Auto-Alerts: the Do's and Don'ts

What have I learned this week?

I’ve learned not to use the words "new office space" in social media posts or you'll be bombarded with calls from random sales people, none of whom will have bothered to look any further into your business than finding your phone number and initiating a pointless cold call.

The 'new' space that's got them all in a tizzy is the conversion of one of our bedrooms into an office. And I use the word 'conversion' very loosely - a few extra power points, a bit of decorating, and a new desk.

When we first moved in to our house the smallest bedroom was my office. Nothing fancy – just a desk with my computer on it, and room to pile up the household junk that doesn’t have anywhere else to live!

Then our younger children arrived and I gave up my little office in favour of cots and bright colours, and set up a small work space at one side of the dining table.

Which grew. And as I took on more work it carried on growing.

Fast forward to 2025 and my little edge of a table had taken over the whole end of the living room, complete with pedestal drawers and lockable cabinets. I even had a folding screen to try to separate my ‘office’ from the rest of the room.

So when middle child went off to Uni and moved into halls I took the opportunity to reclaim some space 😊

It’s small but it's cosy and functional. I can shut the door and make Teams calls without bothering anyone else, and best of all I've been able to move all the files and folders and office-y equipment out of the way.

And it no longer has bright yellow paintwork 😂 

What it is not:

❌ It's not 'commercial premises'.

❌ It's not a separate building that requires it's own electricity supply, phone lines or whatever other costly utilities or insurances you are trying to sell today.

❌ And it's not a new business that must absolutely be registered with Companies House to avoid eye-watering penalties if I don't sort it ASAP, but that Mr Random Cold-caller could sort for a modest (ahem!) fee.

After the first couple of calls I asked where they had sourced their information. It certainly wasn't a coincidence that moments after posting on my Facebook and Insta pages to thank the local businesses for their support and expertise the phone calls started. Not one of them would admit what - or who - they were using to obtain the alerts, but 'new office space' appeared to be the key phrase.

One did suggest it was because I'd just moved in. If by 'just' you mean 20 odd years ago, then maybe 🙄 

Mostly they just mumbled and ended the call.

A couple did apologise for disturbing me, but here's the rush: if you want to make cold calls at least do a teeny smidge of research first. It's not like anyone has to dig very far to find out who I am, what my business is, and where I'm based. If you are going to just hit the call button, script in hand, you are wasting your own time, and more annoyingly my time too. And even if I was in a position to buy what you are selling, I'd not be buying it from someone who didn't bother to look any further past the keyword alert!

Now auto-alerts definitely have a place. I use them to get relevant industry news articles in real time. I have them set up on e-portals to flag up potential contracts that are coming up for tender. I’ve even used them in my genealogy research.

But they’re not perfect or even necessarily reliable.

So I’d like to offer some words of advice about using auto-alerts to create your calling list:

Do:

• Make sure the key words and phrases you use are relevant.

  
  

• When you receive your list from Google, or whichever website or app you are using, check the results and discard the obvious outliers.

  
  

• Review the remaining results before you pick up the phone. It’s not difficult to determine whether a business is in your target location, or what type of business it is, and if you are planning to use the results for cold calling you will save yourself a lot of time and effort.

Don’t:     

• Set up an alert using words that are too generic or you’ll be inundated with results. Your alert for ‘nurseries’ is likely to include both plant sellers and early-years providers!

  
  

• Call every result on your list hoping for a win. If you’ve not filtered or reviewed your results you’ll end up with far more misses than hits.

  
  

• Get shirty when the business owner you disturbed is less than accommodating, because you are caller number 6 who didn’t even bother looking past the phrase “new office space” before launching into their spiel!

And here endeth the lesson 🙌