Here are two very brief sales voice messages. The first was sent in by a reader. It was a pure cold call since he did not know the person.
Have a listen. (I have edited out the phone numbers on both.)
PRESS PLAY TO LISTEN
What are your thoughts on this? What you should know is that the recipient does not get involved with government contacts.
_________________
One I Received
I received this message earlier this week. It’s similar in that I it’s totally irrelevant for me.
PRESS PLAY TO LISTEN
I do plan on calling them back. I’m guessing it’s not going to go well for them. Next week I’ll report back on what happened. Watch your inbox. (if you are not now subscribed to my weekly Tips, do so here.)
What are your thoughts on this one? Again, leave your comments and suggestions below. In addition to my call back report on this message, I give my thoughts/rant on the technique used here.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Yikes on the 2nd one!!! they are in for a world of hurt when you get hold of ’em!
My big problem with them is you would have to listen to them a couple of time just to figure out what the heck they where talking about…
Kind of like Spray & Pray marketing is what I like to call it – if someone uses their answering service as a screening device it would be near impossible to gain a return call unless the message was of any importance to the listener in some degree.
Good Luck to the both of them.
Listening to both messages the callers seemed like they were fishing. They didn’t know who they were calling or if they were getting the right person. Also, I’m all for having a script so you cover all you talking points, but they sound like they are reading word for word with no personalization for the customer they are calling. Those were not successful sales calls and look forward to your notes next week.
Besides being poorly pitched & impersonal, both were clearly random. Your number was purchased through a list, perhaps.
I look forward to your report on reading them the riot act. “It all ends in tears, anyway.” ~ Jack Kerouac
These are crazy – but I get similar ones regularly. Cold calls (and emails) of this type are the modern equivalent of yesterday’s “junk mail” flyers and postcards. I guess the people who run these types of call centers are still using outmoded sales metrics (ie: number of dials per hour) based on the direct mail philosophies of the 1950’s. You can almost imagine the grizzled, cigar chewing Sales Manager yelling to a new sales rep as he tosses over a copy of the Yellow Pages, “You want sales leads? Here’s your damn sales leads! Now keep making those calls.”
Selling over the phone has changed dramatically over the past few years as Art frequently points out. However, many of the metrics being used to measure sales performance haven’t. In many cases, I think that leads to calls and messages of this type.
Both terrible. First, given the messages, they don’t know who they are calling.
Second, there’s no what’s in it for me…..
Better: “Hi, Art. This is Jan with Franklin Factoring…Sorry I missed you. Listen, I just wanted to update you about available working capital we’ve targeted specifically for “——-” businesses
like yours. When you have a moment, give me a call back at XXX-XXX-XXXX. Talk to you soon.”
Right away I have a couple of things that come to mind even before reading your tag line. Both sounded like a junk mail hit or miss call.
Caller #1 needed to do his home work to even see if the business he called was even a candidate for this type of service. He seemed to mumble and did not speak clearly indicating he was unsure of himself. I generally don’t reply to people that rush through or mush their words together.
Caller #2 seemed to be yelling into the phone with a lot of background noise that indicated he was calling from a wats room dialing every name in the book, and once again the caller did not identify his product or give a reason why he felt his product/service may be beneficial to this business.
Neither caller sounded professional.
Do your homework people if you expect a call back and please, speak clearly using a moderate volume, and leave time for the person you called to get the phone number without having to replay the message repeatedly.
The 1st caller ended the message by telling you to do something, which would be in his favor. He did not build curiosity about how his service could potentially benefit yours. He could of ended the call by saying, “if you’d like to learn more my number is….”
Perhaps a little more substantive reason for calling them back would be in order.
Art,
Horrible calls that do the sales industry a huge disservice. So the first guy was LYING about his government contacts? That is brutal.
The second guy, I am still not sure what he is selling? Some type of compliance? Who teaches these guys? I am interested in seeing how it goes next week.
My first impression of the call to your voice mail is that it was a robot call. Toward the end I thought it was just someone driving, was that a GPS I heard in the background? Antonio was following one school of thought in that he gave his name but not his company name. The fact that he says “I was told to call” shows that he is not confident and glaringly uninformed about your company. He certainly did not follow the SMYKM (Show Me you Know Me) principle.
Keep em coming Art, makes me feel like I am not so bad after all!
Art – both of these calls equate to wasted time – theirs and yours. They strike me as random calls from a boiler room-type setting. As a sales professional my reaction is to wince and say ouch. Glad it wasn’t me.
Typical of “sales types”who have no interest in finding out the recipient’s needs. Go Art go! Looking forward to your next update!
Your WHAT compliance? Antonio had a very distorted voice. I listened twice and could not understand the message. Possibly the caller is intellectually challenged and has no idea how he sounds. Also something about ‘regulations.’ But any time they say ‘please’ it means they are actually begging!
Two perfect examples of what not to do!