In today’s fast-paced world, anyone in sales and anyone involved in growing a business will eventually need to leave a voicemail. Do your voicemails inspire a callback or a quick delete? Should you even bother to leave a voicemail? Yes. Cold calling is about initiating contact; and more conversations lead to more opportunities. 

To cut down on the errs, ums, and momentary panic of being sent to voicemail, here’s a call template that will help you keep your message concise (~30 seconds). Customize and give it your own flare, but keep it short, polite and professional.

Hi, Tom, hope you're having a good week. This is Alex Li calling from salesforce.com. I saw [problem or opportunity about prospect's company] and thought, given your role, you'd be interested in how customers like [names of successful customers] rave about how we've helped them with [benefit statement of service or product].

 

I'll send you an email to see if this is of interest to you. Otherwise, if you'd like to give me a ring, my number is XXX-XXX-XXXX. Again, this is Alex Li at Salesforce and my number is XXX-XXX-XXXX. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks, Tom!

The perfectly crafted prospecting voicemail requires a thorough understanding of your value proposition and a bit of panache. Show them you have a vision for their business. Any sales rep worth their weight knows customer due diligence and personalized pitches yield callbacks and build connections with prospects.