Smart Calling: Eliminate the Fear, Failure, and Rejection from Cold Calling, 2nd Edition

Chapter 7

How to Be Smart with Voice Mail

Would you like the secret to perfecting that one voice mail message guaranteed to get all of your calls returned?

Yeah, I would, too. Let me know if you find it.

Oh, there are messages that can get calls returned all the time. There are the ones saying that you’re from the IRS and have some important information. Or that you’re with the hospital lab department and located something disturbing in some past test results that were overlooked. (As tongue-in-cheek as I am when joking about these, I have, regrettably, seen those techniques suggested before. Sad. And somewhat desperate.)

First, let’s get real regarding voice mail and telephone prospecting: You need to lower your expectations. Do not expect your calls to be returned.

Come on, now. It’s a bit absurd to think that someone who does not know you—who is probably overworked and underpaid, who has 79 unread e-mail messages and 12 other voice mails from people he does know—is going to return your call. Unless the prospect has an immediate, urgent need and pain that your product or service can address at that very moment, it’s much more likely that he will not call you.

A couple of years ago, after an overnight torrential downpour, I went down the stairs into the lower level of my house for an early morning workout. At the last step, my foot squished into wet carpet. Oh no! The sump pump had fried, and the lower level of my house was now flooded, with water still gurgling in. At that moment, ...