Is it a good idea to leave sales-oriented Voice Mail Messages (VMM)? At High Probability Selling, we advise againt it, since your potential customers will react in one of the following ways, none of them positive!

1. The prospect will hear your name and company, and, not recognizing either, will delete your VMM without listening to the rest of your message. Only that negative impression of your name, your voice and your company will remain in his/her memory.

2. The prospect will hear your pitch and delete it, because s/he is too busy to think about your offer now. Only that negative impression of your name, your voice and your company will remain in his/her memory.

3. The prospect will hear your one-way communication and be frustrated, because there is no opportunity to ask any questions. Then, s/he will hit "delete," and click to the next message without trying to call you back. Only that negative impression of your name, your voice and your company will remain in his/her memory.

4. The prospect may not like the sound of your voice or your pitch, and immediately delete your VMM. Only that negative impression of your name, your voice and your company will remain in his/her memory.

5. The prospect may listen to your VMM and be interested, but too busy to call you back. Eventually, s/he will be frustrated and/or annoyed that you did not call again, or be faced with a potential phone tag scenario. Only that negative impression of your name, your voice and your company will remain in his/her memory.

6. The prospect will listen to your VMM, stop what s/he is doing, and call you immediately. Approximately 1 out of 120 VMMs will result in a call back, and an average of 1/3 of them will result in a new customer. Therefore, without actually talking with them, salespeople that leave VMMs alienate the other 119 prospects.

Is it a good idea to leave sales-oriented Voice Mail Messages (VMM)? Our research indicates that salespeople who leave voice mail messages produce an average annual sales volume that is twenty-nine percent (29%) lower than the average sales volume of all salespeople in their companies.

In High Probability Prospecting (HPP), we do not leave Voice Mail Messages.

HPP is about a series of extremely brief human-to-human interactions characterized by mutual trust and respect. The process gets better sales results during the first round of calls, and increasingly better sales results with each subsequent round of calls.

The primary strategy of the HPP process is to contact a highly targeted list of prospects every four weeks, to determine whether the prospect wants what we have to offer now, or not. If not, we quickly accept any negative response and leave a positive impression that builds with time.