Now Self employed so should I get a separate business mobile phone?

HappySad

I am a mum and business customers will be other mums. My initial customers are friends/acquaintances and friends of friends and their friends. I am also getting customers from facebook. Would it be advisable to get a separate business mobile?? I have an iPhone which I feel is great to use 4 business. But I wonder if I need a different mobile number 4 business. What about a separate number that redirect to my mobile? Not to sure what to do...

What do you do?

My business is a nutrition and weight loss advisor. I would bs working with 5 customers over 3 months so I would be needing to network a lot to let others know about my service which would mean storing many contact details of others on my business or private phone.

DUTR

Well you have considered your options, either a free re-direct number or another sim card/phone for business contact.
If you have a call re-direct, then naturally people can call you but if you dial out then the original number will be presented, if you opt for another handset/sim, then sometimes you will have to walk around with two mobiles (looking like the local drug dealer) there are handsets that can support 2 sim cards, but they are not made by apple and as you are a fanbouy, I know that will not be considered
Using your personal number for business is not ideal really .

Horace

I have two mobiles - one for my business and one for personal use.

Both my phones are on Virgin - my personal one is PAYG and the one I use for my business is on contract and I get 1000 free minutes a month 1000 texts and unlimited data.

Initially when I started out, my business phone was on PAYG and then I ended up paying £60 a month so decided it was more cost effective to go onto a contract.

It looks better and more professional to have a separate phone. You could sign up for an answering service and have a different number for that and then the calls are answered on your behalf and you will get a text message or email. There is a company that does a PAYG on this called Jam https://www.answer.co.uk

InsideInsurance

Using your "personal" number for business is fine as long as everytime you answer your phone to an unknown number you answer it as your business and your voicemail message is equally "business". The downside of doing it is that you cannot separate your personal and business life so if you go on holiday you'll still get business phone calls.

Years ago I used to have to carry my personal phone, my employers mobile for calls, a blackberry for email (calls were blocked from it) and a dongle for mobile internet. That many things in your pockets does nothing for your look. Since then I went contracting and have always used my "personal" phone for both business and personal calls as I prefer to travel light.

All clients see is me answer a phone, they've no idea if I have a second phone or not.

paulwf

With only 5 contacts it seems a bit overkill to me to have two phones. I might suggest though having a second number that you just use to publicly advertise your service if you don't want every tom, !!!!!! and harry seeing your number. As Horace suggests you could get an answering company to take a message and forward you the lead.

There's not any right or wrong answer though really.

texranger

i never see the point of having pockets full of phones, i just use the one phone for personal and business

Savvy_Sue

Some of my colleagues have work mobiles, which is essential to avoid clients contacting them at all hours of the day and night - you just switch the work mobile OFF! when you are not at work.

DH only has the one phone, which has led to some interesting calls on holiday. Has for me too, just not as many of them.

But really the question is do you want to have to answer every unknown number as a work call, or not.

You could on one of my phones set some numbers up with a different ring tone, which could be a good compromise: you group your friends and family with one ring tone, your current clients with another, and everyone else gets a 3rd.