As an entrepreneur a lot of what I’m required to do can best be described as selling. If I know the needs of the prospective client and I know that I can offer great value, I actually enjoy selling. If I’m not certain about the problem or solution I keep asking questions until I do, which some people define as selling and some don’t.

The hardest part of selling, the part that is uncomfortable for me is cold calling and leaving a please-call-me-back voicemail. So, in my search to resolve this internal conflict I came across a YouTube video from Keith Rosen that we transcribed and edited. I hope Keith’s message reduces your voicemail-anxiety.

Author:
    Keith Rosen, Sales Advisor, AllBusiness.com:

Many sales people feel that leaving a voicemail is a waste of time; it’s just not generating the callbacks that they expect.  So instead of leaving a voicemail they just put the phone down and hang up, expecting to catch that prospect at a later time.  However, maybe it’s really the voicemail itself that’s not working.  For example, if I gave you a spoon and told you to go out and dig a 10 ft hole, would you learn the lesson “Well, gee, I guess I can’t dig holes very well,” or maybe the lesson is more about the tools and resources.  So here are several things that you can do right now to boost the impact of your voicemails and generate more return calls.
    
VOICEMAIL THAT WORKS:
-    DON’T EXCEED 30 TO 45 SECONDS
-    GIVE A COMPELLING REASON TO RETURN THE CALL
-    DON’T GIVE TOO MUCH INFORMATION
-    CREATE FIVE UNIQUE VOICEMAIL MESSAGES
-    PRACTICE EACH MESSAGE 25 TIMES

1. Make sure your voicemails don’t exceed 30 to 45 seconds, max.  The reasons are (1) it’s going to prevent you from rambling on and (2) it will force you to craft and deliver a truly compelling message that will generate interest and a return call from your prospect.
2. Each message you leave must give the person you’re calling a compelling reason to return your call.  After all, when you’re making a cold call and you actually get a live person on the other end it’s hard enough to get them to listen to what you have to say.  Now, you want to leave a message, have that person go to their voicemail, retrieve that voicemail, write your number down and take the time out of their busy day to return your call.  So it’s imperative that you give them a compelling reason to return your call.  What value proposition do you have that they’re interested in?
3. Don’t give away the farm.  After all, if you give them all the information that you’re going to tell them when you finally connect with them then what’s going to be their reason to return your call in the first place?
4. Create five unique voicemail messages.  Now this accomplishes a few things.  I believe in taking the shotgun approach, rather than the rifle approach, when leaving voicemails and here's why: At this point you don’t really know your prospect’s hot button.  If you keep leaving the same old voicemail messages every week, well, the fact is you could actually be reinforcing the wrong message.  So instead of doing it that (repetitive) way create five different voicemail messages.  If message one doesn’t resonate with them, maybe voicemail two or three will.
5. And finally, make sure you practice every voicemail a minimum of 25 times.  Not just reading it, but actually saying it out loud.  Hear yourself say it.  Actually practice with a friend or a coworker leaving messages and have them critique you.  This will help you naturalize your voicemail messages so they sound more personal, not canned or scripted.

Final thoughts: In my mind voicemails are like meetings, we take them for granted because we think of them as basic human interaction, as communication, something we’ve done from since childhood. That’s false thinking, these are business skills and in order to get maximum results we need to think about what we’re doing, monitor results and work to improve our performance. Challenge yourself to find a way to use voicemails and meetings to energize yourself and your team with feelings of what’s possible.

Steve