Have you ever played phone tag with someone when all you were trying to do was set a date and time for an appointment? Well, here’s a quick tip to shorten the process.

I had a friend of mine tell me the other day about the frustrating game of phone tag he was in the middle of with a prospect (not a target, but someone he was in a confirmed buying cycle with). He said he was trying to schedule a meeting to close the sale. He mentioned that it was almost getting comical and now he was worried that the guy would start to think it wasn’t worth all the effort. Here’s a little tip to apply when this happens.

The next time you call, instead of saying, “Hi, it’s Barry again. Tag you’re it! Call me back to schedule that time to get together.” Try simply making a couple of suggested times the prospect can respond to with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It would sound more like this, “Hi, it’s Barry again. Since we seemed to be destined to keep missing each other, let me suggest a couple of times for our meeting. How about…Monday at 3:00 or Tuesday at 2:00? If either of these won’t work for you and you get my voicemail again, feel free to leave me a couple of suggestions.” It works great and certainly shortens the game of phone tag.