Article
19 Tips to Leave the Perfect Sales Voicemail
HubSpot Sales Blog
Quoted on this wiki
Every place a page here uses this source, in the order the words come in it.
There's no doubt about it -- leaving a good sales voicemail is hard. And even if you do record a well-crafted message, do prospects actually listen to them, or take the time to call you back? Not usually. So what's the point? Should salespeople even bother with voicemails? Absolutely, and here's why. Although a seller might get a higher response rate from an email or another type of message, responses to voicemails are generally richer and demonstrate a greater level of interest. So what a salesperson loses in quantity, they gain in quality. Of course, you won't get any responses at all -- high quality or otherwise -- if you don't leave a carefully planned and thoughtful voicemail. Here are the nine elements of a perfect sales voicemail. Leave a voicemail by using your normal tone of voice and keeping your message short, between 20-30 seconds. Start the voicemail with information that's relevant to the contact and ask questions that are tailored to them. 1. Keep the length between 20-30 seconds. A perfect sales voicemail should be in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 seconds -- not much longer, and not much shorter. I realize this is a very specific window of time, so let me explain the reasoning. Obviously, prospects aren't going to listen to an overly long voicemail from a caller whose number they don't recognize, so pushing past 30 seconds ensures the message will get deleted almost immediately. On the other hand, buyers are also unlikely to listen to an overly short message. Most cell phones show the number and voicemail duration when a call is missed. So if the recipient sees the message is from an unknown number and only a few seconds long, they'll assume it's not important and hit delete. Since the message doesn't appear to be substantive, they're not prompted to listen. 20-30 seconds is the sweet spot. A voicemail in this timeframe sparks curiosity without demanding too much time. 2. Lead with information relevant to the prospect. “While both types of messages should be customized to a given buyer, voicemails should be ultra-specific.” Why the difference in response? When you made the request specific to one person in the second circumstance, you placed a burden of responsibility on that person. So it is with sales voicemails: The more specific the question, the more responsibility the person feels to answer you. 4. Don't use a traditional close. Here I'm referring to lines such as "Please call me back" or "I'll check in again on X date." Because they're generic, these asks don't increase the buyer's feeling of responsibility. Instead, I suggest posing your specific question and ending the call there. 5. Don't hang up without leaving a voicemail. If you're going to call a prospect, you have to leave a message. Regardless of whether the prospect was actively screening calls or simply away from their desk when the phone rang, your number will pop up as a missed call. And if there's no accompanying voicemail? Well, it must not have been terribly important. If you do this two or three times in a row, you further degrade your chances of ever connecting with this prospect. Since they've now seen your number come up multiple times without once receiving a voicemail, they're aware this call is definitely not one they need to take. You can bet the next time you call, they're not picking up. Salespeople who call and hang up screen themselves out of the process. No matter if you're prepared to leave the perfect voicemail or not, you need to leave one every time. However, if you do record a few messages with the same ultra-specific question, the prospect feels a twinge of guilt each time you call back because they feel they owe you an answer. 6. Use your normal tone of voice. Salespeople are often coached to sound enthusiastic and excited on the phone, thus raising their natural voice pitch to a high, unnatural tone. In my opinion, this tone of voice makes it clear to the listener that not only is this an uncomfortable call, but a generic one.
