Do You Ever Leave Worthless Voice Mails?
By Bill Brooks on 01 Mar 2007 at 09:49 am
I received the most ridiculous sales call I have ever received this week. It was left on my voice mail and went something like this:
“Hello, my name is ___________. My company is ____________ and I am the president. I’d like to leave my phone number so that you could call me in the next several weeks so that we can schedule a time for our phone conference. My # is _____.”
What is wrong with this picture? Unfortunately, just about everything. Let’s look:
- I don’t know who he is.
- I don’t know his company.
- I don’t care if he is the president.
- I don’t know what his company does.
- I don’t know how I could benefit.
- I am not going to call him back – he’s trying to sell me something.
Other than that, his call was great, wasn’t it? What should he have done? What would have been a better message? Let’s revisit the same call, with some changes.
“Hello, I’m __________, president of ______________. I understand from researching your company that you may be an ideal candidate for ____________. My firm specializes in _____________ and we may be able to help you. I certainly don’t expect you to return my call. However, if you’re so inclined my number is __________. In the absence of my hearing from you, I hope you’ll be in a position to accept my call in the next few days.”
What makes this better?
- It shows that he understands my situation.
- He ties in how he can help me.
- He indicates that he does not expect me to return his call.
- He leaves a degree of “intrigue.”
- He does leave his # - just in case.
- He indicates that he will be calling me in the next few days.
Sales is all about words. The correct words said correctly. Hope this helps. By the way, I’m not calling the guy back – it’s his job to call me, isn’t it?
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Dear Bill,
I leave a lot of voice mails. I get a person to call me back with interest, so it can’t be everyone who leaves worthless voice mails. It all depends on how you look at it as to whether or not voice mails are worthless, I guess. Some people say you should never cold call, but they don’t have the success with it that I have either. If you call and hang up without leaving a voicemail message then what did you accomplish? Nothing! People are busy, so to be more considerate of their time I leave a voicemail and they can listen if they are interested, and delete it if they are not. If you don’t call and engage on at least some level then you will never really know what your customer thinks about your firm or what they really need. For example, as of this moment in time I would have no idea if you liked to wear red shirts or not unless I called you and asked you point blank. Even if you did like red shirts and I’d researched this online prior to sending a mailing and making a call there is still no way to know if you will like silk red shirts, wool red shirts, or if you are actually sick of shirts and would like to go shirtless. If no one knows your shirt disposition, then you cannot be helped, and no one can be considerate of your fashion sense. So even if the caller who called you was lacking in speaking ability and sounded about as exciting as cardboard the purpose of the call was to learn your interest level based on your response, and with training they could someday improve. I wouldn’t suggest they hang it up just yet. As an inside sales person we get the shaft all the time.
I try to be as open, fun, spirited and interesting as possible on the phone. I sound like a real human being!! I also practice and write out what I am going to say beforehand when leaving a voicemail. In many ways it can be a lot like doing a voice over for a radio commercial, or even theatre; however this does not mean that it is worthless if you have properly prepared for your campaign, and have taken it upon yourself not to sound like a dullard, a complete idiot/moron, or a robot. Trust me; I know how awful some inside sales people can be. There was a person who sat next to me that I wanted to strangle because of how truly awful his technique was. I would put that particular individual in a lower class of salesperson and consider it a pity that the limitations of my current non-managerial position did not allow me to spend an afternoon training him. Cold calling can be a lot like approaching someone at a bar, except without beer and with more manners. My philosophy is if I wouldn’t say it or if I would use a certain tone when calling my own mother or my friends I don’t do it with inside sales.
When my mother calls me- she sounds like she is the most important person in the world and everyone knows it. Though she is not in sales, and she’s not a president of anything (except maybe of her own kitchen) I bet she could get through to the President of the United States, no problem. Her mother was like that too, and as a small tyke I spent many a day listening to my Mom talk to her Mom on the phone. They only lived 15 miles away from each other but these 2 gals gabbed on the phone more than anyone you have ever met in your entire life. I have taken this into consideration, Bill, and given my family history I feel I have inherited the telemarketing gene. It can be traced in my family as far back as the invention of the telephone and tends to be found in women only. Pending blood tests and further research this is all still in theory, mind you, but unfortunately at this time I have no other explanation for having talent in this area of business that seems so elusive to many people out there.
Cold calling is easy for me, and I’ve never gone to business school. Why is it so hard for everyone else, and if it is so hard for them why do they do it? I never set out to be a salesperson! It was my ability that sucked me in. If I hadn’t been discovered by a business person with dollar signs in their eyes when they heard me talking on the phone one day I would right now be a museum curator of contemporary sculpture and performance art. That’s a million miles away from qualifying leads! So if I came out of left field, then what does that say about the field in general?
Kind regards,
Melanie