leave to voicemail or pick it up immediately?

What is your assumptions of benefits you get by leaving it to voicemail?

Never rely on Manta too much...

Sign up for an account on Jigsaw, and trade the good/bad contact information that you find for more points to get contact information. The information on here is often more up-to-date (at least with names), than manta, hoovers, i-sell, rainking, etc. You can double-check names for free, and get contact information by working the system.

If possible, check LinkedIn as well. An ounce of preparation will yield a pound of results.

In regards to picking up or VM, always pick it up, or you'll be the one leaving the voicemail. When they're on the phone, set your appointment before you let them hang up. Send them a calendar invite via email while on the phone if possible. Good luck.

respone rate from mailers are typically 1-2%. the more u put into the mailers the more u gonna get. Just think of all the mail you got today, can you remember one? Your business owner will usually get about 20-25 mailers per day. What's going to make you stand out?

Retraction said:

Weirdest thing happened today. I called 5 prospects, three of them said they didn't get letters and the other two said their bosses were out of town and vacation. I messed up with the first one because I was talking with the owner and I missed the chance to pitch my service. As soon as he said he didn't get the letters, I sorta blanked. The next one was semi successful, I was saying whatever came to mind. The other was really successful. The guy didn't even know what a review was. I explained everything in simple terms and he said he's gotta talk it over with his partner. Gave me his email and everything.

I didn't call the others because I want my letters to get there. I have no idea why my letters didn't go through. I am sending a test letter to myself and seeing how it goes.

Also, some of the owner names were inaccurate. Guess I shouldn't rely on Manta too much.

I'm glad you told me to call them and caught this mistake. Really man, thanks. I already have a game plan for my next set of letters.

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You're welcome mate and it's great that you took action!

I bet you're having a good weekend now too and you're looking forward to Monday.

Don't worry about messing up some calls, that's always going to happen. The key is to review each call afterwards and work out what you did right and what you can change for the next call.

It won't take long until you are so confident you'll be saying whatever comes to mind and it will always be the right thing. And at that point you will enjoy being on the phone. And you'll be making consistent sales too.

One quick point:

With the guy who said he didn't get the letter - in that situation I would have said that's not a problem, asked for his email, told him I would email him a copy of the information and asked him to let me know a time tomorrow (or Monday) when I could call him back to discuss things further. If he gives you his email and a time to call back, you know he is interested.

Trepanated said:

You're welcome mate and it's great that you took action!

I bet you're having a good weekend now too and you're looking forward to Monday.

Don't worry about messing up some calls, that's always going to happen. The key is to review each call afterwards and work out what you did right and what you can change for the next call.

It won't take long until you are so confident you'll be saying whatever comes to mind and it will always be the right thing. And at that point you will enjoy being on the phone. And you'll be making consistent sales too.

One quick point:

With the guy who said he didn't get the letter - in that situation I would have said that's not a problem, asked for his email, told him I would email him a copy of the information and asked him to let me know a time tomorrow (or Monday) when I could call him back to discuss things further. If he gives you his email and a time to call back, you know he is interested.

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Another suggestion is to ask him when he would be around. Tell him that it is an important letter, and you want to hand deliver to him. If he ask you what it is about, tell him a little about his negative reviews and there are a lot more you want to show him. Schedule a time for an appointment and close the deal from there!

A voicemail system is a useful tool for additionally screening the prospect. The message could briefly restate your message, and keep the framework oriented where you want it to be, or reinforce the deal you want to make. Then you can reply to the calls in a collected and prepared fashion, script/cheatsheet in hand if need be, instead of when you're NOT ready and don't have your talking points together.

Yes, you can probably squeeze out a couple of more sales if you directly picked up and talked the business owner into giving you an interview, but the insufficient motivation among the majority of these decision makers would cost you a TON of time and labor to get that outcome. If you feel you must give them the ability to reach you immediately, provide the voicemail number as the main contact, but state your 'live' number at the very end of the recorded message. This way, lukewarm prospects have been provided two opportunities to screen themselves out (by not answering the ad, and hanging up on the voicemail), and can be considered more qualified leads, or "double opt-ins" for the purposes of follow-up.