Top 3 Ways to Get Your Phone Calls Returned

By Tom Searcy

Chasing sucks. Prospects, clients, people who owe you information, drawings, money. I hate having to chase. Most of us have to do it–A LOT. Most of the time we go into the bottomless pit of voice mail hell to be tortured by the digital demons therein. Here is how to get your phone call returned more often. There are no perfect strategies that guarantee 100% response; even the IRS auditors don’t get 100% return calls. But you can do much better if you follow this approach.

Quick note: This skill focuses on getting a returned call from someone you have already met. Prospecting is a different skill.

Step 1: Tell the person what you want.
Calls that say “Call me when you get a chance” are relegated to someone’s “B” or “C” priority list. (When was the last time you were working your “B” priority list?). If your voice mail says “Give me a call back, I have a couple of things I want to review with you,” then you are never going on that person’s radar of must-do priorities.

Tell the person you are calling what you want right at the beginning of the call. Make certain your voice mail is not longer than 40 seconds- they won’t listen to it. What do you tell them you want? A document, a phone call, an email, a piece of information- whatever it is that you want, ask for it and ask for it fast. I’ll give examples below.

Step 2: Speak in terms of time.
Tell them:
* How long the returned call will take. (3 minutes, 11 minutes, “less than a cup of coffee” are all good increments)
* Must-talk-by date and time. Your message needs to say, “This call has to happen by….” And then give the date and time. End of day tomorrow, Friday by noon, this afternoon before 3:45pm. Success goes up if the window is later than 4 hours from now and no later than 24 hours from the point of your voice mail message you are leaving. If, by some miracle, you are actually talking to an administrative support person, the time issue is the same, just ask to book the appointment.

Step 3: Declare consequences.
To create urgency you need to declare consequences. Notice I used the word “consequences” not “threats.” Consequences are the natural and understandable outcomes of an action or inaction. You are telling the person you are reaching out too that if he does not call back to you this will happen. Factual and without emotion. Here are some approaches:

* Negative Option – If you do not hear back, you will assume the answer is “no” and you will act accordingly.
* Time expiration – If you do not hear back, time will expire on the offer and what has been offered will be rescinded.
* Delay of Progress – If you do not hear back, then the proposed date for start or end will not be attainable and will be delayed.
* Positive Option – If you do not hear back you will take that as tacit approval and will move forward with the previously agreed upon actions.

Examples:
* “Bill, this is Tom from XYZ. I need the final drawings we discussed by noon tomorrow in my email or I will not be able to honor the delivery date of next Friday. Please give me a 30 second call when you have sent them to confirm. Thanks.”

* “Sue, this is Joe from PDQ. I need confirmation of the wire transfer by end of business today or we will not ship. Please give me a call back by 4:00pm to ensure shipment. Thanks.”

* “John, this is Deirdre from Pinnacle. I only need 3 minutes to get the details from you I need to give you the proposal you requested. If we connect by noon today, you’ll have my proposal before you pack up to go home. Thanks.

* “Frank, this is Alex from Acme. A call no longer than a cup of coffee will sort out the issues you raised about the proposal. We have been out of touch for over a week- that usually means bad things. If I don’t hear back from you by end of day tomorrow, I’ll take that as a definite “no” and assume you are not interested in the proposal. Thanks.”

What you should notice is that
1) This approach takes a forceful and direct tone, rather than a subservient and weak tone.

2) The messages are short. People rarely listen to long, detailed voice mails. They scan, much like we scan our emails. They store the things they intend to listen to later and delete everything else. They rarely get to what they say and eventually it solves itself or they delete it.

3) Action requests, time frames and consequences are clear.

Tom Searcy is a nationally recognized author, speaker, and the foremost expert in large account sales. Tom is the author of RFPs Suck! How to Master the RFP System Once and for All to Win Big Business and the co-author of Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company.

Leap of the Week:

In order to make this exercise easier,write a mini script for your phone messages. Leave dates, times and specific requests blank so that it can be re-used. Have it in front of you when you are making your call so that you don’t stumble and veer off on a tangent and end up on the “B” priority list. Be prepared and get better results!

Throwing Caution To The Winds

I am often asked whether entrepreneurship comes easy to me.

The answer is yes and no.

Yes, the ideas flow easy. They just come.

And no, the things that are built from the ideas most often are only the product of struggle, and sometimes fear, with the terribly difficult task of realizing what one great sculptor called it, the shape within the stone.

The shape often doesn’t reveal itself within the stone that harbors it that easily as the idea which came from nothing did.

