New York — There's an art to leaving a voicemail, one that many small business owners need to learn.
Almost everyone with an answering machine knows the painful experience of listening to business people rambling through seemingly interminable messages, stumbling because they haven't figured out what to say and garbling phone numbers and e-mail addresses as well. It's not the way to get new business or nurture existing relationships.
Business owners who've fine-tuned their voicemail speeches say keeping messages short, bright and to the point will make it more likely you'll get people to listen, and will stop them from erasing you into oblivion. Some more advice: Consider whether you'll actually be more effective by using a medium other than voicemail, such as e-mail or fax.
Margo Carmichael Lester, a corporate communications consultant in Carrboro, N.C., who deals with busy people including real estate agents, said, "They're not going to sit there and listen to a lot of messages nor are they going to return messages of people who they think are going to waste their time."
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Ms. Lester and other business owners say the answer is to know before you pick up the phone what you're going to say if you end up leaving a message. Ms. Lester also said a good message has the most critical information at the very start, including name and phone number — that way, if the recipient replays the message, they won't have to listen to the end for a contact number.
Stephanie Klein, president of Klein Creative Communications in Brooklyn, N.Y., says half of her calls are in search of new prospects — cold calls, as they're known — so she makes sure she's short and to the point in her messages. And she leaves her phone number at the end as well as the beginning of the message — that's "the thing that makes me, as a small business owner, more likely to call someone back myself when I get a voicemail."
It's not just the content of your message that you need to work on; your delivery is just as important.
Small business owners "need to make use of their vocal pitch, articulation, volume and the rate of their speech," said Ed Barks, who trains public speakers. "Paying attention to all those factors is essential if a small business owner has any hope of capturing the fancy of their attendant at the other end of the line."
That means varying the way you speak while you're speaking, said Mr. Barks, president of Berryville, Va.-based Barks Communications and author of The Truth About Public Speaking: The Three Keys to Great Presentations. He recommends business owners aim to sound "interesting and interested."
But don't overdo sounding bright. A big pet peeve for Michael Shepley is what he calls the smarmy approach, a message left by a business caller who tries to sound like he or she is Mr. Shepley's best friend (of course, they've never met). These messages often start with, "Mike, how are you doing today." And, as Mr. Shepley, who has a public relations firm in New York, noted, "they call me Mike and they don't even know if I like 'Michael' or 'Mike.' "
Mr. Shepley also advises other business owners to slow down. "Say your phone number slowly — I can't tell you how many people have zipped through it," he said.
If you think about it, you really know what not to do in a voicemail message — you've heard enough on your own answering machine that had you rolling your eyes. You just need to be more conscious of how you sound in your own messages.
Mr. Barks suggests practising what you want to say.
"Don't be afraid to ask a colleague how you sound," he said. "Tape record yourself so you can get a picture of whether you're coming across as Oprah Winfrey or Elmer Fudd."
But maybe you shouldn't automatically assume that leaving a voicemail is a good idea. Maybe voicemails aren't the best way to reach all of your prospects or customers — some might be inclined to hit the delete button no matter who's talking.
Joshua Schneck did some market research for a client of his public relations firm, and found that the client's own customers didn't want voicemails — "they liked old-fashioned mail ... [that] you can put on your desk and look at when you want."
"They certainly have their purposes, but I think you can really create a lot of ill will" by leaving the wrong kind of message, said Mr. Schneck, president of Snow Communications in Minneapolis.
Richard Laermer believes e-mail is a better route than voicemail.
"We're in a digital world right now," said Laermer, CEO of RLM Public Relations in Los Angeles. He pointed out that e-mails are read and dealt with quickly, while with voicemails — particularly bad ones — "they go on and on and you're wondering, is there a point here?"
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