So i took my phone number off my business website

It was only on there in the form of a photo of my business card, anyway. Same with my email address, it was on there but with an [at] instead of the @ symbol, trying to avoid spammers.

It doesn't work though. Emails you expect by now anyway but from day one I'd have phone calls from jerk offs wanting to sell me a business system, a franchise, search engine optimisation, web design, "priority listing" on some search engine no one's ever heard of before... some of them are really persistent too and won't take no for an answer, and even try to TRICK you into authorising them to start billing you for some crap you just told them you didn't want. One in particular was real bad and after a little while I learned that you can't use patience, politeness or good manners with these scumbags, you just have to tell them to "fuck off and never call me again" and then hang up.

So these days it's mostly just the "industry events" that I get calls from, or the occasional "buy a franchise with us and you'll never have to deal with competition again" jerkoffs. Really though? How's that going to work? If I spend however much money so I can use your branding, that's gonna cause all the other local gyms and trainers to close their doors? Or maybe you're gonna send some hired goons around to convince them?

Now when you think about it... it's the same sort of bullshit marketing the industry pushes on the public. "Just buy our product and all your problems will vanish and you won't even have to work hard for it". And that's the system you'd be buying into.

Well... by now I have my own training system, my own system of determining nutritional requirements, and I'm fortunate enough to be authorised to work out of one of the world's greatest gyms. Tell me again why I should throw all of that out to buy into your package of "stuff that people think they want but doesn't actually achieve anything" instead?

Of course THEN I had to go looking for all my business listings online and you can't actually remove your phone number from them, but you can put "no phone inquiries please use the form on my website" in your description. Come to think of it, there's a bunch of listings I never actually set up myself that I need to investigate too.

So hopefully less nuisance calls as a result. What about genuine inquiries from prospective clients though?

Well... we'll see. I prefer inquiries via my contact form as that'll give me all the information I need, and I can take a few minutes to think about how to respond. I'm at a stage now where my Online Coaching business is almost all I need, and with my new gym wear line about to take off, I can be more selective about which clients I'm available to work with locally. As mentioned, I have a good system that has produced tremendous results for clients all over the world... so people should sign up ready and enthusiastic to follow this system. Sometimes you get people who want to call the shots, or will question every choice of exercise or whatever else... and questioning because you want to learn and understand is one thing, but questioning as in "no, I want to do something else instead, you're going to have to convince me or I'm not doing it" is different. That shit gets so exhausting and just saps my enthusiasm.

So, I want the people who are going to follow instructions and get results. Directing people to the email form is a good way to see who can follow instructions.