The shape within the stone, which is the predecessor of the actual form of the idea in the things which comprise the enterprise, the thing in itself, the thing which makes the enterprise come alive, the thing which calls out its uniqueness, which I am calling the shape within the stone, the face of it if you will, that entity most often takes some muscling time, some sweat too, some working with it without most of time any real clues that indicate which way to go, right or left, or to just stop and take a breath because if you push too hard you’ll probably just ruin it before its time.

I know this must sound terribly complicated, but it’s actually not.

Saying it is, but the doing of it has a natural flow to it.

Much like lifting weights.  Or doing sit ups.

In one moment the weights just feel like dumb stuff on the end of a stick.

At other times they are transformed into an enterprise of sorts, when the exact form of your body, your shoulders, your arms, your calves and thighs and your feet, and of course, your neck, all combine with your mind, and what was only moments before simply dead sullen weight suddenly appears as a luminously exciting idea, the idea of man, and of form, and of intention, and of a moments’ indefatigable honorable breath.

Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Feel the swell of it.  The sweat of it.  The intellectual rigor of it.  The drama of it.  The sudden wonderful  elegance of it.  And then it’s up!

Yes, that’s what entrepreneurship seems like to me when everything is going really well.

Come Dream With Me.  I’ll tell you all about it.

LeapTV Episode #45: Connecting Brands With Blogs

BRANDING: The importance of connecting brands with blogs. MARKETING: The evolution of advertising and marketing online. PERFORMANCE TIP OF THE WEEK: www.BizSugar.com

To view this video online, click here:

Seeing Your Emotional Blindspots

By Martha Beck

Most of us have such psychological “blind spots,” aspects of our personalities that are obvious to everyone but ourselves. There’s the mother who complains, “I don’t know why little Horace is so violent—I’ve smacked him for it a thousand times.” Or your gorgeous friend who believes she has all the seductive allure of a dung beetle. Or the coworker who complains that, mysteriously, every single person he’s ever worked for develops the identical delusion that he’s shiftless and incompetent. As we roll our eyes at such obliviousness, some of us might think, What about me? Do I have blind spots, and if so, what are they?

You can find the answers if you care to—or more accurately, if you dare to. This is the roughest mission you can undertake: a direct seek-and-destroy attack on your own pockets of denial. Denial is far trickier than simple ignorance. It isn’t the inability to perceive information but the astonishing ability to perceive information while automatically refusing to allow it into consciousness. Our minds don’t perform this magical trick without reason. We only “go blind” to information that is so troubling, so frightening, or so opposed to what we believe that to absorb it would shatter our view of ourselves and the world. On the other hand, becoming fully conscious of our perceptions—simply feeling what we feel and knowing what we know—is the very definition of awakening. It creates a virtually indestructible foundation for lasting relationships, successful endeavors, and inner peace. Hunting down your blind spots is a bumpy adventure, but it can lead to sublime destinations.

Identifying your own blind spots is an exercise in paradox, because if you’re aware of a problem, it doesn’t count. It’s like tracking the wind: You can’t observe the thing itself, only its effects. The tracks that a blind spot leaves are repetitive experiences that seem inexplicable, the things that make you exclaim, Why does this always happen to me?

For example:

1. You keep having the same relationship with different people.
All of Macy’s friends are “takers,” emotional parasites who drain her and give nothing back. Steve’s three ex-wives all had extramarital affairs. No one in Corrine’s life—her children, her coworkers, her mother—ever responds to her feelings.

These people don’t know that they carefully choose friends and lovers who match certain psychological profiles or that their behavior elicits similar reactions from almost everyone they encounter. It would take you about five minutes with Macy to see that she’s so self-effacing she actually resists normal friendships, gravitating only toward takers. Steve’s friends will tell you he falls for women who remind him of his mother, an enthusiastic practitioner of promiscuous sex. Corrine is so reserved that even the most intuitive people can’t read her moods. All three have gone through life blaming their relationship patterns on other people’s shortcomings.

2. Your luck never changes.
Over years of life-coaching, I’ve become more and more convinced that we create our own “luck.” I’m not saying that there’s no such thing as blind fate, but I am saying that choice is far more powerful than chance in determining the pattern of our failures and successes over time.

Many of my clients have lost jobs in the recent economic downturn, but those who were previously doing well in their careers are finding ways to learn from their experience and bounce back. Those who complained of relentless bad luck before being laid off have slid further downhill. A client I’ll call Shirley recently complained, “When my sister was fired, I thought we’d bond because we both had the same bad luck. But then she started her own business, so it turns out that for her getting fired was good luck. Just like always, she gets all the breaks.” As I punted Shirley to a psychotherapist, I wondered if they train Seeing Eye dogs for people with her kind of blindness. If so, Shirley will almost certainly develop a dog allergy.

