How To Revise A Sales Cold Call Script
This post came from research I did for a project I’m working on to Become a Sales Expert in 30 Days. To read more about the goals of the project, click here.
The other day, I wrote my first cold call script. For the first draft and the ideas behind it, check out this article.
Tonight, I ran the script by a group of awesome salespeople. They gave me valuable feedback on how to make it better.
Here’s the context:
Calling From…
I am calling on behalf of a search engine software company I work for, Spendabit. Its purpose is to connect merchants who accept bitcoin with crypto-enabled shoppers.
Calling For…
For this script, I decided to target merchant leads who list between 50 and 100 products on their e-commerce stores. This typically means the company is smaller, and therefore it will be easier to get a decision-maker on the phone.
The Script
What To Fix
Here’s what we talked about changing so far:
- Nix “how are you doing?” — There’s no time for chit chat. Get to the point.
- “Bad time” makes it seem like you know they won’t be interested. — And it probably isn’t necessary. I can jump straight to the fact that they accept bitcoin because it immediately shows that I’ve researched their store.
- Remove flattery. — I had it in my head that I could find something genuinely cool about their product and chat with them about it. Not only does this take a lot of time, but my cohort pointed out that for most of the calls, I likely won’t feel that way. At the risk of sounding like flattery (which is a big no-no in sales), I need to keep it authentic and state the facts like how I can create value for them.
- The fewer words, the higher the impact.— If the script is longer than a paragraph, cut it in half.
- Practice the script 100 times.— It has to feel natural. I have to be able to roll with whatever the other person responds and not sound as if I’m reading off the page. It has to be a conversation.
With that in mind, here’s the revision:
Much shorter. Much clearer. Much more focused on the customer.
A Bit Of Wisdom
One other piece of advice the group gave me was: there’s no such thing as too long, there’s such a thing as too much information the prospect doesn’t care about.
Going into this, I thought I had a problem with brevity. My real problem was talking too much about what the prospect doesn’t care about, like how great I think their store is, or how I hope I’m not “catching them at a bad time.”
To read more about the project to Become a Sales Expert in 30 Days, click here.