“But they barely use it”
People always have a hard time understanding that. They think that number has to be worth more to them than it is to some misdial company that barely uses it.
These companies are in the misdial marketing business, meaning they make money off of the wrong numbers. So ask yourself this: if the amount of money you made was based on how many good numbers you had, how many would you want? The obvious answer is “all of them,” or at least as many as you could get. And that’s exactly what they’ve done, for decades.
You’ve seen domain names that are valuable because they’re one letter away from a popular site. They make money from the random traffic on toll free numbers the same way. One number might not get many calls. All of them together are the business.
Why money doesn’t change it
Some people think they do bigger deals than that before breakfast, and they don’t understand that some things aren’t negotiable. These companies can’t sell their numbers to anyone at any price, because their business is worth more to them than any number is to anyone else.
Sometimes I answer the question about whether you can buy a number from them by saying you have a better chance of negotiating peace in the Middle East. Some high-level executives tend to think they can negotiate, or buy, anything. Unfortunately, that’s not the case here.
What to do instead
You basically have three choices. You can beat your head against the wall, getting frustrated and sore, until you give up. You can complain, if it makes you feel any better, and also wind up getting nothing. Or you can be more creative and look for other options that are more readily available.
Find a backup now, even if you want to keep pursuing it. Phone numbers don’t get jealous, so you can start with the best one that’s available now and still keep after the perfect one. You won’t be holding up your advertising in the meantime. And if you ever do get the perfect number, you can keep the first one until everything it’s printed on is gone, or use it for a special promotion you want to track.
If you’re looking for your boss or a client, when you tell someone the one they wanted is impossible, it helps to give them other options that are possible. It keeps them focused on the possible ones, rather than picking another impossible one out of the air to send you after.
Where to look
There are always more options than you think there are at first. Type the word by itself, and the search tries all the short words in front of it for you. Tap Prefix for close versions that are available now, or try the other toll free area codes. Many of them are available for $49.
And if the number you want is with a vendor instead, that’s different: most vendors will sell for the right money. Tap the blue number, and I’ll find out what it would take.