If you read my pieces on telemarketing you'll see that I'm in favor of using what I term, "smart scripts."
These are call guides where the essentials are crafted very carefully in advance, including:
(1) Secretarial screening maneuvers and dodges;
(2) Voice mail messages to be left, and escape phrases to break out of voice mail jail;
(3) The credibility statement, a brief phrase touting your expertise and uniqueness;
(4) Some "perfect questions" that get clients to persuade themselves;
(5) A brief description of your product or service,
(6) Transition phrases to smoothly buy time while answering objections;
(7) Answers to key objections; and
(8) Closes-strategic ways to explicitly ask for the sale.
This seems like a large number of details to prepare before you get on the phone, and it can be.
You might be wondering, with so much prepared, won't you sound canned? You shouldn't.
Once you have prepared, you can rehearse for the specific purpose of sounding spontaneous. A script should liberate you to be a performer, just as actors are free to work on interpreting their lines, because their script already exists.
The job of actors is to make it ring true, and a salesperson's job is to make the script ring the cash register.
One of my favorite clients, a top salesman in his own right, taught his people this gem of a lesson: "Before you finish a conversation, ask for the sale at least once!"
To do that, you need to have a few closes, always ready to be deployed. They'll be there for you if you script them, memorize them, and practice them. Leave closing to chance, to mere improvisation, and you're likely to stammer, to over-talk, or to forget about securing the "yes," altogether.
But let me say this. Scripting doesn't mean writing out the entire conversation, because then we would sound canned, and fail.
A script is to telemarketing what an extemporaneous speech is to a public speaker. The key points and flow of reasoning are in front of the performer, but he is free to highlight, to amplify, or to minimize certain points to adapt to his specific audience.
The key is to sound organized, well informed, and professional, while leaving room for the sort of light banter that enables you to sound sincere, as if you are generating your thoughts as you move through the back-and-forth of lively conversation.
That's a lot to ask from a script, but it's exactly what we demand from a great stage play or a good movie, a sense of authenticity, a being-in-the-moment quality, and generally, most entertainment scripts deliver.
So should ours.
Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a top trainer, conference and convention speaker, sales, customer service, and negotiation consultant A frequent expert commentator on radio and TV, he is also the best-selling author of 12 books, more than 1,000 articles and several popular audio and video programs. Visit Gary's web site for product information: http://www.customersatisfaction.com, or contact him directly at: gary@customersatisfaction.com
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