Should Your Sales Team Leave Voicemail when Cold Calling?

According to a report from VoicemailOffice,  60% of all calls go to voicemail. A study from Hiya showed that out of 11 Billion calls, only 24% of unknown calls are answered. So if your sales team is cold calling, more than half of those sales calls will go to voicemail.

When it comes to business development, getting voicemail is part of the sales process. How to leave a voicemail that gets returned is a vital sales skill that can and must be improved on for underperforming sales reps.

If more than 50% of your team’s sales calls are going to voicemail, it would be negligent not to train them on what to say to increase callbacks properly.

If you want to improve your sales team’s voicemail-to-callback ratio, it’s essential to know 1) that certain factors lead to poor performance and 2) the ownership of getting better results is not squarely on them. Sales managers should require and participate in daily role-playing activities for continued improvement. 

Why Sales Voicemails Fail

Here’s a list of why sales voicemails fail:

○ The salesperson isn’t prepared before picking up the phone.

○ The salesperson has no understanding of the objective.

○ The salesperson hasn’t created a compelling reason for a callback.

○ The salesperson has not rehearsed.

Cold Calling? Expect Voicemail

Too many sales professionals pick up the phone and act surprised when they get voicemail. There are three things a sales rep needs to be prepared for when making a sales call, and one of them is getting voicemail. (The other two are gatekeepers and getting the actual prospect on the call)

We’ve already established that at least 50% of all sales calls are going to voicemail – being prepared to run the voicemail play BEFORE picking up the phone is just common sense. 

Sales Voicemail Objective

Ask your sales team, “what is the objective of leaving a voicemail,” and I bet all of them will answer incorrectly. 

Most will say to “get a callback”; however, that answer is incorrect. The real reason to leave a voicemail with a prospect is to get a callback and advance the sales call. Too many sales reps have used cheap tactics to trick their prospects into calling them back, only to leave a bad first impression. It does absolutely no good to get a call back if you can’t advance the sales call. Starting with this understanding will help you avoid the temptation of the “half-truth” or misleading sales script.

A Compelling Reason for Voicemail Callback

When you learn how to craft a sales voicemail message that piques interest, you will start to get more callbacks. 

Role-playing Sales Voicemail Scripts

Every aspect of the sales call process should be role-played on a regular basis. There can be different levels of role-playing but at the very basic level, if you have members on the sales team who shiver at the thought of pretending to leave a voicemail for all of their peers to hear, is that person really qualified to pick up the phone when no one else is listening? Is that the person you want to depend on to hit quota?

Saying the Right things During Role-playing

If you role-play and are using bad sales plays, you reinforce the bad sales techniques.

So here are three (3) sales voicemail scripts you can use to build a better voicemail message to increase callbacks + an actual recording of Michael Pedone leaving a sales voicemail (the prospect called back and signed up, btw)

Sales Voicemail Scripts

The Cold Call Voicemail Script Template

Example #1:

“Hi ​(prospect’s name), ​this is (​your name)​ with​ (your company).​

I’m calling about an idea on how to help you avoid ​(a common concern).

I’m about to send you an email. If you like what you read and decide you want to have a further conversation, you can reply to the email or give me a call at (insert phone number).​

Again my name is (your name)​ with (​your company) ​at (insert phone number).​ Have a great day.”

Note: the “I’m calling about an idea on how to help you avoid” is just one transition play. You can have multiple options.

The Referral Voicemail Script Template

Example #2:

Do you ask your clients for referrals? If you do, guess what? When you call those referral leads, you are still cold-calling. If they are not expecting your call, it’s a cold call. And there’s a 50/50 chance you will get their voicemail, too, so be prepared on what to say.

“Hi, (​prospect’s name​), this is (y​our name​) with (​your company​).

(Referral name​) over at (​referral company name)​ mentioned I should give you a call regarding how we helped him/her (​cut/ reduce/avoid common pain)​.

You can reach me at (insert phone number). 

Again my name is (​your name)​ with (​your company)​ at (insert phone number)​.​ Thanks.”

The Competition Sales Voicemail Script

The sales competition script is my favorite. I can’t tell you how many cold calls I converted to sales by using this script approach in my career – but it was a lot. The reason it works so well is that every C-Level person wants to know what their competitors are up to, and if they are using something that works for them, they want to try it.

Using the competition template is just smart prospecting. 

When you reach out to other businesses that are similar to other clients you have helped (unless, of course, you have a non-complete cause), you are increasing your chances of converting those cold calls into sales opportunities.

If you sell software that does accounting, for example, and your best clients have 200 – 500 employees, are in the USA, and sell small business insurance, chances are other businesses that match that description would benefit from what you offer as well. There’s a great chance that the pain points you solve for client A will exist in those similar prospects. 

The Competition Sales Voicemail Script

Example #3:

“Hi, (​prospect’s name​), this is (y​our name​) with (​your company​).

We recently helped (competitor 1)​, (​competitor 2​), and (competitor 3)​ avoid (​pain)​ while at the same time (common benefit​) and wanted to see if this might be something you would possibly be interested in knowing a little more about as well.

You can reach me at ​(insert phone number)​. Again my name is (​your name​) with (​your company​) at (insert phone number)​.​ ​Thanks.”

The Sales Voicemail / Email Combo

I get asked a lot if an email should be sent first.

If you are doing that now and getting results you are happy with, stay doing it.

I recommend calling and leaving a voicemail first and then following it up with an email. But if you do send an email first, for the love of all things holy, do not say, “I’m following up on the email I sent you. Did you get it?” That is NOT the right way to start a sales conversation.

Sales Voicemail Scripts

In our online class on sales voicemail strategies, you’ll learn how to leave a voicemail, get free sales voicemail scripts, and see what to say in an email after leaving a voicemail.

Real Sales Voicemail Recording:

And as promised, here’s a recording of an actual sales voicemail I left for a prospect who called back and signed up. You’ll notice I had a throat tickle at the worst moment, and guess what – that’s going to happen! But when you know the sales strategy and you’ve role-played and practiced, you can recover and handle those odd moments and still deliver the goods!