Do You Give Good Phone?

How well do you use voicemail?

A lot of clients that I’ve been talking to recently find themselves ridiculously pressed for time. Perhaps even more than normal for a wholesaler.

Maybe it has something (everything?) to do with the economy improving.

They lament that they’d like to be able to reach more advisors and they feel compelled to want to reach these advisors live via phone. And, because they would like to reach them in person, they plan to do the dialing during regular business hours.

Then they get busy and don’t call.

Sound familiar?

I often suggest to these clients that they should get better at the use of voicemail.

Now this may sound obvious to you, but a lot of clients that feel like they must reach the client live are overlooking the fact that just leaving the message is letting the broker feel the love.

Use voicemail messages to:

Let the broker know that you reached out to follow up on the hypothetical illustration that was sent earlier in the day.

Let the broker know that you’ve followed up on a literature fulfillment order that went out last week.

Let the broker know that you appreciate that last ticket that was written.

All of these can be done efficiently through the use of voicemail.

As a matter of fact, what I suggest you do is use voicemail during the hours when you know positively that the phone number you have dialed will roll to voicemail, i.e. at 6:00 in the morning or at 8:00 at night.

You can hit 10, 20, 30 different people in the course of one session, spread lots of love, and at the same time not have to get bogged down in a conversation that may take up three, five, ten minutes.

Now granted, there will be certain circumstances where you don’t get the power of the same touch that you have with a live conversation, and this tactic is not designed to replace all direct contacts. Yet more times than not it’s simply the act of the broker hearing your voice that gets the message through that you’re on top of your business, that you’re trying to follow up and stay connected.