How to Sound More Professional (And Make More Money) on Calls

Hello and welcome. My name is Tavishma Ayede. I'm the host of the podcast, and I'm making today's recording at home, so expect to hear some noise in the background. Now, the goal of this podcast is solving business problems. So if you're struggling to get customers, if there's a problem with your marketing, if your side hustle isn't moving, if something is holding your business back, then this is the show for you. So subscribe on Spotify,

YouTube, Apple or any player of your choice. And if you'd love to connect, then call SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Today on the podcast, I want us to look at simple things you need if you're going to make a living using the phone. I repeat, simple things you are going to need if you want to make a living using the phone. And of course, who are those people who make a living using the phone? It's you and I, self-employed people, business owners, whether we like it or not, we have to pick up the phone every once in a while and call someone or we have to receive phone calls from customers, from stakeholders,

from partners, from enquirers, from whoever. We have to pick up the phone. So we're going to look at some simple things that you need. Now, the reason why I want us to look at this today is because there are too many of you who are trying to grow a business or too many of you who are kind trying to build a career in sales and you don't have some basic setups that will make you more effective and they'll make the job easier for you.

So some of you salespeople, you've already started picking up some kind bad habits. You don't have some simple setups to make sure that you're effective. That's wrong. You're getting into business, you know, for the first time, you ought to be a wedding photographer. You ought to be a wedding planner, you want to be a developer. You know, whether full stack, front end, back end, you know how you tech people like to call yourselves or you know, you want to develop an app or you want to be an architect or you want to be a Carpenter or whatever it is you do and you don't have some basic setups to make your job easy.

That's wrong. So that's the reason why we're looking at today's podcast. So let me see anyway, I'm assuming that you all get what it is and I'm trying to say because this whole thing about phones, because some of you still might not be convinced. So let me just put it this way with all these examples that I've given, whether a carpentry or whether being a farmer or whether being an architect or whether being a web developer.

The thing is at some point you're only trying to make more money. Trying to make more money means you will either be making more calls yourself because you're chasing customers or you will be receiving more calls and texts because maybe you've been doing some advertising or you've been getting some referrals and then things are working. But we can't run away from it in trying to grow our business. It is either you will start making more calls or you will start receiving more calls and more messages.

Now essentially the problem is most of you listening to this podcast right now, you are still trying to process all your calls, process all your messages, make all your calls and send all your messages by holding the phone to your ear and by using your thumbs. That is a problem. So what do you need? You need some kind of keyboard support because the phone keypad is, you know, it's impressive, but typing with thumbs and typing with the full range of fingers, like you can't compare.

I have met one person who says she's very, very comfortable. And she said that she wrote her thesis, that's her university masters paper on the phone just by using her forms. You know, that is impressive if you're that kind of person. Well, then this podcast episode is not for you. But for the rest of us normal people, we are faster typing out some kind of keyboard than typing on the phone keyboard. So you need some kind of keyboard support if you're going to grow your business or if you're going to build a carrier in sales.

I keep telling people Bluetooth keyboard, of course, because that's the one that I have, you know, connects to my phone and essentially I have a mobile office. But you don't have to do that because it's not for everybody. Like my sister-in-law says it looks like work and she says you'll make her feel like she's serious and plugged in all the time. So well, she's a Baker. I don't understand her objections, but I can't see how it's not everybody's cup of tea.

So for those of you who have refused Bluetooth keyboard, you need to find some ways of coping. One way that I've seen lots of people do is they connect their WhatsApp business to their computer so that at least WhatsApp messages, they can be replying from the computer and that won't make sense. That's good. So consider that if you're not a Bluetooth keyboard person, look for a way of connecting your WhatsApp, your business profile to your computer.

If you don't know how to do it, just go on Google and do a search. You know the instructions will come up. It will make your life a whole lot easier. You will find that you're going to be able to be processing messages, responding to customers. Sharp, sharp, sharp, sharp, sharp. So those people that my wife likes to buy chicken from, you know, that's how they do. So a long time ago, I went to the to their shop to pick up an order.

