Is Your Cold Calling Script Creating More Problems Than It Solves?

A solid cold calling script will give your sales team a step-by-step road map on how to get prospects from “Hello, my name is” to “Thank you for your business”.

If your sales team hears “No, Thanks,” “Not Interested,” “We’re All Set!”, “No Budget” etc., your cold call script is to blame.

“Cold calling” is all about communicating. The formula to have better sales conversations and eliminate call reluctance is to teach your sales reps the exact steps to follow BEFORE picking up the phone by knowing what, how, and when to ask the right sales questions to get a prospect to open up and have a dialogue.

“You Can’t Force a Prospect to Follow YOUR Cold Call Script”

The “You Can’t Force a Prospect to Follow YOUR Cold Call Script” is a standard mantra for salespeople who have had a horrible experience using a sales script that was assuredly poorly written.

A high-performing sales script doesn’t “force” a prospect to answer a certain way or manipulate them into saying “yes” when they mean “no.”

Instead, a top cold calling script will do three things:

1. Pique Interest in the first 30 seconds of a cold call
2. Open the dialogue to qualify the prospect properly
3. Dramatically increase one’s “closing rate” by eliminating common objections before they come up.

If your cold call script is not doing that now for you and your sales team, it’s time for a fresh new approach.

The “Captain Wing-It” Method

For those still opposed to using a sales script because they “don’t like sounding scripted,” I have news for you… Every Oscar-winning Actor/Actress had a script.

The difference is they didn’t make it SOUND like a script.

If you manage a sales team, getting everyone on the same page is critical to revenue growth. Having “Captain Wing-its” rule the sales floor is a very stressful way to make a living month after month.

When a salesperson knows what to say, how and when to say it, and why to say it all before they ever pick up the phone, their confidence level goes through the roof. They’ll make more calls, have better, more in-depth sales conversations, and close more new business.

Fix Your Cold Calling Script

Here’s how to do it:

1) Your Opening Value Statement

Your opening value statement job is not to “gain control.” It’s to pique interest. Here’s a Youtube video of common mistakes made during an opening value statement that you can learn from. You can also take a free class on how to create a customized winning opening value statement.

2) Qualifying Questions

The old way of selling was to ask questions about what the prospect is “using now to solve X,” and then jump in and explain why YOUR solution is better. This method often left the prospect responding with:

• “Yea, I see your point, but I think we’ll just stick with what we have now.”
• “Just send me some information.”
• “No budget.”

Your qualifying questions should:

a) Identify a problem
b) Confirm your prospect’s role in the decision-making process
c) Uncover what their ideal solution looks like
d) The timeframe for solving the problem
e) Can they afford your solution should they decide they want it.

3) Eliminating Common Sales Objections

When you have a well-executed sales script, and you learn to use what I call the “Red light, Yellow light, Green light” system, you will no longer waste time doing a “data dump” and then be disappointed at the close.

The “Red light, Yellow light, Green light” system means that as you go through the process with your sales script, each step in the process will give you a signal before going to the next step.

For example, if you gain “problem recognition” in your qualifying phase, YOU HAVE A GREEN LIGHT. It’s now time to go to the next step.

If however, you are asking qualifying questions and you do not gain what I call “problem recognition” you either have a yellow or red light (which will be determined by the prospect’s response to your qualifying questions as it relates to getting problem recognition)

Knowing how to handle a yellow or red light is where your sales skills need to come into play. Most salespeople make the mistake of going to the next step, regardless of the color of the light, and when they get to the end and can’t close the sale, they blame the script, when in fact, it was their lack of sales skills and awareness that caused the problem.

As you learn how to master the selling process and use a script to navigate each step of the sales journey, you start to eliminate common sales objections ahead of time. You’ll have better conversations and win more deals.

Hope this helps.

– Michael Pedone

Michael Pedone teaches inside sales teams how to pick up the phone and close business. He is the CEO/FOUNDER of SalesBuzz.com – An online sales training company.

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