There's no doubt about it -- leaving a good sales voicemail is hard. And even if you do record a well-crafted message, do prospects actually listen to them, or take the time to call you back? Not usually. So what's the point? Should salespeople even bother with voicemails? Absolutely, and here's why. Although a seller might get a higher response rate from an email or another type of message, responses to voicemails are generally richer and demonstrate a greater level of interest. So what a salesperson loses in quantity, they gain in quality. Of course, you won't get any responses at all -- high quality or otherwise -- if you don't leave a carefully planned and thoughtful voicemail. Here are the nine elements of a perfect sales voicemail. Leave a voicemail by using your normal tone of voice and keeping your message short, between 20-30 seconds. Start the voicemail with information that's relevant to the contact and ask questions that are tailored to them. 1. Keep the length between 20-30 seconds. A perfect sales voicemail should be in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 seconds -- not much longer, and not much shorter. I realize this is a very specific window of time, so let me explain the reasoning. Obviously, prospects aren't going to listen to an overly long voicemail from a caller whose number they don't recognize, so pushing past 30 seconds ensures the message will get deleted almost immediately. On the other hand, buyers are also unlikely to listen to an overly short message. Most cell phones show the number and voicemail duration when a call is missed. So if the recipient sees the message is from an unknown number and only a few seconds long, they'll assume it's not important and hit delete. Since the message doesn't appear to be substantive, they're not prompted to listen. 20-30 seconds is the sweet spot. A voicemail in this timeframe sparks curiosity without demanding too much time. 2. Lead with information relevant to the prospect. “If your voicemails and emails are exactly the same, you lessen your chances of getting a response to either.” Why the difference in response? When you made the request specific to one person in the second circumstance, you placed a burden of responsibility on that person. So it is with sales voicemails: The more specific the question, the more responsibility the person feels to answer you. 4. Don't use a traditional close. Here I'm referring to lines such as "Please call me back" or "I'll check in again on X date." Because they're generic, these asks don't increase the buyer's feeling of responsibility. Instead, I suggest posing your specific question and ending the call there. 5. Don't hang up without leaving a voicemail. If you're going to call a prospect, you have to leave a message. Regardless of whether the prospect was actively screening calls or simply away from their desk when the phone rang, your number will pop up as a missed call. And if there's no accompanying voicemail? Well, it must not have been terribly important. If you do this two or three times in a row, you further degrade your chances of ever connecting with this prospect. Since they've now seen your number come up multiple times without once receiving a voicemail, they're aware this call is definitely not one they need to take. You can bet the next time you call, they're not picking up. Salespeople who call and hang up screen themselves out of the process. No matter if you're prepared to leave the perfect voicemail or not, you need to leave one every time. However, if you do record a few messages with the same ultra-specific question, the prospect feels a twinge of guilt each time you call back because they feel they owe you an answer. 6. Use your normal tone of voice. Salespeople are often coached to sound enthusiastic and excited on the phone, thus raising their natural voice pitch to a high, unnatural tone. In my opinion, this tone of voice makes it clear to the listener that not only is this an uncomfortable call, but a generic one.
“Start the voicemail with information that's relevant to the contact and ask questions that are tailored to them.” Sales reps tend to be very declarative in their messaging. Their starting phrase in both voicemails and emails usually sounds something like, "My name is John Doe, and I work for Gadgets Inc." It might be a straightforward approach, but it's not effective in the slightest. As soon as the prospect realizes this voicemail is a sales pitch from a salesperson, it's getting deleted. And if you lead with your name and company, the prospect's finger hits the delete key almost immediately. This is why it's important to lead with something relevant to the prospect, such as a thought-provoking question. 3. Ask a question you wouldn't pose in an email. If your voicemails and emails are exactly the same, you lessen your chances of getting a response to either. So make them different by reserving certain questions for voicemail instead of email. While both types of messages should be customized to a given buyer, voicemails should be ultra-specific. In an email, I might ask for a referral, an appointment, or feedback on a content asset they downloaded. These sorts of classic questions -- while still tailored to the buyer -- can be customized for reuse with another prospect, or another 100 prospects. But the questions you ask in a voicemail should be so specific that they could never be intended for another listener. For example, if I was selling financial management technology, I might ask the voicemail recipient which financial software they use today, or if all of the company's financial analysts work out of the central office. The more personal and specific the question, the more likely it'll get a response. Think about it this way. If you start to have chest pains on a busy city street, and you cry out, "Somebody call 911!" you might get help … but you might not. However, if you were to point at one specific person and shout, "Would you please call 911 for me?" it's almost a certainty that the stranger you selected would grab their phone and dial.
