762 – Boost your way to more business: Tom talks Cell Boosters

Episode 762 – Cell Boosters
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 762 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today, we're going to talk about cell boosters, sometimes called cell extenders or repeaters. And this is going to help you get through when your normal signal is weak so you don't lose business and not be able to talk to people. I hope you didn't miss Episode 761. That was on Quora using the site Quora to market yourself with questions and answers. Pretty cool deal there. And I hope that you download a copy of our automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and also check out all our training episodes at screwthecommute.com/training.

[00:01:07] All right, let's get to the main event. We're talking about cell boosters here, but let's do some basics here. So when you are operating your phone, you are transmitting a signal from your phone to what is called a cell tower. We're all familiar with those. That tower amplifies your signal and sends it out all to a bunch of other towers to eventually get to the person that you're calling. And the further you are from a tower or the more obstacles in your way like buildings and trees or terrain, the worse your signal is. And that's where we get Can you hear me now kind of thing, right? Well, a cell booster is basically an amplifier for your cell phone that makes it easier to get to the cell towers. The big ones and to better overcome any obstacles that are in the way. It's a little amplifier, so maybe you travel and have spotty coverage in many areas you go through.

[00:02:10] It would be a shame to miss an important call or not be able to respond to an email or a message. I could mean losing a sale or lots of sales. And maybe you just get into some really bad areas where you can only get one bar and people can hardly hear you. Or maybe you're a digital nomad living in an RV, and your ability to communicate varies wildly as you travel, and that keeps you from taking the best jobs because you can't be sure you'll be able to take care of the customer. Or maybe you have chosen to live in a rural area that doesn't have great coverage ever. Now, before I go further, let me let me talk about the bars on your cell phone. Like you say, I only got two bars. I only got one bar. Well, they actually mean very little cell phone signal strength is actually measured in decibel milliwatts or Dbms. -50 is great. -95 is getting bad and 125 is pitiful. C -50 is a higher number than a -95. It's all negative numbers here. The closer you get to zero, the better. And the bars on whatever service you are using don't necessarily represent the decibel milliwatts of another service with the same number of bars. The bars, they're just rough estimates for each service. But anyway, there's instructions online for both Android and iPhone to figure out what signal strength you're getting. And keep in mind, it may change for different areas of your house just as much as it might change in different areas where you drive.

[00:03:55] Now, cell boosters sound like a great solution and they are as long as you have a signal to boost. Okay. If you have no signal at all, the booster has nothing to amplify and you're basically Sol. Now, your goal with a cell booster would be to reduce the overall amount of time that you have poor coverage. Knowing that sometimes you just might not be able to get through. In those areas. If you want to spend a ton of money, you could always get a satellite phone or a sat phone. They call them. So how do you do this cell booster thing? Well, the first thing is, is you make sure your phone service provider allows them. Almost all of them do. But it's better to check first. Then you mount an outside antenna on your car or RV. This can be done with a simple magnet mount that usually comes with them. You also have an inside antenna that goes from your phone to the antenna, and that antenna goes down to the signal booster device. So it's very simple. You don't even need tools to install these things and it plugs into your cigarette lighter If you don't want to go, put it all the way into a fuse box or something. And there's YouTube videos with suggestions on where to mount and not to mount all the parts of this thing, like the booster needs some ventilation and the antennas need to be put in certain places on your roof.

[00:05:28] There's another option, all right? But it has its pros and cons. It's called femtocell. I think that's the pronunciation. But it's also known as microcells. And it's kind of a home base station. It's basically like your own little miniature cell tower. Okay. The advantage of this technology is that it can create a signal where there is no signal. Several of the downsides are that it must have a solid Internet connection to work. Now, it might be difficult when traveling to be in a place where the Internet is great, but there's no cell signal at all. Okay. And also the femtocell technology is tied to one service provider, so your friends on a different service won't be able to use it on cell boosters. Anyone on any service can use it once you set it up. Now, at the time of this recording, cell boosters run. The ones I looked on Amazon ran anywhere from 150 bucks to a thousand bucks or so. It's best to read honest reviews at the time you decide to get one of these because the tech is changing rapidly. So if you depend on your cell phone for business and if you frequently run into trouble reception areas or you live in a rural area, this might be a solution for you. Plus, home grade models are also available that are usually a little pricier. And hey, depending on your house, if you've got a really complicated, thick house with bricks and everything, you may need more than one.

[00:07:08] But again, if it's costing you business, it might be an important investment and it's probably tax deductible. Check with your tax professional. So there you go. A little bit about cell boosters. And so, you know, you're not can you hear me now for the rest of your life? And if you want help with this and the other bazillion things you need to be successful online, check out my mentor program at Great Internet Marketing Training.com. It's the longest running, most successful, most unique internet and digital mentor program ever, and I triple dog dare anybody to put theirs up against mine. And they won't because they'd be embarrassed because I'm a fanatic to take care of you and your small business and help you. So check that out. And also, I got a program, how to be a great podcast guest and it's one on one. One of the sessions is four sessions. One of the sessions is you get a feature on here, screw the commute and if you're not really right for my show, I'll still do the session for you and we'll make it a special edition. So that's at screwthecommute.com/greatpodcastguest. And of course if you're in my mentor program that's free for you. So check both of those out. Greatinternetmarketingtraining.com for the mentor program and screwthecommute.com/greatpodcastguest. And don't call me and say can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? I have to do it too, sometimes. All right. We'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.