Requesting expensive generic numbers
Buying a number from a vendor is the most expensive way to get a good number, just like buying a domain name from a vendor is a lot more than registering yourself. Requestable numbers are geared toward decent sized companies that really HAVE TO have a specific number. If you had the number, whether you got it to resell or had it to promote your business, would you sell it for less? You’d want to price it high enough that it has to be a serious need for it. You’d want to find someone that does a decent amount of advertising that could get a lot of benefit from it. They vary a little bit but that’s what the vanity number vendors are doing.
If that’s too much, the most obvious answer is to be more creative and look for alternatives that are a lot less expensive. We work really hard to find tons of good options related to almost every term that are available for just $49 or a couple hundred dollars. My average sale is much less than the average 3rd party number. So beat on the lookup tool and look for the green or yellow options, not the blue ones.
One other option, if you really want that number but can’t afford it up front, is to ask if they would give you a monthly option. Some vendors give that upfront, but some might not talk about that up front but will give you that if you ask. It doesn’t hurt to ask.
You also have to realize that most vendors have more numbers than they have the time or the ability to promote. So they are probably more negotiable than most things you look for in starting your business. Make an offer or stay in touch and leave the door open to get a better deal down the road, or to offer more once your business is more developed.
I have worked with many of the vanity number services for a long time. But I’m not pushing anything, I just want to help you get whatever is best for your business. Beat on our lookup tool and let me know what questions you have or really anything you need.
You’re much better off asking out single people than married people
Although you may think he or she is the only one for you, and you simply HAVE TO HAVE THEM… there are always more options than you realize when you’re focused on “THE ONE!” The saying about there being more fish in the sea applies to that perfect phone number too.
I can’t tell you how many times someone comes to me determined to track down a number that’s NOT available, determined to make that unavailable number theirs. They’ll completely ignore hundreds of good numbers that are available to pursue and focus on the one that isn’t available. I try to explain that it’s like asking out a married person. They never understand how much harder it is to make that unavailable number available. They are blindly optimistically assuming that because the person doesn’t answer the phone from their area at the moment or they’re not using it for a large business, that it must be worth more to them than the people who aren’t using it much, and therefore must be negotiable.
Unfortunately that almost never goes the way they hope it will, because the truth is that it’s much harder to do the equivalent of getting someone to leave the one they’re with to be with you. That’s why I say, “You’re always better asking out single (available) people than married people.” I understand wanting to pursue that exciting number but when it says IN USE, that means NOT AVAILABLE. It doesn’t mean try harder.
That then leads to the next point in this conversation, “Don’t let not being able to get the perfect number stop you from getting a good number.”
Can you trust this vendor?
Most vanity number companies are small and can honestly get away with a lot of crap. The Vanity Number business is a small niche that most people don’t even know exists and the people that do, don’t pay very much attention. So how do you know who you can trust?
You can ask how long they’ve been in business, but you can’t even trust that sometimes. Some people in the vanity business say they’ve been in business longer than they really have. I remember confronting someone about this and they justified it by saying they were “in business” that long, but it was just an advertising and printing business for most of that. They worked with vanity numbers a little bit during that time, so they count that time too.
That’s why I link to Archive.org for some of the resporgs. It’s very interesting to be able to look back at the real history of a business. And if they claim they were in business before they had a website, they’re full of crap and will lie about other things too. I count the age of my business from when I registered TollFreeNumbers.com in 1995. I’ve done this for over 25 years because I love helping customers get great vanity numbers. That’s when I got serious and if they didn’t have a website, they weren’t serious either.
Another great way to tell if a vanity number business is legitimate, is do they have upfront pricing? Or is the price based on how deep they think your pockets are? It’s also interesting to see if they stick to that. I recently asked a vendor how much they wanted for a number and they said $10,000 and gave a story as to why it wasn’t just a random number. Then I thought to look on their website and wouldn’t you know, it was just $20 a month!
Another way to tell if the people you’re dealing with are honest and trustworthy, after you negotiate a price, right before you send the payment, ask for a W9 form. If they resist or don’t give it to you right away, then you know they’re not honest.
Some people may be disappointed that my prices aren’t as flexible as some others. But that’s because this is a real business and our prices are based on the time, effort and costs to provide the toll free services, not how bad you need it or how deep your pockets are. To me the flexibility of a business’s prices, in the long run is more of a negative than a positive thing. I want to deal with someone that is consistent and up front, and knows what they’re doing. There can be discounts but a real business doesn’t charge drastically different amounts for the same thing, based on who’s asking.
“It doesn’t exist” really means they can’t find it
Phone company representatives almost always make the assumption that if they can’t find a number that it doesn’t exist. Phone company reps aren’t looking at which exchanges they have, or everything in the whole company, like you’re assuming. They have just enough information to do their job, and tracking down numbers isn’t really their job. If they don’t see it in the system they have access to, they don’t tell you they can’t find it, they say it doesn’t exist, because that makes them sound better and gets you off the phone.
When they say they don’t have it, ask them, is that because you’re looking at the complete list of what their company has, or because they don’t see it in their available numbers? Given that choice they’ll usually say it’s because they don’t see it in the available numbers they have access to, which is different than what you’re assuming they don’t have it means.
The information our data is based on comes from the actual exchange data that shows which companies have every exchange. The difference between what they see and what’s actually assigned to them means you have to go higher, or your timing isn’t right, or some combination of the two. It doesn’t mean the underlying data is wrong. Phone reps never want to tell you they can’t find something. They will always tell you it doesn’t exist, because they live and die by their computer and don’t know how to find anything that’s not in their computer.
If it just came out, it might not be in their available numbers yet, so you might have to keep checking. If it was active for a customer they wouldn’t tell you it doesn’t exist. They would tell you it’s active for another company. So saying it doesn’t exist, is actually a good thing.
Most large companies have been built by merging multiple smaller phone companies. So you might have to find someone that has access to the right system or part of their organization. Part of getting a specific number is timing, and part of it is reaching the right person, because nobody has access to everything, especially in even a medium sized organization.
Unfortunately, I can’t tell you exactly who you have to talk to. It does take some luck to reach the right person, especially in a large company which has a lot of reps with differing levels of knowledge and multiple front doors. You may just have to look for someone that knows more about their multiple systems (every big company has multiple systems) or you might try a different front door. You might call business customer service instead of residential for example. Keep track of who you talk to and where they’re located, and ask some questions to figure out their level of experience.
The bottom line is that you can’t take the first no, as if that were the final answer. Every customer service rep will try to make it sound like their answer is the absolute final answer, but the underlying exchange data is still true, but their answer could change tomorrow or if you talk to someone else.