Radio Sales Café

Hi all! I was just reading an article by sales consultant Colleen Francis about ideas for leaving effective voicemail messages. (The article is available here if you're interested.) Since phone calls are a large part of my job, and I'm guessing yours as well, I'd love to get your input on this topic. What is your approach to leaving voicemail messages? What techniques have you discovered that yield a high success rate (i.e., a large percentage of returned calls)? Thanks!

Rebecca,
If you find a way to get "cold calls" returned, I want to know about it. No matter if it is a current client or one that I'm trying to sell, I've always used the same philosophy. "I'm trying to sell them, it's not their job to get back to me." I'll leave a message stating who I am and the reason for my call and that I will follow up later that day or the next. Then I follow up. Too many in sales move on and never follow up.

When I get messages from someone I don't know selling me something I don't know about, I promise you that's a call I don't return. I look forward to hearing what folks do to get return calls!

Hi Jeff, Thanks very much for your reply; I appreciate it. I agree, even though I leave voicemail messages, I always follow up, multiple times if necessary, until I've had the chance to talk with the person directly. Persistence really does pay off. But this week I've been trying a slightly different approach: instead of going into detail about the reason for my call, I've left sort of a "teaser" voicemail message. I tell my client that I have an idea that I want to run by him, mention the benefit the idea could provide for the client, and add a couple of qualifications that will help the client decide if the idea would in fact be of interest (since I don't want to waste either his time or mine). Then I leave my number. So far I've enjoyed a better than usual success rate of having my calls returned and have had a couple of good conversations as a result (granted, most of my calls were to clients with whom I work on a regular basis, a group from whom it's likelier that I'll get returned calls than those that I "cold call").