Michel,

This is an issue I have been struggling with.

I have been thinking of using a gatekeeper for those pre-contract phone conversations, which I just hate (the conversations - not to mention the phone tag). I think they may be necessary when people are considering spending a lot of money with you to:

1)Get their legitimate questions answered.
2)Set the scope of a project.
3)Help them feel comfortable doing business with you. Reputation cannot really replace the warmth and rapport of a human conversation.

#1 and #2 can be handled by an assistant. But what about #3? Do you think that could work also with the right assistant (thinking from the point of view of the clients)?

I'd love to hear from a few other people too how they handle this problem.

Marcia Yudkin