A HUGE addition to the Instant 800 Lookup!

09/04/2008

Try the new lookup tool and let us know what you think about the new results. We’d love to hear your reaction and thoughts. It’s hard to find a good number for visitors but we’re working very hard to get you the best options possible. I’ll write more about how to use it shortly, but I wanted to get this up as quickly as possible.

Why it’s hard to know, who will sell you their number?

09/05/2008

If you looked at a list of homes there’s no way to know just by looking at them who would be interested in or willing to sell you their home if you negotiated for it. But people are used to buying and selling their homes and they know roughly what their home is worth and whether they might have thought about moving. It’s also not too hard to tell who makes the decision most of the time and even if you can’t reach them at the home, you can look up who owns a piece of property in the town if necessary.

Read more about why it's even harder to tell who will sell you a toll free number than real estate.

Has Custom TollFree ‘Locked Up’ your 800 number?

09/04/2008

In the past four days I’ve had three separate people tell me essentially that CustomTollFree.com Locked Up their 800 number, just because they searched for or checked a number on their website. They don’t show you their exhorbenent rates or explain that THEY own the number until after you search for the number and they automatically reserve it so you can only get the number from them.

This is especially despicable since Customer Toll Free is actually a shared use company, not a regular phone company, although they certainly act and look like a regular phone company to the unsuspecting visitor on their website. They use their power as a phone company to reserve the number after a visitor does a search for it but then they pretend to be the owner of the number and offer to rent it to you as if it was now THEIR number. I’ve written about how they want to have both the rights of a phone company and the rights of the end user at the same time in an article on the Dark Side of Shared Use.

They don’t make the form to check numbers the biggest thing on their website for no reason. They know that if they can get you to enter something there, they have you trapped. It’s wrong but they love trapping people like that, and if you think you’re trapped now because they’ve reserved your number, wait until you’ve got it in all of your advertising. Because the more you advertise THEIR number, the more at their mercy you become.

Read more about what to do if this happens to you.

More about us

09/03/2008

We’re adding more about the people behind our service in the about us section. Most about us pages are designed to make the organization sound big and impressive (almost aloof?) without really saying anything at all about anyone. Our about us section is the opposite of that, written to show you that we’re a very small organization of real people and to show you as much about us as possible. We’re small and we love being small, blowing the doors off of the big companies at finding good numbers for our customers and being able to do it from the kitchen table, the hammock chair or out by the pool.

Read more about Bill and the whole team behind TollFreeNumbers.com

Let your fingers do the walking in other people’s Yellow Pages

09/02/2008

If you’re just starting a new business it’s often a little harder to know what to look for in a toll free number. They don’t have their message and the theme for their advertising yet. New businesses tend to think the only thing they can compete on is price, and they look mostly for generic terms for their toll free number.

New businesses don’t have much advertising to draw from in looking for their message or theme. They haven’t worked out slogans or figured out their real value proposition yet. That’s when I tell them to let their fingers do the walking and look through the yellow pages from other parts of the country outside of their market, especially in large highly competitive markets.

Don’t copy them but look for phrases that stand out. Think headlines, think benefits and especially creative slogans. You can use any type of advertising, but I like to look at yellow pages because it has high impact, short phrases that have been tested and refined in almost any category. This will ultimately help you with not just your phone number but all of your advertising.

Sometimes what works best isn’t the most popular thing.

09/01/2008

I was writing a response to a Businessweek article that suggested that numeric toll free numbers may be better than vanity numbers and I came up with an great analogy for this political season.

People often say when they’re surveyed that they prefer positive political ads over negative ads, but when push comes to shove politicians always use the negative ads for one reason, because they work better. The same thing is true with vanity numbers. Regardless of what you personally prefer or think other people prefer, if it’s important to you to get more calls then it’s important to get a number that incorporates some memorable word or phrase related to your business.

We are one of the only people in the vanity number business that can actually help you in both directions, whether you’re searching for vanity 800 numbers that spell things or for premium easy to dial numeric numbers. So we’re not pushing either one. But the bottom line is that making your front door to new business memorable is more important than making it easy to open once you get there. Sure it’s nice for it to be easy to open, but that doesn’t make any more or less people open it. But making it more memorable definitely does make more people open the door, just like making the rest of your advertising more memorable does too.

Premium 800 #s $100 off for Labor Day Weekend!

