• "Nothing can resist the human will that will stake even its existence on its stated purpose." - Benjamin Disraeli

• Awaken the Giant Within. Author: Anthony Robbins. Publisher: Summit Books. The book is now ten years old, but the message on how to take immediate control of your mental, emotional, physical and financial destiny is as relevant today as it was then.

• http://www.worstcasescenarios.com/index.htm All you ever wanted to know about how to escape from quicksand, wrestle an alligator, break down a door, land a plane, fend off a shark and many other lifeskills.
  

How often has this happened to you? You get back to your office and on your desk is a message saying X called, can you please phone them back. Or on clearing your voice mail, Y has left a similar message. Both messages are minus a contact number.

You then spend valuable time hunting through files, business cards, teledexes and the like to find the caller’s telephone number, an exercise that is not always successful. This results in you not being able to return the call and it’s you that ends up with the black mark against your name for not returning someone’s call.

How different the outcome would have been if the caller had simply left their contact telephone number.

Generally speaking, people who are making contact for the first time are not the culprits. It’s the people who regularly call you that make the assumption that their telephone number is something you have spent hours memorising, such that when they call and leave a message, you have instant recall.

I don’t care how often you call someone, except perhaps for calling home or your best friend, when you leave a message always leave your telephone number. Another reason why this is so important is that as we all become more and more mobile, chances are that the person you calling may receive your message whilst they are in transit somewhere. Trying to find your telephone number whilst hurtling down a freeway is not the safest exercise in the world. For all you know they could be sitting in an airport lounge on the other side of the planet without their trusty teledex.

It is also important that when you leave your number, you speak slowly, clearly and repeat the number. Just because you may be primarily auditory in your preferred communication style and have no difficulty instantly remembering what you hear, others who are more visual and kinesthetic don’t always share the same ability. So whilst you may feel a little awkward speaking slowly and repeating yourself, it is vital that you do. After all, do you want the person to call you back or not?

Another suggestion is that you leave an alternative contact number. You may have left the location from where you made the call by the time the person you are calling receives it. Also stating in you message the best time to return your call minimises the time spent playing ‘telephone tag’ which I’m sure you have experienced on many occasions.

Listing you telephone in the ‘signature’ of your emails is also a good idea. (See last weeks newsletter) It may be more appropriate for the person to respond to your enquiry by telephone rather than by email.

So next time you are tempted to leave a message without a telephone number, no matter how convinced you are that the person you are calling knows your number, do them a courtesy and leave your contact details.

Until next week, many happy customer returns!

Graham Harvey APS

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