3. People consistently describe you in a way that doesn’t fit your self-image.
If tracking patterns in love and luck isn’t enough to reveal your blind spots, there’s another way to go after them. You just have to notice what people tell you about yourself—the things you have always cleverly ignored or routinely discounted. Complete the following sentences as accurately as you can, and you might be closing in on a truth you haven’t fully acknowledged.

• “People are always telling me that I’m…”
• “I get a lot of compliments about…”
• “When my friends or family members are angry with me, they say that…”
• “People often thank me for…”

If you heartily agree with all the information that pops up in response to these phrases, you’ve simply reinforced an accurate self-concept by recalling times when others have validated your perceptions. But if any of the descriptions seem strange, incongruous, or flat-out false, consider the possibility that your image of yourself may not be accurate—and almost certainly doesn’t correspond to what other people perceive. By the way, you may well discover that you’re blind to your positive characteristics as well as negative ones. Some people (especially women) may be so biased against being arrogant that they overlook or dismiss their own best qualities.

Getting Rid of Your Blind Spots

If the evidence suggests that you have blind spots, you can try to eliminate them with a simple mindfulness exercise. You already know what’s in your blind spot; it’s just that looking at it makes you extremely uncomfortable. Only by being very gentle with yourself will you become able to tolerate more awareness. So as kindly as you can, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What am I afraid to know?
2. What’s the one thing I least want to accept?
3. What do I sense without knowing?

Whatever comes into your mind, do nothing about it. Not yet. If you feel even a hint of some new realization, you’ve taken a huge step. More insights will arrive soon, and the kinder you are to yourself over time, the more likely you are to experience major breakthroughs.

Hunting for your own blind spots, like trying to examine the back of your own head, is much less efficient than soliciting feedback from others. This process combines the attractions of strip-dancing and skydiving, making you feel completely exposed yet energized by the sense that you could be catastrophically injured. Ever since I saw that first printout from my group psychology class, I’ve known how valuable honest feedback can be, how much precious time it can save in my struggle to awaken. I still have to force myself to go looking for it, but when I do I almost always benefit.

Leap of the Week: For a week, ask for blind-spot feedback from one person a day, never asking the same person twice. Just say it: “Is there anything about me that I don’t seem to see but is obvious to you?” You’ll probably want to start with your nearest and dearest, but don’t stop there. Surprisingly, a group of relative strangers is often the best mirror you can find. I’ve worked with many groups of people who, just minutes after meeting, could offer one another powerful insights. Like the emperor in his new clothes, we often believe that our illusions are confirmed by the silence of people who are simply too polite to mention the obvious. Breaking the courtesy barrier by asking for the truth can change your life faster than anything else I’ve ever experienced.

Handling Feedback

Any feedback is scary. The kind that addresses topics so uncomfortable you’ve stuffed them into a blind spot can be almost intolerable. That’s why, before you even ask for an honest appraisal, you have to have a strategy in place for processing it.

1. Just say thanks.
When others discuss your blind spots, you may have a violent emotional reaction. Remember: All of the upheaval is a product of your own mind. You do not have to dissuade or contradict the other person in order to feel calm. Instead of launching into an argument, just say thanks. Then imagine yourself tucking away the other person’s comments in a box. You can take them out later, examine them, decide whether or not they’re useful.

2. Dismiss useless feedback.
There’s real feedback, and then there’s the slop that’s merely a reflection of the speaker’s dysfunction. Fortunately, you can tell these things apart because they feel very different. Useless feedback is nonspecific and vague, and has no action implication. It demotivates, locking us in confusion and shame. Useful feedback is specific and focused. It can sting like the dickens, but it leads to a clear course of action; when you hear it you feel a tiny lightbulb going on upstairs.

“No one could ever love you” is useless feedback. “You project a lot of hostility, and it scares people” gives you information that you need to make healthy changes. It’s safe to assume that useless feedback is coming from people who are themselves shame-bound and blind. The best thing to do with it is dismiss it and focus on the information your gut tells you is valuable.

3. Absorb the truth.
Neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote about a man who, virtually blind from early childhood, had an operation that restored his sight when he was middle-aged. Though the man’s eyes now took in visual information, his brain wasn’t used to making sense of it. He couldn’t differentiate between a man and a gorilla until he touched a nearby statue of a gorilla; then the difference became immediately clear.

