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What does your voicemail say???

What does your voice-mail say when you don't answer the phone? I don't care if it's your cell phone or your office phone.

Chances are it says something like this...

"I'm out of the office on appointments, I'll be returning at 3 pm so please leave a message and I'll return your call when I get back."

Or this...

This is so and so...I'm sorry I can't take your call I'm either on the other line or away from my desk, please leave a message after the tone...blah blah blah...

The point I'm trying to make is that the minute your voice-mail picked up the person on the other end of the line knew immediately that you weren't there...and chances are they don't care where you are. They know that if they hear a beep that is their signal to leave a message, and they know that when they leave a message, the next step in the process is a return call from you. Whether you work in real estate, or you sell office supplies, you probably rely on your voicemail quite a bit to be your link to new clients. Make your voicemail memorable and make it different from the next guy...

Try something different on your voice-mail. Be creative, maybe the next person that calls will tell somebody else to call just to hear your message. Leave a message like this...

This is so and so...I'm out taking a couple of my biggest clients golfing so if you're not with me then we should talk when I return to see how I can change that for you.

Or this...

This is so and so...I'll be out all afternoon trying to drum up new business so I can afford to pay my wife's most recent credit card bill. If you're calling with a listing opportunity i'd be glad to get back to you but if you're calling because you are looking for payment on the credit card, please hit * (star) and listen to the first part of the message again.

By the way...if you were to call my office and my voice-mail picked up, it says something like this...

This is Rob Beland with Apex Properties. Chances are you've reached my voice-mail because I'm out building a successful real estate business. If you're looking for real estate services, leave me your name and number and the next time you get my voice-mail it might be you I'm out there working for.

Then I go on to leave my cell phone number in case they need to speak with me right away.

Any other creative ideas when it comes to what you say on your voice-mail besides the usual "I'm out of the office...blah blah blah...please share your ideas.

Rob Beland, Apex Properties

Leominster, MA

Commercial Real Estate Professional

The Real Estate TrendMill

Posted by Rob Beland Leominster Commercial Real Estate on 05/22/2007 03:25 PM

Comments (9)

voicemail, rob beland

9 Comments on What does your voicemail say???

MAY

2007

I love the credit card and golfing one..LMAO!

I hope t works for you, I doubt anyone I know would respond favorably.

Those are interesting twists on voice mail out going messages. My main thing is to make voice mail as streamlined so the calling party can get as rapidly to their destination as possible. I get very impatient waiting for cumbersome voice mail systems to get me to where I want to go very fast.

I guess in response to Jim's comment, if you don't have a relationship with your clients where you both can laugh and they can't appreciate the humor in a voicemail message and you're concerned they wouldn't respond "favorably" then I see that as a pretty straight forward customer/salesperson relationship and nothing more and I try and stay away from that type of relationship at all costs. I don't want to sell anything to anybody. I provide a service to business owners and professionals and along with that comes my sense of humor and my personality and who I am. If they don't like me then why do I want to do business with them anyways?

Regarding your comment Roger, I fully appreciate the concern about not having a long voicemail but let's be realistic...you make listening to a voicemail message sound like a trip to the dentist. Is anybody that busy that listening to a 45 second message makes them impatient??? This person that is getting your voicemail is calling you because you can help them with something and provide them a service that they need. Again, it goes back to my earlier point about selling somebody something. If somebody gets your voicemail and it's too long and they get impatient and hang up and call your competition then what value do you bring to your clients beyond a sign on a building? Where is the relationship? Since when does a business relationship have to be so impersonal???

If somebody is calling me it's because they want to do business with "ME". If they get my voicemail the least I can do is try and not be a computerized message bot and try and be who I am...They'll await my return call, I'm sure of it.

Am I alone in my opinion or does anybody else have the same feelings about being less of a salesperson and focusing more on the overall relationship???

MAY

2007

I agree with you in some degree on your response to Jim. There are instances where people you have not developed relationships with may call, in which case the rapport has not been established.

Regarding long messages, I agree with Roger. There are times, that we just want to leave a message and not wait around - so that we can continue our golf game with OUR biggest clients. Many in our market actually have something like "if you would like to bypass this message please press # now" at the front end to allow the person the choice.

Good post and good ideas. "Thanks for calling, I'm busy commenting to blog posts in an attempt to better my on-line exposure"

Rob- I love your ideas! When you call my phone you hear music playing instead of the ring ring of the phone and at the end of my voice mail I leave them with an inspirational quote.

Pam...

I'm glad to see somebody likes my ideas. The inspirational quote is a nice touch. Another option to consider is a motivational quote. I guess the main difference is that I think of an inspirational quote something to lift somebody's spirits and along with it you would hear harps playing in the background and a motivational quote is something like this...

"The most challenging and exciting goals you set remain as vague dreams until you take action."

a quote by Paul Meyer, http://www.pauljmeyer.com/ He's a motivational speaker.

Rob... I use motivational quotes as well. Thanks for the one by Paul Meyer.

JUN

2007

The golf one is pretty funny/catchy.

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