The Golden Answer to Get Prospects to Call Back

I recently took a trip to the San Juan Islands.  Instead of driving north and taking a ferry to get there we decided to take a float plane on Kenmore Air.  It was so amazing to fly low enough to look down and truly appreciate the beauty of the water and landscape in the Northwest.  It was like seeing the view from the other side---another perspective.

I have been experiencing something similar over the past year.  Instead of being in a role where I call on executives to sell my services, I am the one getting the calls now.  I have had an epiphany that I would like to share with the world in hopes of improving the success rate of cold callers around the globe. 

Drum roll please...

I will call you back if you 1. acknowledge you know my business, 2. you can solve a problem that I am currently facing, and 3. you have a friendly and genuine approach. 

That is it!  Short and simple. Only three ingredients in this recipe.

If all three ingredients are not present I will say "DELETE" into my phone system to erase the message for eternity. 

Just today I received a call from a company that had one out of three...the friendly voice.  What was missing is he did not reference that he knew my business and what I did, and did not position his product in the context of solving a problem I am facing. Instead he told me that he wanted to send me a sample of his product, which I am familiar with, but I would have to call him back to get him the particulars on where to send it.  (A quick glance at my webiste woudl give him "the particulars.")  You can probably already guess what my answer to his voicemail was..

"DELETE!"

Maybe this was the fish hook sales tactic he heard about 25 years ago that he is applying in the attempt of getting the prospect to call back. The sad part is even though I am familiar with his product and there really is a chance it could be relevant to my business today or at some point I am not going to take my time to call him back just to give him info that is in the public domain.