How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

A beep! Directed Voicemail Interview eBook:

How to Leave Voicemails that

Prospects Return

Insights from B-2-B Sales Experts on How to Properly

Use Voicemail to Drive More Response

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

Letter from beep! Founder, Patrick Cahill

The following e-book provides some insight into a commonly overlooked aspect of calling campaigns –

voicemail strategy. Since phone calls result in voicemail 90% of the time, it is surprising that many firms

do not take a step back to think about positioning their voicemails in a way that will get their prospects

to 1) listen, and 2) respond. More often than not, sales people are displeased when a call goes to

voicemail; however, when done correctly, voicemail is an opportunity.

So the question becomes, not ‘do I leave a voicemail’ but ‘How to leave a voicemail that will make your

prospects want to respond?’

To help answer the question on how to properly use voicemail to drive registrations and sales, we’ve sat

down with three recognized experts in B-to-B sales to share with you their strong opinions about what

works and what doesn’t work to drive more response.

We hope what these experts share will help you re-think how your firm is leaving voicemails to increase

results in your calling campaigns.

Happy listening/reading,

Patrick Cahill

Principal

beep! Directed Voicemail

(Schedule a call with me, here)

Michael Schultz (listen)

Craig Elias (listen) Jill Konrath (listen)

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

[Listen to this interview here]

Patrick Cahill:

My guest today is Jill Konrath. She's the bestselling

author of two books -- SNAP Selling and Selling to

Big Companies. Jill is also an expert on prospecting

and voicemail strategies -- which is why I'm

interviewing her today.

Jill, thanks so much for joining me today and I

appreciate your time and we’re talking to a few

people around a very basic question which is when

it comes to a voicemail strategy for sales, what are

you seeing work out there?

Jill Konrath:

I think that’s an excellent question. I just want to say that from the beginning.

It’s not simple because so many people are doing so many things so badly and what I’d like to start with

just saying that the old ways of prospecting are no longer effective and voicemail is important. But what

you say on it has to be thought about and you have to plan what you’re going to do ahead of time in

order for your calls to be successful.

One of the things that I see that most people are doing wrong is they’re just picking up the phone and

they’re leaving a voicemail message and it’s trite, it’s deleteable, it’s of no value to the person that

they’re calling and it’s of no value to the sales person, him or herself.

Patrick Cahill:

Okay. So, can you give me an example of a trite voicemail versus a good one?

Jill Konrath:

Sure. Okay. The first thing that is trite is anytime that you’re calling and you’re leaving the same message

with everybody and basically a good trite message would be something like this:

“Hi, Patrick. This is Jill Konrath calling. I’m the sales executive with Leap Frog Strategies which specializes

in offering a full range of sales training programs for all your salespeople’s needs. I’d love to get

together with you and find out how your company is currently handling your needs in this area and share

with you what we at Leap Frog Strategies are doing. I’d be glad to meet with you at your earliest

convenience. My number is (651) 429-1922.”

That’s it. That’s trite. How does it sound?

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

The Right Voicemail is Key

92% of B2B dials go to voicemail, so it’s

important to have an effective voicemail

strategy. For a 5 minute video lesson on how

to do that, click here.

The Successful Voicemail Equation

Patrick Cahill:

Sounds like every voicemail I get.

Jill Konrath:

Yes. Exactly, exactly and the truth of the matter is probably what 95 percent of salespeople are leaving…

They’re really nice, gracious messages that explain who they are and the purpose for the call, but they’re

ineffective. They’re grossly ineffective and as a result, I usually find when I ask people and I frequently do

this in workshops, I say to people, “I want you to say delete the minute you delete me,” and oftentimes

I’ll say, “Hi. My name is Jill Konrath. I’m the account executive with Leap Frog Strategies,” and you’d be

amazed. Fifty percent of the people would delete me right

then and there because it’s a sales pitch I’m calling and

that’s it. Right up front.

Patrick Cahill:

How do you survive past second five?

Jill Konrath:

The truth of the matter is you need to think in five second

increments and you need to actually think what am I

saying? Is everything I’m saying worth listening to? Does it

make somebody keep listening or do they go, “Oop.

Another salesperson,” because crazy, busy people who you

are calling on these days literally sit with their finger on the

delete button and their goal is to get rid of E-mail

messages or voicemail messages as fast as humanly

possible.

So, you are buying seconds and you need to realize that and plan your messaging so that you are

building credibility from the get go, you are piquing their curiosity and you’re suggesting a logical next

step. So, those are really the three things that you need to think about. How do you build credibility

within the first five to seven seconds, how you pique their curiosity within the next 10 to 15 seconds and

then how do you close graciously and quickly – and so if you want to talk about each of those we can.

Patrick Cahill:

That’d be great I was going to say because it sounds logical enough, but I just wonder if the challenge is

actually then doing it. So, I’d love to hear some examples around those different components, Jill.

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

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Jill Konrath:

Okay. Well, let’s just take a look at credibility. What you say out of your mouth is the first sentence. If

you throw in your company’s name and say, “I’m the account executive,” you immediately position

yourself as a salesperson from XYZ Company and that causes the delete.

So, you don’t have to put in your company name. Leave it out. It’s irrelevant at this point. It’s not like

you’re trying to hide it. It’s just not quite relevant yet. You’re trying to entice the person to talk with you

and your company name doesn’t help and then right after you say who you are then you would say

something that would establish your credibility and there are multiple things that you can use to

establish credibility.

So, the first sentence out of your mouth won’t be about your company and what you specialize in. It

would be perhaps something about a) a referral if you’ve got one. “Like I was just talking to Tom Jones in

this division of your company and he suggested I get in touch with you,” or, “I met Alice Smith at a recent

networking event and she said that you were looking for ways to increase your sales productivity.” So,

you might reference a referral right at the get-go so that keeps the person listening. The second thing

that you might do is you might show that you have knowledge of working with people or industries

similar to the ones where the person you’re talking to.

