The one issue I seem to have right now is that I would get a small handful of prospects calling me from the East Coast. But since I am on the West Coast, and about 3 hours behind them, it is past 9 o’clock at night by the time I get home and get the messages.
I know that it is a little rude to call people after a certain time and so I end up either not calling them back right away (even though I want to) or calling them the next day when I’m still half asleep. That’s a swell conversation, I tell ya!
I’m wondering if there’s a way to contact people who are at home, when I’m not at home and free to talk to them. Would they appreciate that I’m working full-time and doing this other work part-time to supplement my income? Or would they just be annoyed that I didn’t call them back right away?
I think they’d be annoyed that they didn’t hear back from you right away. Is there a way you can check messages and call back during your lunch hour or while on a break? Or do the calls take too long?
Well, I try not to let my part-time work interfere with my full-time work.. and it’s hard to find a quiet place where I work to have a conversation in private.
I did manage to call those people back… and then today I followed up with them…. out of 4 calls, I got two definite and emphatic “NO!”s — which is common and not a surprise at all. I’m actually quite surprised that I wasn’t upset by the rejection.
One was a “kinda busy right now” call me back later? And one was a voicemail. I’m hoping that the voicemail will call… but at this rate, I’m not holding my breath.
If I called someone, other than just for a friendly chat, I would expect a call back ASAP. For a business call during regular business hours, ASAP to me means within the hour. I would be far less inclined to do business with someone if my first impression was that they don’t return calls ASAP.
I suspect you’ll run into a problem in calling people back during business hours the next day, in that your call may then be interfering with their job and/or other responsibilities. Those factors together – lack of timely callback, calling at times inconvenient to them – may explain why so many people are saying “no” when you return their call.
As long as you didn’t call past 9 pm ET, most folks wouldn’t be upset with an evening callback, unless they have younger children at home. I’d rather get an evening callback, than a callback the next day. I may not answer the phone if I’m eating or watching television, and definitely wouldn’t have answered the phone when my son was young, but I would definitely know they made the effort to get back in touch with me since I monitor my caller ID even when I have no intention of answering.
If I got a callback at midnight though (9pm your time) even now, I’d be absolutely livid. So you do have a bit of a time crunch problem if you have a lot of calls to return, given that you are doing this in your off time.
You may want to think about telling people on your voicemail that you are on the west coast, so they will understand if they don’t get a callback until late, or the next day. You might even want to ask on voicemail that they tell you what is the latest time you can call. If they are contacting you via email, perhaps you can set up an auto-response saying the same thing. At least then they know they are not being ignored, and that you are considering their time constraints as well.
Hope that helps!