Yes, you can prospect using voicemail.
Don’t think for a moment, though, that you’re going to be successful if your voicemail message is nothing more than a lame commercial about how wonderful you are.
First thing to keep in mind is the message you leave is most likely not going to be returned. But don’t let that be a reason why you should not leave a voicemail message.
The key is your message must be about the other person — not about you. View the message you’re leaving as a tool to build awareness about how you’re different than 95% of all other salespeople.
Here is the best way to sales prospect with voice mail:
To make the voicemail message fly, it needs to be short. Make it less than 12 seconds.
It must include one benefit statement the customer will see value in. Don’t waste your precious time leaving your job title or, worse yet, how you just wanted to reach out.
The message has to have a sense of urgency.
An example might be, “I’d be happy to share with you the latest findings as to how you respond to recent changes in the labor laws.” Make it compelling and tight.
Your voice has to be positive and have a strong sense of both confidence and energy. If it lacks these qualities, whatever it is you might have to say is going to be lost.
You might have a compelling benefit, but if the person receiving it has any sense the person leaving it is either not confident or, worse yet, droning on like a telemarketing operator, then it has zero chance of going forward.
Don’t kid yourself thinking leaving one voicemail message is all it’s going to take. View the message you leave as merely one message.
To be effective, you have to support the voicemail message with other forms of communication. The key is to make sure each message, whether it be voicemail, email, mail, or delivered in person, carries with it a unique benefit statement.
Want to know about successful sales prospecting? I’ll be sharing more insights in the coming days and weeks on how to increase your ability to prospect effectively.
Until then, check out this post I recently wrote about sales prospecting.
Copyright 2012, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
I agree with this information. The leaving of voicemails is a useful strategy. I find that I try out a few varients of the message I want to leave so that it appears natural when it is picked up.