I might say because I work exclusively with sales organizations, I might say something like, “In my work

with other business to business sales organizations, I find that one of the key challenges they’re facing

right now is new client acquisition.” The reason I would say that is because I’m talking to the VP of Sales

and he would go, “Oh, new client acquisition. Yup. That’s an issue we’re struggling with here.” So now,

I’ve got his attention and he gives me the right to have another sentence and he’s going to keep listening

because I haven’t said what I sell. I’ve said I work with B2B organizations who are struggling with this

particular issue and I got his, “Yes, yes,” his head is nodding

at this point in time.

So, that would be another way to build credibility. I show that

I know what’s going on. A third way to build credibility might

be to reference some research that you did. It might be, for

example, you might say, “In reviewing your annual report, I

see that,” and I’m going to stay on the sales skills. “I see that

new product sales are a key strategic initiative in 2012,” and

again, it’s showing you’ve done your homework. “I see that

new product sales are a key strategic initiative in this year.” It

shows I’ve done my homework.

Again, he doesn’t know where I’m going with this and it’s

irrelevant that I sell training at this particular moment in

time. All he knows is this is somebody who’s done their

homework and invested time learning about my business

before actually contacting me. So, those are three ways that

you can build credibility in one sentence. Make sense?

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

Enlarge this Infographic

Patrick Cahill:

It makes perfect sense. On the credibility, Jill, are there organizations or titles that do build credibility. If

your organization is a household name or your title is not just interpreted as a sales position, are those

exceptions to the rule or do you really find that you should avoid sharing the company name or title right

at the beginning?

Jill Konrath:

There are a few exceptions. For example, if you’re the president of a company calling somebody. That

gives you an implied credibility immediately upfront, but I work with a lot of big name organizations as

well.

I mean, many of my clients are some of the largest household names that you know about and what

happens to them is they put their name in front and say, “Hi. I’m from XYZ Corporation,” and of course

everybody knows what XYZ Corporation does. Then the client in his

mind automatically moves to a position where they go, “Oh. This

company sells that,” and then they say, “Well, we’ve already

gotten…”

In their mind, their mind is making calculations. “Well, they sell

that. We don’t need any of that right now, so I can delete them.”

Patrick Cahill:

That’s a really good point.

Jill Konrath:

When they hear a big company name, it actually creates an

obstacle for the big company rep because they already say, “Well,

we’ve got this kind of advertising taken care of. We’ve got this

technology need handled. We’re already working with this

company on this,” and the reason that rep may be calling might be

something entirely different than what the perceived thing is that

the client is doing.

So, the larger companies actually have the hardest time letting go

of this because they’re so proud of their company name and they

think it implies credibility, but what they don’t realize is that people

are deleting them because they’re putting them on a ladder, a

position ladder. “Oh, they sell technology. They sell these software

services. They sell whatever and we’ve already gotten it taken care

of.” Delete. And so, it doesn’t matter. You should not say your

company name upfront usually because it doesn’t help you pique

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

their curiosity.

Patrick Cahill:

Alright. Thank you. I would not have thought of that. It makes perfect sense.

Jill Konrath:

The key is thinking about how your clients think, how they hear things and it’s not about what we want

to say. What it’s really all about is how they hear us and actually one of the best practices I encourage

sales people to do is to leave themselves a voicemail message and then listen as if they’re a crazy, busy

decision maker who’s running to a meeting in five minutes and would this message keep them listening

and that’s all that counts, not what you want to say about your company but would this keep a crazy,

busy decision maker listening and perhaps even writing something down?

Patrick Cahill:

Yeah and on that, so we’re talking about the start of a voicemail, Jill. If you don’t mind, will you jump to

the end of a voicemail? You mentioned writing something down. Can you dive into it a little bit more

about strong closings?

Jill Konrath:

Yeah. I’m going to take 2 seconds and deal with the middle thing, too. What your goal of the message is,

is to pique curiosity and how do you pique curiosity? You pique curiosity by talking with your prospect

about the business issues and challenges that they’re facing.

Perhaps you can share how you’re helping another company who’s similar to them achieve some results

like, “We were able to work with XYZ Company and increase their call-to-appointment ratio by 42.7

percent” or, “we were able to reduce their loss time and increase their operational efficiency” and so any

metrics and anything you can do about a case study that shows the impact you can have will have a

significant difference as well.

So, that’s the kind of thing that people are listening for. Are you talking about something that is a key

business driver that I’m interested in as a decision maker and then finally as a close, I strongly suggest to

people that they not go to this pathetic salesperson close like, “I’d be glad to meet with you at your

earliest convenience,” or, “I’d love to meet with you to find out how you’re doing this.” If you follow it up

and you say, for example, I’ll continue my example with the new client acquisition, I might say, “This is a

serious issue with most of the clients that I’m dealing with. I’ve been working with 1 client and they were

able to increase their call-to-appointment ratio by 47.2 percent,” and I would close with, “Let’s set up a

time to talk.” Something that sounds like you’re up here as opposed to something else or you might close

a voicemail with something like, “If it makes sense to talk, let’s get on the phone,” but the key is to have

your relationship sound the whole time.

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

Patrick Cahill:

Have you experimented at all with E-mail and voicemail combinations?

Jill Konrath:

Yes. It’s important to do a one-two punch. You don’t know if people are going to listen to the voicemail

or respond to your E-mail, but I think that if you do one and you follow it up immediately with another

one, you have a magnifier effect and it actually… or multiplier effect. It actually magnifies your work and

makes each one more likely to be successful.

