MAKE IT SO PEOPLE RESPOND TO YOUR VOICE MAILS

How do you get people call you back when you leave them a voice mail message? You want to talk to them, offer them something, perhaps sell them something, maybe make some money. But people resist, often vehemently. They often just don’t call you back. And of course you have no idea why. Did they not get your message? Are they out of town? What?

So what are you to do? How can you get people to call you back?

The answer is simple – once you understand the request and persuasion principle.

Imagine you own a mortgage company specializing in commercial lending. You work with individual investors who want to own commercial income generating properties. You’ve been in business for more than 20 years. You have phone numbers, cell phone numbers and email addresses. Your information is up to date and accurate because you keep it so.

Now you decide that you will go after some new deals. You will do that by contacting previous client investors in your database. You want this to work for you right out of the box. You’ve already prepared your best offers, rates, terms, the whole ball of wax. All that’s left to do is to make appointments with interested parties and outline the opportunity and close some loans.

So you start calling and most of the time you wind up leaving a message. The voicemail message you leave is simple. “Hi Jack. This is Herb with ACE Loans. Please call me back at 321-8778. Thanks.”

But after a few days of this, not very many people are returning your call. In fact, you’ve left two dozen of these this week and no one has called you back. This is frustrating.

Obviously this approach is not working and you need a better tactic.

I suggest you send an email first. Your email should present the bare bones of an offer and inform the person that you will call them to talk about it.

Here’s the email you send.

“Hi Jack,

Suppose you could borrow $400,000 at 3.4% for commercial real estate? Would you be interested? I’ll call you this week because I want us to talk about this opportunity.”

Jack now knows what you’re offering. In your email you’ve given him the chance to read, and if he wants, to re-read the reason for your communication. You’ve given him a reason to talk to you. When you call Jack, if you have to leave a voicemail message, the likelihood that he’ll call back goes way up, because he knows what you wish to discuss. Wow, $400,000 at 3.4%. You’ve made talking with you sound potentially interesting to him.

The formula:

Send short email with brief offer.

State that you will call soon.

State that you want to talk about possibilities.

Make the phone call – to the person’s cell phone number – that’s more personal.

If necessary, leave a message saying when you will be available.

That’s how you get people to respond to your voice messages.