Manual 5 · Vendor Defense · 5.3
How to make the sales calls stop (mostly)
Most of the sales calls hitting your business line are legal, and that is why they never stop on their own. You can still cut the volume way down. The fix is a short script for live callers, one rule about your cell phone, and a change to which number goes on your public paperwork.
Most of this is phone and truck. The script works on the very next call you answer, and nothing about it needs a login. Two of the five steps do need a screen: the FTC report form and setting up a second number. Neither has to be your hands: put both on an index card for whoever runs your logins. Plugging the number leak is about one hour, on a rain day or a slow Friday afternoon.
Why your phone rings all day
You already know the volume. Start with the callers who put Google's name on it.
The caller who says he is "with Google," or "calling about your Google listing"? Google does call businesses — its own help page, as of July 2026, says Google might call, text, or message on WhatsApp the number listed on your Business Profile to confirm your info, and it now also places automated calls asking your price and availability for a homeowner who searched your trade. Those calls are automated. A call with Google's name on it is not automatically fake.
So stop grading callers by the name they give and grade the offer instead. Nobody can guarantee a spot in the free results, so anyone selling one is out, and so is anyone selling a paid fix for a suspended listing. Hang up, and work your own listing from your own Google account, never from their call.
They did not find your number by luck. The number you give the state license people becomes public record, and callers work those records. An LLC filing is public the same way.
The damage is not just wasted minutes. Your phone is the one thing that is supposed to feed you, and giving your number to a single lead-selling outfit can follow you around.
What the law covers, and what it does not
Here is the federal law. It is thinner than you would hope.
- The National Do Not Call Registry will not do much for your shop line. The FTC says the registry is for personal phone numbers and that business numbers are not covered. A personal cell you also use for work is a personal number — you can register that one.
- Most business-to-business sales calls are exempt from the federal telemarketing rules. Calling your shop to sell you marketing is, for the most part, legal. That is the real reason the calls never stop.
- Your cell phone is a different story. A recorded sales message to your cell requires your written permission first — no business exception, period. If a robot voice is selling to your cell and you never signed anything, that call is against the law. And a recording hitting the SHOP line? No script to run on a robot — hang up; the report path below takes those too.
- The one-company request has some teeth. Under the telemarketing rules, calling someone who has already told that seller to stop is on the books as an abusive practice, and a company-specific do-not-call request must be honored for 5 years. Fair warning: both of those rules were written around home phone lines, and most business-to-business calls sit outside them. On the shop line, treat the request as pressure, not armor.
Think of the sales call like a stranger walking onto your job site. You do not stand there and argue with him. You walk him off. The law will not fence the whole property for you, but you can walk off every stranger who shows up, one at a time.
That comparison breaks in one place, and the break matters. On a job site, you walk the stranger off once. On the phone, the same company can come back with a new voice on it. Expect that, and do not take it personally.
The short version to carry: the robocall law protects your cell, and almost nothing federal protects the shop line. That is the federal picture, and everything below works inside it.
The owner who barked back
One building inspector, worn down by callers who would not take no for an answer, took to barking like a dog into the phone. He says they stopped calling him.
We are not telling you to bark. One man's account is not a method. The move that is on the books is the one you just read: a do-not-call request aimed at one named company, said plain, said every time, written down.
The system: five steps
Step 1Say the sentence to every live caller
When a live human calls to sell you something, run this routine:
1. "What company are you calling for?" — make them say the name out loud.
2. "[Company name], put this number on your internal do-not-call list."
3. Hang up. Do not explain, do not soften it, and do not stay on the line.
The wording matters. Ask in plain terms, and make them name the company, because the request binds that seller and not the whole industry.
A repeat call does not mean the sentence failed. You say it again, and it goes in the log.
Checkable result: your next sales call lasts under 30 seconds. The log matters most the day you escalate, and nobody runs a clipboard from a roof in July — so make the wallet card itself the log: a tally mark and a company name on it counts, and a photo of the card at month's end is your record. One line per call, however you keep it:
Date ______ · Their number ______ · Company they named ______ · Said the sentence? yes / no
Step 2Report the robots that hit your cell
Live calls to the shop are mostly legal. A recorded sales message to your cell, without your written OK, is not. When one lands, write down the date, the number it came from, and what the recording was selling. Then report it at DoNotCall.gov, the FTC's own reporting form. Have those three things in front of you before you open it, and if no number ever showed, file anyway and describe the recording. That part is screen work: do it yourself if screens are yours, or hand the card with the date and number to whoever runs them.
You will not get a courtroom moment out of one report, and you should not sit waiting on one. Reports feed the enforcement pile. Screenshot the confirmation screen when it appears, then let it go and keep logging.
Checkable result: one report filed, and the date of the report written in the same log from Step 1.
Step 3Plug the leak (the rain-day hour)
The calls trace back to the numbers on your public paperwork. So stop feeding your real numbers to the lists.
Set up one dedicated phone number that can ride straight to voicemail. If screens aren't your thing, the phone company's cheapest extra line is the no-decisions pick; if they are, any second-number app running a few dollars a month does the same job — and setting it up is fair game to hand to whoever runs your logins. The only requirement is that it can sit unanswered and take voicemail. From now on, that number goes on state license filings, LLC and registration paperwork, and any form that becomes public record. The number your customers call, and your cell, stay off those documents. (One check before you commit it: make sure your licensing board's filing rules accept it as the contact of record.)
Be honest with yourself about the limit here: filings already on record are already scraped, and filings aren't the only leak — directories and data brokers resell numbers too. This step will not un-ring that bell. What it does is starve every future list at once: your next renewal, your next filing, and every public form after it feed the machine a number that goes nowhere.
Checkable result: fill this frame in during your rain-day hour.
- Number showing on my state license filing today: ______
- Number showing on my LLC / state registration today: ______
- The dedicated public-paperwork number I will use from now on: ______
Step 4Decide about silencing unknown callers, with the cost stated
Most phones can send calls from unknown numbers straight to voicemail. The trade: a real customer calling from a new number goes to voicemail too, and not everyone leaves a message. That is a real cost in missed work, and only you can weigh it.
A rough guide. The more of your work that arrives by referral, the less this costs you — a caller who already knows your name has a reason to leave a message. If you live on cold first-time callers, it costs more.
If you turn it on, make the voicemail greeting carry the load. Ask for exactly what you need and say when you call back.
Checkable result: a yes-or-no decision written in your log, and if yes, a new greeting recorded. Fill-in frame for the greeting:
"You've reached ______. Leave your name, your number, and what the job is, and we'll call you back ______."
Step 5Drop the three habits
Give a sales caller nothing but the sentence. That means dropping these:
- Pressing 1, even when the recording says it will "remove" you.
- Arguing with the rep, lecturing him, or running out the clock on purpose.
- Calling back a missed unknown number to find out who it was.
The Step 1 sentence plus a fast hang-up is the whole move.
Checkable result: the next time a recording says "press 1," you hang up without pressing, and the call goes in the log.
Print this: the wallet card
If the calls keep coming anyway
This page cuts the volume. It does not tell you whether the rare caller worth hearing out is legit. When someone gets past your filter and you are actually curious, run them through the five questions before you give them a minute. For the full map of how these outfits operate end to end, start at the whole con, mapped.
One last check, because it is the one that matters. The law mostly ignores your business line and it protects your cell. On the business line, your defense is the wallet-card routine plus the paperwork fix. The card is in place tonight; the number is the next rain day's hour — getting it is quick, and the payoff compounds at every renewal after.