The prevalence of voice mail has been the quiet, unnoticed revolution  of the recent past.  If you think about it, voice mail even wasn’t around 20 years ago and now it’s the first thing you set up when you get a new telephone system or cell phone.  You might even have a relationship with a friend, colleague, or prospect that revolves around voice mail –   the kind where you communicate by leaving each other messages.

That being said, how good is your voice mail message?  There are a lot of strategies about what to say on your voice mail, but that shouldn’t be your concern right now.  Here my question to you:

How do you sound on your voice mail?

As humans, we gather a lot of communication information from the body language and voice tone of someone speaking to us.  Because we can’t see someone over the phone, the tone of our voice becomes even more important.  Just because our listener is hearing a pre-recorded voice mail message doesn’t take away the value of our vocal tone – in fact, it makes it more important!

I’ve listened to the voice mail messages of close friends, people who I know are warm and caring people, and it sounds like they are emotionally dead on their voice mail.  If I was a potential customer calling them up for the first time, what would my impression be?  Not too good.

Your voice mail message is often someone’s first impression of you.  Here are 5 steps to having a great incoming voice mail message.

1. Write out the 3–5 impressions you want to leave on a caller.  Do you want them to think you are enthusiastic, professional, warm, sincere, competent, excited, etc.?
2. Map out the words you are going to say in your message.  Either write out a short script on a piece of paper or rehearse it in your head.
3. Put a really big smile on your face (people will be able to “hear” your smile when they call and we like people who are smiling).
4. Record the message – keep recording it until you are happy with how it sounds.
5. Ask a trusted friend or colleague to call you and listen to the message.  Get their honest feedback and make appropriate adjustments

It might seem like a big process for a very small matter, but it’s a very important small  matter.  In the end, it will only take a few extra minutes to have a great incoming message that could be on your voice mail for months.  You know you have a great message when you have someone say, “Wow! What a great message.  I like calling you and hearing your voice mail.”