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KEITH ROSEN: Many salespeople feel that leaving a voice mail is a waste of time. It’s just not generating the callbacks that they expect, so instead of leaving a voice mail they just put the phone down and hang up, expecting to catch that prospect at a later time. However, maybe it’s really the voice mail itself that’s not working. For example, if I gave you a spoon and said to go out and dig a 10 foot hole, would you learn the lesson, “Well gee I guess I can’t dig holes very well,” or maybe it’s more about the tools and resources that would help me do this a lot more effectively. So here’s several things that you can do right now to boost the impact of your voice mails that’s going to generate more return calls for you.

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Voice Mail That Works:

-Don’t Exceed 30 to 45 seconds

Number one: make sure your voicemails don’t exceed, well, 30 to 45 seconds max. The reason why is, number one, it’s going to prevent you from rambling on. Secondly, it’s going to force you to laser in on the compelling message you need to leave that’s going to generate that return call and interest from your prospect.

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Voice Mail That Works:

-Don’t Exceed 30 to 45 seconds

-Give a Compelling Reason to Return Your Call

Number two: each message you leave must give them 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 enroll them to listen to what you have to say. Now, you want to leave a message, have that person go to their voice mail, retrieve that voice mail, write your number down, and take their time out of their busy day to return your call. So it’s imperative that you give them a reason to return your call. What value proposition do you have that they’re interested in?

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Voice Mail That Works:

-Don’t Exceed 30 to 45 seconds

-Give a Compelling Reason to Return Your Call

-Don’t Give Too Much Information

Number three: 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?

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Voice Mail That Works:

-Don’t Exceed 30 to 45 seconds

-Give a Compelling Reason to Return Your Call

-Don’t Give Too Much Information

-Create Five Unique Voicemail Messages

Number four: create 5 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 what that prospect’s hot button is. If you keep leaving the same old voicemail messages every week, well, the fact is you can actually be reinforcing the wrong message. So, instead of doing it that way, create five unique voicemail messages. This way, if voicemail one doesn’t resonate with them, maybe voicemails two and three will, and that’s finally going to give you the opportunity to stimulate that return call.

(voiceover continues)

Voice Mail That Works:

-Don’t Exceed 30 to 45 seconds

-Give a Compelling Reason to Return Your Call

-Don’t Give Too Much Information

-Create Five Unique Voicemail Messages

-Practice Each Message 25 Times

And finally, make sure you practice every voicemail a minimum of 25 times. Now not just reading it, I’m saying out loud. Hear yourself say it. Actually practice maybe with a friend or a co-worker leaving some messages that they could then critique you on. This will give you an opportunity that when you are finally leaving a voicemail message, it’s not going to come across as canned or scripted, but more of a natural conversation.