Fact: All Salespeople Use Scripts

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Fact: All Salespeople Use Scripts

Written by Wendy Weiss

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I Just Called to See How Things are Going

This is a sad story. Sad but true. It was a real conversation, ostensibly a sales conversation. This sales conversation, and many others just like it, are happening all over the world. I recount this sad sales conversation here in hope that we may all learn from it.

Many sales professionals claim that they never use scripts and never would. Many take issue with the entire idea of scripting, saying that scripts are “phony,” “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 sales people use scripts. Here is why:

You probably hear certain questions from your prospects over and over and over and over. If you’ve been in sales for even a very 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 from prospects over and over again, and probably 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.

You also probably have a fairly standard way you introduce yourself to new prospects. Sometimes this is called an ‘elevator speech’ - a brief introduction you could make to a prospect in an elevator that would be finished and understood by the time the elevator reaches your floor. 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 to prospects: by another name, this is a script.

You see, it doesn’t matter that your consistent responses are not written down or that there are slight variations in the way you deliver them each time. 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?

If you are calling prospects to make appointments, does what you say get you the appointment? If it doesn’t, your script doesn’t work.

If your entire sales process happens over the telephone, does what you say get you the sale? If it doesn’t, your script doesn’t work.

If you are making prospecting calls to schedule appointments and you are in fact making many appointments, why would you ever want to say anything other than what works?

And if your entire sale happens over the telephone and you are in fact closing many sales, why would you ever want to say anything else?

Sales professionals who 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 sales people are not winging it.

Bottom line: all sales professionals use scripts; not all sales professionals use good scripts.

Wendy Weiss
		About the author:
		Wendy Weiss, The Queen of Cold Calling, is an author, speaker, sales trainer, and sales coach. Wendy has been featured in the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur Magazine, Selling Power, Sales & Marketing Management and various other business and sales publications. She is also a featured author in two recently released books, Masters of Sales and Top Dog Sales Secrets. .