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Getting Your Calls Returned

Written by: Dave Kurlan

Article Overview: There are actually five keys to leaving a voice mail message and getting it returned...

Getting Your Calls Returned

About two years ago I published this tip with the most effective way to leave a voice mail message and get it returned. Read the tip before proceeding.

There are actually five keys to leaving a voice mail message and getting it returned.

1. Less is More - the less you say, the better your chances of getting the call returned so do not provide any more information than your name, apologies for missing him/her, and the number where you can be reached. Do not provide enough information for anyone to determine that they don't need to speak with you.

2. Try, try again - Before you leave a message, attempt to reach your prospect several times - early, late, lunch time, tomorrow and yesterday.

3. Friends and family - If you leave a message, make sure you sound like you know the prospect and the prospect knows you. Sound like someone they would want to speak with.

4. Getting the call returned - How many times should you leave a message? After your prospects play your message the first time they say, "I have to call back, but no, it's not the most important call to make." So they put it off until tomorrow. Tomorrow, they say, "He didn't call back so maybe it's not that important." And they put it off for one more day. When you haven't called back by the third day they simply delete the task to call you back. Prevent this from happening by leaving messages every day until you get a return call. This signals the importance of your call and most will eventually call you back.

5. You must get over whether or not you are comfortable with this. Comfort is not a requirement for action - effectiveness is. If you would simply do what you need to do to succeed, without concern for whether you are comfortable, you will succeed.
It's more difficult than ever to reach prospects by phone. While email is an option, there is an expectation that in an email you will provide details and it's the details that allow prospects to decline your invitation to have a dialog. So if you don't have enough referrals, introductions or leads to get the new appointments you need to fill your pipeline, make better, smarter use of the phone and leave voice mail messages that have a chance of working.

What should you say once they call you back? Thank you. Then begin the conversation for Reaching 1st Base. You can find 16 more tips for Getting to 1st here. Also, you might review the section on Getting to 1st Base in Baseline Selling, and the exercises for Getting to 1st Base in the Baseline Selling Field Guide.

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Article Tags: 3 friends, apologies, better your chances, email, five keys, friends and family, late lunch, lunch time, proceeding, prospects, several times, signals, third day, time tomorrow, tomorrow tomorrow, voice mail message, voicemail



Related Forum Posts
enRoute ads - 10 days with my new salesmen - Hi Guys, As some of you may know I hired a sales person for my business. I picked him amongst 50+ interviews, so I did do my due diligence. For any of you who have had experience with outbound sales reps in your company could you please shed some light on these statistics and let me know what you think: Days Employed: 11 Calls Made: 200 Average length of call: 3 minutes Sales: 0 Closing Rate: 0 Previous closing rate at Astral Media: 5% He is selling billboards instead of radio, for an unestablished company vs. an established one There seems to be large gaps in calling made in his daily log, on average he is making 20 calls a day. I am going to try to increase this by providing him with calling lists versus him creating his own. (I will keep you posted on this). I am just wondering, in your experience, what kind of regiment do you have your cold callers work on, 6 hours? 4 hours? 7 hours? And did you notice a curve occur with closing rates as time progressed and experience increased? If so when did you notice this begin to occur, I have him on a 1,500.00 NON-RECOVERABLE sales draw salary which ends in 6 weeks (approx).


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