Planning your Successful Phone Environment

• 00:04 When you have an important phone call to make or you'll be receiving one or
• 00:08 if it's an important conference call, it's important to plan in advance.
• 00:12 Plan out your environment to increase the odds that this is going to be
• 00:16 an effective phone call.
• 00:18 For starters, you need to eliminate distractions.
• 00:21 Find a quiet place.
• 00:24 If you're talking to your most important client or you're pitching the most
• 00:28 important prospect and you're in a noisy pit of an office and
• 00:32 there are conference rooms that are quiet at the other end of the hallway.
• 00:37 Well, plan in advance and go down there before you make the call or
• 00:41 before the call starts with someone calling you.
• 00:44 You want as quiet an environment as possible.
• 00:48 Now, in some offices or if it's a home office, you may have music on, and
• 00:52 that may relax you, it may be soothing, you may enjoy it.
• 00:54 That's all wonderful, that's fantastic.
• 00:57 Guess what?
• 00:58 Nobody else cares about what you like for your work day.
• 01:02 If you're calling someone or someone's calling you,
• 01:06 all they care about is their message, their idea,
• 01:09 what's going on in their business, their life, their part of the job.
• 01:13 So, eliminate distractions.
• 01:17 One reason you want to make it quiet is,
• 01:20 if you have to talk over some loud noise, that's annoying to listen to.
• 01:25 When you're talking over a loud noise, for example,
• 01:29 while driving a car, you're flattening your voice out.
• 01:32 You're making yourself monotone and
• 01:34 it kind of feels from the other end like they're being yelled at.
• 01:38 Nobody likes someone yelling at them.
• 01:40 You're yelling because you need to hear yourself over traffic, noise,
• 01:45 other distractions, but to the person on the other end of the phone,
• 01:49 all they know is, you're yelling at them.
• 01:52 They can intellectually realize, well,
• 01:55 they're just in a noisy street or a noisy restaurant.
• 01:59 But emotionally, it's still, I'm yelling at them, and it's not positive.
• 02:05 Let's talk about driving.
• 02:06 I understand we're all busy.
• 02:08 We all have busy lives.
• 02:09 We're all so important.
• 02:10 We all multitask.
• 02:12 Here's the thing.
• 02:13 If you're trying to have an important phone call and
• 02:17 you really want someone to pay attention, don't be driving.
• 02:22 Now, I understand there are times someone's trying
• 02:25 to sell you new aluminum siding and you're not sure you're even interested.
• 02:30 Yeah, you can tell that person to call you on your drive home and
• 02:33 if you're only giving halfway attention, it's not that big a deal.
• 02:37 It's not going to affect your business because you're not the one selling
• 02:41 aluminum siding.
• 02:43 But when it comes to your business, what you're trying to sell,
• 02:47 what you're trying to advance, what you're trying to promote with your vendors,
• 02:53 customers, clients, prospects, investors, eliminate the distractions.
• 02:59 Because when you're driving, there are several things that happen.
• 03:02 There's the hum of the car.
• 03:03 You can have the most fantastic electric Tesla, there's going to be
• 03:08 all the other sounds going by from other cars, highway sounds, honking.
• 03:14 So that's distracting to the person on the other end.
• 03:17 It's also distracting to you.
• 03:20 The other problem is, your brain is seeing all this information,
• 03:23 you have to pay attention or you will die.
• 03:26 So you're giving much less attention to the person speaking to you.
• 03:32 So I realize it's tempting, and if someone wants to start a conference call at 5
• 03:36 o'clock and you'd like to be on the road then going home,
• 03:39 the tendency is just to get in your car a minute early and take the call in the car.
• 03:44 Don't do it when it's important.
• 03:46 Stay away from driving.
• 03:49 Stay away from noise.
• 03:51 Try not to be outside.
• 03:53 Hey, it's a beautiful sunny day, why don't I take it outside, the birds are singing.
• 03:57 Well, that's the problem, the birds are singing.
• 04:00 There are too many distractions.
• 04:03 Also within your office, if you really, really are trying
• 04:08 to focus on the person, get what they're talking about,
• 04:13 be as responsive as possible, I go as far as turning off your computer.
• 04:19 Do what I just did.
• 04:20 I don't want to be distracted right now.
• 04:21 I had literally turned my phone off.
• 04:24 Now, I've got to use another phone obviously, but
• 04:27 if I'm using an office phone, turn my cell phone off.
• 04:30 That way, if I get texts from friends about what to do Saturday night,
• 04:35 I'm not looking down at that while talking on another phone.
• 04:39 It's not distracting.
• 04:42 The final thing, and some of you are going to hate me for this, but
• 04:45 I'm going to give you my best advice, you can do with it what you want.
• 04:49 If you really want to plan your environment the right way for
• 04:55 making phone calls, don't ever use the speakerphone.
• 05:01 What are you talking about, TJ?
• 05:03 We do all our conference calls on speakerphone.
• 05:05 How else are people going to hear?
• 05:06 Here's the problem with speakerphone.
• 05:09 The microphone is going to clip certain words, can't become cans,
• 05:13 there's confusion, it's harder for people to understand you, number one.
• 05:18 Number two, you have to project your voice.
• 05:21 So you're kind of talking like this, and you're projecting and
• 05:24 you sound like the school teacher.
• 05:26 It makes you kind of monotone, flat.
• 05:33 You can sound angry.
• 05:34 It also tires you out, frankly.
• 05:37 It takes a lot more energy to project if you're talking to a speaker
• 05:42 on a conference table, three feet, four feet, in some cases, ten feet away.
• 05:49 And it's going to really cut down on the audio quality.
• 05:53 Frankly, nobody likes it when someone's talking on a speakerphone,
• 05:58 whether it's a big fancy speakerphone system in an office, or
• 06:02 just the speakerphone on your cell phone.
• 06:04 Again, there are exceptions.
• 06:07 You're trying to learn how to cook something, and
• 06:09 you're talking to a family member and you're in the kitchen.
• 06:11 You need both hands, I understand it, I get it.
• 06:16 But when you're talking to people on business, they don't like it,
• 06:20 because the audio quality is worse, it's harder to hear.
• 06:23 At the back of their mind they're thinking, well, what's this person doing?
• 06:26 Are they still typing?
• 06:28 Are they reading the newspaper?
• 06:30 What do they need their hands for?
• 06:33 Many, many people interpret it, whether intellectually or just emotionally,
• 06:38 as a sign of disrespect if you're on the speakerphone.
• 06:41 Now, it raises the question,
• 06:43 what do you do if there's five people in your office and everyone needs to hear?
• 06:47 Well, use a free conference call system, everyone can dial in and
• 06:51 they can be on their phone in a different room.
• 06:54 Or you could even be on a phone,
• 06:57 each person individually, in the same room and hear it.
• 07:02 Another option you can do is having on speakerphone if there are five of
• 07:07 your colleagues who have to listen to a boss or client or a colleague.
• 07:12 But then when someone in your room is speaking, pick up the receiver and talk,
• 07:16 because everyone in the room can still hear.
• 07:18 But the quality of the audio for
• 07:21 the person on the other end will be vastly superior.
• 07:27 Remember, most microphones and phones are built for
• 07:32 maximum effectiveness if you're just inch and a half, maybe two inches away.
• 07:39 When you're further away, it really distorts the audio quality.
• 07:42 So plan your environment to increase your odds of effective
• 07:47 communication before the phone call ever starts,
• 07:51 whether you're sending a call, initiating one, or receiving one.

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