How to Deal with Voicemail During Sales Prospecting
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Prospects are reluctant to answer their phone. As a result, you can sometimes spend more than 50% of your prospecting time reaching prospect's voicemail boxes. Having a solid approach for how to minimize this challenge is critical to your success when sales prospecting. This presentation goes through some practical concepts and tips to help you out.
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How to Deal with Voicemail During Sales Prospecting
- 1. Making Sales Using Voicemail: It Can Be Done Michael Halper Founder and CEO SalesScripter, LLC
- 2. • 20 years frontline sales, marketing, and customer service experience • Founder and CEO of Launch Pad Solutions and SalesScripter • Author of The Cold Calling Equation – PROBLEM SOLVED • President of the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals Houston Chapter • ICF Certified Professional Coach • MBA University of Houston, Masters of Science University of Texas at Dallas
- 4. Getting Prospects on the Phone Prospects simply don’t answer their phones: • • • • Prospects able to screen calls with Caller ID The decision makers you are trying to reach are in meetings all day and away from their desk When the prospect is at their desk, they are too busy to answer the phone The prospect gets cold calls from sales people all day and cannot answer any incoming calls or they would talk to sales people all day You can spend more than 50% of your time reaching voicemail messages.
- 5. Key Assumption Prospects will not call you back. This is a safe assumption for four reasonable reasons: 1. The prospect is not interested 2. The prospect is too busy 3. The prospect assumes you will call back 4. The prospect does not listen to your message
- 6. Importance of this Assumption Fully embracing this will help with: 1. Determining when to leave a message 2. What we say in our message 3. What we do after leaving a message 4. Our expectations after leaving a message
- 8. Voicemail Core Concepts • Goal is not to get a call back – Educate and reinforce your other communication efforts • Message should be between 15 to 30 seconds • Create multiple voicemail messages – – • Maintain control of next step – • You will call the prospect back Leave contact information clearly – – • Allows you to leave something different on each recording Allows you to build on your previous messages Talk slowly Leave twice Send an email after every voicemail messages – – Easier for a prospect to respond to Easier for a prospect to extract and save your information
- 9. The Pillars of Sales Messaging Sales Messaging Strategy Alternative Approach Credibility Presentation Interest Website Objections Networking Qualify Email Pain Introduction Value Cold Call
- 10. What is Value • Transfer of an intangible attribute from one party to another that has a positive net worth • Could be at a personal level: – – – – – • At a business level: – – – – – • Making someone laugh Teach someone how to do something Being a good listener Providing security Making someone’s day easier Helping a business to save money Helping a business to make money Proving valuable information Making someone’s day easier Helping to save time It is not your product, it is what your product helps your clients to do or to achieve
- 11. Three Levels of Value Personal Value • • • Income Career Workload Increased bonuses, commissions Recognition and promotions Decreased/increased workload Business Value • • • Revenue Costs Services Improve revenue / market share / close rate Decrease cost of goods sold / labor cost Improve delivery of services Technical Value • • • Processes Systems People Automation of manual processes Improve performance Decrease time to perform work Improve reliability
- 12. What is Pain • Something not working well – Causing a negative impact • Something could be working better – Results are not as good as could be • Are things great, good, ok, or could be better ? – Great or good: probably no pain – OK or could be better: likely pain
- 13. Three Levels of Pain Personal Pain • • • Income Career Work Environment Low bonuses, commissions, compensation No recognition, no promotions / career path High workload, poor work–life balance Business Pain • • • Revenue Costs Services Low revenue / market share / close rate High cost of goods sold / labor cost Poor delivery of services Technical Pain • • • Processes Systems People Slow, broken, or manual processes Poor system or employee performance Lack of reliability
- 14. Establishing Credibility • Name Dropping • Storytelling • Lack of Availability • Lack of Neediness • Picture of Consensus
- 15. Voicemail Message Examples Focus on your value: Hello [Prospect Name], this is [Your Name] from [Your Company]. Purpose for my call is that we help [your technical or business value]. I actually do not know if you all need what we provide and that is why I was calling you with a question or two. I will try you again next week. If you would like to reach me in the meantime, my number is [Your Number]. Again, this is [Your Name] calling from [Your Company], [Your Number]. Thank you and I look forward to talking with you soon.
