--- title: 5 Ways to Stop Wasting Hours of Your Life on the Phone - CCSalesPro description: If you are like me you spend a lot of time on the phone and you probably wish you spent a little less time on the phone. Here are 5 tips to help! --- Blog # 5 Ways to Stop Wasting Hours of Your Life on the Phone If you are like me you spend a lot of time on the phone and you probably wish you spent a little less time on the phone. Here are 5 tips to help! [ James Shepherd ](https://www.ccsalespro.com/blog/author/james-shepherd) Nov 3, 2014 --- I am a little nervous about sharing these tips today because now you will all know my secrets!  As you might imagine I get a lot of phone calls and make a lot of phone calls each day.  Over the years, I have learned the art of making a short but productive phone call with someone and I would like to share my 5 best tips below.   **#1 – Start the call with a clear time constraint and initial action step.**  “Hey Bob, I have another meeting in 10 minutes but I wanted to get right back to you, what can I do for you today?”  It is very unlikely that even the most talkative person will respond to this with small talk.  This also sets you up perfectly to end the call in 10 minutes if necessary, or whenever your next scheduled event starts. **#2 – Keep bringing “Action” into the conversation. ** “Susan, I believe I understand your concern, what would you say is the next action step that I could take to start working towards a solution?”  or after a 2 minute detour by your customer about their dog who just had to go to the vet… “Bill, you will have to keep me posted on that, I sure hope everything works out, I unfortunately do have to run in about 5 minutes so I wanted to take down some notes about what actions you would like me to take today or tomorrow regarding the concern you had about XYZ” **#3 – Always summarize, clarify and re-clarify… then, just to be safe, clarify again!**  Somehow phone calls can end up sending the wrong expectations, especially when they are coming from a sales professional.  Let’s face it, we like telling people what they want to hear but, that can be very dangerous.  Summarize the action steps you are going to take throughout the call and make a note of these, so you can actually do them! **#4 – Let people finish their thought. ** This is a tough one for me, in fact I struggle with this all the time by cutting people off once I “think” I know where they are going.  The hard truth is that this actually makes the call go longer since they don’t feel like I understand them and they keep repeating themselves to drive home their point since I have not really acknowledging it by listening intently.  Once someone starts talking, it is too late to gain control until they stop talking. **#5 – Schedule repeat phone calls for those who contact you often. ** If you set up a new customer and they are calling you three times per day and you don’t know what to do, here is my suggestion.  Follow up with them face to face and then let them know you value their business so much that you would like to schedule a recurring appointment with them once per week for the next 4 weeks while they get used to the system.  Now, they will not call you as often, since they know you will stop by once per week and if they do call, you can make the call much shorter by saying, “Would you mind making a note of that for our Tuesday meeting, I think I could explain that much better in person, is there anything else you would like to go over during that meeting?”  Very quickly they will get in a habit of saving any issues for the weekly meeting.  By the way, this is a must in delegation to your team of employees or sales reps if you are building a local company of your own. I hope these short tips will help you.  Now you must promise you will not get mad at me when I use them on you during our next call! 🙂  I believe that most people appreciate someone who has drive and a desire to get a lot done each day.  Once you get good at using these techniques, they will save you hours. Make it a great day! James Shepherd **Download this FREE ebook to get you jump-started in merchant services! ** [![](https://www.ccsalespro.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/59aefd05-4360-4e89-aba7-75cc3bc93991-1.png)](http://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/370759/59aefd05-4360-4e89-aba7-75cc3bc93991)   [![](https://www.ccsalespro.