Second Cup: Pick up the phone

Even cold calls don’t have to be scary

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to save time by picking up the phone.
Once upon a time, as in thirty years ago, people
who wish to communicate instantaneously with someone generally had to

(00:24):
pick up their phones and call them, and there were
downsides to this method. Sometimes people were out and before
cell phones, that meant their phones weren't with them. Sometimes
people were busy doing other things. Explaining what you want
on the phone has never been easy. You have to
put yourself out there. The recipient of the call would
have to respond in some way, even if she or

(00:45):
he hadn't been anticipating the question. Email and texts have
solved many of these problems. People can read and respond
when it's convenient for them. You can explain what you
want and disembodied words, so any rejection or uninto faded
responses don't hit you so personally. Because of these upsides,
we have a tendency to email or text to the

(01:07):
exclusion of phone calls. Indeed, there are some people who
are basically never pick up the phone to call someone,
and that's a shame because calling is often the most
efficient way to do anything complicated. Arranging dinner with a friend,
the back and forth on scheduling, restaurant choice, a reminder

(01:27):
that your friend was going to ask her roommate to join,
but oh wait, she's got a shellfish allergy, so maybe
not the crab shack, but how about that Mexican place
across the street. All this can easily stretch to a
dozen emails or texts. While a ringing phone technically interrupts
whatever you're doing, it does so once you chat through
the shellfish allergy issue and make a plan, then you

(01:49):
are done. Whereas those dozen texts will interrupt you a
dozen times, that's not more efficient. The phone also allows
you to hear emotions and react ba Based on that,
you can soften responses and reassure people, so that makes
it a good choice for any conversations that might be sensitive.

(02:09):
There's some evidence that emails are perceived more negatively than
the sender intended. The vocal calibrations you hear on the
phone allow you to interpret the sender's true intentions. Why
does this matter for efficiency, Well, misunderstandings waste all kinds
of time. Your colleague spends hours wondering whether you're mad

(02:30):
at him, rather than on advancing your team's project. So
go ahead and pick up the phone next time you
need to work through anything complicated. If you know the person,
you actually don't need to arrange a time to call,
You can just call. The sheer logistics of arranging a
time can eat up any time savings. Instead, learn to
communicate through this relatively old fashioned method, and you can

(02:53):
spend your save time doing other things like cleaning out
your inbox in the meantime. This is thanks for listening,
and here's to making the most of our time. Hey everybody,
I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with

(03:16):
me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod
that's B the number four then Breakfast p o D.
You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
podcast at i heeart media dot com. That Before Breakfast
is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,
I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is

(03:44):
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,