Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I`m not insensitive to anyone, other than I just don`t care about their problems. I`m coming at this from the position of a professional doing business with another professional.

It`s irrelevant to me what`s going on in the life of the person at the other end of a phone conversation when it`s a business meeting. All I care about is that either I need to know something, or need to explain something. When I experience a constant "Hang on a sec....okay, I`m back," my first reaction is to hang up.

This is the same problem with having important conversations on a cellphone, where dropouts, miserable quality, and static interrupt the flow of the dialog. It has nothing to do with the name brand of the cellphone, or how difficult it is for the person using that cellphone to access a land-line or quality connection.

CraigL and nhgnikole I think you are both right. There really is no right and wrong answer, just personal preferences. Actually when I asked my own brother what he thought he said he wouldn`t want to do business with someone where he heard children in the background. Sounds cold, but for some people it is the truth. Some people will care and some people will care less.

But I think it good to talk about such things, because it sounds like from the responses here that more than a few have had to just deal with it the best way they knew how. So at the bare minimum, it helps to know I am not the only trying to tackle such an issue as I get my business off the ground.

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That`s for sure! You`re definitely in the growing population of people who`ve concluded that "all work and no play" is pretty much the same as "all work at the expense of the family and life."

Yet another approach to this, in an initially unrelated form, involves courtesy. Lots of people have Call-Waiting on their phone. Is it useful? Of course. Is it courteous, no...not at all.

What sort of impression do you want to make on someone speaking with you? Do you want them to believe you`re actually giving them your full attention, or that they`re somewhere down the list of priorities and interest?

It isn`t about whether or not you can multitask, or that you can do five things at once, two of them involving children crises. When I say nobody cares, I mean that the person who`s trying to speak with you is also "assuming" they have your full attention. If they don`t, you`re implying that they`re really not all that important.

If it`s a potential business client, and you`re saying "Look...I`ll talk with you a bit, but I`m really more involved right now with my daughter`s coloring," what does that say? Some would like to believe the caller will think, "Wow! This is one serious multi-tasker!"

I`m saying that the majority of people, business or otherwise, will say, "Mmm...well, y`know what? Let me call you back later when you`re not so busy."

I`ve been a work-at-home mom on and off for the past 17 years - my kids are now 17 and 14. I`ve seen the whole WAH thing relax from where it was when I first started. Back then, you didn`t tell people you worked from home, for fear they might not take you seriously. Now, I think it is so accepted it is not a big deal.  My clients all know I work from home and many of my local clients have met my family. They ask how they are doing on a regular basis, and the fact that I have a family and work from home is just part of who I am.

I will say that it is somewhat easier now that my kids are older, but they still yell at me from the other end of the house when I`m on the phone, or barge in my office talking.

Once my kids were old enough to understand, we created "rules." We explained to them that in order for mommy to be home with them she needed to do her work and that these rules were part of that arrangement. For the most part they were good about not interupting me, or at least not verbally. MANY times I have had a note shoved under my nose while on the phone!  But there were also the times they barged into my office when I was on the phone and I had to turn and put my hand out like a stop sign, to signal that I was on the phone and to wait until I was done. I`ve learned to not get too uptight about it all and just handle it the best I can.

Now, I would have to say I have more trouble with my dogs barking than my kids interrupting!  I was recording a podcast interview with a very well known Internet marketer a couple of weeks ago and my dogs decided to start barking. We both joked about the dogs never being quiet when you need them to and it actually added some personality to the interview.

These days with cell phones and mobile Internet connections even my friends who work out of the home are always "on."  So I think it is understood that life will interrupt sometimes.  I think the bottom-line is if you do a great job for your clients and don`t constantly put them on hold for your kids, they will understand. And I`ll bet the kids and dogs and other interruptions probably bother us more than the person on the other end of the phone.

Debbie

 

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Debbie LaChusa, 10stepmarketing, If you can answer 10 questions, you can successfully market your own business!

Enh...external noises don`t bother me when I`m in a phone meeting. It`s only the "Hang on a sec.....okay, I`m back...." over and over again. Otherwise, it`s only if the external noise is so loud the person is always saying, `What..? Wait...I didn`t hear that." :-)

I think the days of people thinking working from home is "unprofessional" have passed.

Debbie, your advice is great!  I have three kids and I handle the situation very similarly.  The kids appreciate that I am able to stay home with them so when I tell them that Mommy has an important phone call coming in, or I am about to make a call, they usually will keep it down.  I too get notes slid under my nose while on the phone.  Also, if I know I am going to be on the phone for a long call or two, I will tell the kids that when I am done we`ll play a game of cards or some other quality-time activity.  This incentive can keep even the longest business call event free.  Notice I used the word "incentive" and not "bribery".  Quality-time should not be considered as a bribe.  I have used the quality-time tactice time and time again and it works like a charm.  The dog, on the other hand, is a different story.  If you are on an important call...lure the dog into a back bedroom until you are done! 

Good suggestion about the dog BusyAllie!

Actually, I was teaching and recording a teleclass last week and because I expected my kids to arrive home from school during the call (they`re in high school now so they drive themselves to school), I called my daughter on her cell phone and told her to come in quickly and quietly when they got home from school AND I put the dogs in the back yard. It worked like a charm.

Like you said, I think being a work at home mom, just requires a bit more advance planning! 

 

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Debbie LaChusa, 10stepmarketing, If you can answer 10 questions, you can successfully market your own business!

I just had a conversation with my mother, who`s, according to her calculations, 105. She somehow thought she`s 50 years older than me, but we did some re-thinking, and she concluded that just didn`t sound right...somehow.

ANYway....in the course of talking, she wanted to get something to drink, check the back door, find her walker, get a glass, ask some other questions, and so on and so forth.

The main issue is that she really has no interest in what I`m actually doing. She asks, because she believes it`s important to ask people something about themselves. But as she gets older, she forgets to leave enough time for the person to respond. The result is an amazingly annoying and irritating conversation.

The point of this rant is that when two people converse (or `conversate,` as the kids today say), either one of them has the option of considering the conversation to be valuable or not. Most adults have a well-honed sense of how to determine what the other person`s evaluation works out to be.

If you want to work from home, from the park, the beach, or on a plane, nobody really cares. We`re focusing on telephone conversations, and the only thing that matters is whether or not you value the time invested by the person at the other end of the conversation. Anything that indicates the other person is less valuable is a problem, and extraneous noises sometimes are a clue.

But it still comes down to how YOU react to those extraneous noises.