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/f957af3d-ca30-4c8f-83a8-63db2718fff4-1.png)](http://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/370759/f957af3d-ca30-4c8f-83a8-63db2718fff4) ***Read previous post:  [What to Do With Non-Decision Makers when Selling Merchant Services](https://www.ccsalespro.com/non-decision-makers-selling-merchant-services/)*** > [What to Do With Non-Decision Makers when Selling Merchant Services](https://www.ccsalespro.com/non-decision-makers-selling-merchant-services/) ***Read next post:  [Insight Selling – Helping Your Retail Clients Increase Profit Per Sale](https://www.ccsalespro.com/local-business-profit-per-sale/)*** > [Insight Selling – Helping Your Retail Clients Increase Profit Per Sale](https://www.ccsalespro.com/local-business-profit-per-sale/) [Blog](https://www.ccsalespro.com/blog/tag/blog) [![https://www.ccsalespro.com/2026](https://www.ccsalespro.com/hubfs/images/blog%20sidebar/Vertical%20Mastery%20Webinar%20ad.jpg "https://www.ccsalespro.com/2026")](https://www.ccsalespro.com/2026) [![https://fullstackpayments.com/download-app](https://www.ccsalespro.com/hubfs/images/blog%20sidebar/FSP%20vertical%20ad.png "https://fullstackpayments.com/download-app")](https://fullstackpayments.com/download-app) [![How to Sell Merchant Services eBook](https://www.ccsalespro.com/hubfs/images/blog%20sidebar/ads-for-website-2.jpg "How to Sell Merchant Services eBook")](https://www.ccsalespro.com/how-to-sell-merchant-services-in-6-steps) [![GetIsoAmp.com](https://www.ccsalespro.com/hubfs/images/blog%20sidebar/ads-for-website-(1).jpg "GetIsoAmp.com")](https://getisoamp.com/index.php/request-demo/) ## Similar posts Blog ### [Fear of Phone Calls – Avoid This Prospecting Handicap](https://www.ccsalespro.com/blog/fear-phone-calls-avoid-prospecting-handicap) Fear of cold calling on the phone is a prospecting handicap that you must avoid. Sometimes this fear is not blatantly obvious. Sales people may know... James Shepherd Mar 30, 2018 Blog ### [Marketing Merchant Services with Social Media and Blogging](https://www.ccsalespro.com/blog/marketing-merchant-services-with-social-media-and-blogging-2) First of all let me explain what this article is not about. This article is not talking about prospecting. If you are in the field prospecting or... James Shepherd Nov 19, 2014 Blog ### [Avoiding Mistakes When Calling to Set Appointments](https://www.ccsalespro.com/blog/avoiding-mistakes-calling-set-appointments) Today we are going to talk about calling over the phone to set appointments. Recently we had an interview with Juan Alfero one of our top producers... James Shepherd Sep 22, 2014 ### Get notified about new blog posts Enter your email to have each new CCSalesPro blog article delivered straight to your inbox. You can unsubscribe at any time. ![CCSalesPro logo white on dark](https://www.ccsalespro.com/hubfs/cc-sales-pro-footer.png) Text "Free" to (814) 482-2090 to get my latest eBook [![Facebook](https://www.ccsalespro.com/hubfs/icons/social-icon-facebook.png)](https://www.facebook.com/ccsalespro) [![LinkedIn](https://www.ccsalespro.com/hubfs/icons/social-icon-linkedin.png)](https://www.linkedin.com/company/ccsalespro/) [![Youtube](https://www.ccsalespro.com/hubfs/icons/social-icon-youtube.png)](https://www.youtube.com/user/CCSalesPro) [![Soundcloud](https://www.ccsalespro.com/hubfs/icons/social-icon-soundcloud.png)](https://soundcloud.com/merchant-sales-podcast) - [Home](https://www.ccsalespro.com/) - [Blog](https://www.ccsalespro.com/blog) - [Podcast](https://www.ccsalespro.com/podcast) - [Training](https://www.ccsalespro.com/training) - [Partners We Trust](https://www.ccsalespro.com/companies-we-trust) © 2026 CCSalesPro, Inc. All rights reserved. Various trademarks held by their respective owners. CCSalesPro, Inc. ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "James Shepherd", "url" : "https://www.ccsalespro.com/blog/author/james-shepherd" }, "dateModified" : "2023-05-02T22:42:40.998Z", "datePublished" : "2014-11-03T22:20:19.000Z", "headline" : "5 Ways to Stop Wasting Hours of Your Life on the Phone - CCSalesPro", "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://www.ccsalespro.com/blog/5-ways-stop-wasting-hours-life-phone", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject", "url" : "https://www.ccsalespro.com/hubfs/ccalespro%20-%20white%20background-2.png" }, "name" : "CCSalesPro" } } ```