The Art of the Call

Someone asked this in a sales group I’m a part of:

I think today is the last day I leave a voicemail for a prospect/customer/lead. Instead of leaving a voice message and text, I think I’m going to begin to just text unanswered phone calls. What are some of you doing? I’d like to hear!

Honestly? I don’t leave voicemails, rarely leave messages with gatekeepers, rarely text, rarely email, and yet I get appointments all day long. If you master the phone call you don’t need to bother with the rest. In all the years I was forced to leave voicemails, I think I can count on one hand how many people called me back. Just think how many more conversations I could have had with potential customers if I hadn’t wasted all that time leaving voicemails. At approximately 30 seconds a pop, that adds up to a ton of time everyday you could be doing active outreach instead. At an average of 120 calls, that’s an HOUR each day lost on voicemails sent into the void. That comes out to 5 hours a week, or an entire month every year. Over 10% of your calling hours spent on nothing of any value at all. And that doesn’t even count all the wasted time spent strategizing about voicemails to leave that won’t work in getting people to call back. Because it’s not your voicemail — it’s that voicemails don’t work anymore.

Voicemails are too low-yield of an activity to be worth the time investment. I used to think that if you were using a sales enablement platform such as FrontSpin that allows you to automatically drop pre-recorded voicemails, that leaving a voicemail was a good idea because you could do so without wasting as much time on the process. But I’ve since rethought my position on that, and now think that leaving voicemails just gives people a reason to block you and report you as spam…and then you’ll never be able to get them on the phone. Do you want someone deciding to buy from you based on a recited voicemail, or based on a conversation you’ve had with them in real time where you identified their pain points and fully piqued their interest with how you can address those pains? Which do you think will be more effective in setting in motion the process of a sale — the static voicemail, or the dynamic conversation?

I think in cold calling we sometimes lose sight of the thing we’re truly seeking: that live phone call. Convincing is done in a back-and-forth exchange, not a 30-second advertisement on their voicemail. Why are we wasting time on emails, texts, and voicemails when the thing that we know converts people, is the good old-fashioned phone call?

Guidelines for cold calls:

1. Do not pitch gatekeepers. They are not the decision-maker, so are irrelevant to you. Attempt to bypass them everywhere.
2. Do not “email additional info” to prospects if they ask you to do so after they express lukewarm interest; they are blowing you off. Instead, stay on the phone with them and continue to push for a meeting. You can even say that the information truly is best presented in a telephonic exchange and that you really don’t have a handy PDF of info at the ready to send to people. “I don’t have info to send. Would you have 20 minutes for a phone call next week instead?”
3. Be hungry. Make as many dials as your fingers can handle. The more calls you make, the more sales you will get. Cold calling is at its heart a numbers game. The more you put into it, the more you’ll get back.
4. Start off calls with “[FIRST NAME], please?” so that gatekeepers will get the impression you know the prospect personally. Do not identify yourself beyond your first name and the company you’re calling from, and only do so if prompted by the gatekeeper. Here, less info is better and increases your chances of actually being connected with the prospect. If the prospect answers themselves, ask “This is [FIRST NAME]?”
5. Do not engage in small talk. Get right to the point. These people are busy and will give you a chance only if you respect their time.
6. Build familiarity right out the shoot — I like using the line “you’ve probably heard of us” or “you may have heard of us” if I’m selling something more obscure. It helps them feel more comfortable with this stranger intruding upon their day and demanding their time.
7. Next, launch right into what you do: “We work exclusively with attorneys nationwide to help them bring in clients outside of their current word-of-mouth referral networks.” BAM! There’s your value proposition: why they should want to keep listening to you. By this point you’ve introduced yourself as someone possibly familiar to them and have expressed the value you have to offer if they don’t hang up the phone.
8. Transition into the ask. “Now the reason for the call today is…” Numbers speak to people and compel them to act because they are very black-and-white. Examples: “Are you aware you’re losing 68% of customers due to your website’s mobile loading time,” or “We have over 24,000 potential clients each week in your area, and we’re looking for attorneys to send business to. Would you be interested in that.” Ask strongly and confidently. Ask like you’re expecting them to say yes because you’ve just offered them something they couldn’t possibly say no to. Importantly, be sure to ask using a downtone in your voice (turn the question mark into a period as written above). It seems subtle, but psychologically it’s very compelling.
9. Be prepared for any rebuttal the prospect may give you, then immediately circle back to the ask. “Do you have 20 minutes next week to discuss how we can help drive business to your firm?”

Exceptions:

1. I do leave voicemails when reminding prospects of meetings (the day before), if they are supposed to be attending a meeting but aren’t, or if I’ve been personally referred to them by their colleague. Basically: I only leave a voicemail if I’m expecting the person to have a compelling reason to call me back. It’s a very different kind of voicemail than the less personalized voicemails you drop when you can’t reach someone directly.

There you have it: My recipe for success is the opposite of the traditional advice of sending a text, voicemail, or email for each call (“touchpoint”) where you can’t reach the prospect directly.