I’ve been noticing a bit of a trend lately.  I even stepped back, counted to 10 and asked other execs their spin before showing up with my soapbox to complain.

There’s this maneuver where you call a prospect and after you leave a voicemail, you immediately email referencing the voicemail.

First of all, congrats because you have now pissed off a prospect on two fronts inside of two minutes and B ( I meant to say that) Why?

I’ve spoken with sales people on this one and I’m told that the feeling is that execs don’t check voicemail. That’s BS! The correct answer is, some do, some don’t. And just to satisfy my inner wise ass . . . if you truly believe that, why not skip the foreplay and just send the email?

Other sales professionals tell me that this is a part of being “persistent” and execs dig persistence. Can we all take a knee on this one for a sec. Is it possible, that perhaps, we could be (am I sugar coating enough) confusing persistence with being a pain in the ass?

Antidote For Annoying

Stop thinking in terms of a cold calling “two step” and think time phased multiple touch. Truth be told, I love the idea of changing it up and contacting me via email after a phone attempt. I even like the idea of you calling me, then mailing me something, reaching out on Linkedin etc. That’s smart. Why? Because everyone has their preferred venue of communication and we should never limit ourselves by only embracing one. Just give your messaging a chance to breathe.

And please don’t take this as an invitation not to have urgency, just know when you might be in need of a little “take it down a notch”.

The real shame here is that you might have the greatest solution to a prospect’s biggest challenge.  If you serve it up with a side order of “pest”, everybody loses as you get sent into the wonderful world of “delete”.

So that being said, let’s say you call a prospect and you leave a message. How long do you wait so you don’t “two step” into a pile of “back off”?

Please weigh in with your opinion!