This confused state is similar to what you’ll feel when you’ve accepted feedback about what lies in your blind spots. You’re not used to this new set of eyes, this novel image of self. I remember feeling incredibly clumsy just after the revelation that I can be very dominant. I felt a little as if I were talking while listening to headphones: I couldn’t correctly gauge how I was coming across to others. Slowly, asking repeatedly for feedback, I began to see my own behavior more clearly. My false image of self gave way to a more accurate model, and I learned to avoid accidentally stomping on people with my conversational style.

Deliberately, methodically eliminating your blind spots simply intensifies the natural process we all endure as life teaches us its rough-and-tumble lessons. If you undertake this accelerated journey, you will learn much more in much less time (albeit with a few more scrapes and bruises) and achieve a deeper level of self-knowledge than you otherwise would have.

Just observing the truth about yourself without judgment or spin will begin to change you. It’s well-nigh impossible to see yourself more and more clearly while continuing to act without integrity, or in contradiction to your life’s real purpose. Eventually you may come to see what Marianne Williamson meant when she said, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.” To see your truest nature is to recognize that you have a capacity for goodness far greater than you ever dreamed, with all the awesome responsibility that entails. It’s a difficult proposition, but in the end the view makes it all worthwhile.

Thank you Martha for a great article reminding all of us Leapers that we truly are the biggest blocks in each of our own road trips!

The Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund Adopt-a-School Project

Hello Leapers! Join the LeapZone team in supporting this very important cause…

If you were part of a community — perhaps a business, perhaps raising a family, perhaps both — and you discovered that children in your local schools were going to school every day without breakfast, or warm clothing in the winter, would you want to help? Of course you would.

Well, for many children in Metro Vancouver inner-city schools, the unthinkable is reality, and The Vancouver Sun wants to change that.

The Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund, the Sun’s charity, recently launched an Adopt-a-School project and in a series of daily stories now through Christmas it is telling the compelling, often humbling stories of these schools, and of the children who need help.

The project had its start with a story by The Sun’s education writer Janet Steffenhagen who wrote about a heart-felt plea from a teacher at an inner-city school in Vancouver.

“From where I sit every day, things are not okay,” Carrie Gelson wrote in a letter she addressed simply to the people of Vancouver.

“I can teach these children. Love them. Advocate for them. Stock my room with great books. Give away parts of my lunch.

“I can build community partnerships. I can build relationships with families. I can watch others around me doing the same thing. But until I know you are helping, too, it will remain not good enough.”

The story struck a chord in the community and offers of help poured in. The Sun realized that people want to help those in need in the their own communities and so the idea of Adopt-a-School was born.

“The story produced an outpouring of support from you, our readers. So we hope to harness your generosity and help kids in other inner-city schools,” Kevin Bent, president and publisher of the Pacific Newspaper Group and chairman of The Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund said in a letter to readers. “Every dollar raised from you will be matched by the Children’s Fund.

“As you begin preparations to celebrate the holiday season that is upon us, we hope you will find a way to help us bring a little warmth and joy to these children and set them on the road to a fulfilling and productive life.”

The Sun kicked off Adopt-a-School on November 12 and stories are running daily in the paper and online chronicling the needs of kids and of the businesses and individuals that are stepping forward to help them.

The money being raised goes a long way. All administration costs for The Children’s Fund are absorbed by the newspaper so every dollar donated goes to help kids.

And this year, The Children’s Fund is matching dollar-for-dollar every donation made to the Adopt-a-School program. So for every dollar you donate, double that goes to help kids in need.

We encourage you to take action, because a little goes a long way. We can all make a difference!

Want to help brighten the lives of some of Greater Vancouver’s neediest children?

Here’s how you can:

“Like” The Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund on Facebook.

Go to vansunkidsfund on Facebook and hit the like button. For every like Telus donates $1 to Adopt-a-School and The Children’s Fund matches that. So every like = a $2 donation.

Check out the Children’s Fund web site at vansunkidsfund.ca for more ways to donate and learn about the needs of children in inner-city schools.

Adopt-a-School Donations of New Items

The Adopt-a-School project is aimed at collecting financial donations as well as providing a conduit so readers can immediately donate goods such as coats and shoes and gloves directly to those schools and students that need them most.  For information on how to donate new items, contact Adopt-a-School at adoptaschool@vancouversun.com or call Adopt-a-School coordinator Kathy Anderson at 604-605-2654.

Find the Vancouver Sun Children’s Fund:

On Twitter: @vansunkidsfund

On Facebook: facebook.com/vansunkidsfund

On Flickr: flickr.com/vansunkidsfund

On YouTube: youtube.com/vansunkidsfund