“Good morning, Washington Post”
“Bob Woodward please”
“Sorry he’s out, can I take a message?”
“It’s private, I can only talk to him, what’s his mobile?”
“Sorry we don’t give out mobile numbers.”
“His email then?”
“Nor email. What is your name?”
“Tell him Deep Throat called, but not to worry, I’ll call the New York Times.”
All right, so they didn’t have mobiles or email in the days of Watergate, but you can still see this scenario happening in today’s offices. Maybe there is an important, life-changing call looking for you, that can’t get past the gate keepers.
I had this argument the other day, with a young reporter who does not allow the switchboard to give out his mobile number.
“So what sort of journalist does that make you?” I snapped. “Journalists always have to have their antennas out, listen to everyone, know what’s going on. If you close off your lines of communication you’re a fool.”
But I’ll say this applies to my readers too. My first advice is, even when you get a job with a corporation that issues you with a phone and email address - don’t give up your own private ones.
As much as possible, when you deal with customers and suppliers, give them your personal details to put in their address books.
The fact is, the average time most people will hold a job is less than three years. But I’m sure you expect your working lifetime to be much longer than that.
These days the phone and email are your identity. They are who you are, where people call you, how they can find you.
How often have you dealt regularly - every few months, say - with a company representative, and one day when you phone, they have gone.
Now this rep had grown to understand your business, you liked them and got on well together, you knew they could be trusted to charge you fairly. But the phone is cut off, the email bounces, to all intents and purposes they have disappeared off the planet. When you ask the switchboard, mysteriously nobody knows where they went.
This is when you wish you had their private contact details. Of course companies are well aware of this and they are very happy to bury their ex under a load of concrete.
They actively discourage personal contacts, so when you are passing on your true identity, you’ll have to be discreet and not let the boss notice.
What, you’re worried that your number will be passed to some huge Bangalore call centre? Certainly the world is full of spammers and nuisance callers. But they will rarely be the people you gave your number to. My ISP has an efficient spam-catcher and there is one in my Norton anti-virus so between them they weed out most of the Russian brides and Viagra sellers.
There will always be a number that sneak through, but it’s an easy enough task when you download your email to winkle them out at the start. Better to put up with that little bit of nuisance than to risk missing out on the one caller or message that could make all the difference to your career.
Oh and to put my money where my mouth is: my phone number is 0409 174 565 and my email is ray@ebeatty.com. Call me.
Blog: themarketeer-raybeatty.blogspot.com
