A ton of people ask me on a regular basis whether or not they should even leave voice mails any more since they almost never get a call back. My response is yes – as long as they are good ones. If you’re leaving ‘touching base’ and ‘checking in’ voice mails then I would not waste my time or the prospect’s. If your voice mails are targeted with a reason for your call that includes some sort of relevant information or value then I would absolutely leave them. Voice mails should be part of any overall contact strategy that mixes up calls, e-mails and other ways of getting your message in front of the right target prospect. If your contact strategy includes quality and relevant messaging each time it increases the chances of someone responding. They may not call you back from your voice mail but if they see (e-mail), hear (call/vm), see, hear different values of your solution they may eventually reach back out. The question isn’t whether or not to leave voice mails, its how do you leave good voice mails? Here are some things to think about:
1. Don’t start with your name first
Every voicemail starts off exactly the same way: “Hi, this is John Johnson with XYZ company..” The problem with this approach is that the majority of our voice mails get deleted right after this because the client either knows your company and therefor has a certain assumption about what you do or they don’t know your company and therefor probably don’t care. We start all our voice mails off with “Hi Bill, the reason for my call today is….” and then add in some sort of short value prop that focuses on getting their attention. The goal is to get them to pay attention to the value you bring instead of some preconceived notion of what you do. We then back it up at the end with “please call me back at 555-555-5555. This is John Johnson with XYZ company. 555-555-5555.” This is brutal to get used to but it works.
2. Keep them under 30 seconds
Anything over 30 seconds and you’re trying to sell and you fundamentally can’t sell your solutions in a voice mail. Leave yourself a voice mail and time it to see how long it takes. By taking the approach outlined in point #1 you end up getting to the point a lot faster instead of wasting 5-10 seconds with your intro of who you are and where you are calling from.
3. Don’t sell
Again, you fundamentally can’t sell your solution in a voicemail so stop trying. Focus on getting someone’s attention with a compelling value statement about what you’ve been able to do for other clients like them. Prospecting is about getting someone’s attention and earning their interest. It’s about selling time or the next step, it’s not about selling your solutions. Try to think about getting a response of “how do you do that?” if it was a live conversation.
4. Don’t reference failed attempts
I hate when I hear reps leaving voice mails that start like this “Hi Sarah, this is John again from XYZ company. I’ve left you a few messages and am trying to reconnect to see if you’d be interested in…” If I didn’t care the first few times, why should I care now? By saying this you are automatically giving me the green light to delete your voice mail before I listen to the rest of it. you should always have a different reason for your call.
5. Be different
Almost every voice mail sounds exactly the same no matter what people are selling: “Hi Bill, this is John with XYZ company. We’re the leading provider of blah blah and I would like to set up a time to discuss your needs related to blah blah and see how we can help you achieve your goals…blah blah blah blah.” No wonder people never call us back. When cold calling, leaving voice mails, sending e-mails, we should always try to stand out in some way. A few ways to be different on voice mails include: By not starting with your name first; making people laugh (with business appropriate humor); screwing up a voice mail and joking about it; being enthusiastic and positive; referencing some research you’ve done on their business that prompted the call. Whatever it is, just try to do something different and stand out.
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~ Uncle 'D'
