Are You Making This Embarrassing, Costly Voicemail Mistake?

Before your read the rest of this article, borrow someone’s cell phone and call your own.  Let it go to voicemail. What does your greeting sound like?

Salespeople should check their voice mail
Photo by Daniele DePascale

What you just heard is what your customers hear.

  • Is your name mentioned on the greeting?
  • Is your voice on the greeting?
  • Can callers leave a message?

If you cannot answer an unqualified “yes” to all three of these questions, it’s time to change your voicemail greeting.

In every market I visit, there is at least one Account Executive (and the occasional Sales Manager) whose greeting, delivered by a robot, sounds like this:

You’ve reached five, oh, three, four, seven, seven, four, nine, three, three. Please leave a message after the tone.”

A Dale Carnegie trainer once told me that at its core, working in sales is like having a series of job interviews, every single day.

The line stuck with me — every single day, we are trying to get local business people to hire us and our companies to solve their marketing problems.

How do the “hiring managers” — your clients — react to a robot voicemail greeting?

Here’s a hint from Lora Poepping, a recruiter and job search consultant in Seattle:

I will hang up when your voicemail doesn’t give your name.

Please, please have your name mentioned in your outgoing message. Why? Because I don’t want to leave a message about wanting to speak with you about a potential new job if I don’t even know if I’ve reached the right person. If you don’t want to record something, just default to using your name. You may have missed your chance to be considered for a position.

If R2D2 is answering your phone, you may have missed the opportunity to be considered for a buy.

At the bare minimum, your name should be on the greeting. Spoken by you, not the robot.

Not long ago I needed to reach an Account Executive with a question about a proposal we were developing. Her cell phone went to voicemail.

The robot recited a string of numbers (“You’ve reached five, oh, three, four, seven, seven, four, nine, three, three.”), invited me to leave a message for “the person you are calling”. It then informed me that the mailbox was full, and suggested that I call back later.

Not only did I not know if I was calling the right person — I couldn’t leave a message even if I wanted to.

Because her station was paying me a lot of money to work with her, I sent her a text. Eventually we connected.

Your customers will not go to the extra effort. They will hang up and call a competitor.

Sales Trainer Pat Bryson recommends using your outgoing message as an opportunity to make an impact:

Make your voice mail messages SELLING messages for you. Stress what you can do for the client. Make them bigger than life. You only have one chance to make a first impression!

(h/t Radio Sales Cafe)

The best example of “phone greeting selling” I’ve encountered came from J.R. Langlois, who owned The Safer Floor Store in Portland.

I met with Mr. Langlois in 2009 during my radio sales days, and had a question for him after our meeting. When I called, I got this message:

Hi, this is J.R. at the Safer Floor Store. I can’t come to the phone because I’m helping my customers prevent injuries and avoid lawsuits. Please leave a message and I’ll call you back as soon as I can.

Two lessons here:

1. J.R. knew that he wasn’t in the floor supply business — he was in the injury-and-lawsuit-prevention business.

2. He recognized that voice mail represents an opportunity — even when he was away from the phone, he could deliver his sales message to anyone who called.

When customers try to call you, do they know they got the right number? Can they hear your voice? Can they leave a message if they want to?

If you can’t answer yes to all of these questions, you are making an embarrassing, costly mistake.

It’s time to fix it.

Miracle Mattress, 9/11, and Newsjacking Gone Horribly Wrong

In 2004, Mount St. Helens began belching smoke.

Photo by fotos 593
Photo by fotos 593

 

I was a radio salesperson at the time. One of my biggest clients was Beaverton Mitsubishi, owned by a guy named Joe Khorasani.

Joe had a temper that could fairly be described as “volcanic”. Fortunately, Joe also had a good sense of humor.

I decided to engage in a little newsjacking — defined by Hubspot as “the practice of capitalizing on the popularity of a news story to amplify your sales and marketing success.”

I quickly wrote a script featuring Mount Khorasani, an active volcano, and created an event called “The Eruption of Savings.” Joe liked it.

We got him into the studio to record his lines, and had the commercial on the radio while the smoke was still in the air. You can listen to it below — voices are Joe and the legendary Matt Jones of iHeart Media.

http://https://youtu.be/vyPEIybiYbY

Direct link to the file: https://youtu.be/vyPEIybiYbY

The store got some extra attention, and the “Eruption of Savings” sale was a success.