“Leave a voicemail by using your normal tone of voice and keeping your message short, between 20-30 seconds.” Sales reps tend to be very declarative in their messaging. Their starting phrase in both voicemails and emails usually sounds something like, "My name is John Doe, and I work for Gadgets Inc." It might be a straightforward approach, but it's not effective in the slightest. As soon as the prospect realizes this voicemail is a sales pitch from a salesperson, it's getting deleted. And if you lead with your name and company, the prospect's finger hits the delete key almost immediately. This is why it's important to lead with something relevant to the prospect, such as a thought-provoking question. 3. Ask a question you wouldn't pose in an email. If your voicemails and emails are exactly the same, you lessen your chances of getting a response to either. So make them different by reserving certain questions for voicemail instead of email. While both types of messages should be customized to a given buyer, voicemails should be ultra-specific. In an email, I might ask for a referral, an appointment, or feedback on a content asset they downloaded. These sorts of classic questions -- while still tailored to the buyer -- can be customized for reuse with another prospect, or another 100 prospects. But the questions you ask in a voicemail should be so specific that they could never be intended for another listener. For example, if I was selling financial management technology, I might ask the voicemail recipient which financial software they use today, or if all of the company's financial analysts work out of the central office. The more personal and specific the question, the more likely it'll get a response. Think about it this way. If you start to have chest pains on a busy city street, and you cry out, "Somebody call 911!" you might get help … but you might not. However, if you were to point at one specific person and shout, "Would you please call 911 for me?" it's almost a certainty that the stranger you selected would grab their phone and dial.
“you won't get any responses at all -- high quality or otherwise -- if you don't leave a carefully planned and thoughtful voicemail.” Sales reps tend to be very declarative in their messaging. Their starting phrase in both voicemails and emails usually sounds something like, "My name is John Doe, and I work for Gadgets Inc." It might be a straightforward approach, but it's not effective in the slightest. As soon as the prospect realizes this voicemail is a sales pitch from a salesperson, it's getting deleted. And if you lead with your name and company, the prospect's finger hits the delete key almost immediately. This is why it's important to lead with something relevant to the prospect, such as a thought-provoking question. 3. Ask a question you wouldn't pose in an email. If your voicemails and emails are exactly the same, you lessen your chances of getting a response to either. So make them different by reserving certain questions for voicemail instead of email. While both types of messages should be customized to a given buyer, voicemails should be ultra-specific. In an email, I might ask for a referral, an appointment, or feedback on a content asset they downloaded. These sorts of classic questions -- while still tailored to the buyer -- can be customized for reuse with another prospect, or another 100 prospects. But the questions you ask in a voicemail should be so specific that they could never be intended for another listener. For example, if I was selling financial management technology, I might ask the voicemail recipient which financial software they use today, or if all of the company's financial analysts work out of the central office. The more personal and specific the question, the more likely it'll get a response. Think about it this way. If you start to have chest pains on a busy city street, and you cry out, "Somebody call 911!" you might get help … but you might not. However, if you were to point at one specific person and shout, "Would you please call 911 for me?" it's almost a certainty that the stranger you selected would grab their phone and dial.
“Although a seller might get a higher response rate from an email or another type of message, responses to voicemails are generally richer and demonstrate a greater level of interest.” Sales reps tend to be very declarative in their messaging. Their starting phrase in both voicemails and emails usually sounds something like, "My name is John Doe, and I work for Gadgets Inc." It might be a straightforward approach, but it's not effective in the slightest. As soon as the prospect realizes this voicemail is a sales pitch from a salesperson, it's getting deleted. And if you lead with your name and company, the prospect's finger hits the delete key almost immediately. This is why it's important to lead with something relevant to the prospect, such as a thought-provoking question. 3. Ask a question you wouldn't pose in an email. If your voicemails and emails are exactly the same, you lessen your chances of getting a response to either. So make them different by reserving certain questions for voicemail instead of email. While both types of messages should be customized to a given buyer, voicemails should be ultra-specific. In an email, I might ask for a referral, an appointment, or feedback on a content asset they downloaded. These sorts of classic questions -- while still tailored to the buyer -- can be customized for reuse with another prospect, or another 100 prospects. But the questions you ask in a voicemail should be so specific that they could never be intended for another listener. For example, if I was selling financial management technology, I might ask the voicemail recipient which financial software they use today, or if all of the company's financial analysts work out of the central office. The more personal and specific the question, the more likely it'll get a response. Think about it this way. If you start to have chest pains on a busy city street, and you cry out, "Somebody call 911!" you might get help … but you might not. However, if you were to point at one specific person and shout, "Would you please call 911 for me?" it's almost a certainty that the stranger you selected would grab their phone and dial.