GETTING MORE PROSPECTS TO RETURN YOUR VOICE MAIL MESSAGES

1. Being surprised by voice mail.

Why do so many people leave long, rambling voice mail messages?

The reason is they were surprised when they were transferred to the person’s voice mail.”

They were surprised when the person wasn’t there?

Why were they surprised??

The person never is there!

Before you start dialing, know that in a moment you’ll be leaving a voice mail message.

2. Not knowing what your specific goal is before you pick up the phone.

You need to know exactly what you want your message to accomplish.

“Well, to get the person to return my call.”

Okay, that’s a good start.

But when do you want the person to return your call?

What will cause the prospect to want to call you back?

More to the point:

Exactly what do you want the person to think when he or she hears your message?

You must learn what motivates the people you are trying to reach…and how to use those motivators to define the goal of your message.

3. Picking the up the telephone without first planning what you’ll say.

I think well on my feet. I’ll figure out what to say as I’m leaving my message.”

Is that approach….

Foolish?

Lazy?

Typical?

Yes.

Most of the time, it’s also:

Ineffective.

You can see the difference for yourself if you ever have the chance you compare verbatim transcripts of real messages left by real salespeople with an expert’s rewritten versions.

4. Not planning a message designed to make the prospect pay immediate attention.

The average business executive listens to his voice mail messages with his finger poised over the “delete” button.

And as soon as he decides this phone call is not one that he needs to return or one that he will benefit from returning, he hits “delete”…

…and that message disappears from his memory forever.

You must learn you exactly how to command the interest of your prospect from your very first words.

5. Giving your sales pitch in your message.

The purpose of your voice mail message is not to sell your product or service.

It’s not to give a commercial for your business.

It’s to motivate the prospect to call you back.

Your message should not include even a single word that isn’t calculated to make the recipient call you back promptly.

You must learn what to say instead of giving a commercial.

6. Sounding eager for the person to return your call.

When salespeople appear eager, they repel prospects.

Prospects are attracted to salespeople who are confident.

A training course or e-book devoted to getting your voice mail messages returned can give you the information, the mindset, and the very words you should use to infuse your message with an unmistakable confidence.

7. Creating a personal distance.

At least 90% of voice mail messages left by salespeople (or other business people trying to establish contact with strangers) create a huge chasm — a great physical space — between themselves and their prospects.

And they achieve that self-defeating with their very first words!

They use a very common phrase that immediately signals the prospect, “This is a stranger who wants something from me. And I don’t want to give anything to that stranger.”

You also must learn which death-inducing phrases to avoid at all costs…and what to say instead.

8. Not knowing where you want to be on the recipient’s hierarchy of calls.

Your prospect returns to her office and finds 20 voice mail messages waiting for her.

Does she pick up the phone and call everyone back?

Of course not.

First she determines which calls she should return.

Then she decides which of those calls to return first.

People who are successful at cold calling have learned how to put themselves at the top of that “return these calls first” list.

9. Not leaving the kind of message that the recipient cannot bear to leave unreturned.

How do you get you voice mail messages returned?

By making sure they actively want to return your call.

Think about the messages you’re currently leaving: Do they really make the prospect want to return your call?

The secret to successful voice mail is knowing how you how to make the prospect want to return your call.

10. Thinking there is only one number to focus on.

Selling via telephone — which includes cold calling new prospects as well as calling “old” prospects, existing clients, and for former clients — is “a numbers game.”

But contrary to what most salespeople are taught, there are two numbers that determine your amount of returned voice mail messages.

The first number represents your outbound call volume. If you leave more voice mail messages for more people, then more people will return your calls.

Most salespeople (and sales managers) focus on that number because it can be objectively determined quite easily: Keep an accurate tally of the messages you leave, and you’ve got a very accurate measurement.

The other number also can be measured, but few people even consider it.

That number is the “impact rating” of your voice mail message.

An impact rating of “zero”? No callbacks.

An impact rating of “100″ means you always get your voice mail messages returned.

Your impact rating is between 0 and 100.

If you learn advanced strategies of getting prospects to call you back, you can double or even triple your response rate virtually overnight..

It’s your choice.

Do you want to make twice as many sales by making twice as many calls?

Or would you prefer to make twice as many sales from the same number of calls?

It’s your choice.