You can add staff to your one person home office by using your telephone.

Your Home Business - Voice Mail as Your Personal Assistant

It's true ; you can add staff to your one person home office by using your telephone. Most telephone companies now offer a myriad of services. You should take advantage of them by thinking outside of the standard telephone use box. Some services are free. Others are available for a nominal charge.


Voice Mail Reminders Assist You with Your Meetings.

Use the reminder feature for wake-up calls when you have and early morning meeting with a client.



Voice Mail as Receptionist.

One of the first things you must do is set your voice mail to announce the date and time of all incoming messages. This can be crucial to conducting your business. If a client called Friday morning and you were away for several days, when you return your client's telephone you can say 'I am sorry that I missed your call Friday morning.' This type of callback makes clients and customers much more forgiving.

Some services include a forwarding-busy line/do not answer. If you use your telephone a lot and receive a large volume of business calls, this is a 'must have' service. Rather than hearing the standard 'leave a message' recording, the caller learns that you are there but taking another telephone call. Sample response "Hello - this is Mary of Mary Brown and Associates. I am on the telephone right now, please leave your name and telephone number and I will call you back shortly", (as soon as possible, etc.) Then be sure to call back. You may find that your client is willing to wait if he or she knows that you are in your office and will get back to them.

If family members listen to incoming voice mail, you should think about getting multiple mailboxes. Each mailbox can be personalized and have its own password.



Voice Mail as Secretary

Send yourself reminders as you think of them. You can call leave the following messages:

_Call the American Cancer Society regarding volunteer breakfast,

_Write article concerning voice mail,

_Send congratulatory e-mail to Leslie on selling her article to a travel magazine,

_Send URL for Savoy Records to Linda before August 29. She needs for her early morning meeting,

_Place order for Watkins customer samples. You need Black Pepper and Chicken Soup Base.

Listen to your voice mails early in the morning then take the appropriate action. If you work outside of the home, you can send the same type reminders to your home office as you think of them.



Voice Mail to Remind You of Important Dates

Since you able to set up personal voice mail messages for an advance date you can remind yourself a few days in advance of a client or loved ones birthday, anniversary or other important date.


Voice Mail as Wake-up Service

Instead of using your radio clock or alarm clock to get started in the morning, set a daily wake-up telephone call for yourself. This works well since the music you wake up to may be so soft you are liable to sleep through it or you are blasted awake and have a morning headache. To be effective alarm clocks are often very loud or annoying.

Many home business folks are up and working at their computer long before their alarm goes off. However, you can still use your voice mail as a wake-up service. Since you will receive the telephone call in your own voice, give yourself an early morning boost with something positive such as 'Time to get up darling (your name.) My, you are looking lovely (or handsome) today.' Compliments are good for the soul whatever the source. If you are one of those people who press the snooze button, set the telephone to ring again 10 or 15 minutes later. Just for fun have your mate or your children record your wake up message.


Bringing it all together:

Finally, if you dial-up such as AOL to connect to the internet, get CallWave * or a similar service. The monthly charge is inexpensive and is added directly to your telephone bill. CallWave allows you to hear your see your incoming call telephone number, and hear the message as well without disconnecting your computer. The outgoing message lets clients know that you unavailable at the moment. You also have the option of rejecting blocked or 'no number available' telephone calls. This outgoing message explains that you do not accept them. There may be other plans similar to this one. Spend some time on the internet to compare prices and services.