- 16. Voicemail Message Examples Focus on the pain you resolve: Hello [Prospect Name], this is [Your Name] from [Your Company]. Purpose for my call is that we find that many companies like yours have challenges with: (Share a couple common pain points) I actually do not know if you all are concerned about any of those areas and that is why I was calling you with a question or two. I will try you again next week. If you would like to reach me in the meantime, my number is [Your Number]. Again, this is [Your Name] calling from [Your Company], [Your Number]. Thank you and I look forward to talking with you soon.
- 17. Voicemail Message Examples Focus on a name drop example: Hello [Prospect Name], this is [Your Name] from [Your Company]. Purpose for my call is that we worked with [a name drop client of yours] and helped them to [technical benefit] and this led to [business benefit]. I actually do not know if you all are concerned about any of those areas and that is why I was calling you with a question or two. I will try you again next week. If you would like to reach me in the meantime, my number is [Your Number]. Again, this is [Your Name] calling from [Your Company], [Your Number]. Thank you and I look forward to talking with you soon.
- 18. To leave a message or not leave a message? That is the question.
- 19. Things to Consider • Leaving messages is time consuming • Limits your call back timing – You can call back in a shorter time period without leaving a message – Calling multiple times in same day is OK without a message
- 20. Call Cadence Round 1 1. Pre-call email 2. First phone call 3. Leave voicemail message #1 4. Send voicemail follow-up email #1 5. Pause (1 day, 2 days, 1 week) Round 2 1. 5 to 10 calls with no voicemail message 2. After 2 weeks, leave voicemail message #2 3. Send voicemail follow-up email #2 4. Pause (1 day, 2 days, 1 week) 5. Move laterally and horizontally to find new contacts and start round 1 Round 3 1. 5 to 10 calls with no voicemail message 2. After 2 weeks, leave voicemail message #3 3. Send voicemail follow-up email #3 4. Potentially close contact or move to drip campaign
- 21. What to Do After the Voicemail
- 22. Follow Up with a Voicemail Hello [Prospect Name], this is [Your Name] from [Your Company]. As I mentioned in a voicemail I just left you, I am reaching out to you because we worked with [a name drop client of yours] and helped them to [technical benefit] and this led to [business benefit]. I actually do not know if you all are concerned about any of those areas and that is why I was calling you with a question or two. I will try you again next week. If you are interested in talking more about your challenges and learning about the value and insight that we have to offer, I can schedule a brief conversation next Tuesday or Thursday morning.
- 23. Go Back to the Gatekeeper • Try to connect with someone else – – – • Someone that does something similar from a functional standpoint Someone above or below in the organization “I am trying to connect with Mary Phillips but can’t seem to get a hold of her. Do you know who in her organization I should connect with? Is there someone else that holds the same role as her? Is there anybody that reports to her? Who does she report to?” Try to connect with department executive assistant – – Gather information Find additional contacts
- 24. Summary • You will face voicemail a lot, have a plan • Use it as a tool to communicate, not to trigger action • Making some of the changes suggested will improve your ability to connect • Connecting more will lead to more conversations and meetings • This will create more leads and improve sales results
- 25. SalesScripter 1. Asks all the key questions 2. Maps answers to document library What do you sell? ___________ How does it help? ___________ What problems do you fix? ___________ What questions should you ask? ___________ www.salesscripter.com
- 26. If You Want More Help • The Cold Calling Equation – Problem Solved – • Web-based training program – – – – – – – – – – • Week 1: Ideal Sales Process and Communicating Value Week 2: Finding Prospect Pain Week 3: Ideal Prospect and Qualifying Week 4: Dealing with Objections and Getting Around the Gatekeeper Week 5: Building Rapport, Interest, and Credibility Week 6: Generating Leads and SalesScripter Overview Week 7: Improving the Connect Rate Week 8: Inner Game Week 9: Managing Prospecting Meetings and Managing Sales Cycles Week 10: Improving the Close Rate and Disqualifying SalesScripter – – • Available on Amazon - $15.95 www.salesscripter.com Walk-through services available SalesScripter Demonstration – Every Thursday
Editor's Notes
- Before we go any further, let’s clearly discuss what value is specifically in the context that we are using it as it can mean different things to different people. When we talk about value, we are referring to the transfer of something from one party to another that has a positive net worth. Now, the important thing to get your hands around with this is that value is an intangible attribute. It is not something you can see or pick up, yet it is definitely there, has a positive net worth. And actually the transfer between parties can be visible when you are aware of the value that exists and you know what to look for, and that is what we will teach you hear today.Let me provide a little more color around that by sharing a few examples. First, it is important to note that value is something that is transferred everyday at a personal level between family and friends. For example, when you bring humor to a group or conversation and make someone laugh, you are providing value as you are improving the conversation from what it would be without that. Or by teaching someone something, being a good listener, providing security, or making someone’s life easier are all examples of providing value at a personal level. You are essentially giving something or contributing something to another person.Once we understand how we offer value at a personal level, we can better understand how we deliver value at a business level. Just as we can improve the lives and interactions with friends, we can do this for our clients as well by helping them to save money, helping them to make more money, by providing valuable information, or again making someone’s day easier. These are all examples of the value that we can transfer from us to our prospects and clients.One important thing to start to get your hands around is that value is not the same thing as the product that you provide. It is what your product helps your clients to do or helps them to achieve.
