Phone Game Part 5: Your Voicemail Can Be Your Wingman

This is part five of my series on phone game. Click here to view my previous articles.

Your voicemail greeting can provide a surprising amount of information about you. What you say, how you say it, and how long it takes you to say it can all DHV or DLV you. A good voicemail greeting can convey value, humour, preselection, create jealousy…the possibilities are only limited by your imagination. It’s like having a wingman secretary to take your calls when you’re not around! A lot of PUAs overlook the usefulness of their voicemail greeting, which is why it gets it’s very own article here. As with my previous articles, everything mentioned below is a guideline only. These rules are not set in stone! You have to adapt and calibrate your actions as you go.

Your voicemail greeting (the thing that says “I’m not here, leave a message, blah blah blah”) can be used to convey all sorts of things about yourself. If your avatar is something of the “cool, successful businessman” variety, then you can use it to create the impression that you are a very important person in a business sense (which usually implies that you have access to financial resources – a DHV). If you’re a sarcastic, fun, party-all-night kind of guy, then you can use it to convey a sense of fun or cleverness (both are DHVs). Or you can just use it to convey sexuality and preselection which, needless to say, are massive DHVs.

Here are some examples of possible voicemail greetings:

If you have business contacts calling you a lot on your cell, you are kind of stuck with only a few options. If you can get away with it without anyone asking any questions, make your greeting sound incredibly professional, as if you’re worth a million bucks. Make up a name and say something like:

“You’ve reached [insert full name here], I’m not available to take your call. If this is an emergency, please contact Samantha, she’ll know how to get a hold of me.”

And if anyone asks who Samantha is, you can always just say “Oh she’s someone that works with/for me. You won’t ever need to deal with her though.”

Something like this can convey a lot of value. If you are a person who has someone that people can contact to get a hold of you in an emergency (note that it is implied that the important people will already know her number), then you must be an important person. The implications of this fact can be a great subtle DHV.

If you don’t have to worry too much about your boss or clients calling your cell, you can really go crazy with it.

My old greeting used to say “Hey you’ve reached Kevin’s voicemail. Leave your name and measurements and I’ll get back to you.”

One of my wings has one that says “You got the voicemail. Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you. Leave me a sexy message and I’ll get back to you sooner.”

You would be surprised by some of the ridiculous messages we have each received. The trick here is NOT TO SOUND LIKE A DOUCHE. A buddy of mine has one that says “Hey you reached Chris. I either couldn’t make it to the phone or I didn’t want to talk to you. Figure it ouuuuutttt.” Now, if the delivery wasn’t just right on this (or any of the ones above, really) he would sound like quite a douchebag. But he has just the right amount of humor and silliness in his voice to make you laugh when you hear it, so it’s perfectly fine.

This is again a DHV because you are showing a good sense of humor while simultaneously conveying sexuality, and if nothing else, sets you apart from the average guy. If they laugh, you’ve got it right. If they leave you a sexy message, you’re doing it right. If they tell you they hate your voicemail, then you should seriously consider changing it (calibrate on whether she REALLY hates it, or if she’s just shit-testing you). If you get a voicemail from your target that says “You need to change that stupid voicemail thing” in a legitimately annoyed voice, you should probably take that advice.

Of course, the absolute best thing to do in my opinion is to get your wing-girl or a female friend with a sexy voice to record a greeting for you. My current greeting says:

“You’ve reached Kevin’s cell phone. He’s a little TIED UP at the moment *giggle giggle* leave a message and he’ll get back to you when he’s FREE.”

And because I love you guys, you can listen to it here (sorry about the quietness and low quality).

These are all just sample ideas that I’ve seen work in the real world very well, but you are by no means limited by them. Expirement! Try different things. Look for voicemail greetings online and either use them as they are or improve them and use your own version. Just as with any type of routine or gambit in the field, what you do is only limited by your imagination!

Regardless of what you use, try to keep is short and sweet. Nothing is more annoying than a greeting that goes on forever about nothing. Have you ever gotten someone’s voicemail and had to listen to them sing a song into your ear for several minutes before you could get to the beep? It’s frustrating and aggravating and most people will just hang up rather than wait. Similarly, I’ve seen some otherwise interesting people apparently just ramble into their phone for what feels like forever. I called a buddy of mine a while back and his voicemail went like this:

“Hey you’ve reached ____, I’m either not available or I’m asleep or my phone is off or something. You can leave a message but it would be better if you just called me back. If you do want to leave a message though, I check it pretty regularly, so I can get back to you. Anyway, leave your name and number and what the call is regarding and I’ll call you back.”

It was horrible! The only reason that – I – sat there and listened to the whole thing was because I just couldn’t believe that it was still going! But who else would really wait through all that just to leave a message? A high-value HB10 with dozen other guys to potentially call? Not likely! You want them to leave a voicemail, so you want to keep your greeting short and to the point.

Next week: how to handle things if you cant get her on the phone!

About Prophet

Prophet is a VA Coach specializing in routine stack creation who operates out of Toronto. Aside from his work as an instructor/site admin for Venusian Arts, Prophet is a software consultant at a leading software development firm. In his spare time, he finances, writes, and produces independent films with his wingmen, Showcase and Wild Card.