Patrick Cahill:

We found that as well. We have the formula for a winning voicemail and the question I hear a lot and I’d

love to have your opinion on, Jill. Is there a frequency in timing that optimizes leaving voicemails? We

know, unfortunately, as strong of a voicemail message as we leave, we’re not going to get everyone who

could potentially call us back to call us back on the first one.

Jill Konrath:

Oh, no and one should never expect that that will happen because the likelihood is slim to none. What

you need to do is you need to plan a series of contacts over a period of time and three days is fine

between contacts. The reality is you don’t remember who you deleted yesterday, so don’t feel guilty

about calling somebody or E-mailing somebody within three days. They’re not going to remember and if

you have a good, strong business message, again, the frequency of the message and letting people know

the impact you can make in multiple touches is what makes it successful.

Patrick Cahill:

And on that, sometimes we hear people say, “Oh, if we leave voicemails every few days, I start getting

people saying ‘Take me off your list. Stop calling me.’” How thick of a skin should people have around

that? Is that an indication that their frequency is working and they’ll find the people that do want

business or should they back off if they’re finding their targets are saying things like that?

Jill Konrath:

Well, I think there’s a couple things involved here. Partially, their clients are saying that because their

messaging sucks and if your messaging sucks and you’re calling to talk about your sales training

programs, I’d want to get off your list, too. Right?

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

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Patrick Cahill:

It makes sense, yes.

Jill Konrath:

So, the key is if you’re focusing on a critical business issue and your messaging is good and I would

always check the messaging first to determine if my messaging was effective and from a client’s

perspective, but if they ask to be taken off your list, that’s fine. There’s a lot of other people out there. I

wouldn’t worry about one person being harassed when the others aren’t because there’s some people

that have really short fuses and there are some people that are simply not prospects today and it’s okay.

It’s literally okay. If you accept it, it’s okay.

Patrick Cahill:

Some people ask for the perfect number of how many times they should try to reach out when they’re

calling and leaving voicemails before they give up and I know there probably isn’t the one simple answer,

but do you have a rule of thumb, Jill, that you found that after this many attempts over this period of

time, move on. There’s better, greener grass somewhere else.

Jill Konrath:

Right. I would say 8 to 12 and you should plan a campaign from the start and if you anticipate that it’s 8

to 12 then you’re not going to get discouraged that they don’t call you back after 3 touches whether it’s

E-mail or voicemail. You’ll just accept it. That’s the way it is.

Patrick Cahill:

Great. Jill, is there anything else that people should know

about voicemail?

Jill Konrath:

Oh, man. There are so many things. Yeah. I mean, you just

asked me for an overview. You know, I can’t go into the depths

of things. Listen to the tone of the voice. It’s got be colloquial.

The whole tone that I showed you is not I’m a supplicant sales

person trying to get you on the phone. I’m a peer. I’m an equal

who has good stuff that makes a difference and that’s why I’m

calling you.

Patrick Cahill:

I think maybe we’ll have to have another call sometime to go over everything there is to cover about

voicemail, but, Jill, I really appreciate your time. This has been extremely helpful and I think people are

going to get a lot out of this. So, thank you.

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

Jill Konrath:

My pleasure.

Patrick Cahill:

Thanks a million Jill. And hey, everyone who's listening. Make sure you check out her website because

she has a great prospecting tool kit there that you can get for free. It's really good stuff. Here's her

website - jillkonrath.com. That's Jill K-O-N-R-A-T-H.com.

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

[Listen to this interview here]

Patrick Cahill: Craig Elias is the creator of Trigger Event Selling™ and the author of SHiFT! Harness The Trigger Events That TURN PROSPECTS INTO CUSTOMERS. His knowledge of Trigger Events has resulted in a 20-year track record as a top sales performer, winning a $1,000,000 prize in a global billion dollar idea competition and coverage on NBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal. Well, Craig, thanks for joining me and I’m really looking forward to hearing your perspective around voicemail and so we’ve been asking the simple question what have you been seeing work when it comes to voicemail strategy for sales? Craig Elias: So, I’m a big fan of several things when it comes to voicemail. First of all, I’m not a big fan of just calling for no apparent reason. What I love to be able to do is use something that’s happening in the industry especially if it happened to a specific company and then calling the competitors of that company and I might start with the CEO. So, let’s assume you’re the CEO of a company, Patrick, I go, “Hi, Patrick. My name is Craig Elias and I’ve been watching some of your competitors in the marketplace and I think you have an interest in what we do. Here’s my number,” and this kind of came to me as a result of a cold call I made back in 2004 and it was to the CEO of American Express and back then there was no such thing as LinkedIn. So, I had at some point said, “I need to phone the CEO of American Express and try to develop a partnership.” So, I phoned their customer service department and told them I was a card holder and that I was looking for this guy named Alfred Kelly and lucky enough the customer service person was very helpful and she looked in the system and said, “Well, I don’t see an Alfred Kelly, but I see an Al Kelly. Would you like his number?” So, I got his number and I phoned and, of course, I got his executive assistant. So, it’s not quite the same as voicemail, but I now took what I learned from this story I’m going to finish in a second and I now apply this to my voicemail strategies and what happened when I call Alfred’s number was I got his executive assistant who I think was named Diane and I said, “Hi, Diane. My name is Craig Elias. I’m the Chief Executive Officer of a company that helps organizations attract new customers faster, keep current customers longer and generate more revenue per customer and I’ve been watching what Visa and MasterCard had been doing in the marketplace and I think Alfred would have interest in what we do.” I got his cell phone number and his E-mail address and I realized now that there were really three things I did on that call which I don’t know if you have enough time on a voicemail to do all three because I’m a big fan of a lot of what Jill Konrath says. You got to find a way to make it short, sweet and simple and somehow fizzle, so they call you back. So, the three things I think I did well. First of all, I established credibility. I said I was the Chief Executive Officer. So, it was CEO calling a CEO. The second thing I did is I helped them understand the benefits of being my customer. Didn’t talk about the product or service, but the benefits where new customers faster, current customers longer and more revenue per customer, but then I did what I think was the smartest thing.

