I have just read the latest news about the Volcano in Iceland and the airspace seems to be clear again but as always, I suspect it will take time for people to get back home or to their business destinations. There is talk that it may cause further problems.

So I thought it would be helpful to to provide some wisdom about how the phone could help in carrying on your business and not postponing meetings until you get back. You can also use this whenever you are severely delayed or for whatever reason you can not physically get to a meeting.

Here are the seven tips I would recommend to help support your business:

1.Email of course is the obvious choice but it can take up to a week to get a decision using email. Far better to use the phone which in comparison can take a matter of minutes to get an outcome.
2.If you do not like the phone particularly, it is probably because you are a “visual person” and prefer to see the other person’s face to face. Compensate for this by bringing up picture of them from the website. If this is not possible imagine what they look like. There is also the option of using skype and the video option so you can actually see the other person. The quality now is pretty good.
3.To replace the body language you would get from a face to face meeting, focus on the other person’s tone, you will get a lot of clues about how they are responding to what you are saying and acknowledge this accordingly.
4.Rather than having adhoc telephone conversations, arrange a formal “telephone meeting” with an agenda. The other person will then be in a better state of mind to discuss the outcomes you are trying to achieve as they will have had time to think about the points you want to discuss.
5.Test the agenda, if you were in the other person’s shoes would you accept your point of view? Briefly mentally rehearse what you are going to say. Does it make sense, does it feel right? If not adjust your agenda and what you are going to say!
6.When you do the call, make sure you are really listening to what the other person is saying not concentrating on what you are going to say next. “check in with them” from time to time to see what you have said has been well received.
7.You may like to consider another “telephone meeting” as a follow up or you can use teleconference call/teleseminar technology if there are a number of you involved in the decision-making process. It may take some time for your clients to get themselves back to some state of normality so they can start having face to face meetings again.