Armand Farrokh shows how a 15-second voicemail script doubles email reply rates from 2.73% to 5.87%, according to Gong's analysis of 300 million calls. The "Double Tap" approach uses two voicemails: the first asks prospects to reply by email with context only, the second adds social proof. Works best paired with a follow-up email that states the problem and solution in one sentence.
Folks, even if you do not connect with a prospect, you can literally double the number of replies you get over email if you have the right voicemail script.
And so in this video, we're going to share first, some of the common reasons that people think you shouldn't leave voicemails. And then we're going to dispel them and explain why you still should leave a voicemail and give you a couple different scripts from when you're leaving your voicemails. Let's roll the tape. All right, so there's few topics that spark more debate on a sales floor than the subject of voicemails. There's a lot of salespeople that think they're a total waste of time and never leave them for a couple reasons. First, they never get any callbacks. I didn't get callbacks when I left voicemails. I know you don't. That's not the aim of a voicemail. But it is a reason that a lot of people don't leave voicemails. The other reason that people skip leaving voicemails is they take a lot of time. And that's true. The time savings that you get from not leaving voicemails allow you to make 25% more calls. Another knock against voicemails. The last reason people skip leaving voicemails is a pretty big one, which is that they hurt your future connect rate with prospects. When you call a prospect, they don't answer and you leave a voicemail. You've now signaled that you're a salesperson. And GONG data shows that when you leave a voicemail, it actually lowers your connect rate by 28% on future dials to that prospect. But you should still be leaving voicemails in the way we're going to describe in this video for a couple reasons. The first is we analyzed over 300 million cold calls with Gong, and we found that when you leave a voicemail, you double your email reply rate on future emails to that prospect from 2.73% to 5.87%. And what that allows you to do is one, get to an answer faster with your prospect. You will hear back from more prospects both when you connect live and on email, which will allow you to contact more overall leads. And you'll also be able to avoid that last problem, which is your connect rate going down by rotating the numbers that you dial from which most sales, engagement platforms and VoIP providers allow you to do. So, let's talk about what those voicemails should sound like.
So there are four keys to leaving good Voicemails and sales. The first key is to lead with context. So you don't want to lead with a pitch. You don't want to lead with your name and company because those things will instantly get deleted. Instead, you want to lead with context about them. That might mean you work with a customer that shares an investor with that prospect, or you might work with an industry peer or a competitor to that prospect. You're going to drop that first. That's your first key. Your second key is you're not going to ask them to call you back because they're not going to do it anyway. Instead, you're going to direct to email. You're going to say, hey, there's no reason for you to call me back here. I'm going to send you an email after this. Number three, you're going to keep your voicemails really short because people oftentimes won't listen to them. You want them to be hyper skimmable. And then lastly, number four, we are only going to leave two voicemails. In fact, GONG data shows that zero voicemails gives you a 2.73% reply rate. One voicemail gives you a 6.11% reply rate. Two voicemails actually gives you a 5.34% reply rate. But three voicemails gives you a 2 point 2% reply rate. And so regardless, the data can be a little bit tricky here because when you leave three or more voicemails, the reason the email reply rate goes down is, is because oftentimes those people are just leaving way too many voicemails and reaching out to people who are never going to reply. But it's pretty clear that there's a big jump between one and two voicemails. So leave two and you'll get your point across. So our strategy is called Double Tap voicemails. You're going to leave two voicemails. So the first voicemail is only going to be 15 seconds long and it's only going to include context of how we work with people like them. Sounds like this. Hey, Nick, we work with a few other Skadden partners in the LA office. No need to call me back. I'm gonna send you an email after this. Would you mind replying there and just letting me know if it's even moderately interesting? It'll come from armanorthwestern. Cheers. That's it. I'm not including my pitch. I'm not including my name in my company until the very end. Because the only reason that I include my name and company is so they can identify their email and why or how I work with other partners in their office. But if that doesn't work, I gotta give them a little bit more on voicemail number two. So voicemail number two is going to be 30 seconds long and it includes the context of how I work with other people like them and it includes social proof of how I work with those people. But I'm not really pitching. Here's how that sounds. Pick up the phone. I'll say, hey Nick, we work with a few other Scadden partners in the downtown LA office on their tax planning and investments amongst other things. I'm sure you've got most of that stuff taken care of, but I'm going to send you an email that gives you a sense of how we work with them and would you mind letting me know there if it's even moderately interesting? Again, it'll come from Arman at Northwestern. Cheers. So this time I gave the same exact context, except I said we work with them on these types of things. My guess is you're all set, but would you at least mind letting me know over email? Now the only way that this works is if you're actually sending good emails as well. So that first email that you want to send your prospect and includes everything you'd oftentimes include in a really good cold call opener. So how you know them, the problem that you solve based on what you know about them, a one sentence solution and an interest based call to action.
Folks.
We've covered that entire thing on a couple of other videos on this channel, so you'll see some links all around here for those videos. And if you like this content, a lot of it comes from our upcoming book on cold calling which you can get at 30mpc.com backslash book. We'll catch you on the next one.
Cheers.
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