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

I learned that most executives are more inclined to move away from something they’re afraid than they are to move towards something that they’d like to have. So, giving him all the positives, not enough for him to reshuffle his priorities and do something with this, but I think the second I said, “I’ve been watching what your competitors are doing in the marketplace and I think you and I should have a conversation,” I wasn’t quite as blunt as that. That’s when someone said, “Okay. What do they know? I need to phone them back. See what they know. Maybe I need to rethink my strategy.” So, I love when people launch new products because you can phone a competitor there’s someone who just launched a new product or someone that starts using a new tool. So, if you can keep track of press releases around who your competitors might now have as customers and you go after their customer’s competitors saying, “Hey, are you aware these guys just did this and we can help you catch up to the competition.” That’s kind of what I love to find a way to do is retool their priorities and get them to phone me back as soon as possible. Patrick Cahill: Okay. So, I guess when it comes to scaling that it sounds like it’s just a matter how you’re collecting that information. Do you have any tips or tricks of what people can use to be able to multiply that type of approach? Craig Elias: Yeah. So, everything for me comes down to an event that would cause someone to retool their priorities, a trigger event in my world, right? So, what you can do is you can do Google searches and you could if you have a competitor that you want to be able to take business from or leverage the opportunity, if you put in a Google search something between quotes related to that competitor and you get notified every time perhaps they announce that they just did a big deal with a company now what I can do is go figure out who are all their competitors and what I do to figure out who all their competitors, I love a tool called Jigsaw. I go to Jigsaw, type in a company, it tells you what industry they’re in. I can then do a search and this is free within Jigsaw, do a search for all the companies that are in the same industry and now I got a big, long list of people I can go talk to. What you have to pay for with Jigsaw is the direct dial number and the E-mail address for those people, but once you understand how they’re classified you can now go talk to 100 or 200 competitors who are equivalent to someone who just installed a competitor knowing that those people now are more likely to act because they don’t want their competitor to get a jump on them. Patrick Cahill:

And when you put all this effort into crafting this specific message, Craig, how much effort do you then

put in on calling them and then calling them back some more? When do you decide alright for whatever

reason, they’re not seeing this as something they should really be concerned about?

Craig Elias:

Good question. I’m not a big believer that one phone call is going to get you a big customer right away.

So, a couple things I think it’s really important to understand. First of all, when it comes to trying to get

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

someone as a customer, you want to get a small piece of business from them. You want to use what I call

‘a land and expand strategy.’ So, you don’t go for something big. Go for something small. That’ll help get

you in. I pause for a second because I want you to ask because I had two thoughts. I forgot my second

one. Remind me of the question again.

Patrick Cahill:

Sure. So, you take all this time to craft a message, but what if they’re not responding to that voicemail

where you outline why they should be giving you a call back right away. I guess, how much effort do you

put into seeing how many of those people out there, how many of those competitors of, you know, your

competitor’s solution are going to be actually interested?

Craig Elias:

Good question. So, here’s another way you could use the exact same thing. The other way you could use

the exact same thing is a) you can start tracking down the company to see when that executive changes

because the executive who was there when you called the first time may no longer have interest or might

not have interest because they use something else, but the day they leave and someone else takes their

place, they’re now up to 10 times more likely now to become your customer. So, that’s a second way.

The third way you can do this is just phone them every other month. Phone them back and say, “Hey,

Patrick. Craig here. I’m calling to follow-up on a conversation or a voicemail I left a couple of months

ago. Has anything changed recently that makes what we do more relevant or more important?”

Patrick Cahill:

Okay. So it sounds like, Craig, what you’re saying is if you take this time to create that unique of a value

prop for them to call you back and they don’t, don’t leave the second voicemail three days later then the

third one three days after that. You got to wait till some time passes because if it’s actually something

that’s important to them they will call you back when you remind them of it.

Craig Elias:

It could be. So, I’m a big fan of whenever I leave a voicemail, I also send an E-mail. I’m also a big fan of

three touches within the inside of the organization. I believe that word of mouth is one of the best ways

to grow your business. So, if you touch the CEO and you get no response depending upon who you’re

trying to sell to you now then would go talk to the CIO and do the same thing or you might go to the CFO

and do the same thing or the COO and do the same thing.

The idea is you want this conversation to start happening within the inside of the organization so when

the CFO talks to the COO and goes, “Hang on a second, we’re both talking to the same guy.” What

happens is when we try to sell things to people the first thing they think of what’s the risk of being our

customer and if we can’t establish credibility sometimes just having a sense of familiarity happen lowers

someone’s resistance to calling you back and if the COO hears that the COO is already talking to them,

he says, “Hey, maybe I should phone them back.”

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

Patrick Cahill:

Okay. So, you do that all at the same time. You’re not waiting for one person to not get back to you.

You’re actually kind of attacking the organization as a whole and hope that those dots start connecting.

Craig Elias:

I will. Let me take the example I gave you and even be another version of this. So, let’s assume you really

want to get to the VP Marketing. What I might do is I might start with the CEO with a message hoping he

or she forwards it off to the VP of Marketing and they may or may not because I’m going to E-mail them.