And while I was standing around waiting, I just stretched my neck, you know, because I saw the day I was on the computer typing where I stretched my neck. And then I saw WhatsApp. This was years ago. And I was like, wow, OK, I didn't know that you can do WhatsApp from your computer. And the guy was just typing, you know, responding to people. So that's the way. So if you run a meat shop, you supply chicken to your customers and stuff like that, you know,

people are constantly pinging you. I have transferred 20K to your account. Have you seen the transfer? I paid in the morning. Have you seen, have you seen the transfer? You both told me you come at 11, where are you? All those messages just be dropping ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. If you're going to be using your thumb, you'll be frustrated. But therefore like that business, if you hook up what's up my business to the computer,

somebody can sit down a very fast typist and just be typing and responding to everybody and making things happen. Then I've also mentioned in the past about how you can connect your Android phone because I'm an Android user to your Google Chromebook. Now, I don't have a Google Chrome book, but my kids do. And I created a profile on my son's Google or my son's Chromebook. And then one day the thing sent me a message. The thing said, do you know you can connect your Android so, so,

so, and so to Google Chromebook just by doing this and that, you know, are you interested? Would you like to try it? And then I clicked on no, because of course, you know, it's meant for my kids. It's not meant for me, but it was nice to know that I can be done. I've never done it before, but I've received the notification and so I know that it can be done. So if you have a Chromebook and you have an Android phone, you can connect your phone to your Chromebook, excuse me?

And then that way you will be able to send. So excuse me. That way you'll be able to send messages from your computer, both text messages and WhatsApp from your computer. And you will also be able to make calls from your computer. So that way your phone doesn't even have to be with you. You can be with the computer here at your desk, but your phone is in your room. Meanwhile, business will just be flowing normal because if somebody sends you SMS, you see you reply.

If somebody sends makes a call, you will respond. If you want to make a call, you will make the call. Then you can also connect your iPhone to your Mac. Now, that's the only one that I know. I've, I've done for sure by myself because a long time ago, maybe a decade ago, I had a Mac and I had an iPhone. And yeah, yeah, it was Mumsy. Mumsy told me that you could hook the whole thing up. And I was like, Are you sure? She said, yeah, let me do it for you.

I gave it to her. I don't know how she did it, but lo and behold, my phone and my MacBook were connected. And oh boy, I was free because just like I said, my phone could be in the living room and I could be in the bedroom and just be carrying on business all as normal. If somebody wants to do FaceTime, I will answer from my Mac. If somebody wants to do ordinary call, I'll answer from my Mac, send text message, I will send from my computer, receive text message, I will read from my computer.

And that was freedom. That was bliss. But to grow your business and for a career in sales, since you are going to be sending and receiving lots more phone calls, you need some kind of Bluetooth support. These are some of the options. The problem with typing with your thumbs is that it puts pressure on your shoulders. You will now begin the haunch. And it's not nice. It's not nice. You're a young man, you'll be slouching like a gorilla.

Why? It's not nice. You're not looking good, You're not looking presentable. Huh. Don't go and become Hunchback of Notre Dame or you're a young lady you're typing on listening. You're now launching slouching like why? It's not nice, it's not sweet. You don't look on points, right, Get some keyboard support and let's keep our posture of nice so that you know when we show up in public, you know people will see us and be like what?

Who is that fine guy? Who's that fine girl? You are a specimen. It's not go around all hunchback. It's not good at all. Now The thing is this, even if you say I don't care, I want to be hunchback, no problem. Slouching is OK when you're 18 or 28 or 38. Eventually you get to be 4850860878. Then all that slouching behaviour that you did in your youth will not be causing you serious complications in your old age, right. So when I say these simple kinds of things, you need keyboard support.

So you'll be thinking, yeah, there he goes again. He just wants us to be to buy Bluetooth keyboard for the sake of Bluetooth keyboard. No, it's because there are some simple, small nasty habits you're doing when you're 182838 that will cause complications for you when you're 4850860878. Cap that thing now, if you don't believe me, next time you're on the villa, you know, just go and reach your auntie. How now? How you do?

Oh, my knee, my back, my shoulder, my arm, my wrist. You will hear it. All these things happen because of bad decisions that we make when we're young. So we need this kind of support. Then what else do you need? You need some kind of hands free support because holding your phone and making phone call to your ear. Well, it depends on the number of phone calls you make. Me, I make lots of phone calls. After a while it is taxing on your neck and then your biceps.

You will end the phone call. You be like this one of my bicep is is as if I went to the gym to go and do curls. So you need some kind of hands free support. My former partner shared with the video guy what he has is he has desk speakers in his office. So anybody that calls The thing is wired through Bluetooth speakers. So he just talks normal. I mean, nothing looks fancy and we're like, it looks very, very fancy, looks very high tech.

The problem is no privacy because whenever I'm a Sherman's office, it doesn't matter who calls, whether it's his wife that calls or if his business partner that calls or if he's a politician that calls. I can hear the whole conversation. Now, of course, he does the smart thing by saying, you know, when somebody calls, hello Bros Novak, I beg you on speaker. And then they continue chatting just so that the other person knows that the person won't say anything to you understand too on toward any secret that is not supposed to say.

