Think sales scripts are phony, inauthentic and just plain wrong? Do you think that you don’t use sales scripts and you certainly don’t want your sales team using them? Think again because the truth is…
Many sales professionals claim that they never use sales scripts and never would. Many take issue with the entire idea of scripting, saying that scripts are “phony,” “inauthentic,” “don’t work,” “make you sound like a telemarketer” or that “every call is different so it’s impossible to use a script.”
The reality is that all salespeople use scripts. Here is why:
You probably hear certain questions from your prospects over and over. If you’ve been in sales for even a short time, you probably have fairly standard answers to those questions. If you are more or less repeating the same answers every time you hear particular questions, those answers are your scripts.
You probably also hear the same objections again and again from prospects and have developed fairly standard responses to those objections. If you are responding to a particular objection over and over again with more or less the same counter-argument, those responses are also scripts.
It is likely that you have a standard way that you introduce yourself to prospects. Sometimes this is called an ‘elevator speech.’ If you have been in sales even just a little while, you are most likely repeating, more or less, the same ‘elevator speech’ over and over again. By another name, this is a script.
It doesn’t matter that your consistent introductions and/or responses are not written down or that there are slight variations in the way you deliver them. If you are repeating the same language with different prospects or customers over time, then you are using scripts.
The question is not: Should you use a script?
The real question is: Does your script work?
Does your script work to get you the results that you want?
And if it does not, shouldn’t you be saying something else?
Sales professionals that are extremely successful have scripts that they use regularly and that they have honed over the years. They know what to say and know when and how to say it. Many of these successful professionals do not think of what they are saying as a script, but if you pay attention, you will hear them use the same introductions, talking points and responses over and over again. The really successful salespeople are not winging it.
Bottom line: All sales professionals use scripts; not all sales professionals use good scripts.
