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I’ve finally made a phone call that I was dreading all weekend.  And it wasn’t so bad.  In fact he was very understanding and took my apologies without making me grovel too much.  Don’t ‘ya love my Dad!

You see, I’d sent an email to my parents without really thinking about what I was writing and it turned around and bit me on the bottom.  My email wasn’t particularly subtle, but it could have been (and was!) wrongly interpreted.

I know how easy it is to send an email.  Type and send, type and send.  That’s all you have to do.  But it doesn’t convey the nuances and subtleties that your voice does.  Unless you know the writer very well, many times the joy, frustration, sarcasm even can be lost in the written word.  I ought to have picked up the phone and spoken to him and then there wouldn’t have been 48 hours of ‘eeek’.  Hindsight. Should be banned.

My voice, I think, is my greatest sales feature.  In the majority of cases, my clients don’t know me from Eve and I have been recommended through a third party.  If I come across as flaky, disorientated or disinterested over the phone, I’m toast and they’re gone, leaving just a trail of telephone dust.  My voice instills in them the confidence needed to hand over bank accounts and credit card details, to leave me to deal with their customers and clients and be their business ‘face’ when they are not available.

Whatever your relationship with your clients, I’d recommend picking up the phone every so often and having a verbal conversation with them.  Hearing someone’s voice is the second best thing to meeting someone, which many times in this world of virtual working doesn’t happen.  I also think people in general and clients especially  appreciate you taking the time to make contact, checking in to make sure everything is okay and asking whether there’s anything else you can do for them.  Sometimes, there’s a light bulb moment and a ‘Oh, while you’re on the phone…’

About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, an off-site business support service.  Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money.  Find out how working with a Virtual Assistant can help your business.