For "older" sales guys like me, our sales call days, back in the day, were defined by the length of the phone cord, or punctuated by the location of the nearest phone booth and a plastic bag of quarters. Today, by comparison, accessibility is instant — beyond easy — and immediately my cell plugs me into a host of apps that record, summarize, and drop the entire conversation into my HubSpot CRM. We've come a very long way in a very short time... and yet, there are salespeople who act like either they don't care about first impressions or are too busy to slow down and make it easy for the person on the other end of the line.

Three street rules this morning to think about:

1. Answer your phone!!!
The phone rings, and you already have a pretty good idea who's calling. Existing customers show up on caller ID, so 75% of the time it's easy: just take the call, talk right then, or let them know you're in a meeting and will call back later that day.   Why does this very simple item matter?  A missed, unanswered call sends a subliminal message of: "you don't matter to me".  Answering the call takes one, maybe two minutes — and in that time you've created a human link between you and a customer or a prospect.

2. Set up your voicemail!
Nothing irritates me more than a canned AT&T or Xfinity response. You're telling the world you couldn't be bothered to spend ten minutes recording your own name and a short, personal promise to call back that same day. What kind of salesperson does that?!?  Actually, there is one thing that irritates me even more which is when the automated voice says the mailbox is full. That salesperson shouldn't be allowed in the club!

Listen to your own voicemail this morning. Does it sound clear, calm, and personal — or does it sound like you were stuck in the tunnel under the Zakim and, in your frustration with Boston's wicked traffic, you decided this was the moment that you took to update your voicemail?  And the result was garbled with your car radio playing in the background. 

I'm more than a little obsessive on this one since I record a new voicemail every single day, telling the caller where I am, my approximate availability, and that I'll call back no later than X. Takes two minutes. Has this 20-year-old tactic ever won me business? I honestly don't know. But people comment on it every week.

3. Nothing is more powerful than your own voice!
You heard this in some rookie sales training class ten or twenty years ago, but it's true: for that one minute, you're on stage in front of an audience of one. Don't position yourself in your head — or in your voice — as squeezing in just one more hurried call. To the person on the other end of that call, this should sound like this is the most important call of your day. I do a fair amount of public speaking, plus I stand in front of 36 extraordinary Tufts students for three hours every week. Both require highly active engagement. On a phone call, even when the audience is one instead of 36 or 100, my focus is identical: create active engagement and leave the call with a few well-defined next steps that lead to an action.

Have a great day selling today and spend some time between your calls to ask yourself what's your own two-minute rule about your own voicemail!

Jack is a Managing Partner of Derby Management, a strategy consulting firm, and founder of the Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts University, where he has taught for 20 years. Every semester is significantly updated, with heavy emphasis in 2026 on AI in Marketing & Sales. At Derby Management, Jack and his team architect and build business strategies focused on sales and marketing processes, tools, and technology platforms.

www.derbymanagement.com | Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts