‘Hi __________. My name is _________. I’m your ________ sales
person calling to introduce myself. I would like to talk to you
about what we have to offer.’

The above is an actual message that was left on my voice mail. I
did not call back. Would you? Probably not.

Let me state up front that I’m still not a big fan of leaving
messages. Having a conversation with your prospect is always so
much better, and with some skill and patience it is possible to
eventually get most prospects on the telephone.

If, however, you choose to leave a message, you must give your
prospect some reason to call you back. ‘I would like to talk to
you about what we have to offer’ does not cut it.

When you are speaking with your prospect for the first time, it
is imperative to have a hook, something to grab and hold that
prospect’s attention. If you don’t hook your prospect in the
beginning of your conversation, they will not want to speak with
you. They will say, ‘I’m not interested,’ and worse case, they
may hang up on you.

It works exactly the same way when you are leaving a message. If
you don’t have a hook, if your message does not grab and hold
your prospect’s attention, your prospect will hit delete and
that will be that.

The process for finding your hook, whether for your actual
conversation or for your message, is always the same. You want
to identify hot buttons, those issues that are so important to
your prospect that when they come up, your prospect stops in her
tracks to listen. Every single message that you leave must have
a hook. And if you plan on leaving more than one message, you
will want to have different hooks. (And BTW: If you really want
to reach your prospect, you will need to leave more than one
message.) This way you will always be saying something new.

Start by making a list. List every benefit and value that you
and/or your products/services bring to your customers. Once you
have that list, create a message for each benefit/value. You can
have more than one message about any one benefit/value, as long
as you have another angle or another point that you can make.
When you are done, you should have several different generic
messages that you could then leave for your prospect. Once
you’ve developed your generic messages, you can then customize
them for any particular prospect.

He.re are some additional tips for leaving messages:

* Say your name and telephone number at least twice, once at the
beginning of the message and once at the end.

* Spell your name.

* Speak slowly and clearly. No one will ever call you back if
they do not understand you.

* Slow down when you spell your name and give your telephone
number. Your prospect will interpret this slowing down as a
direction to write, and will pick up a pen and write down your
information. This works when you are speaking directly to your
prospect as well.

* Make sure to tell prospects that you will call back if you do
not hear from them. This way you take back control and are not
left sitting by the phone, waiting for prospects to call.

Wendy Weiss, ‘The Queen of Cold Calling,’ is a s.ales trainer,
author and sales coach. Her recently released program, Cold
Calling College, and/or her book, Cold Calling for Women, can be
ordered by visiting http://www.wendyweiss.com. Contact her at
wendy@wendyweiss.com. Get Wendy’s fr.ee e-zine at
http://www.wendyweiss.com.

Last 5 posts by Wendy Weiss

• I Just Called to See How Things are Going - April 17th, 2008
• Would you like to have customers return again and again to buy? - February 11th, 2008
• Repeating the same action over and over and expecting different results - December 5th, 2007
• Cold Calling: A Prep Pep Talk - October 22nd, 2007
• What to Say to a Bad Telemarketer - July 17th, 2007