The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur

I have a business colleague who I know slightly. He’s very professional, highly successful and very personable. But he has this one small habit that drives me crazy! He jumps into a phone conversation without identifying himself first.

I’ve only met him once in person and spoken by telephone less than a dozen times. The rest of our communication has been by e-mail. No reasonable person should expect me to recognize their voice after so few contacts.

Now it just so happens that while I have a terrible time putting names to faces, I’m fairly good at recognizing phone voices. However, this guy jumps right into asking me questions and acting as if I should know who he is. By the time I’ve figured out who I’m speaking with, I’m about two paragraphs behind and need to play mental catch up.

The surprising thing is this is not terribly uncommon. I’ve noticed a large number of business people doing this. Is it an extreme ego? “I’m so important everyone must be thinking about me all the time?” Or is it they’re so excited about what they have to say they forget about the social niceties?

Regardless of the reason, there’s no excuse. It’s annoying and unprofessional. Please, unless you’re calling your mother or your best friend, identify yourself first whenever you call someone. I’ll be forever grateful.

While I’m ranting, I’d like to mention another telephone pet peeve. People who race through voice mail messages.

I’m sure you’ve experienced it. You’re listening to a message on your voice mail. When they leave their phone number, they speak like the Energizer Bunny on speed. You replay the message four or five times and you’re still not quite sure you have the correct number.

When I leave a voice mail message I always give my number twice: once at the beginning and once at the end. “Hello this is Andrea Stenberg at 123-456-7890…. I’d like to talk to you about X. Again, it’s Andrea at …”

This way the other person has time to get out a pen and paper plus has two chances to hear your number without having to hit replay.

Both of these are minor infractions. You won’t win any awards for getting them right. But making these errors can hurt your image. In today’s competitive market, there’s no need to give your competition any edge.

 Andrea J. Stenberg