This a rather interesting article that we pulled from the Toronto Globe and Mail, which we thought we’d comment on, because we agree there’s a real science to leaving voicemails, which is a lot of our communication these days.
Our first question is why anyone would leave three voicemails in the first place….if the calls aren’t returned, then move on to the next lead. However, you know that each of these leads is costing you money, so you should work them to the max.
Here are their three steps:
1. Leave a succinct message that requires no action from prospect or lead. Personally, we would like a callback, but we’re willing to experiment on a second call, because we know that each lead costs money, and we don’t want to burn them. A succinct message would be ” This is John from the Solutions Forum. I’m following up to see if you got the literature we sent to you on Solutions Forum and whether you’d like to attend a meeting for free. You can give me a call back at xxx-xxx-xxxx’.
2. Leave a succinct follow up message. Here again, if we haven’t got a callback in a couple of days, it’s a good idea to leave a second message. The second message might be “hi Bill, this is John from Solutions Forum again….I thought I’d reach out again to you to see if you got the literature and would like to attend one of our meetings. Give me a call back at xxx-xxx-xxxx.
3. The third message grovels a bit, and might be the most effective: ‘Hi Bill, it’s John from Solutions Forum. Sorry I keep missing you. It’s too bad we haven’t had the opportunity to connect yet, because attending one of our owners’ meetings might be important for you and your company….we can add a lot of value. Why don’t you give me a call at xxx-xxx-xxxx and we can talk it over?”
In case you don’t like my examples or editorializing on the article, the link is: www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-marketing/sales/a-three-step-strategy-for turning-voicemail-into-a-powerful-sales-tool,