Over 10 Spam Calls in a Day: The Simple Filter That Fixed It
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The other day I had over 10 calls on my business line. Not one of them left a message. Not one said a word. Just spam, all day long.
And here's the problem: I'd gotten so used to ignoring my phone that I was at risk of missing the calls that actually matter, my clients. So I spent a couple of hours building a system that does the filtering for me. Here's exactly how it works and how you can do the same.
The Wrong Calls Get Through. The Right Ones Don't.
I'm sure this is a problem many of you face. We are bombarded with spam calls, spam mail, messages and notifications every which way we turn. And truth be told, very few of them are ones I actually need to respond to.
And it's not just my business line. Even on my personal phone, where I have a filter so I only answer calls I recognize, the spam calls always seem to get through, yet my husband and kids never seem to be able to get hold of me. The wrong people are getting through, and the right people aren't.
Focus: Why Every Interruption Costs More Than You Think
To do the deep work we need to do as CEOs, we need uninterrupted focus time. That's the time we use to strategize and plan so we can really grow and scale the business.
But most professionals are interrupted about every 11 minutes, and it can take up to 23 minutes to fully regain focus after a single interruption. Do the math, and you are never able to get into the deep focus it takes to move your business to the next level. If I answered all 10 of those spam calls, that alone could cost me nearly four hours of focus in one day.
One study even found that push notifications and dings temporarily lower your IQ by about 10 points. Each little ping chips away at your concentration.
I like to think of focus like a magnifying glass. Normally the sun's rays are spread all over the place. But when you concentrate them in one spot, you can burn a leaf. When our attention is scattered across rings, pings and messages, we can't get anything meaningful done. That big problem in your business may not be getting solved simply because you don't have the focus time to dedicate to it.
The Business Owner's Dilemma: You Still Have to Answer the Phone
Here's the catch. As business owners, we also need to answer calls.
Alex Hormozi recently shared some stats in an email that stopped me in my tracks, so I tracked down where they came from:
Businesses take an average of 42 hours to respond to a new lead, according to a Harvard Business Review study of more than 2,000 US companies. And that only counts the companies that responded at all within 30 days.
Calling a lead within the first minute improved conversions by 391%, according to a study of millions of leads by lead management company Leads360 (now Velocify).
78% of buyers go with the company that contacts them first, according to Velocify.
So how do we deal with this dilemma? We need focus time to strategize, but we also need to be responsive.
This is what I call the whirlwind: the stuff you have to do to keep the business going that pulls you away from what really matters. Both have to happen. You have to respond to these calls, and you have to protect your focus time to grow the business. So first we decide what to focus on and which calls we really need. Then we set up a system. That's the Flow part of my framework.
Flow: The System I Built to Filter My Calls
Step 1: An AI agent and an automatic text back
I already had automations in place. If I missed a call, the system would automatically text that person to say, "Sorry I missed you." I also have an AI agent on my business line. It answers most questions, takes a message and sends me a notification so I know who to get back to. I check those at least once a day so I can respond.
I know a lot of people don't like AI agents. You could also hire a person whose job is to answer the phone. We used to call that a receptionist. Not everybody has one now, so I use an AI agent instead. The goal is the same: be responsive without letting every call pull my attention away from the work that grows the business.
That system worked pretty well until the spam calls took over. If I'm getting 10 a day, I'm getting 10 notifications a day that break my focus and bury the calls that matter.
Step 2: A "press 1" filter
So I added an IVR (interactive voice response). It's a short recording that plays as soon as the phone rings, before anyone reaches my AI agent. Mine simply says to press 1 if you want to talk to somebody. Here's how it routes calls:
Press 1: You're a real person, so you can talk to my AI agent or leave a message. The system records your name and number and texts you back.
Don't press anything: You can still leave a voicemail. That's important for people calling from the car who can't press a button.
No key press and no voicemail: The system marks the call as spam and doesn't notify me.
That one step alone stops a lot of robocalls. I've only had it in place for one day, and that day I had no more robocalls.
I built it in Go High Level, using the AI built into the system to walk me through it. Whatever system you use, you can probably set up something similar. And even if your problem isn't phone calls, the same idea may apply to another tool you use.
Make it fit how you work
You don't have to set it up exactly like mine. Once someone presses 1, you could connect them straight to you. You could even have the system announce who's calling, so you know whether to answer right then.
You can also set limits on who can get through and when. For example, block calls in the morning during your focus time, and in the afternoon let callers who press 1 connect directly to you. Personally, I have callers talk to my AI agent or leave a message, then I review the alerts each day to see who I need to call back.
Build your own with AI
It may take you an hour or two to set up, hopefully not more. You don't need to know the technical terms. Copy this prompt into whatever AI tool you use, fill in the brackets, and let it walk you through the setup:
I use [X, Y and Z] for my business phone and customer communication. Walk me through, step by step, how to set up a "press 1" call filter. When someone calls, play a short message asking them to press 1. If they press 1, send them to [voicemail / my assistant / me]. If they don't press anything, let them leave a voicemail. If they don't press anything and don't leave a voicemail, mark the call as spam and don't notify me. Also set up an automatic text back for real callers I miss. Explain each step in plain language, and if my software can't do part of this, tell me what I could use instead.
Replace X, Y and Z with the tools you use, like your phone provider, your CRM and your calendar. If the AI suggests a setting you don't understand, ask it to explain it like you're new to the software. That's exactly how I built mine.
Flourish: Time for the Conversations That Matter
When the right calls get through and the wrong ones get filtered out, you flourish.
Now I have time to focus on my business, on the content I want to create, and on this podcast. And I have time for meaningful connections with the right people.
I don't flourish when I'm answering robocalls. Every time my focus is broken, it breaks my state of flow and drains my energy. Constant interruptions keep our brains on high alert, and you can't flourish in high alert. That's survival mode. With a filter in place, I end the day feeling more satisfied and more joyful, and I enjoy my business so much more.
Start Here
Your challenge for this week: pick one thing that keeps interrupting you. Maybe it's not phone calls. Maybe it's another kind of notification.
Focus: Decide what you're protecting.
Flow: Work with your AI tool to build a system that filters out the interruption.
Flourish: Enjoy the time, energy and joy it gives back to you.
Business does not have to be this hard.
May you find your flow.
If You Left for Two Weeks Tomorrow, What Would Break?
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