He won't say. But with those with those desk speaker things, there's no privacy. And if you're working from home, well, you know, I don't know if you're working from, I don't know if you want your wife or your girlfriend or your husband or mom's or Popsy to be hearing absolutely all the details of all the business conversations that you're having. And then if you walk in an open office setting, after a while, your line manager will call you and say, look, you know what?

This is a distraction. You can't be making phone calls this way because your phone calls are disturbing everybody else. So but any that's an option, desk speakers. But that's if you have your own dedicated office. Like my guy Shagun, he has rented the place, he has his own office. Normally it's just him all to himself, but when somebody else comes like me when I come to pay a visit, you know, there's no privacy. Then you can also try wired earbuds with microphones, like this Orimo Orimo something.

Something very, very not, not expensive at all. I've seen it sold one or five. I've seen it sold three or five in some places. So it makes me wonder, is it that day's original? And then there's fake, but any harsher, Those things are all bad. They're affordable and the good thing about them is they don't need charging. So you can use them as long as you like. Then there's also Bluetooth gaming headsets. They are very expensive, Very,

very expensive. I have a pair so I'm speaking from experience. But The thing is they have good battery life. Forget like the one that I'm using is a Noble Noble BT30 6BT or something like that. It's an entry level something. Sorry, it's a mid level something. But on a full charge the thing has 200 hours of playback and talk time. You hear what I said? The thing has 200 hours. So that means if I use my headphones for 10 hours every single day, I will use that thing for almost 3 weeks before I have to charge again.

Yes, you heard me correctly. And this is not even a top of the line model. If I use my headphones 10 hours every day, and of course that's not possible, who uses headphones for 10 hours? I will use that thing for almost 3 weeks before I have to charge that thing again. The battery power on those things is mad. I have never been afraid that the battery power will die during a phone call. Never. In fact, my wife, she owns the same pair of headphones, no different color.

My own is green, her own is red. My wife, she charges her own maybe like twice a year because my wife is not really heavy headphone person, you know, maybe when she's cooking podcasts, you know, but maybe that's like 3-4 hours and then that's it. Then maybe weekend if she wants to watch film on her computer, children are shouting too much. All of us by disturbing her, she will now cover her head with headphones and you know, watch her thing.

So my wife, she charges her headphones maybe twice, maybe 3 * a year Max. The battery life is that good. So you guys should consider it if you can't afford Bluetooth gaming headsets, good battery life, then the microphone quality also is good. Very very good. The problem is gaming headphones are big and so for females it doesn't always blend with every single lifestyle. Because maybe you do Bob and the crop, maybe that's your hairstyle.

If you now put gaming headset, it will spoil your hair. So that's just the only problem. Apart from that, they're good. Then we also have Bluetooth earbuds. The battery life is not great because using those things, you know, the battery life is maybe like 4 hours, 5 hours. So that means by the time you make phone call from like 8:00 to 12:00, you now have to charge it so they can use it again for the rest of the day. So it's not fantastic, but they're comfortable and the audio quality is good.

Some of them wouldn't have noise cancelling, so they're good. Then we also have call centre headsets. These ones are perfect. The ergonomics, the design is perfect. I don't know how to describe it. Boy, you see you, you see what I mean? These things are just designed for calls only. So a simple band that goes across the top of your head and then it connects to an earpiece and then it connects to a mouthpiece. Perfect.

But The thing is, I don't know if they're very good for listening to music though, because may I work with music every day. But those call centre headsets, they're perfect and they're comfortable. You can wear them for hours, hours and hours and hours at an end. So it's good. So The thing is whether you're left-handed or whether you're right-handed, taking long calls is going to test your neck and it's going to test your biceps.

Right now, if you're new in the business, you won't feel it because you're not making too many calls. Once you get to the stage where every single day you're receiving customers. So you're receiving calls from happy customers or angry customers, maybe like four or five every day. And then you're also trying to chase some business. So you're calling people maybe two or three times a day. So on average you're having like, you know, 810 calls every day.

You will now see the difference that you can't continue this way. Then finally, and this one is really, really important because one day I was talking to one of my clients and wanted to do screen share but the guy didn't time it well. So by the time he did the screen share, now the camera just flash. And then before he quickly changed our cover, I now saw that my guy was working at home in bed with singlet and boxers.

Can you imagine? Because we can't work from home, some of us think it's OK to be making phone call, to be pursuing business in singlet and boxer. Then you're lying down in bed. Now, if you have some people like Brian Tracy and the rest, they'll say no, that psychologically it's not all right. Now, when you at least dress up presentable, you know, look decent, that it will inform the way you make phone calls. I give you a certain measure of confidence.

