A customer had a “Car Wash” analogy recently that I thought was interesting. He said he didn’t want to make the his 800 number active because he doesn’t want cars to start showing up at the car wash until he turned the water on. That makes some sense.

However when you stop and think about it, customers really aren’t going to start showing up at any business until you start advertising. I wish it were that simple, that just having a toll free number would make your phone start ringing. I could charge a lot more if that were the case!

The work of opening a new business doesn’t start when you turn the water on at your car wash or when the advertising starts either. It starts a long time before that. Those early calls to and from landlords, contractors, zoning boards, printers and vendors are even more important in many ways.

Your posture and the image of your business at that point isn’t based on the success of your business either. Your initial credibility is based on your attitude and the image you create with things like your phone number, your temporary website, your business cards, voicemail, drawings of the location etc. That’s why I always remind people that a vanity toll free number is one of the cheapest things you’ll do to start your business and a great way to fake it till you make it. It makes you look successful and serious without very much expense or hassle.

When you compare the cost of a good vanity number and the difficulty of setting it up to forward the calls to your existing phone line, vs. the cost of not only getting a good domain name but setting up the hosting and building even a decent temporary page, a toll free number is much cheaper, quicker and easier. You can even point your toll free number to your cell phone to get started without needing a separate line.

It’ll probably even save you more than the cost of the toll free number if you wait a couple months before adding a separate business line until the calls really start to pick up. If you’ve already paid for the toll free number you’ll need in your advertising, it’ll actually only cost you a few cents per minute to look sharper and more professional while you get the business rolling.

The last point to consider is the cost of NOT having your toll free number working in the beginning. Toll free numbers can get wrong numbers which you don’t want to find out at the last minute. And it always takes longer to transfer your number than you think it will, especially when you’re in a hurry. So you don’t want to wait to the last minute when it’s holding everything up or worse yet, your advertising hits before the number is working. For these and several more reasons it’s just smarter to get your number up and working even when you’re still laying the groundwork for your new business.

I know it’s easy to procrastinate and find excuses to put things off, but you really are going to be busier when you turn the water on and open your doors than you are now. So it’s only smart to get this done and out of the way since it costs you almost nothing to have it now and get the peace of mind of having one more thing done. You’ve got enough things on your mind opening a business and we want to make this go smoothly and not turn into a problem.

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