Eight Tips on Crafting Effective Voice Mail Messages

By Keith Rosen, MCC
The Executive Sales Coach™

1. The Length of a Voice Mail Message Should Be Approximately 15–40 Seconds.

This accomplishes three things:

• If your message is longer than one minute, you'll lose their attention. Putting a time limitation on your voice mail messages prevents rambling.
• As such, it forces you to laser in on the most compelling language to achieve your secondary objective, which is a return call.
• Finally, it accentuates the importance of taking the time to craft the right language/wording in each message.

2. Each Message Must State a Reason for Them to Return Your Call.

What is their motivation/incentive/urgency to want to speak with you? The following statements do not motivate a prospect to return your

• "I'm just calling to check in/touch base with you to see if you have a need for …"
• "The reason for my call is to see if you received the information that I sent you last week."

It's hard enough to catch your prospects in the office and engage them in a conversation. It's twice as hard to get someone to return a voice mail. Therefore, you must weave in a reason/benefit that's compelling enough for them to stop what they are doing, write down your number or save your voice mail, and return your call.

What can you say? What value proposition can you share that will make them want to return your call? (I can assure you, wanting to "schedule a meeting with them" or "send them some information" is not going to make your phone ring off the hook.) What problem can you solve for them? What have you done for other companies like theirs that they would be interested in hearing about?