5. Don’t Forget To Smile. Smiling is a total game-changer when it comes to the tone of your voicemail greeting. We’ve all heard someone smiling through a phone, but we rarely think about how different it sounds when we do.
If you were planning to do a “Roth IRA” conversion to keep your retirement savings permanently out of the hands of the IRS, you might want to get on it. The new tax bill on Capitol Hill is going to scrap these conversions for everybody after the end of the year—and, no, not just for those earning more than $400,000 a year. The bill “prohibits all employee after-tax contributions in qualified plans and prohibits after-tax IRA contributions from being converted to Roth regardless of income level, effective for distributions, transfers, and contributions made after Dec. 31, 2021,” reports the House Ways & Means Committee.

If you leave a message, here is a collection of techniques that have gotten calls returned: First name and number only (in a very businesslike manner). It seems that calls are returned in inverse proportion to the amount of information left. Be funny Clean wit will get response. Be indirect “I was going to mail you important information, and I wanted to confirm your address.” Offer fun “I had two extra tickets to the Knights game and I thought you might be interested. (here’s the sure shot) Please call me if you can’t go so I’m able to give the tickets to someone else.” If it was positive first meeting, remind the prospect where you met. Dangle the carrot. Leave just enough information to entice. Ask a provocative or thought provoking question.
You can allow callers to press 0 and be transferred to another phone number, of your choosing, when they reach your voicemail greeting.