61: The Art of Leaving a Voicemail | Story Snacks Series
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The perfect voicemail is calling...it’ll make you wish you picked up!
Voicemail is one of the most powerful tools to keep in your prospecting arsenal, and if you aren’t convinced, this episode of Story Snacks might change your mind.
Stacy is cracking open the secrets to leaving a voicemail that grabs attention and actually gets you a call back.
You’ll learn:
The job and goal of a voicemail–how should VM work for you?
How to warm up your call, including pre-work to help you close
How to be smart, be cool, and better yet...be both
Tips to avoid big mistakes, like info spilling or centering yourself
Voicemail might not be the latest tech, but it’s far from dead. When done right, this game- changing tactic will help you show up and be heard.
This is Story Snacks! A bite-sized, jam-packed series for fund managers who are ready to master strategic storytelling in less than 20 minutes per week!
TRANSCRIPT
Below is an AI-generated transcript and therefore it may contain errors.
[00:00:00] Craving more knowledge? But don't always have time to sit down for a 5 course meal? Take a quick snack break with StorySnacks. Bite sized content to feed your funnel. Each
short episode features Stacey digging into one question. This series has her talking stories, sales, and so much more. Oh, yeah, it's time for story snacks.
[00:00:26] So with prospecting for an initial meeting, you have 30 to 45 seconds to let the client know why you're calling. Any suggestions? Voicemail is like they should teach a class on leaving voicemails in university, except you know why they don't. Because no one talks on the phone anymore, right? So this may be a dying art, but not for me!
[00:00:51] As I look at my polycom on my desk, I will call you. If we are friends, I will call you, and I will leave you a voicemail, and you may hate me for it, and I don't care. So [00:01:00] this is a great question in my mind. So the deal with voicemail is this. Again, we're going to have to talk about what we typically do.
[00:01:11] Well, right now, typically, you would just hide an email. Don't do that. Typically, if we are brave enough to pick up the phone and call someone, the voicemail we're going to leave is going to be really boring, really long, and really awkward. So to me, what's the job of a voicemail? The job of a voicemail is to get somebody to call you back.
[00:01:40] I mean, you call them, presumably because you'd like to speak with them. So the job of the voicemail is to get them to call you back. And so if you think about in your personal life, what are, you know, the voicemail messages that you actually would listen to, A, and B, that you would actually return the phone call.
[00:01:58] They are not long. [00:02:00] They are not boring. You probably know the person. So how can you fix those things? Well, before you leave the voicemail, you could warm it up a little bit, right? Like you could do some things to show the person you care, and you'd like to be friends basically. So you could show up on LinkedIn.
[00:02:21] You could send them emails and give, give, give. Again, it's the give, give, ask. Because when you leave a voicemail. It's actually an ask. You are asking them to call you back, even though you think you're going to give them some information or whatever. It's still an ask. So you really should be setting that up with three gives before you call.
[00:02:43] Now, let's say it's call time. You call, you get their voicemail. In my mind, There are really only two reasons someone calls you back. You're smart, and you've got something interesting to tell them, or you're cool, [00:03:00] and you'd just be fun to talk to. And in an ideal situation, you're both, right? So how can you communicate those two things to the person on the voicemail?
[00:03:10] Well, super basic here, but like, Don't say something like, Hi, this is Stacey Havener calling from Havener Capital Partners LLC. Okay, do you see? I'm exaggerating it so you can see how that feels lame. If I instead said something like, Hey, it's Stacey from Havener. I know I've been, like, giving you high fives on your great content on LinkedIn.
[00:03:38] Do you see the difference in just that very short sentence? Intro, and I'm only even able to use that intro because I've been giving them. Give give giving on LinkedIn. So it's all about the vibe. They have to think that there's a great reason to call you back, either because you're going to give them something smart and [00:04:00] interesting and useful, or because you'd just be cool to talk to and hopefully both.
[00:04:06] This is gonna be a little bit funny, but I'm gonna say it anyway. The other mistake that people make with voicemails, , I have two actually. Okay. The first thing is you call them 'cause you wanna tell them something, but then you tell them on the voicemail and then you ask them to call you back. So you're like, Hey Stacy, I wanted to fill you in on this really interesting thing.
[00:04:32] Here is the really interesting thing, so gimme a call. Why am I calling you back? You've already told me. So there's no reason for a phone call. So do you see you have to hold that back if you really want them to call you? Okay, so that's one thing, some behavioral there. And the other is, you call and you start talking about yourself.
[00:04:53] You're like, and hey, like here I am. And we run this strategy at X, Y, Z [00:05:00] LLC firm. And Columbus, Ohio. And we have 30 employees and blah and blah and blah and blah. And it's all about you. And it's like that. Why am I going to call you back? You said nothing for me. So those two behavioral components are something to keep in mind as well when you're leaving a voicemail.
[00:05:19] That was a lot. I am happy to teach the voicemail class. If any archaic university wants a professor of voicemail, I proudly raise my hand. I hope that's helpful.
[00:05:35] This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. The information is not an offer, solicitation, or recommendation of any of the funds, services, or products, or to adopt any investment strategy. Investment values may fluctuate and past performance is not a guide to future performance.
[00:05:55] All opinions expressed by guests on the show are solely their own opinion and do not necessarily [00:06:00] reflect those at their firm. Manager's appearance on the show does not constitute an endorsement by Stacey Havener or Havener Capital Partners.
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