Tel-E Sales Tip of the Week
September 10, 2008

Published By Art Sobczak, Business By Phone Inc.
See articles, books, audios, and other resources
http://www.BusinessByPhone.com

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Here Are the New Posts By Art to His New Telesales
Blog Within the Past Week

TODAY: Stupid Things We Say, Like "Lipstick on a Pig"

9/8: Create Urgency by Asking the V--g-a Question (it's the little blue
blue that some men need for, their uh, malfunction. Your email
filter would have caught it if we used it)

And oh, if you have not heard The Worst Call Art Has Ever Received,
you will howl with laughter.

Go to the Telesales Blog at http://www.TelesalesBlog.com

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Work With Art Personally on Building Your
Own Successful Sales or Prospecting Call
Attend the Telesales College Two-Day Workshop
Don't Get Shut Out. Programs are Filling Fast!

Quit making call-killing mistakes and see exactly what
to say to get YES more often by phone.
http://businessbyphone.com/college.htm

Chicago, October 21-22
Boston, October 28-29
Dallas, December 10-11

See complete details, agenda, comments from attendees,
and register here or, download a brochure

This Week's Tip:
The Three-Step Voice Mail Strategy
That Gets Calls Returned

Greetings!

One of the top challenges for most
salespeople, if not THE biggest pain, is
getting to decision makers, and more
specifically, dealing with voice mail.

There are all kinds of systems, processes,
techniques and tips on how to most
effectively manage voice mail. Certainly
you can find lots of them in the archives
of my Telesales Success Inner Circle.
http://www.TelesalesSuccess.com.

And for the Platinum Members of my
Inner Circle, I recently interviewed sales
expert, Colleen Francis, president of
Engage Selling. A member suggested I
look into her "Three-Step Voice Mail
System." I did, and immediately knew I
needed to share it with my members.

Here are some highlights from that
audio seminar.

Colleen first points out that when a
decision-maker listens to your voice
mail and doesn’t recognize your voice
or your name right away, it’s not that
they’re choosing not to return your call,
it’s that they’re not even listening to
your voice mail.

It is a busy world out there and your
clients are being bombarded by
marketing messages and it’s arrogant
to think that they think you’re important
enough to return the first message that
you leave. No, it sometimes can take
five, 11, 20 attempts,

Colleen Francis’ Three-Step
Voice Mail Process
In Colleen's first step, on a prospecting
call she wants to use a referral of some
type when possible. She believes that
one of the fastest ways to get your calls
returned is to use the name of the referrer
up front because the minute they hear
Bob’s name (the referrer in this case)
they're going to think, “Oh Bob. I know
Bob. If Colleen’s calling because of Bob
then there’s probably something I should
know about or a relationship I should
think about.”

So she starts with something like, “Hi Art.
It’s Colleen from Engage Selling calling
because Bob Smith at ABC Company
asked me to give you a call.”

So a couple of things that are different
about this voice mail technique: First,
she is not asking you to call her back.
Instead, TELL them when you are
calling back.

And do not leave your phone number.
And the reason she doesn't do that --
and this isn’t just some whacky idea,
they’ve actually tested it--is that it keeps
the voice mail a little shorter, which is
important.

She points out most people just say their
phone number way too fast anyways.
So it doesn’t frustrate the end user. And
it increases the likelihood you’re going to
get them on that second call.

Colleen also finds that the likelihood of
someone calling you back on the first
call is so slim that it’s not worth it to
leave your phone number and when you
don’t and you call back exactly when
you said you were going to, there’s a 50
percent chance that that person is
actually waiting for your call.

In Step Two, Colleen says it's important
to call exactly when you said you were
going to call. This is the key to making
this work. If you don’t call back Tuesday
at 10:00 or whenever it was that you
indicated, then this process is not going
to work for you.

So Tuesday at 10:00 rolls around and
she calls saying, “Hi Art. It’s Colleen at
Engage Selling calling because I
promised to reach you today at 10:00.”

What you’re doing in a small way is
starting to build a bit of trust here. The
keyword here is promise. And still you
leave no phone number.

With Step Three, this is where your
work in honesty and trust building in
ales really comes through. What she
says on the third call is,

“Hi Art. It’s Colleen from Engage Selling,
calling because I promised to reach
you today at 2:00. Sorry I missed you.
I noticed you’ve been difficult to reach
and I’m wondering if that’s because
you haven’t had a chance to look at
the proposal or maybe you’ve chosen
another supplier or perhaps I’ve been
picking the wrong times to find you
at your desk.”

She suggests three attempts by
voice mail in around five to seven
business days and then waits two
weeks and then starts it again.

(We have an actual sample of the audio
seminar, covering this point in the process,
posted at the Telesales Blog,
http://www.telesalesblog.com/)

Two weeks later this message arrives:

“Hi Art it’s Colleen from Engage Selling
calling because I promised to reach you
this week if I hadn’t heard back from you
about ABC proposal or our conversation
at the tradeshow. Sorry I missed you. I’ll
call you Wednesday at 3:00.”

So, there you have Colleen’s Three Step
Voice Mail process. And this was just a
brief overview of the process we covered
in our audio seminar, “Voice Mail Strategies
that Sell: How to Get Through More Often,
More Quickly, and Get More Calls Returned.”

In this seminar we go more in-depth with
the process, and discuss lots of other how-
to tips and strategies with voice mail and
screeners which will help you get through
and sell. To see complete information on
how you can listen to this audio seminar
right now, and get the written transcript of
it so you can see the words on paper, and
get the CD, go to
http://www.businessbyphone.com/Francis.htm.




QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Keep on going, and the chances are that you will
stumble on something, perhaps when you are least
expecting it. I never heard of anyone ever stumbling
on something sitting down."
Charles F. Kettering

Go and have your best week ever!

Art

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request. Contact: Art Sobczak, President, Business By Phone Inc. 13254 Stevens St.,
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