It is said that upwards of 85% of outbound phone calls go to voice mail today. If you’re anything like me, you make dozens of calls every day to get new prospects and eventually to follow up with your customers. Plus, since march, I also run a survey for a collective project around solopreneurs and small businesses expectations and results using internet. Imagine how many voicemails I leave a day ? Well, I can’t complain, I have 90 percent of the time return on my voicemails. But I also have messages from entrepreneurs from whom I’m a prospect and  It’s hard for me to believe that loads of them  don’t really make it easy for me not only to returned the calls, but simply  to find a good reason to do so at the first place. Some of them might ask themselves why they are not anyone to return theirs phone calls. Sounds familiar ? Well, It is vital for you to understand that getting return calls is not impossible, but you don’t get them because you’re doing it wrong.

Here are the 3 mains mistake people make when they try to reach out to theirs customers on a regular basis. Avoid them and you will finally leave that get returned.

Reason n° 1 : much too long

If you can’t say it briefly, don’t say it at all. When I get tired to listen after the second phrase it’s really really bad, don’t try to sell, to be funny on a voicemail ? Your message is often one of a dozen or more, so keep it simple and  brief by identifying yourself and the purpose of calling. The optimal voicemail message is between 8 and 14 seconds.

Reason n° 2 : No context call

In case of first approach  link your message to something of interest to the person you are calling, it’s might be  another person or event. When I ask myself while listening a voicemail  » who the heck is  this ?  » it’s done; and you probably have the same reaction. So make sure to ALWAYS say  something short  that will put you in the mind of the listener if it’s not your first contact.

Reason n° 3 : No valuable hook

As mentionned above, most of the time, I simply have no reason to call back because the message on my voicemail don’t give me any. « call me back to discuss…. » Okay…What for ??? You wanna make sure to say something that motivates the prospect to return your call.What is in for me ? is the first question people ask themselves while listening so provide the listener with an answer to that question.

There are several others mistakes but those are the most important to IMMEDIATELY AVOID to leave an effective voicemail. For your next call, integrate those suggestions to your voicemail message script, and you will dramatically improve your rate of callbacks when you leave voicemail.

What about you ? How often are you getting your voicemails returned? Ten percent of the time? Five? Zero? How many of you don’t even leave voicemails because you are convinced that it’s doesn’t work ?