Episode 02: How to Create a Great Sales Script
How to Cold Call?
As I shared on the last episode, during my many, many hours calling and creating sales scripts, I began to wonder what customers really thought of salespeople. If I could get inside their head, what would they be thinking about our sales team and our approach?
This curiosity led me to start my consulting company, and to a three year research project. I went out and asked hundreds of customers in over 20 states a standard list of questions. Questions about cold-calling, pet peeves, LinkedIn preferences, and much more.
Customers were generally very willing to talk to me, and I gathered a huge amount of data on cold calling techniques.
I want to share just a little bit of that data with you today, specifically about the cold-calling portion of sales.
You see, cold-calling is truly an art form, and honestly most salespeople aren’t very excited about doing it. Some are even scared to do it, if they’re being really honest with themselves. Call reluctance is a real thing.
Some people have more talent or willingness to do it, but truly, it’s a skill. It’s like my son. From a young age, we could tell he was going to be very talented at basketball. But that didn’t mean he had a perfect shot with his elbow parallel to the ground, and positioned at a 90 angle. I had to teach him that. I had to spent many, many hours showing him the correct form, and because he had the talent, he was able to learn it well and executed it well and now has games where he scores 20+ points.
That’s how sales, and especially cold-calling is. You might have the talent, but there is also skill involved, skill that I can teach you. In fact, that’s my specialty. I am a keynote speaker and sales trainer, and a large part of my training is around this topic. Skills relating to cold calling. So, today I’m going to start a podcast series about The Fine Art of the Cold Call. As you can imagine, there are many parts to this, and I won’t be able to cover everything on my podcasts, so if you’re interested, check the call notes and you can find out how to contact me to learn more about my keynote speaking and sales training.
So, let’s really get into that customer research so you can create an effective cold calling script for yourself.
One of the questions I asked the customers was, do you get cold calls, on the phone, from people? If so, what are your pet peeves?
There was one thing I heard very consistently: negative selling. Customers really, really hate this. And I find this so interesting because sometimes from the very first call, you’ll hear all kinds of bad things about their current vendor. Ugh, I hate my current vendor. The battery doesn’t last long enough, and they won’t call me back. Or, we didn’t get what we thought we were getting, or they keep breaking.
It’s sort of like family. You’re allowed to talk bad about your sister, but no one else should be talking bad about her around you. And that’s how customers are too. Even if they bad-mouth their current vendor, you shouldn’t. Not only did customers consistently bring this up as a pet peeve, think about it. They were probably very heavily involved in the choosing of that vendor. So even though they have some dissatisfaction, if you chime in and say, “Oh they’re the worst. I’ve heard so many bad things, I don’t know anyone would choose them,”. You’re kind of calling them an idiot. You’re kind of saying, “I don’t know why anyone would choose this vendor, and they’ll end of feeling like they have to defend their current vendor, and the last thing you want them to do is feel like they should be defending your competition.
And I think sometimes salespeople pride themselves on being up front and “shooting it straight”. They don’t see it that way. They don’t see it that you’re shooting them straight. They take it as you bad-mouthing your competition, aka family they don’t really want, but at the moment, they’re still family, like it or not, since their product is still in the hospital. They don’t like it. It’s not going to help you build any trust.
Instead, if they start bad-mouthing your competition, use silence. Just allow them to keep talking, and you nod and take diligent notes, because they’re telling you EXACTLY what you’re going to need to win that sale down the road.
They’re telling you what you need to focus on when you come back to hopefully give your formal presentation in a few weeks or months. The other decision makers will be so impressed that you just HAPPENED to hit on all their pain points during your presentation. When you’re talking to other decision makers, you can frame it in a positive way, like, “So I understand you would love to have better battery life from your monitors. Let me tell you about our batteries.”
So, take those notes, and encourage them to keep going asking follow questions, and silence is even better, because if you’re involved in the conversation, it will make them want to stop talking. They might realize they’re sharing too much bad stuff about your competitor. Keep them from getting defensive by not chiming in at all. Silent nodding is your best friend during this conversation.
Another thing that customers said that they really didn’t like, that salespeople do ALL the time, is starting the cold call by mentioning someone in common that you know. Let’s say you got to a conference, and you meet someone, they might tell you all about their products, and how they would be so interested, but recommend you call someone else named Monica, the head nurse.
So when you get back, you call Monica and lead with how John asked you to call and you’re so excited to have a great “in”.
But Monica is annoyed. John didn’t tell her anything about this. So she assumes you’re lying. Which isn’t really fair, since you’re not, but unfortunately salespeople DO lie, they PRETEND to know somoen, and they’ve been caught before, so she unfairly assumes you’re lying and writes you off. And it might not be fair, but you need to be aware that customers REALLY do not like this tactic. I heard it very consistently during my calls with them.
There’s two ways to handle this:
1. Have John Smith send an email to Monica. This is ideal. Coming from someone internally.
2. If you can’t get that, then you’re going to have to start over with Monica. Introduce yourself, and then USE the information you got from him, rather than his name. This is much better than coming in hot, saying how you know John Smith, especially if you know him socially.
Really, really be careful about saying anyone’s name.
Another pet peeve is when sales people are too pushy. This is kind of a given. Everyone knows this in theory, but it happens A LOT. And I don’t think salespeople actually TRY to be pushy. I think a lot of times, it’s a nervous thing, especially during cold-calling.
This goes back to how salespeople really don’t like to cold call because its uncomfortable, so they don’t have much practice. A lot of salespeople report that they’d rather clean out their office or do an expense report, rather than make those prospecting calls.
You don’t think of it as scary, but as you pick up that phone, your heart starts racing, and you hear that laundry machine ping, it’s a great excuse to put off that cold-calling once again.
So, the best way to come off as not nervous, and thus, not pushy, is to focus on speaking really slowly. And it’s hard. As you can probably tell, I have a tendency to talk really fast, and that’s a problem. So, make an effort to speak slowly, but not too slowly of course.
Another great tip is to look in a mirror as you’re making the calls, and SMILE. It sounds weird, but it does work. You’re going to sound friendlier and not pushy if you’re smiling. Or get up and walk. Get an earpiece and smile as you walk around your living room.
I think you’ll come off as a lot less pushy if you use a mirror and smile.
So, that wraps up this first part of The Fine Art of Cold Calling. I’ll be doing a second part of this in the coming weeks. And of course, I have A LOT more information that I cover during my sales training, which I can now do virtually by the way, so please reach out if you’re interested in getting more information about that for your sales team. You can find out more about that in the video below.
Next week, we’re going to actually be talking to a customer, and he’s going to share some really valuable insight with you, I can’t wait for you to hear it.
Thanks everyone!
Relevant Links
MMS Consulting (My Consulting company)
