There have been many posts related to work lately because I just find them so interesting.  I get a lot of sales calls at the office.  Too many.  Today, a call was passed over to me…

T:  John Doe (fictitious obviously) said he sent you some baked goods and would like to talk to you about his company.

Me:  Uh, what baked goods?  I didn’t get anything.  Send him to voicemail please – thanks!

The voicemail basically said that his company sent me some cookies and he hopes that I enjoyed them and he hopes that I would give him a call back to talk to him about their services.  So, I have no idea what this guy is talking about…this cookie business.  But sure enough, a few hours later, they bring me a package!  It was a cookie bouquet!  6 cookies.  I gave them all away though…  I didn’t call the guy back either.  I even googled them to see if they did this often and sure enough they do.  But it doesn’t seem like anyone called them back either.

That sure is some crazy expensive way of marketing.  Those types of business gifts are not cheap!  It’s certainly a nice gesture and certainly gets the attention of people but wow…is it worth it?   I guess if their services end up in the thousands of dollars each month – which it probably does and they spent $30 here and there to send people cookies to try to make sales, then it is.  But man, they better get lucky or something.

if you are a making a sales call or have never spoken to that person ever before.  The information that you should leave in a voicemail is as follows:

1. Your Name
2. Your Company
3. Purpose of the Call <—this is VERY important
4. Your Phone Number <—slowly and twice
5. If you left a LONG message, then repeat your name as well with step 4.

Why should you do these things?  Because that will increase your chances of getting a call back.  There is this one call and voicemail that I keep getting.  We’ll call him Joe from ACompany.  Joe from ACompany leave me a voicemail about 2-3 times a week.  His voicemail sounds like this, “Hi, this is Joe from ACompany, please give me a call back at xxx-xxx-xxxx.”  Ok, so what is wrong with Joe’s message?

Joe doesn’t state a purpose.  Why is he calling?  What is this regarding?  Are you selling something?  Is it something important?  What is it?  His messages are the same every single time and I never call him back.  I never call him back because I have no idea who he is or what he wants.  Maybe he’s a salesman and thinks that if he doesn’t have his sales pitch on the phone, I might be curious enough to call him back.  Sorry Joe, doesn’t work that way.

Sometimes Joe calls the line that goes through the receptionist.  Today I asked her to tell Joe to stop calling.  Do you know what Joe’s reaction was?  He was a)shocked and then b)mad.  He was upset that I told him to stop calling because he said that I had never even talked to him before.  The receptionist told him that she was no longer going to pass his calls through and that she had to honor my request.  To this, Joe said, that he wanted to talk to the bossman.  But you know what the bossman is going to do, he is going to hear Joe’s message and forward it straight to me to take care of because it is probably in-line with what my position is and to that I am still not calling him back.

So please, when you leave a voicemail, be clear and purposeful, which will be better for everyone.