They might not get it. I’m then going to touch the VP Sales hoping, again, they’re going to go, “Well,

that’s not really me. That’s VP Marketing and I’m going to facilitate an introduction into the VP

Marketing person,” or they’ll forward my E-mail. So, the first week I might phone the CEO, the second

week I might phone and E-mail the VP of Sales and the third week by the time I get to the VP of

Marketing, they go, “Hang on a second. I already got the E-mail from the CEO and the VP Sales. I’m

going to take this guy’s call or I’m going to call him back.”

Patrick Cahill:

Craig, so what do you do if you call the CEO and you get his or her assistant?

Craig Elias:

It’s funny because this happens to me on a regular basis. I will tell the assistant, “I’m calling the CEO. This

is the reason I’m calling the CEO and I’m calling to figure out who’s the best person to talk to,” and more

times than not the executive assistant will go, “Well, you got to go talk to the VP of Sales. Go talk to

Patrick. Here’s his name and here’s his number.”

So when I phone Patrick up, I’ll go, “Hey. I was talking to Craig’s executive assistant, Julie. She told me I

should talk to you,” and that’s almost as good and some respects even better than having the CEO make

the introduction.

Patrick Cahill:

I’m curious about a slightly different approach to calling or different calling purpose. A lot of people we

talk to, Craig, when they’re not hunting individual organizations, they’re being tasked by their marketing

teams to follow up on, “Hey. Here are the 300 people that registered for a webinar,” or, “the 220 people

that downloaded a whitepaper.”

Do you have any suggestions or do you have any experience around how to handle following up with

kind of a mass group of people around a specific piece of content whether it be timing or the messaging?

Craig Elias:

Yeah. It’s harder with a webinar, but let me talk to the whitepaper thing. So, they filled in a form to go

download a whitepaper and this can be voicemail or it can be in person, it doesn’t matter to me.

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

I am a big fan of some of the research done by MIT that says if you call someone within 5 minutes of

filling in a form, you are 100 times more likely to reach that person than if you wait 30 minutes to follow

up. Not 100 percent, but 100 times and if you want a copy of the report, you go to Insidesales.com, you

fill in a form, you’ll get access to the report. Don’t be surprised if they phone you back in 5 minutes. Now,

the big question is what do you ask? Like how do you not come across as a salesperson saying, “Hey, you

filled in a form. Are you ready to by from me yet?”

I have 3 questions I love to ask and I do this on a regular basis and I talk about this and even when people

fill in the forms on my own website, they’re amazed that I actually try and phone back in 5 minutes. So,

you fill in a form, someone gets notified, you call them up and I’m going to call and I’m going to go,

“Patrick, it’s Craig here. I’m calling form wherever. I’m following up on a form you just filled in. I’m not

calling to sell you anything. Can I take 2 minutes and ask you 3 quick questions?” and in the years I’ve

been doing this, nobody has ever said no to me. Never. So, first question always is, “I want to make sure

you got the E-mail that contains the link to the resource you were looking for. Did you get the E-mail?”

“Yes, I got the E-mail.” “Hey, great,” or maybe they didn’t’ and you have to resend it. It gets in a spam

filter. My second question always is, “When you read about this or 1) you heard about this, I’m curious

what it was that caught your attention and made you say ‘I should take 2 minutes and go download this

thing.’” So, something caught their attention. I’m always curious what that is. My last question is, “I’m

wondering if anything happened recently and that changed that made this content more relevant or

more important?” and when I ask that third question, I’m actually listening has there been an event that

would have them retool their priorities and are they more likely now to become a customer because my

argument is if they haven’t had an event that makes them want to change to afford that change or

justify that change, it’s never going to happen and it helps us, as salespeople or marketers, figure out

who the people we need to spend more time with because we’re there at the right time versus there too

early or too late.

Patrick Cahill:

Sure and that makes perfect sense, Craig. I guess it seems like it might be difficult to translate those

three questions to a voicemail. Do you have a fallback even if you call them in the five minutes and you

do get the voicemail, how do you summarize that into a voicemail that gets people to call you back?”

Craig Elias:

That’s exactly the same thing. I just go, “Hey, Patrick. Craig, I’m following up on this. Here’s my number,”

and I always try to give my number right up front because they won’t listen to the whole voicemail. They

go, “Okay. I got his number. I’ll call him back.” So, and I just did the same thing. So if this is voicemail, it’d

be exactly the same. “Hi, Patrick. Craig here. My number is (866) 744-7904. I’m following up on your

form fill. I wanted to make sure that you got it and I have two other quick questions. When you can call

me back,” and then I actually give them the other two questions in case they listen to the whole thing

and I would say when I leave voicemails, my return rate is about 35 percent.

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

Patrick Cahill:

Well, then that’s an effective voicemail strategy.

Craig Elias:

And for me, it’s also a good follow up strategy because I can tell you if I follow up within 5 minutes, I

probably talk to 75 percent of the people that fill in a form.

Patrick Cahill:

And on the flipside, Craig, on the idea of five minutes, is there a point where it’s too late, you’ve waited

too long, don’t even bother following up on someone who filled out a form?

Craig Elias:

Some people have that philosophy and some people say, “I think the research says if you don’t get them

in the first 30 minutes, phone them back after 24 hours,” but I’m a guy that says 24 hours from now, I’ll

have 10 more people to follow up on. So, I’m just going to phone them now and even though it might be

a big hit rate, I’m still going to phone them now because it’s better than not phoning them ever.

Patrick Cahill:

Sure and that makes sense. I guess just to wrap this up, Craig, and I appreciate all your time so far is any

closing thoughts or any, I guess, general ideas you can share with people that are just struggling with

voicemail?

