local had no idea that Vancouver and Victoria were miles apart? And the few people who have called me since I put the phone in have had cell phones, which adjust automatically. So the moral of the story is, have someone in the next room, or block, try calling you from a landline. Make sure your target market can easily get hold of you. Yes, learn from the mistakes of others – you can’t possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.
I too decided to go the VOIP route, however I ported my local number in Vancouver to my new VOIP provider. cost me $20.00. I’ve been using my VOIP number for 10 years now and probably have saved over $4,000.00 and still using my business cards from that time.