There's an ongoing debate among sales professionals: should you work with or without a script?
The three most common arguments against sales scripts:
- They make salespeople act and sound robotic.
- They weaken reps' listening skills because of the overemphasis on following the script.
- They're painful and tedious to develop and update.
However, when used properly, scripts can unleash your sales team's listening skills, creativity, and overall performance. Here's how.
4 reasons why you should be using a sales script
Think of a basketball team: they train pretty much every single day. When they play a game, their brains take care of all the individual actions automatically so they can play the game on a higher level.
The same is true for sales: you want your reps to have individual sales maneuvers so deeply ingrained that they always have at least one option to respond effectively to a prospect. Here are 4 ways a sales script will benefit you:
- Refine your methodology to unleash better listening skills & creativity. By writing things out word for word, you're forced to really think things through, and polish your process. Once you've polished your script, your mind is free to pay attention to what a prospect is saying, because you don't have to think so much about what you're going to say next.
- Raise your entire team's sales IQ. You can create a constant feedback loop if you involve your whole sales team. Let reps share success stories, best practices and new ideas. By collaborating, you get access to the vast reservoir of knowledge that would typically be stuck in someone's head, benefiting everyone.
- Develop a scalable sales process. Building an effective sales operation isn't about finding individual sales superstars. It's about creating an all-star team. A sales script helps you to bring new people up to speed faster, train and benchmark them better, and generally scale your sales faster.
- Fewer bad performance days. A lot of sales reps have strong fluctuation in terms of results they deliver. Some days are amazing, others suck, and it's very much dependent on the individual sales rep's state. By having a script, you create a safety net that prevents crappy performance.
How to use a sales script effectively
Develop a sales script with your team.Train your sales reps to know the script by heart.
Once they know the script inside out, you can let them experiment with their own approaches, trust their instincts and be better than the script.
Once or twice a month, have a team meeting where you all collaborate on improving the script. Discuss what works and doesn't work, ask questions, bring in your own experiences and then edit the script so you come up with the next version.
The right sales script will increase the number of prospects you and your team are be able to qualify and eventually close. Track your qualifying and close rates with a free trial of our sales CRM.
Go get'em!
Steli
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