1. The Power of Mute! It is a good habit to fall into if you can mute  yourself whenever you are not speaking. It cuts down on background noise and gives the speaker everyones full attention.
2. VOIP & Mobile: If you are calling in via mobile or VOIP phone, you could encounter sound quality issues. You have 3 choices; One, call back in from a POTS (Plain old telephone) line, two, hang up and dial back in and hopefully come in on a clearer channel or three, press "*" + "0" for Operator assistance.
3. Only press *0 once: This touch tine command is like an on off switch. If you press *0, it will place you in queue for support. If press *0 again, you will actually remove yourself from the queue
4. Careful of your speaker phone! If you use a full duplex speaker phone like the Polycom or Clear One you will be as right as rain! If you using the speaker function on your regular desk phone, you will have half duplex sound quality - just like a CB radio. only one person can speak at a time and it may be difficult for participants to interject. Again, muting will help here as well.
5. Avoid the HOLD button! If you have to take another call, hang up and then once you are done, dial back in. If you use the hold button, you will either play music or tones into the call. It won't make you popular! Again, use the hold button when necessary!

15 minutes to finding savings

In the fast paced world of running a small business, it is too easy to overlook the importance of fine tuning your operations.  All too often owners take an "if it's not broken why fix it", thinking that a savings of a one or two hundred dollars a month is not worth the effort.

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