At some point, usually toward the beginning of the call, the subject of what your caller looks like will usually come up...

This is SUCH an important part of the call, yet many operators completely breeze over whatever their caller says at this point, and blow a great chance to take up a few minutes to make their caller feel special...

This is, unfortunately, the way it usually goes:

Operator: "You sound really nice, Jeff - what do you look like?"

Caller: "Well, I'm about 6 foot tall, got a pretty good tan... blue eyes... like 210 lbs..."

Operator: "Wow you sound really sexy! Want to know what I look like?"

Caller usually says YES at this point, and the call moves on unnecessarily!

THE FOLLOWING works much better - extends the call and has the added FANTASTIC benefit of making your caller feel special:

Operator: "You sound really nice, Jeff - what do you look like?"

Caller: "Well, I'm about 6 foot tall, got a pretty good tan... blue eyes... like 210 lbs..."

Operator: "Really? Blue eyes? Those are my favorite! And that tan - do you work outside or something? Or do you just go to the beach alot?"

Caller will probably answer the question about how he got his tan - who knows? He might tell you that he's been out jetskiing all weekend at his friend's lake... ANYTHING he says at this point can turn into a few minutes (or many minutes!) of general chat that is about HIM. I cannot stress this enough - remember that his favorite subject is HIM! If you let him know how interesting he is, by listening carefully to his responses and asking open-ended questions that he'll enjoy answering, the time will pass very quickly for him...

ANOTHER often-overlooked way to make your caller feel special is to NOTICE ACCENTS! Whether it's a country accent, Italian or Spanish-sounding accent - ANYTHING that you can pick up in his voice can lead to a few minutes (at least!) of chat about his ancestry, his travels, where he grew up...

(Notice I said HIS ancestry, travels, etc... HIS - not yours!)

Of course at some point he might get around to asking you the same questions, but try to keep the focus on the places and things HE knows about... he'll know you're really paying attention!