Businesses uses a multitude of tools to get their work completed. It doesn’t matter whether you have a product or a service, all business need to sell. There are plenty of “cost to do business” items, such as rent, utilities and telecommunications systems, to achieve this goal.
Most businesses would never dream of allowing their employees to own or control important sales tools. But it seems as if some businesses have no problem in allowing their employees, especially those in sales, to have full control of their cell phone number.
There are many reasons for this. There is the cost involved in administrating the accounts. It may be easier to give them a monthly expense for it, or even reimburse the entire bill.
It may seem to the owner or manager of the business that they are doing the employee a favor by not forcing them to have a business and personal number. Of course there are IRS issues that can make it hard for the employer, but that’s not part of this conversation.
But is that wise or is it a big mistake to allow the employee that much control.
Are you a pure sales based company, reselling a product made by others? If you are, you probably require your salesperson to have a cellphone so they can always be in touch with your clients. The salesperson may think it’s their clients, but they are clients of the business. And for the small business owner that means yours.
Do you control the cellphone number or does your salesperson?
Salespersons makes many contacts and will hand outs even more business cards each day. The telephone number on the business card may have the desk number that the business controls. But sale persons like to be directly contacted. Even is the cellphone is not on the card a good client has more than likely been given the cellphone number?
Now let's look at a What If. What happens if the salesperson decides to leave to work for your chief competitor? Your client dials the cellphone number of his favorite salesperson. An order is placed and instead of your company getting the business, your competitor has it. Now you've lost a client.
It may be time to rethink the issue of whether cellphone number should be consider as another asset that you own. Who shall own the number? It really doesn't matter who owns the device, a device can always be replaced.
If you allow the employee to control their cellphone number, why don’t you let them control their desk number? That way they can keep in touch with all of your company clients when moving to another company.
Who knows, the number that you protect may be the one that is called in the middle of the night that could make, or break your business depending on whose salesperson is at the other end of that conversation.
© 2006-2007 Steven G. Atkinson – All Rights Reserved - Technology Tips for Small Business
To learn more about this author, visit Steven G. Atkinson's Website.
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