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Small business startups and entrepreneurs have something in common. A vision of David and Goliath. Both invest a lot of resources into taking down the Big Bad Corporations that enabled them to start their own business. These small businesses and entrepreneurs possess the skills and right approach. They commit themselves (rightly) to the customer. Ultimately, they have all of the tools and attitudes needed to succeed. But then something happens. Either a few slow months or some kind of “spooky” incident drains these folks of their steam. When we ask what happened, we often hear that they just couldn’t compete with the Big Boys (or in some paranoid cases we even get a “they had it out for me” excuse). Come on, who really believes this?

Small businesses have several critical advantages over large corporations. From a financial perspective, they have less layers of management. They can provide a more intimate approach to customer service without having to worry about bureaucracy. And while small businesses competing with larger corporations don’t have the same deep pockets, they also don’t have the extraordinary expenses. Small businesses truly stand to profit from the inefficiencies of larger corporations. So why don’t they?

In more cases than not, small businesses project the presence of a small company. While the customer experience might be exponentially better than that provided by the Big competitor, how can someone with a small presence attract a customer in the first place? After all, a customer looking to spend money on a product or service that is offered by a company whose phone number is 1-800-BUY-OURS will have a much easier time locating the bigger competitor. As a result, this business gets sourced to the bigger company. So how can the small business or entrepreneur compete with a Big Presence Almighty Corporation? There are several ways that we recommend to Build Presence, but the one item that is too often ignored is the toll-free number! Imagine that.

A toll-free number plays an instrumental part in setting up the small business or entrepreneur as a serious contender in any arena. Imagine a customer looking for a service or product that you can not only offer, but do a better servicing job than a larger corporation. This customer might look for you in the phone book and suppose this customer finds just two listings. One has a local number and the other has both a local number and a toll-free number. Chances are the toll-free number will stand out. After all, your customers might prefer to buy locally, but they expect service from any corner of the globe!

One of the nice things with a toll-free number is that it won’t balloon your expenses. With technology as it is today, you can arrange a toll-free number within a couple of minutes. Also, the best providers can have your calls routed to any phone number that you provide. That means you can receive calls while golfing, shopping or, more likely, driving from one customer location to another. No more missing calls or having to call into your voicemail only to find that you could have spoken with a prospect during down time. And forget about waiting around a call you just can’t miss. A service like this can allow any small business to focus more on business development and relationship management.

The service Quote Stork recommends comes at a price of $39.99/month. Our no-frills solution provides unlimited minutes where others limit your usage, it works in the entire USA, it allows you to use existing infrastructure without charging you to set up yet another voicemail, etc..

The small business owners and entrepreneurs who aim to take down the Goliath(s) in their markets cannot ignore the importance of a toll-free number. Such a simple and cost-effective tool gives the small business an edge against similarly sized companies and brings them to the same level as their biggest competitors. The advantage for the small business? Customers that call their toll-free number know exactly who they will reach.

Filed under: Entrepreneurs