22. Leave your full name and contact information twice on all voicemails.
The logic of this rule should be fairly self-evident. Give the prospect two shots at deciding whether or not your information is worth recording, and two shots at getting the details right amongst background noise, poor pronunciation and other audio distortions. There’s no sense making it easy to blow you off by providing just a single, possibly inaudible, version of how to reach you.
Do yourself a favor by spacing out the information too. The easiest way to do this is to state your name and number once before your purpose for calling and once after. As for the reason for calling, let’s move on to rule 23.
23. Follow up with a purpose. Never just ‘touch base’ or ‘check in’.
There is a pervasive tendency, especially among B2B sales professionals, to chicken out from asking what you really want to know by instead ‘touching base’ or ‘checking in’. A small minority of sales professionals are in the baseball or hotel business, so I don’t know why we say these things. State your purpose directly instead of dancing around the point in hopes of stumbling into the information you desire.
Don’t come up with safe substitutes either. The most common example of this would be calling to confirm the receipt of a proposal when you really want to know how seriously it is being considered. Or asking to know if they have any questions when you really want to be the one doing the asking.
If you want to know how far along the prospect is in making their decision, just ask casually and directly. The answer will tell you where you stand and how best to position yourself for future success.
24. There is no substitute for persistence.
There just isn’t. Each attempt at gaining the attention of someone whose good graces you covet will incrementally increase the likelihood that you will be given the chance to prove yourself of value. Working people appreciate hard work, and everyone enjoys the process of being wooed.
It is better to be noticed and shooed away than to never be acknowledged at all. Now quit messing around online and get back out there!
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