William Lull

If you’re on a job when the phone rings, that call doesn’t go to voicemail. It goes to the next company on the list.

You never find out it happened, because it never rang.

Most owners think being slammed means too much work. Usually it means work is walking away while you’re busy. The fix takes about a week — every missed call gets a text back within ten seconds, in your voice, and you answer it when you’re free.

Good. That’s the hard part, and it took you years.

Here’s the leak, though. A referral isn’t a phone call. It’s your name, handed to a stranger. And the first thing anybody does with a name is search it.

Try it right now, on this phone. Search your business name the way a customer would — not your website, just the name. If nothing comes up, or somebody else does, you’ve been handing away referrals you already earned.

Everybody has. It’s never urgent until it is.

Worth saying plainly: your website usually isn’t your biggest problem. It’s the one you can see. The same business almost always has missed calls nobody counted, a handful of reviews, and a customer list nobody’s touched in years.

If you want, I’ll look at all of it and tell you which one is actually costing you money. No charge and no pitch.