When you have an important phone call to make or you'll be receiving one or if it's an important conference call, it's important to plan in advance plan out your environment to increase the odds that this is going to be an effective phone call. For starters, you need to eliminate distractions. Find a quiet place. If you're talking to your most important client and you're pitching the most important prospect, and you're in a noisy pit of an office and there are conference rooms that are quiet. At the other end of the hallway. We'll plan in advance and go down there before you make the call or before the call starts with someone calling you you want as quiet and environment as possible.

Now in some offices, or if it's a home office, you may have music on that may relax you it may be soothing. You may enjoy it. That's all wonderful. That's fantastic. Guess what? Nobody else cares about what you like for your work day.

If you're calling somebody or someone's calling you. All they care about is their message, their idea of what's going on their business their life, they're part of the job. So eliminate distractions. One reason you want to make it quiet is if you have to talk over some loud noise. That's annoying to listen to when you're talking over a loud noise. For example, while driving a car, you're flattening your voice out.

You're making yourself monotone and it kind of feels from the other end like they're being yelled at. Nobody likes someone yelling at them. You're yelling because you need to hear yourself over. traffic noise, other distractions. But to the person on the other end of the phone, all they know is you're yelling at them. They can intellectually realize well teach this in a noisy street or noisy restaurant, but emotionally it's still I'm yelling at them and it's not possible.

Let's talk about driving. I understand we're all busy. We all have busy lives. We're all so important. We all multitask. Here's the thing, if you're trying to have an important phone call, and you really want someone to pay attention, don't be driving.

I understand there are times someone's trying to sell you new aluminum siding and you're not sure you're even interested. Yeah, you can tell that person to call you on your drive home. And if you're only giving halfway attention, it's not that big a deal. It's not going to affect your business because you're not the one selling aluminum siding. But when it comes to your business, what you're trying to sell, what you're trying to advance what you're trying to promote, with your vendors, customers, clients, prospects, investors, eliminate the distractions, because when you're driving, there are several things that happen there's the hum of the car, you can Have the most fantastic electric Tesla, there's going to be all the other sounds going by from other cars highway sounds honking. So that's distracting to the person on the other end.

It's also distracting to you. The other problem is your brain is seeing all this information you have to pay attention or you will die. So you're giving much less attention to the person speaking to you. So I realize it's tempting. And if someone wants to start a conference call at five o'clock and you'd like to be on the road, then going home, the tendency is just to get in your car minute early and take the call in the car. Don't do it when it's important.

Stay away from driving. Stay away from noise. Try not to be outside. Hey, it's a beautiful sunny day one light take it outside the birds are singing well that's the problem. The birds are singing. There are too many distractions.

Also, with in your office, if you really, really are trying to focus on the person, get what they're talking about. be as responsive as possible. I'd go as far as turning off your computer. Do what I just did. I don't want to be distracted right now I literally turned my phone off. I've got to use another phone, obviously, but I'm using an office phone, turn my cell phone off.

That way. If I get texts from friends about what to do Saturday night, I'm not looking down at that while talking on another phone. It's not distracting. The final thing and some of you're going to hate me for this, but I'm going to give you my best advice you can do with it what you want. If you really want to plan your environment the right way for making phone calls. Don't ever use the speakerphone.

What are you talking about TJ we do all our cars. calls on speakerphone and how else are people going to hear? Here's the problem with speakerphone. The microphone is going to clip certain words can't become cans, there's confusion, it's harder for people to understand you, number one. Number two, you have to project your voice. So you're kind of talking like this and you're projecting and you sound like the school teacher.

It makes you kind of monotone flat. You can sound angry, it also tires you out. Frankly, it takes a lot more energy to project. If you're talking to a speaker on a conference table, three feet, four feet, in some cases 10 feet away. And it's just gonna really cut down on the audio quality. Frankly, nobody likes it.

When someone's talking on the speakerphone, whether it's a big fancy speaker phone system and an office or just the speakerphone on your cell phone. Again, there are exceptions. You're trying to learn how to cook something and you're talking to a family member and you're in the kitchen. You need both hands. I understand it, I get it. But when you're talking to people on business, they don't like it because the audio quality is worse.

It's harder to hear. In the back of their mind. They're thinking, well, what's this person doing? Are they still typing? Are they reading the newspaper? What do they need their hands for?

Many, many people interpreted it whether intellectually or just emotionally, this sign of disrespect if you're on the speakerphone now, it raises the question, what do you do if there's five people in your office and everyone needs to hear well, he has a free conference call system everyone can dial in and they can be on their phone, in a different room or you could even be on a phone each person individually in the same room. And here's another option. You can do is have it on speakerphone if there are five of your colleagues who have to listen to a boss or a client or a colleague. But then when someone in your room is speaking, pick up the receiver and talk because everyone in the room can still hear, but the quality of the audio for the person on the other end will be vastly superior. Remember, most microphones and phones are built for maximum effectiveness if you're just inch and a half, maybe two inches away.

When you're further away, it really distorts the audio quality. So plan your environment to increase your odds of effective communication before the phone call ever starts. Whether you're sending a call initiating one or receiving one