Advice For Your Follow Up Calls

Not sure if I would leave voice-mails if I was following up a direct mail campaign, but when I am doing cold prospecting I sometimes leave a quick message. I've actually gotten a few clients from this - ones of whom were already considering having their website revamped called me upon receiving the message and I've been able to manage a few sales through voice-mail.

My theory is if you've already let it ring 10 times you might as well take another 5 seconds to leave a message. You never know. Not sure if I would do it with a follow up though - I would probably try calling back another day.

I would agree with OP. Too many times clients can have a strange misconception about something that is keeping them from going forward with your services. Leaving a message on a follow up can do little good and may actually cause the potential client to feel you are pressuring them without you having the opportunity to clarify the issue.

On first contact I would say a message should definitely be left. Some contact is better than none!

Sure you can leave a message and if you are having success with that keep doing that by all means. What happens when they don't call you back? Do you just keep calling and leaving messages?

I don't leave voice messages because everyone has busy life these days & some people don't even consider voice messages only the important one are taken under consideration. So its our loss in business. Thankyou for sharing useful information.

Leave a message like this...I get 2/3 callbacks with it:

"Hi this is ____. Got a quick question for you about your business. It's 00:00 here (on the west coast/in the mountains/in the Sahara) and I'll be in my office until 00:00. My number is ###-###-####. Thanks."

And when they call back, have your 3-second commercial ready, because they're gonna ask, "So what's this about?"

Great tips!

Thanks for the great advice. I am still a bit weary of the whole cold-calling/warm calling bit. I have been exploring different ideas...

I never leave a message when I'm trying to close new business. If you haven't spoken to them before you need to get their interest, find the need, anwer any objections and closing the deal.

A voicemail won't do that.

Call back later and talk to them instead! Works a helluva lot better for me.

I never leave information on a message. You have to leave them a reason to call back.

Most of the time I leave a message that contains the exact same thing as what Jason listed. Works very well.

For me it all depends on the campaign I'm calling for. If I've made 2-4 calls to get the DM on the phone then I WILL leave a VM, and it'll sound like this.

This is Melissa with _____, I'd like to talk to you for a moment, please give me a call at _______.

Yes, they don't call back...however, this gives me an in when I talk to the assistant again, or when I DO get the DM on the phone to say "I left you a VM the other day/last week, and didn't hear back from you, so I wanted to try to catch you on the phone since I'm sure you're just busy. I'm so glad I did...do you have a few minutes?"

MOST of the time, they just go into a conversation and are apologetic that they didn't call me back since they are busy.

I DO NOT leave VM's for everyone, on every campaign, but there are those that qualify because I know they are hard to reach and this gives me the in.

Leaving a VM for everyone is a waste of time, but for those like I described above, it works and only takes 15 seconds of my time.

Edit: I also DO NOT leave more than one VM...but I do put them into a CB category, just not one that is high up.

Any tips for when you're actually talking on the phone following up?