Craig Elias:

Here’s all I would say. I would say sell sizzle not steak. Leave them just enough to want more to call you

back, not enough to go, “Hi, Patrick. It’s Craig here. I think you should phone me. Here’s my number,”

but give them enough about why they want to become your customer. As soon as you start giving them

steak, they go, “I now I know enough that I don’t need to phone you back,” and I think we as salespeople

give way too much information on a voicemail and that’s why so many people don’t phone us back.

Patrick Cahill:

Well, Craig, thanks so much for your time. Again, Craig Elias is the creator of Trigger Event Selling™ and

the author of SHiFT! Harness The Trigger Events That TURN PROSPECTS INTO CUSTOMERS. Be sure to

check out the preview chapters of this book available by visiting triggerbook.com.

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

[Listen to this interview here]

Patrick Cahill:

Frequent cited as an expert in publications like Bloomberg Business Week, Inc. Magazine, and the Wall

Street Journal, Mike Schultz is the president of RAIN Group, publisher of RainToday, and author of the

Wall Street Journal bestseller Rainmaking Conversations.

This year, Mike was named the top thought leader in

sales by Top Sales World. Mike speaks around the globe

at conferences and events on the topic of sales

performance, and we’re happy to have him here today.

Alright, Mike. Well, thanks for your time today and we’re

having these conversations around a very simple

premise, a simple question, and that’s in your world of

sales training and sales consulting, what have you been

seeing work when it comes to a voicemail strategy?

Mike Schultz:

Well, thanks for having me Patrick. First before we get to

what’s working, I’d like to settle at least for those of you that are willing to give it a try one of the great

debates in voicemail for sales and the great debate in voicemail for sales is should or shouldn’t we have a

voicemail strategy?

Now, I’d like to say, “Hey, it’s one of those things that you should just test and figure out for yourself,”

but it’s my firm belief that everyone that we’ve ever worked with if they decide to make voicemail work

for them, they can make voicemail work for them. So, I follow on this great debate side on yes, you

should have a voicemail strategy and yes, you should be leaving voicemail. Now, one of the reasons that

there is this great debate is because people tend to figure out how to mess voicemail up. “We’ve been

using voicemails for weeks, even months, across our few sales people or our few thousand sales people

and we simply don’t get the response that’s worth the effort.

I’d rather just have them hang up and try to get a few more dials in than I would to have them leave

voicemail, but at least in my experience, no, no, no, if you continue to work and figure out what’s going

to work for you and test different kinds of strategies and oftentimes these kinds of strategies are not the

strategies that you’ll think about, you can make them work for you. So first, Patrick, let me give you just

a couple of examples as well as a premise of what makes voicemail work and we can continue the

conversation.

So, the premise. The premise is and I’m sure this is going to be new to all of you, but the premise is that

you have to have some kind of value message in your voicemail. I am not a fan - I am not a fan of the

strategies that say, “Hi, this is Mike Schultz calling. My number is blah, blah, blah, Call me back,” because

the person on the other end is thinking, “Well, why should I?” and, “Who are you?” and all that good

stuff and I think that it sets the relationship off on a bad foot. Now sure, if you’re looking for one time

sales where you can just figure out some psychological way to get someone to call you back and if you

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

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can make that turnaround and have something move forward then more power to you, but for most of

the people out in the world, it’s important to keep a good reputation and it’s important to develop a

relationship on the basis of a foundation that is straight up and straightforward and honest and truthful

and I think that you should start like that. So, how should you then use value in your voicemails? Well,

here are a couple of ways. So, “Tom, this is Jack Fitz calling and I’m calling with Rafter Strategies. In

looking at your website, I noticed you were deep in the middle of some major new launches. We’ve just

completed a major benchmark research study to identify the key factors of cost reduction and speed

improvement in launching your type of product. I’m fairly certain that you’ll find some of this data and

information useful. I’d love to walk you through some of the results as a way of introducing myself.

Please give me a call back at number, number, number, number, number, number, number, number,”

then again, repeat the number. “Once again, that’s number, number, number, number, number, number,

number, number, number. I’m looking forward to speaking with you.” So, there’s at least one way and

we label this the Best Practices Approach. Now, the key to

making the Best Practices Approach work is to have a best

practice. Have something that you have ready to share. So,

there’s a part of an investment strategy in your marketing

and sales to make sure that you have the backbone to be able

to deliver that message and lots of companies have thought

leadership strategies in their area that they can take

advantage of. So, there’s one and I’ll give you one more,

Patrick, and then we can continue on from there.

The second one is just the new idea example. You start with

the opening. You mention your company and you say, “I was

just on your website and I saw a note in a press release that

you were looking for any and all ideas you can find on how to

leverage open innovation. I have some ideas from our work

because we focus on open innovation and open innovation

strategy that I’m confident will stimulate your thinking. I’d

love to be able to ask you some questions and see if I can’t

share something that you’ll find useful as a way of introducing myself. I can be reached at,” and then you

can continue along. So, that is the new idea approach.

Patrick Cahill:

Great. Well, I understand the logic behind both, Mike. I wonder have you been able to see the difference

between the, “Hey, call me back. I want to talk to you about our services,” and these two potential

approaches? Are there numbers that show you’ll get this amount more callbacks?

Mike Schultz:

Yeah. Well, I mean, you can do it as a percent, but it’s hard to divide by zero because oftentimes the

straight capabilities approach gets you a zero or something close to it and that’s a little bit tongue in

cheek because if you do something enough you’re bound to get at least some response, but we can see

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

that a voicemail strategy coupled with a multi-prong, multi-touch approach whether that be E-mail,

whether that be direct mail, whether that be seeking out certain buyers at conferences.

If you have a type of industry where you can actually see them or even just making sure somehow that

you’re getting your message in front of them so you can have a multi touch approach.