So as a young man, you lie down, you never bath, you never brush your shirt and boxer and then you're making a phone call. It's not all right, but anyway, I will force you to do that. But I'll tell you one thing. Calling while lying down in bed or when hunched in bed, it's not good at all. Boys, listen up, young men. You know, those of you who are 18 all the way up to my age and beyond, you know, there's a way we like to sound on the phone.

We like to sound that we have presence, you understand? When you're lying down, you lose out on the vocal resonance. You know everything bouncing around in your chest cavity. You miss those, those sweets, the sweet bass tones, you know, the rich tones in your voice. When you're lying down, you're canceling out all those things. So as a young man, you're never sounding correct. No, sit down to make that call. No slouch on the bed.

Don't lie down on the bed. And therefore girls, young ladies, 18 to my age, you know that line now thing? You'll be sounding too casual and it's not good if you catch my drift. Young people take you seriously but already complaining that patriarchy is a problem. Don't make the solution worse by calling and lying down. And then you sound as if you're having bedroom voice. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sit up and then call.

Get a desk. Get a chair. In fact, some sales professionals prefer to stand with wireless headsets and make phone calls. So what's his name? Grant Cardone, And people like him. That's what they recommend. Now look, if this is a serious phone call, use hands free and then stand. Your whole body is engaged. Your call is engaged. You are alert. You sound smart. You sound sharp, you're getting full resonance of your vocal cavity and your chest and everything.

You sound like a correct guy. Some people in advocate that as you're doing that phone call, you know, be pacing that the dynamism even helps. But I'm not going to say go that far. But I will say at the very least, desk and chair, please stop slouching in bed. Even if you don't want to brush and bath, you still want to wear singlet unboxer. At least sit down in a chair with that singlet unboxer for young men. Better vocal range because you all want to sound like we have bass in our voice that will capture that bass well for you.

Right? So am I saying we should all go out and spend money? No I'm not saying that. Remember why are the earphones 3K? You will have, I've seen for 1/5 now, plastic chair and table, That's what I'll recommend so that you can set it up in the corner of your room, dismantle it, you know when you're done. But those ones now, because of how expensive things have become, those ones now it's like 100K if you want to buy everything together because the chair alone is like 2025.

And sometimes these people refuse to sell it single shingle, they will sell it instead. So that means you have to buy the table +2 chair. But please, table and chair, spend 3K on the phone for table and chair. OK? No, for table and chair, just tell mom. See that? Hey mommy, you know what? You know I'm getting into business now and the only support I need for you is this side of the dining table. Please, nobody should be putting anything else this side of the dining table.

This is now my office. Go and tell mom. See. Go and tell Popsy. I'm assuring you, your parents will be proud of you. They will laugh or stay here. So you become a business person. OK, no problem. You can use that side of the dining table. Nobody will disturb you, but they will support you. They will respect you. If you're married like I am, you tell your wife you say wifey. I know you don't like you too, but don't you like can afford office space?

This dining table, this is now my office. You will require a small. Your wife will say no. It's a dining table. It's meant for food, blah blah blah. You quarrel back and forth, but eventually you reconcile. You can just be managing dining room table until you can buy your small plastic table and chair and put in one corner of the house. But eventually you'll be able to get some money and you'll be able to get a nice proper office like my guy Shego has done.

Bluetooth keyboard. OK, that one is expensive. I looked around, I saw for 13 Ki, saw for 17, I saw for 20 something very fine, fine, sexy keyboards. But I also saw for 11 K. That's if you just want to be practical, like let's get going. And by the way, the Chinese ones, they're fantastic. So there's no problem at all. I started off, my first one was the Chinese one. It cost me 5K. It needed two Tiger batteries and those two Tiger batteries used to last about a month and 1/2.

So to be honest, there's nothing wrong there. Basha, start with earphones. Let that be your starter kit. The other thing is you can be doing small, small, small. But either way, what I'm advocating is this. What I'm advising is this. Set yourself up for success so that you can work faster and you can work healthier. For those of you young men who are trying to build a business, you say you're trying to build a billion dollar business, but you didn't brush, you didn't bath,

you didn't comb your hair, you wear a shirt and boxer, then you're lying down in your bed and making business calls. I mean, come on, let's be real here. Let's be real. Anyway, so that's it and that's all. Remember, if you'd love to connect, you can call SMS or WhatsApp me on 08064662140. Thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you next time. Same place in your headphones or in your speakers.