In this video, we discuss how to leave sales voicemails that get prospects to call back. This is an important topic because many salespeople complain that prospects don’t ever call back, and they often ask what they can do or change to get more callbacks. And to help with this, we provide 5 tips for sales voicemail messages.
Understanding the prospect
To figure out how to leave voicemails that get prospects to call back, we need to start by understanding the prospect and why they might not be calling back. Even if your voicemail message is perfect, the prospect might not call you back for these four reasons:
Prospects get a lot of voicemail messages
If you’re calling a true decision-maker, they likely get a high volume of sales calls, which can result in a large number of voicemail messages each week. This assumption is safe for a couple of simple reasons. If they’re a decision maker, that means they’re the key person to whom everybody is trying to get. This is the same reason you’re calling her, right? Also, decision-makers typically have very busy schedules, so they’re not at their desks much, which, in turn, leads to many unanswered calls and messages.
Prospects do not listen to every message
It is safe to assume they do not listen to every message if the prospects we’re trying to reach are extremely busy and receive many messages. You must assume that prospects are pretty aggressive with how they listen to and delete messages due to the large volume.
Prospects do not listen to messages in their entirety
We can safely assume there is a strong chance they’ll delete or end the message before it reaches the end if it drags on, especially if a prospect hasn’t deleted it immediately and decides to listen to it.
Prospects rarely return messages
When you’re leaving a voicemail during prospecting, it is most likely that the prospect isn’t going to return your message. This is due to several distinct reasons. First, remember that the decision-makers are very busy, correct? Even when interested in what you have to offer them, they’ll probably be too busy to call you back, forget to call back if they sincerely want to, or may simply wait for you to call them back.
In addition, think about all of the other salespeople who are leaving a voicemail for the same prospect, which creates an environment where there’s a lot of noise, making it difficult for your message to get through.
Assume the prospect is not going to call back
We will provide tips for voicemails that get prospects to call back, but before we do that, I want to make a recommendation: assume the prospect you are leaving a voicemail for is not going to call back. This might sound pessimistic, but the assumption can be liberating and serve as the basis for a better strategy for the voicemails you leave.
That is because this assumption will change your mindset. Instead of leaving voicemails and waiting for prospects to call you back and then wondering why they don’t call you back, you can completely skip a lot of that thinking, energy, and doubt because you are maintaining the assumption that they are not going to call you back, and that is completely normal and expected.
Use brevity – 20 to 30 seconds in length
There are many reasons not to leave a long voicemail message when calling a prospect, and those don’t need to be spelled out for you. However, aim for a tight, focused message that moves quickly and efficiently, conveying what you want to say in 20 to 30 seconds or less.
Educate the prospect
At this point, you might be thinking, “Why are we leaving voicemail messages if nobody is going to call us back?” The answer is that the voicemail box is still a way we communicate with the prospect, and we can shift more toward a strategy of using our messages to educate the prospect on who we are and why it would be worth their time to talk with us.
Don’t ask for a callback
Even though we are talking about voicemails that get prospects to call back, we recommend not asking the prospect, and we do that for the following reasons:
- Don’t create a lack of compliance
- Maintain control
- Don’t give the prospect a task
Do not completely “wing it”
Whatever message you plan to leave, have it prepared ahead of time and don’t just “wing it.” This can help reduce “uh”s and “um”s and keep you from rambling too long.
Send a voicemail follow-up email
Since our goal is to leave sales voicemails that prompt prospects to call back, one way to improve is to follow up every voicemail with a cold email that includes the message you left. This can help tremendously because it provides the prospect with an easier way to respond, as replying to an email is much easier than replying to a voicemail.
This is also helpful because if you end up in a scenario where the prospect might have a need or interest, but the timing is not right, it is much easier for the prospect to save your email than to save a voicemail.
We hope these tips help you to create sales voicemails that get prospects to call back!