If you take the messaging that works and then you take the multi-touch approach strategy that you

have to figure out how often you’re going to touch them, but most people err on the side of touching

people too infrequently unless they’re on of these crazy stalker types that calls me every day, which I’m

not a fan of either, but if you can find a rhythm that works for you then it’s just wildly different in terms

of response. Now, the reason I’m not going to give a particular percent is because every product and

service is, indeed, different. I mean, there are some products and services out there that I’ve worked with

the companies and it’s not the approach that was the problem. It’s that this particular product or service

is not very attractive in the market. So, you can imagine that the percent of improvement when you’re

trying to sell something to someone who fundamentally doesn’t want it, doesn’t need and isn’t really

interested in buying it, then you have more of a structural challenge than a messaging challenge, but the

difference it’s just wild different when you combine good messaging, good targeting and then the right

mix of touches over time including voicemail.

Patrick Cahill:

Okay and on-timing. You mentioned there’s the stalker then there’s reaching out too infrequently. In the

B2B space, have you found a kind of rule of thumb that is the happy medium between those two

extremes?

Mike Schultz:

Yeah and then I would say it’s this happy media. I guess it’s not happy mediums. I think it could be happy

media or it could be mediums. I’m really not sure about the grammar on that one, but this is the place

where you should start to test. So for example, you want to make sure that you’re touching people in

some kind of relative factor to the interest that they’ve shown your company. So using today’s web

technologies and various other things, you can tell that if someone downloads a white paper on your

website that should kick them into a category where the frequency and the type of touch might change.

For example, you might have just a periodic voicemail and again, this is one of those prospecting things

to say, “I’ve identified Patrick Cahill as a powerbroker in this particular industry who wields so much

influence when it comes to buying in the industry at his company and other companies that I am

determined to build a relationship with powerbroker Patrick Cahill,” then I’m going to want to make sure

that I touch him at least somewhat frequently including voicemail and that might be once every six

weeks or something like that just to give him that sense of, “Hey, you’re on my radar screen. I’m not all

over you, but I would like to make this connection,” and then you might give it a rest at one point and

send him some kind of E-mail that continues the drawing him into the seduction of what you can offer

and how you can help him.

However let’s say he doesn’t hop onto the website, he downloads two whitepapers and he’s flipping

around, you might want to have then for the next two or three weeks a stronger sequence of maybe an

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

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additional voicemail two days after plus a couple of other E-mails, but this is also where based on

whatever leads going method you use, it should trigger a higher level of interaction, too, which is where

it should go ding, ding, ding on a sales person, a business developer’s, radar screen to try to make sure

that personal outreach. Don’t just leave the voicemail.

Try to catch him and if you don’t catch him, leave a voicemail, but also make sure you don’t do that in

conjunction with any kind of sequential automated voicemail strategy that you might have.

Patrick Cahill:

On the idea of someone downloading a whitepaper or some other resource from your website, how

much time do you give between them downloading or having that activity and your first outreach?

Mike Schultz:

So, one of two things tends to work - either a 48 hour rest or so, 24 to 48 rest, but you give them a day or

call them when they download. If you call them when they download, I would not advocate for the

strategy where you say, “Oh, jeez, yeah potluck. You downloaded something two seconds ago. I just

happened to call you back.” Call them back by saying, “It came to our attention, I just got a little

notification in my system, that you downloaded this particular whitepaper, so I thought I’d give you a call

and see… Obviously you haven’t read it yet, but to see what is it that’s on your mind that you’re hoping

to find out.” Okay. Well, then you’re not just this weird, obviously

calling, saying, “Oh, no, no. I just happened to call.” People

sometimes do that and I think that that’s the wrong approach. You

can be straight up in your approach and everyone knows that the

technology these days if you download something and you put your

name in and you hit the download button you’re going to get it and

then a lot of times they’ll just catch them when they have it on their

mind.

Do that 20, 30, 40 times, not 2 or 3 or 4, but if you’re working in a

company with any kind of rhythm of leads, you’ll do that 20, 30, 40

times and see how that’s working for you. You want to get a good

representative sample. A lot of times you’ll find that it works pretty

well and if not you’ll get a lot of and of course it depends on your

product or service, you’ll get a lot of, “I just want a chance to take a

look at it first and then let’s talk.” If that’s the case, then you can

give them a little bit of a rest, but even if you do give them that

rest, don’t ask them, “Did you read it?” Call them and say, “I

noticed that you happened to download the whitepaper XYZ,” and

take the same strategy. “I’m curious to know what it was that you were hoping to find out and if you

were able to get some of the insights that you’re looking to get,” because if you say, “Did you read it,”

and they say, “Yes.” You’re like, “Oh, good. Okay.” Then you’re going to ask them the same question.

“Did you find out what you wanted to find out? What was it that you’re looking to try to do,” and if they

say, “No,” you just make them feel embarrassed or you just kind of put them back a little bit and say,

“No, I haven’t had time to read it.” It’s usually not the best. You have another recovery to say, “Oh, okay.

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

Well then, what was it that you were trying to find out?” So, allow them to have read it or not and then

just start chit chatting about the topic at hand and seeing if there’s some way that you can provide

additional insight value and if they start to give buying signals or if they look like that they’re the right

qualified buyer, you might want to say, “What I’d like to do is set up a conversation where we really talk

about this.” Now, don’t discount the fact that if you call them and start talking about it, it might be time

to do it right there, but it also might help to then set up a meeting especially if your people that are

following up on the phone call if they’re not the analyst or consultant or if they’re not the relationship

manager that will do a full needs discovery then call and try set up a meeting.

Patrick Cahill:

I have another question that’s numbers based and I know it’s tough to be asking about specific numbers,

but it’s the types of questions we get a lot and so I think people would appreciate your perspective on it.

