One of the things we talk a lot about is using Grasshopper to help your business sound more professional. Yes, it’s true, a virtual number with custom greetings, on-hold music and voice mail can help your business sound bigger and certainly more professional, but it can also be fun.

Having your own 800 number with unlimited extensions, voicemail greetings, custom music…imagine the possibilities!

Here are three fun ways you can use your virtual phone number:

• Joke of the DayWhat if you were put on hold, only to be told a joke? Being on hold wouldn’t be so bad would it? Knock knock jokes, kids jokes, puns, jokes about your industry or profession, etc. Just be sure to keep it tasteful.

 

• Dating ExtensionSingle? What if you could know it was a personal call before you even picked up? Just like you can create dedicated extensions for specific clients, you can create dedicated extensions for love interests. No more awkwardness, no more wondering who is calling or what you are going to say. When the caller ID shows your dedicated extension, you can be ready.

I have been working here at Grasshopper for a year now, and most of you probably either know me as “The Ambassador of Buzz” or @grasshopperbuzz. For those who don’t know me, my job consists of a lot of different things jam packed into one. One of these things is trying to get our customers (entrepreneurs) press & buzz.

Believe it or not, it’s actually encouraged for me to do this; our founders are equally happy if I get press for a customer or for Grasshopper. I have gotten customers featured in the Wall St. Journal, ABC news and most recently, I was able to land coverage for Grasshopper customer Lanorma Huggins-Hopes on CityFlight.com and Zak Normandin on Top Entrepreneur TV.

I really take pleasure in helping customers gain buzz and awareness as I understand how big of a hurdle this can be when starting up a business. That’s why I am always looking for new ways to promote customers and new relationships that might help me do so.

I was very fortunate to recently be introduced to MO.com, a site (run by entrepreneurs) that features entrepreneurs and highlights their business strategies, philosophies, and methodologies.

I would like to introduce you to Brian Null; he is the founder of MO.com, and an entrepreneur himself. After speaking with Brian for just a few minutes it was immediately clear to me that we both shared a similar passion for entrepreneurship and learning about people’s unique journeys.

We’ll admit it – the typical Twitter page is more likely to hinder startup success than it is to help. A Google search for “Twitter distraction” generates over 1.8 million results, including in-depth blog posts on how to prevent Twitter from breaking your focus. So we’ll understand if Twitter isn’t currently a big part of your work day. However, it would be unwise for startup founders to unplug completely from Twitter.

In fact, the Twitter accounts of other startups and founders are often treasure troves of relevant, applicable insight. After all, these are folks who have overcome the obstacles you are facing and achieved the goals you are striving for. Who better to learn from? The key to using Twitter productively, of course, is avoiding idle banter and following only those offering concrete, actionable advice. To that end, Grasshopper scoured Twitter for fourteen accounts that any startup founder would be well-served to follow.

Startup Digest

Startup Digest is an awesome service for getting plugged in with your local startup community. They also have a great Twitter list setup for you to follow to filter out some of the noise in your Twitter stream once in awhile and focus on valuable insights from leading tech blogs and entrepreneurs.

One of my favorite parts about working at Grasshopper, and working with entrepreneurs in general, is the amazing people I get to meet. Entrepreneurs in nature are interesting and adventurous people. But, when you take a sampling of over 30,000 you would be surprised who you meet!

I was fortunate recently to be introduced to Robert Pagliarini, one of the many successful entrepreneurs using our Virtual Phone System. Robert is most well known for writing “The Other 8 Hours”, a book about understanding the critical link between financial results and what employees do offline. In addition to his successes with this book, Robert also wrote the #1 national bestselling personal finance book, “The Six-Day Financial Makeover”.

What’s even cooler is that Robert is equally as passionate about entrepreneurship as we are! That is why when we first spoke we thought it would be awesome for him and our co-founder David Hauser to have a casual conversation about entrepreneurship and make it available for free to all of you. We were discussing potential topics for the webinar when we realized something…if the webinar is for YOU, why should we pick the topic?

It didn’t seem right to us, so we decided to open it up for a vote! We need your opinion, tell us what topic you would be most interested in hearing Robert and David discuss:

Webinar Date / Time: April 6th from 1pm EST to 1:45pm EST

Voting Period Ends: April 2nd at 5pm EST

Free Sign Up / Registration Page: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/262493697

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or suggestions @grasshopperbuzz or jkay(at)grasshopper.com