Making sure you're available

If you're going to market your services, make sure you’re available for new business.

If you have a website, an advertising campaign or marketing materials that promise services and invite responses and enquires, make sure you have the resources to deal with those.

Our local hardware store had a bunch of flyers on the counter from a local handyman keen to get some new customers. My wife gave him a call week ago and left a message. No response. She left another message yesterday.

Maybe the guy is busy and can’t deal with customer demand. Maybe he is not good at returning calls. Either way, it doesn’t look we’ll be customers.

So make sure you can deal with new biz demand, even if it means calling people back to say ‘sorry, we’re now too busy’.