By Peter LyleDeHaan, PhD The majority of family businesses aren’t successfully transferred to the second generation, and only about 15 percent make it to the third. There are many theories why. A likely factor is that the second generation, who didn’t sacrifice to launch the business and see it through the lean, early years, lacks […]
Category: Telephone Answering Service
Telephone answering service articles by Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I’m not sure how the telephone answering service industry compares with other industries, but there seem to be many second and third generations running the answering services their families started. (If you’re a fourth or fifth-generation owner, please let me know.) While the process of handing over ownership and control […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Two common ways to grow a telephone answering service are through acquisitions and via sales and marketing. A third way is to provide additional services. With the announcement that Frontier will offer texting on business landlines, TASs will have the opportunity to offer more services. In some cases, the need […]
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Memories of Moving
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD My wife and I plan to move in a few weeks. The last time we moved was twenty-seven years ago, so the process of preparing, packing, and loading isn’t too fresh. Yet the enormity of the task has never left us and is now being reinforced. Moving represents new opportunities, […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD There are just two ways to grow your telephone answering service. One is through sales and marketing; the other is via acquisitions. Any other strategy is merely a subset of one of these two methods (usually a variation on marketing). I enjoyed doing acquisitions. And I was quite good at […]
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The System’s Down
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD On Monday I called a vendor about my invoice. “I’m sorry,” the rep said, “but we’re doing an update, and I can’t access your records.” Given that they only operate sixty hours a week, doing an update in the middle of the day was strange timing. The evening would be […]
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Do You Like Snow?
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD In Michigan, as well as in many other parts of the United States, winter has wearied everyone. It’s lasted too long, been too cold, and piled on too much snow. Everyone I talk to longs for this season to end. Even those who adore winter weather have ceased their praise […]
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Evaluating Change
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD In the March issue of Medical Call Center News (check it out if you serve medical accounts), I wrote about implementing change in your operation. It reminded me of the change TAS Trader went through in January when we switched from a PDF format to an email format. Though making […]
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Although there are exceptions, most TAS owners want to grow their business. (Even those who want to keep the operation at its present size need to add new accounts to make up for cancellations.) To grow your TAS, there are but two ways: through sales and marketing or through acquisition. […]
By Peter LyleDeHaan, PhD As I announced last month, TAS Trader begins its sixth year with a new look to meet readers’ changing needs. With more people reading emails on their smartphones than not, the old PDF format of TAS Trader has been retired in favor of this new mobile-friendly version, ideal for smartphone and […]