world as well. Too many small businesses see phone calls as interruptions rather than opportunities.   You Pay Good Money to Make Your Phone Ring!   A ringing phone is the result of your marketing efforts, which you pay good money to develop and implement, and the fact that your phone rings indicates that your marketing is working. Dont squander your hard-earned marketing dollars (and reputation) by underestimating the value of each phone call.   The following are several inbound and outbound telephone marketing practices that you can use to make your phone one of your most powerful marketing weapons.   Stress the Value of Each and Every Phone Call   1. Know Your Costs - Calculate your cost of an inquiry by dividing your total cost of advertising by the average number of calls you receive. For instance, if you spend $5,000 monthly on advertising, and get about 500 calls, each call cost you $10. To further stress the value of each phone call, attach a $10 bill to the handle of each phone unit to remind your employees how important each and every phone call is to your business, and that each call could result in cash.   2. Recognize Good Work - Give a "golden phone award" to the employee who gets full contact information from the most inbound callers. Spray paint a phone gold and give it out at an employee meeting with a free dinner for two or weekend at a local hotel.   3. Train Employees - Include telephone training in your sales meetings. Ask employees (rather than you) to give the training. Supply your employees with access to professional telephone training systems for reference.   Get Each Callers Full Contact Information   The value in any business is its customer and prospect list, and the fastest way to build that list is to ask for contact information.   1. Customer Information - Ask to know if the caller is a prior customer. If they are then say, "Mr. Customer, we are updating out customer list. Would you mind giving me your address and phone number so that we can update our records?   2. Prospect Information - If the caller tells you that they are not a prior customer then handle the phone call. At the end of the call say, "Mrs. Prospect, Id like to send you a free report that youll find very interesting. It will help you If you give me your address and Ill send it out to you today."   3. Email Address - To get a customer or prospects email address (critical!) offer the customer a second free gift that you can email to them right away, and then ask for their email address. Getting prospect and customer email addresses is important because youll