Whether you’re just starting a business or you’re a freelancer, your phone situation is one of the most overlooked, yet integral components of a successful business venture. Early on, a separate phone may seem like an unnecessary expenditure, but the more your business expands, the better the idea will look. By helping separate your personal life from work, you can maintain a more organized and professional approach to your business. Here are just a few more reasons to consider a separate business phone.
Keeping Your Personal Life Intact
Depending on the nature of your business, you may have to stay connected to clients around the clock. However, it’s important to have some personal time to unwind and maintain the proper work-life balance. With a business phone, this balance becomes easier than ever. When it’s time to shut down your business operations for the day, you can turn off your business phone, cutting off emails and notices that can hinder your relaxation. This helps you maintain your sanity, especially if you want to unwind and take a legitimate break from the stress of work.
Staying on Budget
One of the biggest criticisms of purchasing a separate business phone is that it’s an unwarranted expense. You’re on the hook for a bill each month regardless of how much you use the phone, and this money could easily go toward other bills or upgrades, or so many believe. This misconception causes business owners to ignore the idea outright, even before checking the prices of phones and available plans from providers.
However, a quick check into business phones and plans shows that they’re often far more affordable than you think. By using the proper plan, you can cater the business phone to your needs without leaving out the extras. The same goes for phones. With an iPhone 5s through T-Mobile, you’re on the nation’s fastest network, while also having access to a camera for digital meetings, a super-fast processor, and the iCloud for file storage.
Wrong Texts and Pocket Dialing
Nothing is worse than sending a text to the wrong person, but if the wrong person happens to be a client and the text is less than professional, it leaves you in a precarious situation. Without a separate business phone, this may happen more often than you think. Your contact list or phonebook is essentially a mishmash of friends, acquaintances, and clients, and several may have the same or similar names. When you want to send a message to your friend, Bryan C., and you accidentally send it to your client, Brian C., it could cost you business.
The same idea goes for pocket dialing. When you forget to lock your phone and put it in your pocket, you might end up letting a client in on a conversation they shouldn’t have heard, especially if their number is on a personal phone. A separate business phone means you don’t have to shove it in your pocket with reckless abandon, and it just might save you from an embarrassing pocket dial.
Expansion
Like any small business owner or freelancer, your ultimate goal is to grow your business into a profitable enterprise through expansion. Even if you’re in the early stages of your business, it’s never too early to start thinking about expansion. However, expansion creates a problem if you’re using your personal number.
While it’s a matter of convenience to use your personal phone when you’re starting out, you probably don’t want to give that number to the public as you continue to grow. Not only does this leave you open to round-the-clock phone calls, but you can also become a victim of solicitors and other unsavory businesses.
The final problem with using your personal number as your business grows is that you may have to change it to your business number later. When you change your professional contact information, it can cause communication problems and even cost you business.
Although the idea of a separate personal and business phone may seem like a nuisance or overkill, you’ll find that it makes both aspects of your life that much easier. It’s just one more thing you don’t have to worry about. That’s something every small business owner can get behind.