Making Money With Voice Mail

Although this money-making is continuously being marketed as "a way to make money with your answering machine", new technology has actually rendered this idea obsolete.

With the proliferation of voice mail, fax-back service, and very inexpensive computerized voice processing systems, the answering machine, with its limited one-call-at-a-time capacity, is no longer ideal for making money.

With the advent of these new technologies, the concept has also expanded to a variety of processes which you can use to make money.

PEOPLE MUST CALL

With answering machines, the only way you can make money is when people call you. Since an answering machine is hooked up to a specific phone number, and since it does not advertise on its own, you will have to establish ways to attract people to call your phone number so that people can listen to the message recorded on your answering machine.

THE MESSAGE IS THE KEY

The message recorded on your answering machine is the key to your ability to make money. The message can instruct people to send money for information about any subject matter, or instruct callers to leave their name and address so you can send them a sales brochure. The information you have recorded on your machine should be encouraging and convincing enough to motivate the caller to do what you have instructed.

THE 1-MINUTE SPIEL

Think of your recording as a radio commercial. Since callers have short attention spans, and are used to hearing radio and TV spots that are not more than 1 minute long it is advisable that you limit the length of your message to about 1 minute, 2 minutes tops!

GETTING THE CALL & COLLECTING PAYMENT

Whatever it is you are selling, and by which you are using your answering, your primary challenge will be in two areas:

• (1) How you can advertise and make your telephone number known to a lot of people, and
• (2) How you are going to collect payment for whatever it is you are selling.

One of the most popular topics sold on "answering machine schemes" is information about how people can make money with their answering machine. This is worn out and very unimaginative. More than likely, your caller will feel insulted and not order whatever literature, report or booklet you want them to order. Remember, if you want to have a recorded sales message over the telephone, use a voice mail service, which may cost you around $8 a month.