There is a perennial objection trainees raise against using scripts when cold calling, prospecting, setting appointments, and doing customer service, technical support, and telephone sales.
They say: "I don't want to sound phony!"
Fair enough, no one does.
But why is it that there is the very real tendency to sound canned, un-fresh, contrived, and artificial when using scripts?
There are 5 reasons most scripts suck:
(1) Most people who write scripts are not gifted writers. Gifted writers can bring words to life, making them sound REAL and vital. The great majority who write anything in business, from an email to a brochure to a thank-you note, sound stiff, as if they have ammonia running through their veins.
(2) Most people who write scripts aren't gifted speakers, either. Even if they are, they don't record themselves and TRANSCRIBE EXACTLY what they've uttered, which, with all of its imperfections, would actually sound REAL over the phone.
(3) Most scripts are written from the SPEAKER'S VIEWPOINT, and sound like an announcement, a spray-and-pray attempt to shower the prospect with so may features and benefits that the poor listener will drown in good reasons to buy.
(4) When scripts try to be LISTENER ORIENTED they err by expecting the prospect to do too much work, to answer endless questions. If you're a stranger to them, their self-preservation instincts will erect a barrier to responding to your probes, no matter how clever you think they are.
(5) Written scripts place PUNCTUATION in all the wrong places. They make you breathe at the end of sentences, causing you to sound like you're reading from a manuscript. That's precisely when most people will object, when you come up for air. When we engage in spontaneous talk, we run right through the punctuation, breaking many rules of the written page.
These drawbacks are not immutable. We can devise scripts that sound genuine, that create predictable and reliable outcomes that you can take to the bank.
But we really have to know what we're doing. Like successful Hollywood screenwriters, we have to make mere words on a page seem like real life unfolding before us.
For every excellent scriptwriter, in the movies or in sales, customer service, technical support, or negotiations, there are zillions of hopeless hacks, wannabes who think "A script is just a script."
If you would like help with your script, or you'd like to attend or sponsor a speech or seminar or find great audios or videos, contact us.
Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a top trainer, conference and convention speaker, and 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. His seminars are sponsored internationally and he is a faculty member at more than 40 universities, including UC Berkeley and UCLA. Gary brings over two decades of sales, management and consulting experience to the table, with impressive academic credentials: A Ph.D. from USC, an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School of Management, and a J.D. degree from Loyola Law School, his clients include several Fortune 1000 companies..
His web site is: http://www.customersatisfaction.com and he can be reached at: gary@customersatisfaction.com. His blogs include: YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS! and ALWAYS COLD CALL! at: http://www.alwayscoldcall.blogspot.com
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