- The value that we deliver can typically impact our clients on three different levels.At the lowest level, we offer technical value. These are the benefits and improvements that we can deliver that make things work better and are realized in the areas of processes, systems, and people. Examples are helping a business to save time, automate certain tasks, improve performance, improve reliability, etc.As a business begins to realize value at the technical level, those benefits will trickle up and be realized at the business level and be seen as a decrease in costs, increase in revenue, or decrease in risk. For example, if manual processes are able to be automated, that will lead to a decrease in the labor that is needed and as a result, there could be a decrease labor costs and this is an example of realizing business value.When we help clients to realize business value, that can also continue to trickle up to impact the clients on a personal level and be realized in the form of recognition, compensation, decreased work load, etc. For example, if processes are automated and that decreases costs, that could lead to a promotion for the person that is responsible for that area. Or they could get an extra bonus for the year. Or maybe it means that they no longer have to work over the weekend and are able to spend more time with their family and this is realizing personal value.So when your clients consume your products and services, they are likely going to realize some sort of value and benefits in these three areas.
- Let’s discuss just what pain is in the context that we use it in. Pain is something that is not working well or could be working better for a prospect and this is causing a negative impact.We will get into much more detail and go into examples and we just want to introduce the concept at this point.But at the highest level, one question that can be asked to determine if there is pain is “are things great, good, OK, or could be better?”If things are either great or good, there might not be any pain, or at least not very much.And if things are OK or could be better, there likely is some sort of pain that the prospect is experiencing.
- Now let’s dig a little deeper into what pain can look like. There are actually three levels of pain.At the lowest level, you have technical pain. This is when things are technically not working well or could be better, and can be often found at the areas of systems, processes, or people.When pain is experienced at the technical level, that will usually trickle up and cause pain at the business level. This is where a prospect begins to feel negative impacts in the areas of revenue, costs, and the delivery of services.The pain does not stop their as it can continue on work its way up to impact your prospects at a personal level. This is when the technical and business pain starts to impact the individuals in areas like workload, compensation, job security, career growth, and even spill over into their personal life as well.
- When a gatekeeper answers your call, he or she is instantly trying to screen you out and determine if you are a friend or a foe. A friend would be someone who is already connected with the company in someway like a current vendor or business partner and a foe would be someone who is an outsider trying to get in, like one of those cold callers that is calling to try to get in and sell something.What we want to do is try to get the gatekeeper to see us as a friend so they will less likely to screen us out and one very easy way to do that is to use a tactic of name dropping. For example, we can say something like, I spoke with Tom White in accounting and now I am trying to reach someone in HR. This presents the image that we are already engaged and not a complete outsider and this minor tweak can often be the difference in the gatekeeper letting you in.And if we have not met with Tom White in accounting, we could still name drop his name by saying something like, I am planning on meeting with Tom White in accounting and before I do that, I would like with someone in HR.” Nothing misleading there as we likely are planning on meeting with Tom at some point and by sharing his name and our plans, we give off the image as we are not a complete outsider.We can also name drop external clients that we work with to establish some level of credibility. That is not going to be as strong as sharing internal names and is probably only going to really help when talking with more senior gatekeepers like executive assistants.