Call-Backs

Marketing

Call-Backs
by Tim Connor



Let's look at one of the critical elements in the sales process – the ability to maintain control of the sales cycle as well as the various actions that take place within this cycle. There are a number of advantages to maintaining control. They are:

Less frustration and anxiety with yourself and your prospects.

A better chance of a positive outcome.

Less wasted time on poor prospects.

A message to the prospect or client that you are a pro.

You build your self‑image by maintaining control of your time, career and life.

One of the biggest time wasters is call-backs, either telephone follow‑ups that have no specific purpose or objectives, and personal call-backs that are often unnecessary if you prospected effectively from the beginning.

Let’s take a brief look at one of the causes of call-backs: voice mail.  Here is a brief scenario that happens millions of times a day.

“Hi, my name is Tim Connor. Is Bill in?”

“No, he is in a meeting (or he is out of his office). Would you like his voice mail?”

“Yes.”

“You have reached the voice mail of Bill. I am in a meeting, please leave a message and I will get back to you.”

Sound familiar?  How can you avoid a lot of these unnecessary call-backs?  Try the following:

“Hi, my name is Tim Connor. Is Bill in?”

“No, he is in a meeting.” (or out of his office).

“Would you please call him and ask if he can be interrupted.” “Can he be paged?”

When you leave a call-back, you lose control of the sales process. Often, the meeting that Bill is in is a spontaneous meeting, and he has left no instructions whether he can be interrupted or not. Therefore, the secretary or receptionist doesn't know and can only find out by calling him. From personal experience, 70% of the time I ask these questions the person comes on the phone. For the other 30%, I suggest you ask the following:

When does he usually arrive in the morning?  When does he typically go to lunch?  Leave for the day?  Come back from lunch?  Once you have the answers to some or all of these questions, you can leave a message that you will return your call at an appropriate time, when you have good chance of catching him in and not getting his voice mail. 

I have a love/hate relationship with voice mail, and I'll bet you do, too.  Use it to your advantage, but be careful of losing control of the sales process.


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Tim Connor, CSP, is a professional speaker and expert in the fields of management, sales, team building, and customer service. He's the author of 19 books and can be reached at 704-895-1230, speaker@bellsouth.net or www.timconnor.com.