How to Prospect Using Voice Mail

Unless you're psychic and know when a prospect is going to pick up the phone, you're going to be leaving voice messages sometimes. Here's how to up the chances that your target actually calls you back.

Step 1. Research. Figure out the major challenges in the target's industry, the role your target's firm plays in that industry, and the role your target's job title typically play. Use Google, Linkin, etc. to search on your target's name, business and likely city of residence, etc. Look for anything that might hook the target into listening to the entire message: personal interests, trade association memberships, colleague relationships, etc.

Step 2: Craft. Use the information you gathered in step 1 to craft a message that will drive the sales process forward. The message should consists of three parts: 1) a title line "teaser" or headline, 2) a few sentences (less than 4) of concise content, and 3) a call to action. Use the tone and vocabulary that you would expect to find within an internal voice mail message sent inside your prospect's firm. Emphasize how, from the target's viewpoint, you'll be able to help solve a problem or achieve a goal.

Step 3: Practice. When you actually leave the message, the word must come out of your mouth naturally, as if it were half of an interesting conversation. This means that you must internalize the message rather than simply prepare yourself to read it over the phone. You will need to cultivate the casual confidence that the target might hear in a voice message left by one of his or her colleagues. To practice, call your own voice mail. Try different wordings, expressions and tonalities. Ask a trusted colleague to critique your performance.

Step 4: Follow-up. If you've left a message and haven't gotten a response, call again. Leave a message that expresses concern and respect for the target. Something like: "I can tell you're not the kind of person who wouldn't return a phone call, so I'm calling to see whether everything is OK with you." Be sure to practice the follow-up a few times before you actually leave it. This works about a third of the time, which ain't bad, considering that you've got nothing to lose at this point.

Step 5. Repeat as necessary. If you've got a lot of prospects to call, you can reuse the gist of your crafted message, but it must be modified to match whatever you've found out about each prospect. However, always practice leaving every message at least twice before actually leaving it. And check yourself (by leaving a voice mail message for yourself) every hour or so to ensure that it's not starting to sound rote. Effective voice messaging is all about sounding genuine and credible.

Most of the above is based, by the way, upon a conversation with Linda Richardson, author of "The Sales Success Handbook." The "hail Mary" move in Step 4 comes from a sales pro I know who does a lot of cold calling. It's worked for me occasionally. The trick is to make it sound natural and not "salesy."

In a future post, I'll give some examples of "well-crafted" voice mail messages.