Is It Worth It to Leave Messages?

ahennings

Expert
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I'm cold calling small businesses, the old fashioned way, no auto dialer. Is it worth it to leave a message? Or should I just go to the next one and increase my number of dials? If you think a message is a good idea, what do you say?
 
I don't see a downside to leaving a message. I know some don't want to if they're trying to dial through 100's of numbers every day and they're just looking for someone to talk to. I think leaving a message is effective, especially if you follow up with them later.
 
If you read the book Question Based Selling it talks about leaving messages and makes a good point about how they (from salesman) all sound the same and get ignored. You need to make if stand out. One way I remember he talked about was asking a question that would get their curiosity and get them to call you back. Something like "I was hoping to catch you for a minute because I have a question...that only you can answer. If you could please call me back. I'll be in my office this afternoon until around 5:00 PM." Other were something like What is your opinion on _____? or How do you feel about _____? He had other great ideas. It was by Thomas Freese.
 
I don't see a downside to leaving a message. I know some don't want to if they're trying to dial through 100's of numbers every day and they're just looking for someone to talk to. I think leaving a message is effective, especially if you follow up with them later.

The downside to leaving a message is it takes time and they're usually not going to call back (if ever).

Let's say your message is around 15 seconds long and you're leaving 10 messages an hour. After four hours you'll have spent a solid 10 minutes just leaving messages. That's ignoring the time it takes to listen through their voicemail. In that same time period you could have made a few extra calls where you had the chance to actually talk to someone.

In all fairness, I've tried leaving messages (to the tune of a few thousand), and experienced zero success with it, so I am slightly biased.

Another point to consider is what type of calls your making. If they are straight up cold calls and you're just trying to work your numbers, then I stand by all of the above. If you're calling a warm and/or fairly targeted list (i.e., I'm calling you because I met you at the chamber of commerce meeting and..) then that's a little different of a story, but I don't get the impression that's what you're talking about.
 
anyone who has done any kind of cold calling, is gonna tell ya, do not leave a message, especially on an answering machine.

they do not call back.

theres a reason hand dialing is old fashioned, its not effective.
 
They dont call back most of the time and you could use that time to be calling the next person.
 
I'm cold calling small businesses, the old fashioned way, no auto dialer. Is it worth it to leave a message? Or should I just go to the next one and increase my number of dials? If you think a message is a good idea, what do you say?

If you are calling a business, you leave a message....just not the typical message agents leave.."hi this is joe blow of xyz agency, calling to save you $$$"
 
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