About seven or eight years ago, a friend of mine who owns a business with about 100 employees told me that his younger employees were making fun of him because he would leave them voicemail messages. Since my job is to understand trends in sales in our modern world, I was sort of embarrassed that I hadn’t heard of this movement.
When I polled my younger friends, most of them confirmed that they never leave or listen to their voicemails. What? How do you know what the callers want? How do you get someone to call you back? There were several answers …
- If they need something, they’ll text me.
- They see my number and they’ll call back.
- If I need them to call, I’ll text them.
Wow. Is this relevant in our business world? After all, the 20 somethings I polled then are mid-30 somethings now and managing divisions.
I’ve done a lot of thinking about voicemails over the last few years and my conclusion today – original posting on August 7, 2020 – is that voicemail is an effective method today, but there is a different objective than you might expect…
In today’s world of selling, the objective of a voicemail is no longer to receive a return phone call. Although a return call would be a great outcome, it rarely happens – especially when prospecting. Today’s objective of a voicemail is to enhance another form of communication like email, text message, or a personal drop-by. A couple examples:
If you send a prospecting email that includes a blog post about content specific to the prospect’s industry, call and leave a voicemail letting the prospect know to look for your email.
If you’re in the area of a customer’s site on Thursday afternoon, leave them a voicemail that you’ll stop by “sometime around 3:00”. Then, stop by at 3:00 or so and if your contact isn’t available, leave them a piece of content like a use case or article that is relevant to them. Follow with another voicemail letting your contact know that you stopped by and left something for them “up front with Larry”.
In conclusion, voicemail is still an effective method of communication for salespeople, but instead of leaving messages to receive a return call, use them to enhance another form of communication. Who knows, you might receive more return calls?
