What’s your vinyl - A tale of two voice mails

How old school communication like voice mail can get the job done

Yes, voice mails. You know:

“At that sound of the tone/beep, please leave a detailed message.”

You remember those. The things you used to leave before caller ID.

Voice mails. The things you cringe at when you see one with a length of more than 15 seconds.

Well, this tale features two people who don’t see it that way and their tales are intertwined.

It started with a lengthy attempt to connect a financial planner in my networking group and a potential guest whose company specializes in setting up 401(k)s for small businesses. Since their might be a potential conflict, I wanted to speak with both parties.

Now, I will interject here that people who work from home can often shy away from the phone—unless they are sales folks. This can lead to greater isolation. The hack here is that when you can make a phone call to communicate, do it rather than e-mail or text. Though people’s treatment of voice mails can interfere in this strategy.

Yours truly is guilty of not making the phone call first. For this particular situation, e-mails and texts had been attempted, but a conversation never took place. Much to my surprise, the financial planner called me and left a “detailed message”. More than two minutes worth.

But guess what?

The lengthy message addressed all my concerns! The member talked about what their business does and possible overlap that would be unacceptable and what would be acceptable. There really wasn’t even a need for a follow up call. Got everything I needed.

The guest and I conversed prior to the meeting. I learned a little bit about her. Very interesting background. Had worked for the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and was now in a new business in Massachusetts.

I knew from researching her on LinkedIn that she was involved with her church and was a music teacher early in her career. So, it should not have surprised me when I did the follow up call and the voice mail was of her singing.

Now, this was no George Costanza voice mail greeting. It was a beautifully sung and thought-out message.

It made me smile.

Truth be told, it made me want to sing my voice mail message.

I think I did.

The point is both people used voice mail—an allegedly outdated technology—very effectively.

That got me thinking about other things we’ve stopped doing because the technology has “improved”. For example, for every download, there is someone who loves vinyl records.

What’s your vinyl? Leave it in the comment section below.

Home office gadget reports from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas

Our sponsor, Scott Tharler, The Family CTO, has a well-earned reputation as a reviewer of gadgets and all things electronics. Here’s his second special report for My HOH from Scott’s 25th Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. This installment fits in well with our old school theme, talking about a product called Rollo as a better way to ship packages—AKA snail mail. If you’re an Amazon reseller or Etsy vendor, you’ll want to check out Rollo and this clip from the Family CTO.

Click the button below for more reviews from the Family CTO.

Inspiring quote of the week

“You don't luck into integrity. You work at it.”--Betty White