Listen to the Monkey…
Listen to Rafiki, the wise monkey from the Lion King who told Simba in the Lion King 1½, “Look beyond what you see.”
It’s natural to look for or think about something until you find it or think you’ve found it, and then stop looking. You’re probably only looking for one toll free number, so when you think of one you think you’d like, it’s natural to stop trying to think of any more. It’s not easy to look “beyond what you see” but there’s a whole world out there when you start looking around. We also tend to think that, this first number, which is often the most obvious and/or generic toll free number is the very best possible one, even if we haven’t considered very much else. (See: Don’t marry the first girl you meet)
If your first choice is available, it’s easy and there’s no problem. But if your first choice isn’t “Available,” join the club. You can chase after your fantasy for a while but if you’re smart you’ll adjust your mind set from searching for a single item to brainstorming for all of the possibilities. (Unfortunately, if your boss is the one that thought of the number, it’s hard to adjust your boss’s mind set.) In Brainstorm mode you expand your horizons so you can look beyond “The big pointy rock” (the obvious one you thought of first).
You might be thinking, “But this is my company name or such a great number I couldn’t possibly find anything else as perfect as this, and it’s exactly 7 digits so this is still what we really want.” If it’s available great, you’re all set. But since your first choice is almost never just sitting there, waiting for you, any more than the perfect girl is just sitting there waiting for you, eventually you’ve got to get over your fantasy number and look around more carefully. Even if you essentially want to ask the same person again, trying harder, (which we’ll cover in a moment) you’ll still want to look around and see what other options there are. What’s the worst that can happen? You might wind up a backup or interim number, or you might just validate that you really need to pursue your first choice.
You’ll probably find that there are actually a lot more possibilities than you realized. Be creative, think outside the box, look for the selling points, the benefits that your customer is looking for, the keywords they might search for, anything related to your value proposition, etc. You get the idea. (See: What things to look for in a good number for more ideas)
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Are you looking for a toll free number that makes you stand out at TollFreeNumbers.com says:
July 11, 2008 at 8:41 am
[…] Listen to the Monkey… (0) […]
Home Loan Modification 800 Numbers at TollFreeNumbers.com says:
January 28, 2009 at 8:04 am
[…] which aren’t usually known for their creativity, but take off your lawyer hat and put on your marketing hat. You don’t have to go get a car salesman hat, but just try to think outside of the box. The more […]
1-800 BILLBOARD at TollFreeNumbers.com says:
March 20, 2009 at 11:45 am
[…] The other point is that you don’t own the word Billboard. Your business probably isn’t going to come up first if they search on the internet for Billboards. And even if you do come up on the first page you’re going to come up in a list of competitors. And if you dial the 888 version or 4-BILLBOARDs, GO-BILLBOARDS or any other variation you’re probably going to get a competitor. Or even if they don’t use it now, they can make up something confusingly similar and you can’t do anything about it because you don’t own the name Billboard. So look beyond the obvious things to something more creative and more unique. […]