So someone downloads the whitepaper, you call them once. Most likely you’re going to get their

voicemail unless you do call them right after they download. How many times do you think it’s

worthwhile pursing that person and leaving multiple voicemails if they’re not calling you back? When

should someone give up?

Mike Schultz:

So, I would hit the tiered strategy again. So, I would put them on at least the several week, not rabid, but

regular enough outreach. So, you call them back and whatever strategy and say, “Hey, I saw blah, blah,

blah. What were you trying to find out? Hope I can help. Give me a call,” then you send the E-mail. They

perhaps go on an E-mail sequence and continue touches which if you have your technology setup right,

you’ll know if they’re actually clicking and opening and continuing to engage with you more. Then you

might call them again about a week later, “Sorry I missed you last week. We haven’t been able to

connect yada, yada, yada.” After maybe three weeks and three or four calls, something like that, leave

this last call and the last call should be, “Hi. This is Mike Schultz calling from XYZ. I’ve been leaving a

couple of messages and we haven’t been able to connect. I just wanted to let you know that this is the

last message that I will leave for now. If you’re interested in engaging a discussion about this topic,

please give me a call back. If not, then I look forward to perhaps catching up with you at some time in

the future, but I won’t be following up anymore.” So, you leave that message right there and then you

actually don’t follow up for awhile and that particular strategy that we label Reversing Direction.

Every single buyer believes in their mind that when a sales person is calling and trying to chase them that

there is a dynamic that they’re the important one, they’re the ones that have important time, your time

isn’t worth anything. So, they’re going to just allow you to chase them. If you just leave message after

message, “Hey, I want to talk. Hey, I want to talk. Hey, I want to talk. Hey, I want to talk,” then they’ll

know that you’ll always be there and you start to set up this dynamic where you’re not peers. If you leave

some kind of and this doesn’t by the way take anything away from being either polite or proper or

anything like that. You can still have your own personality, but to be able to deliver the message just say,

“I won’t be following up anymore and I wish you all the best,” then they say, “Whoa. You’re not going to

follow-up anymore? I did want to talk,” because people don’t call you back sometimes because they

don’t want to call you back, but people don’t call you back sometimes because there’s six people that

want a callback. I have in my E-mail right now a number of people I want to call and once a month or

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once every other month, I go through my E-mail and I just say, “You know what? Not happening. Not

happening. Not happening,” but if someone on their side really wanted to make this call happen and

they followed up once or twice or tried to catch me, if they caught me even if my head was on something

else, I’d probably talk to them because I actually do want to talk to them, but if someone calls and said,

“I’m not going to be following up anymore,” I might say, “Alright. Well, I better write their number down

this time and call them back.”

So, that strategy can recover a reasonable, not necessarily huge all the time, but a reasonable percent of

calls that you would not get back, but if you’re going to be leaving the message anyway, you might give

that one a try. After you go through this, they just downloaded, they just did something, they just made

an inquiry and they’re not responding, you move them into the second tier where it’s more of that

strategy over time and continuing to touch them with value and give them with offers to interact more

deeply again. They start to interact more deeply again then you can start a process of reaching back out.

However, I would not call them for at least six weeks or a couple of months because you will have just

said, “I’m not going to be following up,” but then again, a couple of months later if they download

something and you say, “I know we weren’t able to connect last time, but I saw that you’re still looking

around at the various types of content that we have. I thought I’d reach out again to see is this actually

on your mind and if so, why don’t we talk?” That’s okay if you give it a rest for awhile.

Patrick Cahill:

Okay. Great. Well, Mike, this has all been really, really helpful. I don’t know if you have any closing

thoughts around voicemail strategy because I think we’ve gotten a lot already, but if you have any

closing thoughts, I’d love to hear them and we can wrap up this interview.

Mike Schultz:

Yeah. The only closing thought that I would have is don’t get

discouraged. If you get discouraged and you think this isn’t

going to work, you know what? It’s not going to work. That

doesn’t necessarily mean you have to believe Polly Anna-ish

said if I just keep doing what I’m doing, eventually it’s going to

work. Sometimes you have to work, sometimes you have to

struggle and you have to try new things to find that little theme

of opportunity for you that’s going to work. So, while you’re not

getting discouraged, constantly question yourself what else

should I be trying? How should I be doing it better and continue

to test new things and I think you’ll find that voicemail is going

to work just fine for you.

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

Patrick Cahill:

Well, thank you so much, Mike.

Mike Schultz:

Thanks for having me Patrick and the best of luck to everyone.

Patrick Cahill:

Again, frequent cited as an expert in publications like Bloomberg Business Week, Inc. Magazine, and the

Wall Street Journal, Mike Schultz is the president of RAIN Group, publisher of RainToday, and author of

the Wall Street Journal bestseller Rainmaking Conversations. This year, Mike was named the top thought

leader in sales by Top Sales World. Mike speaks around the globe at conferences and events on the topic

of sales performance. Be sure to visit RainToday.com to read new articles on RAIN Group’s blog,

download white papers such as Why Sales Training Fails and How to Build the Expert Sales Force, and

webinars including Who Are You Selling to? Strategies for Selling to the 8 Buyer Personas.

How to Leave Voicemails that Prospects Return

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About Patrick Cahill

Principal of beep! Directed Voicemail and has served as an expert resource

for organizations like Citrix, Google, SalesForce.com, Hoovers, RainToday,

and The Sales Lead Management Association. Patrick helps companies

understand how to host compelling lead generation campaigns that attract

motivated prospects, develop valuable content that builds trust and

establishes credibility, and implement follow-up programs that uncover

qualified opportunities.

Follow Patrick on Twitter @patrickrcahill

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