Operator, can you help me make this call?

“If the phone doesn’t ring, it’s me” Jimmy Buffett

Got an email today from a guy I used to work with. I guess I’d call him a work friend in that I know him and like him but don’t socialize with him. We live in the same town so I run across him now and again. So, the email says, “hey, how you doing? Call me sometime”. OK, but if he wants to chat why didn’t he call me? If he had time to email me he had time to dial my number. Why is the responsibility now on me to call him?

Then I realized this happens a lot where someone tells you to call them. I guess it’s like that “One Minute Monkey” thing from the book. But in this case they give you the phone monkey. Now if the two of you don’t talk in the next several months it’s because you didn’t call. It’s your fault, not theirs.

Further I’ve paged back through my memory banks trying to remember if I’ve said “hey, call me” to someone and although I can’t pinpoint exact people and places I know I have and when I did it was because I really didn’t want to talk to that person and I hedged my bet that they would never call me.

Years ago I called an old buddy of mine and while talking to him apologized for it being so long since I’d called. He said, “no problem pal, the phone lines run both ways”.

Yes they do.

They run both ways in business too. Constantly having to be the one to call a prospect once you’ve had an opportunity to pitch your product or service is a clear warning sign of something being amiss. Either, the prospect doesn’t have the need or the money (thus poorly qualified), you did a poor job of representing your value (you need to train and practice your value proposition), or your product/service has a poor value ratio (it doesn’t hit the mark or isn’t worth the price tag).

The hard – but extremely important – part is determining which reason (or combination of reasons) it is that’s causing the silence. Fixing it will be a separate blog for each one.

So, my newest resolution is I’m not going to use the “call me” line. If I want to talk to someone I’m going to call them, and if I don’t want to talk to them I’ll email them and say “write me sometime”…..