Isn’t it so wonderful when you get a beautiful woman’s number? Few things can feel as self-validating as walking away from a gorgeous woman back to your friends with a cocktail napkin smeared with digits. Unfortunately, this is very short lived if she doesn’t call you back. If you leave a message on her phone that doesn’t reflect well on you, she’s going to click delete and forget she ever knew you. It is essential that you do this right.

If you avoid these four giant pitfalls in your voicemail practice, you’ll be a lot better off. Here they are…

Mistake #2: Trying too hard to refresh her memory in how she knows you.

It is possible that she might not remember you, so you can give a few clues of who you are. “Hey, it’s John from La Parka Shores…” should be all she needs to jog her memory. Don’t mention what jacket you had on, or what your conversation was about.

Mistake #2: Leaving a message more than 30 seconds.

It’s amazing how many men will detail their entire day’s activities on the answering machine of a woman they just met. She just doesn’t care. Even if she is interested in hearing about your whole day, why not just tell her when she calls you back? Oh that’s right; you were worried she wasn’t going to call you back. And once she can tell you were worried about that, trust me, she ain’t calling back. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Mistake #3: Too much background noise

Your voice should be crystal clear in her ears when she reunites with the voice which charmed her a few days before. If you’re around a lot of people talking, or outside on a windy day, then any nice memories your voice brings up will be drowned out by her struggling to understand what you’re saying. Plus, your actual vocal quality will diminish from having the surrounding noise. Keep your first call either inside or in a really quite location.

Mistake #4: Saying “Please.”

You can say “please” at the restaurant, “please” at work, and “please” at the post office, but never say six-letter word when trying to get a woman to call you back. This is because when you say “please,” you are implying that she’s doing a favor by calling you back. “We’ll talk later” or “Give me a call,” is fine.

Not every woman will call you back, even if you do everything right. However, I can guarantee you that if you follow these instructions, your callback rate should jump up by 50%. There’s a lot more to “phone game” besides avoiding these 4 major mistakes, but with this knowledge, you should be way ahead of most men in the game.