I thought about Mount Khorasani the other day when I read about a disastrous attempt at newsjacking by a mattress store in San Antonio, Texas.

As a write this, the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is approaching. Someone at Miracle Mattress thought it would be a good idea to have a few laughs.

The result was the “Twin Tower Sale”, where they offered any sized mattress for a twin mattress price.

They recorded a video. Which went viral on the Internet. And not it a good way.

 

VIDEO: Mattress company releases ad for 9/11 sale mimicking twin towers falling

SAN ANTONIO – A Texas mattress company released an ad to promote a special 9/11 sale, but it quickly took an offensive turn when it imitated the World Trade Center Twin Towers falling. Miracle Mattress posted the ad on Facebook promoting its “Twin Towers Sale” for Sept.

 

As they began to realize what they’d stepped in, the local folks tweeted out a half-hearted apology. A day later Mike Bonanno, the store owner, posted a much stronger apology in which he hinted that heads were going to roll in San Antonio.

Although sales data is not available, I’m guessing that they didn’t sell many mattresses.

UPDATE: On Friday, September 9, the store announced that it would be closing indefinitely.

David Meerman Scott, author of Newsjacking: How to Inject your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage, had this to say a few years ago:

Newsjacking is a powerful tool, but you risk unleashing the power in a negative manner that can seriously harm your brand if you exploit something in poor taste like a major storm. Kenneth Cole learned this lesson the hard way when he attempted to newsjack the revolution in Egypt.

The folks at Miracle Mattress fell into one of the most dangerous traps of the form — baldly attempting to exploit a national tragedy for financial gain. They got lots of media attention, but not the kind they wanted.

By contrast “Eruption of Savings” is remembered fondly because nobody died on Mount St. Helens in 2004.

Using current events in your advertising can be a very effective strategy… if you’re careful. Before you post, take a deep breath and think through the implications.

 

 

If You Don’t Have This, It Ain’t an Appointment

It’s easy for us salespeople to kid ourselves.

Sales appointments have a date, time and location
Photo by Feng Yu

What Does “An Appointment” Mean?

When I get to the end of a Revenue Initiative with a television station sales department, I ask each Account Executive to write up and send me their follow-up plans for each client we met with. Among the questions they are to answer: “Do you have a face-to-face appointment with the decision-maker, and if so, when is it?”

Invariably, at least one AE will write back that they have an appointment — “I’m supposed to call the client next week.”

From now on, every time a salesperson tells me something like that, I will immediately email them a link to Matt Sunshine’s blog post “Follow Up Next Week” Does Not Mean You Have an Appointment.

Sunshine, who writes for the Center for Sales Strategy Blog, puts it very plainly in a subhead:

You Don’t Have an Appointment Until the Prospect Has Agreed to a Specific Date and Time.

Then he explains the problem:

‘Follow up next week’ leads to slow sales because ‘follow up next week’ often leads to a prospect saying something like ‘Oh, you know what, this week is not going to work after all, can you call me next week and we will meet.’

He’s right. When you set a real appointment with a prospect, both of you make a commitment — you both agree to show up at the same place at the same time, ready to do business.

“Follow up next week” is, at most, a one-way commitment. The client asks you to commit to an action without agreeing to do anything in return. Nothing is on the client’s calendar, so there’s no deadline.

With a real appointment, the client has something on the calendar. If they’ve agreed to take a look at their budget to see if they can make room for your proposal, or discuss your idea with their partner, they have a deadline to do it.

Heck, even if all they’ve agreed to do is “think about it”, they’ve got to think about it before you show up for the appointment.

For moving a conversation closer to a sale, the ideal appointment with a local client will be face-to-face — the hardest thing for them to ignore is a human body in their office.

When the customer is unable to agree to an in-person meeting, push for a phone appointment, with the customer writing a date and time on their calendar.

If the client isn’t willing to set a firm phone appointment, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the deal is dead. But it is a sign that the client isn’t as interested in the process as you are.

So don’t kid yourself. A real appointment has a date, a time, and a location. Anything less is… something less.

What You Can Learn From “The Pickle Principle” In Action

“Big doors swing on little hinges.” – W. Clement Stone

The $11 Decision
A Small Customer Service Story

I needed some shirts laundered in London, Kentucky. It was the middle of a multi-week road trip, I was in a Hampton Inn, and it was time.

