Two things I wanted to mention:
Crissy of Indie Biz Chicks asked me on her show to talk about the benefits of digital product selling in your business. If you do or if you don’t already have a digital product for sale on your website, listen in. We talked about some of the benefits of such, including:
- Residual income – creating a product once and earning again and again
- Varying the source of your income online – we all know how important it is to not put all your eggs in one basket
- Reusing content you already own – you can create an infoproduct by gathering and expanding content you’re already using somewhere else.
And some other stuff. Go have a listen at Crissy’s site.

Secondly, I wanted to share an experience I had with an AT&T customer service representative yesterday.
I had a really huge phone bill this month. First I made three international phone calls (I interviewed a guest for my podcast who was from Ecuador and another was from Quebec.) but then I also noticed that I was being charged for a lot of calls to Audio Acrobat.
That didn’t make sense to me. I do my interviews by calling my guest and THEN dialing in to AA to record the call for me. Turns out I was charged both for calling the guest AND then for dialing AA!
I had no idea this was the case until I called AT&T. I could use my cell phone to do interviews I suppose, but I get poor reception at my home and I also don’t want to take a chance on getting staticky interviews.
I had free unlimited long distance on my old land line phone plan, but not here. So. I called and asked the customer sevice rep and talked with her (that’s when I found out about the double long distance charges!).
I had her sign me up for the unlimited long distance and then took a bold step.
I explained to her that I was a work at home Mom who made a LOT of long distance calls. I told her I was unprepared to pay this bill (it was double what I expected) and asked if she would make the unlimited long distance plan retroactive.
She put me on hold for a second and then came back and said that she would give me a significant discount on this month’s bill as well as a $50 cash back reward.
I was actually shocked! I think there are a couple of reasons she was so willing to work with me.
Firstly, I was kind and respectful. Even though it irked me that I was being double charged for long distance calls (does that make sense to you?) to my Audio Acrobat account, I kept my tone friendly. After all, I doubt she’s responsible for that policy!
Secondly, I gave her a reason why. Studies have shown that when you take the simple step of explaining the reason WHY you need something from someone, they’re much more likely to try to oblige you.
I’m not sure what this has to do with being a work at home Mom or online business, but I just thought I would post it anyway.