History:

• Inquiry from our Website 12/13/11 @ 3:39 PM
• First voice mail to him 4 minutes later.

• A number of other voicemails exchanged
• Connected with him on his cell phone 12/14/11 @ 2:25 PM

I want to highlight a couple of very important checkpoints to use in your calls

The Voicemail

• Always add some piece of yourself – sense of humor, callback to something that was shared earlier, interesting question…
• Keep it short – speak slowly

The Conversational Call

• After you say who you are – pause to let the person acknowledge they know who you are before launching into conversation
• Always ask if this is a good time – do you have a minute right now?
• Thank them for their time and then open the door for them to speak!
• Take notes as he/she talks!  Write everything.
• I knew from the inquiry that his show was Thursday night – I asked to confirm – I like to assume nothing!  And this is another opportunity to show concern/care. Plus he tells me his whole conference itinerary!
• Make a connection to anything you know about his company
• Ask who they had in the past – take notes.  This will help you decide if they are in your budget.  They take 110 people on a cruise they can afford us!
• Make the bold promise to deliver a proposal – commit to a time – “When you get to work tomorrow”!
• Find a place for something funny, off topic, complimentary if possible – I chose his outgoing voicemail because it is just hilarious.  And it worked – connected and got him to laugh and tell me something about himself!
• Control the conversation by coming back to business – ask him what his role is in this event and if anyone from his team has seen us before.  This is great feedback for discovering his budgeting and feedback on if your online presence was enough to bring them on board.

In summary… this one didn’t go perfectly.  I interrupted him once when he was talking about the company and that is a big NO NO.  I got him to thank me twice, tell me it would be “great” to hear from me in the morning with a presentation, got him to laugh, talk about himself, tell me his role in the event, and find out if they had seen us before.  Not bad for 3:50!

My educated guess is that we’ll book this show. It’s gone well so far.  I’ll use a video proposal which I will make tonight. It will take 20-minutes of time because it’s 90% done.

Study this checklist… see how it works into your own natural conversational rhythm and modify what you normally do to make it work.  This call could have gone a dozen different ways – and this template is what I always follow.  I make sure to hit all of the checkpoints as quickly as possible.  I also listen to his speaking patterns, rhythm, pacing, and try to match that as best I can while still maintaining control of the conversation.

Comments?  Question?  Box below and we’ll dig deeper!