I knew the drill — the laundry form is always in the hotel room closet. Fill it out, bring the laundry to the front desk, and it’ll be back the next day.

I glanced at the form — $4.50 per shirt, two shirts, $9.00 total. I stuffed the shirts in a bag and brought them to the front desk.

They came back the next day, and I didn’t think of them again until I looked over the statement at the end of my stay.

The hotel had charged me $20.

Photo by Andy Dean
Photo by Andy Dean

I sent an email to Michelle Baldwin, the manager of the Hampton Inn London North, asking her to credit me $11.00 for what was —  obviously —  an overcharge.

She wrote back quickly, and as I began to read her response, I felt myself entering my Outraged Consumer state:

“The dry cleaners that we use decide the charge and bill us for that amount, then we bill the guest on their stay. There is a minimum charge of $20.00 that is highlighted on the laundry request sheet. That minimum charge is due to the delivery and pick up.”

This was outrageous, I thought. The dry cleaner, in cahoots with the hotel, had pulled a fast one on me. I was 2000 miles away, with no way to look at what I’d signed.

In my mind, I started writing an angry retort. Until I read further.

“I will go ahead and adjust account to reflect only the $9.00 because I know you weren’t aware of the policy. I will also send you a new receipt reflecting the change. Thank you for staying with us and I hope you enjoyed your stay.”

A couple of weeks later I was back in the Hampton Inn London North. After I checked in, I opened the room closet and took a peek at the laundry request slip.

The $20 minimum was right there on the ticket, in letters plenty big enough for me to see.

I’d missed it.

The hotel had been right the whole time. I was 100% in the wrong.

Photo by closertoinfinity
Photo by closertoinfinity

I thought of Bob Farrell and the pickle.

The Pickle Principle

Farrell, who ran the very successful Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlor chain, used to tell the story of a letter he received from a customer. The customer complained that had asked for an extra pickle to go with his hamburger… and the waitress tried to sell it to him.

The letter launched what he called The Pickle Principle:

I had a chance meeting with [the letter writer]  years later and I thanked him in person for his letter because it became the “war cry” of our young company, “Give ’em the Pickle.” When something happens with a customer and you’re not sure what to do? “Give ’em the Pickle!” Do what it takes to make things right!

Michelle Baldwin at the Hampton Inn could have just pointed out that the mistake was mine, and that she’d had to pay the dry cleaner in full. She could have told me to bug off.

Instead, she took the hit to make a customer happy.

The $11 refund was a small gesture… a pickle. I could’ve handled the loss, and so could she.

But big doors swing on little hinges. With this $11 investment, a hotel gained a raving fan.

I don’t often make it back to London, Kentucky — but when I’m there, I’ll go out of my way to stay at the Hampton Inn London North.

[reminder]What’s the most memorable small gesture you’ve made for a customer? What’s the most memorable gesture someone’s made for you?[/reminder]

Chic-fil-A Dumps Its Agency: Lessons For Sellers Like You

Last month, after 22 years and millions of sandwiches, Chic-fil-A fired its agency.

Photo by James Peragine
Photo by James Peragine

This came as a shock to many.

The Richards Group introduced the “Eat Mor Chikin” cows in 1995. As AdAge reports, Chic-fil-A has become the top chicken chain in the United States, with $6 billion in annual sales.

In spite of all that, Chic-fil-A fired their agency. Understandably, Richards Group executives seemed stunned. Again, from AdAge:

“It’s not very often that a campaign this successful results in an agency being fired. I don’t know that there’s much precedence for it,” Stan Richards, principal and founder, The Richards Group, said in an interview. “It is a little hard to understand, and in many ways it’s the saddest occurrence in my long, professional life.”

For all of us in the media sales game, there are some lessons.

1. If you are working with your station’s biggest agency, your income is at the mercy of the clients that agency represents. Your biggest biller may be one phone call away from being a much smaller part of your paycheck.

2. No matter how good your account list looks right now, stuff happens. Marketing directors get fired. Successful companies hire new people who have other ideas. Owners sell their businesses.

You have no control over any of that. You do control your activity.

  • You can build relationships with the local clients your agencies represent. Agencies get fired, and if the only person you know is the media buyer, you’re in trouble.
  • You can look for new business every day. Here are several ways to find leads.

Or you can sit on your list and assume everything’s going to be fine forever.

It’s your call. Will you do what it takes to build a sustainable sales career?

Or are you a chikin?