Telemarketing Leads

I was originally going to title this article, “Does Leaving a Voicemail Really Work?” However, as I researched for statistics on voicemail/callback ratios, I was surprised to find that there was really no such statistics to be found. It’s my opinion that voicemail metrics are one of the most subjective metrics in all the land. It depends so much on tone, delivery, content, speed, emphasis, etc. – all of which are highly variable. Essentially, every time you leave a B2B lead generation voicemail, you are a commercial pitch man for 30 seconds, in which you have to utilize some psychological marketing saavy to get good results.

There a few schools of thought among individual salespeople – some ALWAYS leave messages, and some will NEVER leave one. After reading various articles and from my own experience, I’m inclined to think that USUALLY leaving a voicemail is the correct path. Slaton says:

“So much of sales is about maintaining perspective. I need to leave messages with the expectation, not that the prospect is going to call me back… but instead, leaving the prospect knowing that… whether they return my call or not… I am going to call them back.”

I work with a business services firm and our lead generation reps have left 3,763 voicemails for 2,520 unique individuals YTD. Our callback ratio is in the neighborhood of 20%. But why do people call us (or you or anyone) back from a voicemail?

Due to the subjective and volatile nature of leaving voicemails, keep in mind that some of these suggestions might help in some situations and might not in others. Take the tips at face value, play with what works, and track success. Here are a few tips that have helped us along the way:

1. The first and last words they hear should be their name. Tons of psychological research tells us that when people hear their name, it’s a cue to start listening. Try starting with this: “Hello, Dan. This is George Copeland from ABC Company in Dallas, Texas…” and ending with this: “I look forward to your return call. Thank you, Dan.”

2. Workflow should contain at least two voicemails over two weeks. We build our callflow out mostly with the format of Call-Call-Call-Email-Call-Call-Call-Email-Drop. We recommend as a best practice that two of those calls should be voicemails – usually the first and fourth.

3. Use e-mail in conjunction with voicemails. We find that e-mails greatly increase the chance of a call back, and at the very least, create awareness. We’ve had success sending e-mails with a subject line like “Follow-up on Wednesday’s voicemail” or “My 1/9/09 voicemail.”

4. Establish credibility… fast. You have only a few seconds to shine. Avoid lines like, “We are a premium provider of B2B appointment setting.” and replace it with, “We’re the people helping ABC and XYZ Companies with their B2B appointment setting needs.”

5. Insert a decision phrase. It is estimated that up to 75% of business calls go to voicemail. Ones that require action are often returned while most others die a not-so-honorable death from the dreaded “Delete” button. Replace, “I would like to talk about the order you placed last week.” Instead, you might say, “You need to approve the final order pricing that I faxed you on Monday prior to processing the order tomorrow.”

6. Avoid mucking up your voicemail with too many topics. Use an e-mail if you feel you absolutely need to be thorough and alert them to it’s arrival via voicemail. Otherwise, mention one hotbutton at a time on their machine.

7. Keep voicemails short and simple. The sweet spot tends to be 15-25 seconds according to many sales researchers. The average person speaks in the range of 150 words per minute, so that means that if you’re drafting a script for your voicemails, make it between 40-75 words.

8. Where applicable, use teasers. It helps if you say that you are sending an article, book, or other content and that they might benefit from it. So now when you get that person on the line, you can have a neutral conversation about the subject matter of your content. You’ve also gained credibility as a subject matter expert.

9. Mention a challenge they might have. Focus on a problem you might solve with your solution; support with numbers. Solve a real tangible problem, not a pie-in-the-sky generality. For instance, instead of “Vendere Partners can fatten your sales pipeline,” I might say, “Vendere Partners can free up your salespeople from chasing down contacts, by stuffing their pipeline with 15+ qualified leads per month.”

10. Dig deeper, shoot broader, and aim higher. You’re never going to get anywhere with a sales prospect who never returns voicemails or e-mails. Have a point in your workflow where you drop the prospect. Here’s the key though: contact another influencer, decision-maker, or at least a person who would help guide you towards the a correct party.

When you think of telemarketing what comes to mind? I invite you envision walking into a large building and going up the elevator. You press the button for the third floor and as the door opens you can just faintly hear the click of receivers being picked up and put down. There is almost a dull roar of voices as you walk a few steps outside of the elevator. Walking just a bit further you can see rows of cubes, people on headsets, and the volume of the conversations is much louder.

In that room of a 100 or 200, there are but a handful that is having success. A select group in their cubes is selling like crazy. They aren’t very popular among everyone else because they keep exceeding the goals. The manager of the floor always brings up the same 3-5 names and tells everyone else “you should be more like them!“.

What have those people discovered that the rest haven’t? Do they simply get the good phone numbers? Maybe they stay later than everyone else to beat their goals?

They haven’t done any such thing; they have simply discovered that you aren’t going to “sell” anyone on the phone. These top performers understand that you can’t sell someone something they don’t want. Endless pitches, statistics, and features will just bore a prospect and leave you hearing the dial tone. When you want to crush the competition and be the envy (or enemy) of the rest of the sales staff I invite you to change your conversations from sales scripts that pitch to sales scripts that ask interest piquing questions.

These rules apply whether you are trying to sell a long distance service, copiers, or even software. Stop covering features and benefits and start getting people to reveal what is most important to them. Consider the following:

• “Would it help your household if you could save on your home insurance monthly?” - Insurance is a tough and competitive business. Instead of stating “I am with X company, do you know we have better policies?” instead lead with how the customer can immediately benefit. If they don’t want to save money than they would be a waste of time! Opening with a question regarding saving money will pique their interest and allow you to keep asking questions to find out the other items that are most important to them.
• “How would you feel if you could save time daily?” - Time is finite and anything you can do to save people time will be well rewarded. This style of question gets your prospect feeling good immediately which lays the groundwork for you to ask additional questions that will get you closer to the sale.

When you change your traditional telemarketing scripts from pitches to questions you will be able to make more sales in less time. How would you feel if you could make a sale in just 3 minutes? You can discover how to make sales in minutes when you dive in to my free video powered course on interest piquing questions. 5 days (yes you can skip ahead) and 67 questions will reveal how you can start making more sales in any industry. – www.QuestionsthatSell.com