When you read your Yellow Pages contract you will see initials for various items success as BLN, WBLN, WFL, and ABLN. Most of these items cost between $ 7 and $34. Do you ever ask your sales Rep “what the heck is this?” The reason you don’t ask is because the item only cost $ 30 dollars, and you had it last year, and you don't want to appear stupid asking questions about $ 30.. The problem is that these unidentified items can add thousands of dollars to your advertising bill.

When you read your Yellow Pages contract ask the publisher’s sales Rep what all the initials are and why do you need them. In almost all cases you don't need them because there is a cheaper or free version available.

White page listing (WBLN) - If you have a business phone you are entitled to a free listing of your business name, address and phone number in the White Pages and the Yellow Pages. You will be told that it's much easier for your customer to read a bold listing (BLN) and it only cost $31 than the semi bold free listing. Unfortunately it is not $31 but $372. The $31 is for one month but the contract is for a year. It is very clever the way the publishers show all costs on your contract by the month instead of by the year, even though the contract is for a year. Ninety percent of all business name listings in the white pages are the free listings version and their customers seem to be able to find them. People read the white pages alphabetically and the bold print can actually be confusing.

White Feature Listing (WFL) - This is the super big print that you see in the white pages. A bold white page listing (WBLN) cost $31 a month while the super bold (WFL) listings cost $90 a month or $1080 for the year. Can you imagine paying $1080 for something that is free, yet thousands of businesses have WFL’s.