08/28/2008

Holiday weekends are slow, especially in the summer so starting at 3pm Thursday through 11pm (est) Labor day, we’re putting all the Premium numbers on sale! 4, 3 and 2 Star numbers are $100 off and 1 star numbers are only $88.88. We know you’ve labored really hard and want to reward people that take the time spend a few minutes of their holiday with us.

So read this recent article about how to find good premium numbers and save a few bucks this weekend. This doesn’t apply to regular activations or backorders and we can’t extend the time. All orders must be in before 11pm eastern standard time. Also please be patient since it’s a holiday for us and we’re also going to be traveling this weekend as well. So have some cake (this pic was from my daughter’s first birthday earlier this month) and if you find a nice numeric number this weekend you’ll save a few buck too.

SMSgov.com says Phone Police are arresting people.

08/28/2008

There are been a couple reports of the FCC enforcing their regulations against selling numbers lately on smsgov.com. One post claimed an eBay Seller was “Busted” trying to Auction an 800 Number and another post claimed “Man Fined After Trying To Sell 800 Number.” These certainly sound like authoritative posts, but for some reason the articles are very light on facts and the whole website is made to look legitmate like it’s governmental but it’s NOT!

News articles are supposed to include if not start with the WHO, WHAT, WHERE and WHEN. Maybe they cover a little of the what, but none of these articles include any who, where or even when. They don’t say what number was being sold and one article mentions that a “man” was fined after TRYING to sell a number. The only thing I can think of that it’s a crime to try to do is murder. Otherwise attempting to break a law (or FCC regulation) isn’t really a crime, is it? And what police are these that are “arresting” people for “trying” to do something. I’m not saying the FCC doesn’t have regulations or that they don’t care. But it’s been my experience that the FCC might have lawyers conduct inquiries but they don’t just show up and arrest people like their article is claiming.

You'll want to read this whole story because the SMSGOV.com website really smells pretty fishy to me!

Making Toll Free Numbers by the Pool

08/27/2008

We’re not a big company and we’re proud of it. We’re in an industry filled with big companies that do a lousy job at actually helping the customer. We know our niche in this funny vanity number business and we’re the best in the country at what we do. We definitely don’t have a “Big Company” attitude. We don’t have anything against big companies but it’s just that, as you get bigger and bigger, you need more and more administration and support, and it becomes harder and harder to provide the level of service, support, and training you did to get big. And the things that made you successful and grow often get lost in the shuffle. We can work from our homes or anywhere on our cell phones and laptops and we love this crazy vanity number business.

Read more about how we provide the best support by empowering you!

The easy way to put your number into a different name

08/26/2008

If you just got your number from and want to transfer it to a different name than you registered it in, the easy way to do that is to fill out the resporg change form for the new company in the new name and include your information on the margins or bottom of the form. That won’t get entered anywhere with the new phone company but when they fax it to us, we’ll see that even though it’s in a different name, it’s actually coming from the right people and we can release it. Otherwise we would probably have to verify with the person that activated it, that it is correct.

Using a different name isn’t uncommon. You might have done it for your company but put your personal information down, for a client or you might just decide it needs to go to a call center that requires you to use their carrier. All of these are legitimate reasons why you might need to use a different name.

Most phone companies will tell you that everything has to match exactly on a resporg change form. But that’s because most phone companies are looking for an excuse NOT to release numbers. We’re the only one’s trying to release our customers 800 numbers as quickly as possible. So as long as we see that it’s actually coming from the right person we can release it even to a different name and address if you’ve added the original information too.

What’s Your Message?

08/25/2008

I talk to a lot of people who don’t know or are unable to put into words what distinguishes their business or why someone should buy from them over their competitors. They don’t ultimately know the message they’re trying to build. So if their company name or the first generic term or description they thought of isn’t available, they’re at a loss. But if you know your ‘message’ all of your advertising tends to fall into place much more easily, including your toll free number.

Knowing or finding your message is harder for startups and they especially tend to think only in terms of generic terms in looking for their toll free number. They think a generic toll free number will mean that they have to do less advertising for people to know what they do. Unfortunately you have to do more than let people know what business you’re in to sell today. The only one who will buy from you just because they know what business you’re in is your mother. Anyone else needs to know what makes you better than anyone else and that’s your message.

When you know your Unique Value Proposition (UVP), why they should buy from you and all of your advertising becomes easy. That doesn’t guarantee you’ll find a number available but having a clear message does tend to make it easier, especially if that message is more creative and not just a generic description of your business.

Be bold and say something people will remember.