TEMPLATE FOR CREATING A GREAT SALES SCRIPT
The Exact Cold Calling Script Used By a $1.5 Billion Company to Land Walmart as a Client
In anticipation of our upcoming webinar 4 Step-By-Step Strategies To Win 42% More Business, we thought we’d share a sneak peek at one of the strategies we’ll be covering—HOW TO CREATE A GREAT SALES SCRIPT.
This concept will be addressed in greater detail in the webinar (you really want to hear this sales script delivered LIVE by an expert in order to grasp how ridiculously effective it is, but we’ll do our best here just in writing). That said, any enterprising CEO should be able to implement the concepts contained solely within this post to huge benefit in their company. In fact, for greater ease of implementation we’ve included a download at the end of this post containing a blank template for creating this kind of killer sales script in your business today.
But enough preamble, in the words of music producer Berry Gordy, “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus!”
What follows is the sales script used by the salespeople of a 1.5 Billion Dollar home-building company in Mexico—BEFORE CHI got involved.
THE PRE-CHI SCRIPT:
SALESPERSON – Hi, this is Pedro Gomez from X Company. I would love to come talk to your employees about buying a home.
PROSPECT – Homes? No thank you. We’re not interested.
END SALES SCRIPT.
That’s basically what they were saying.
Train wreck…
Their solution to the resulting low rate of appointment setting was to pound away at the phones with the hope that maybe ONE business owner SOMEWHERE would be mildly interested.
At CHI we’re all in favor of pounding away at a sales effort, but we also live by the maxim: work SMARTER not HARDER—and this was not an example of working SMARTER.
BUT THEN AGAIN, MOST SALES SCRIPTS ARE NOT.
Our experience is that most sales scripts look like the one above. Such a script accomplishes three things—none of them particularly useful.
- It lets the prospect know who you are. OKAY.
- It tells them what YOU want. BAD. Hint: they don’t care what YOU want. What’s in it for THEM?
- And it opens the door for the prospect to say NO immediately. VERY BAD.
- If a sales rep does manage the sale from here, he/she deserves a medal—it’s going to be an uphill battle against a foe that is in control and LEADING the whole time.
Oftentimes this limp script is all the sales rep is provided. After that they’re left to their own devices while in poor strategic position and with poor tools. Good luck, buddy.
ENTER the strategic, SMARTER approach…
THE CHI SCRIPT:
By contrast to the three weak accomplishments of the previous script, this new script accomplishes 11 carefully thought out, strategic objectives:
- It lets the prospect know who you are. OKAY.
- It positions your company as well respected in its field. GOOD.
- It only opens the door for the prospect to say, “Yes.” And does so REPEATEDLY. GREAT.
- It focuses on THEIR needs. Not yours. GOOD.
- It positions your company as altruistic and outwardly focused—trustworthy. GREAT.
- It educates the prospect (allowing for objectives 7, 8, 9, and 10). EXCELLENT
- It builds rapport (educating builds rapport while selling breaks it). GREAT.
- It allows you to reset the prospect’s buying criteria in your favor. GREAT.
- It keeps the prospect INTERESTED. GREAT.
- 10. It positions the salesperson as a knowledgeable expert. GREAT.
- 11. And finally, it makes the Call To Action a breeze. RESULTS!
Here’s how it’s done…
FIRST, A WORD OF CAUTION
Don’t use this script on the WRONG PERSON! Every word of this sales script has been painstakingly chosen, and pitching it to the wrong audience will absolutely ruin its effectiveness. Who is the RIGHT AUDIENCE you ask? ALWAYS PITCH THE PERSON WHO HAS THE AUTHORITY TO SAY, “YES” WITHOUT ASKING SOMEBODY ELSE’S PERMISSION! If you pitch what we call a “gatekeeper,” chances are they have the power to say, “No, we’re not interested,” but not the power to say, “Yes, we’re buying!” The best you can hope for is that the gatekeeper will try to get you in front of his/her boss. Then you end up with the gatekeeper pitching YOUR script.
WITH NO PRACTICE.
WITH NOTHING INVESTED IN THE OUTCOME.
AND PROBABLY IN LESS THAN THIRTY SECONDS.
Don’t do it! If you want to know more about getting past these gatekeepers, click HERE.
With that essential warning out of the way…
HERE IS THE SMARTER SCRIPT:
SALESPERSON – Hi, this is Pedro Gomez from X company. Are you familiar with us?
PROSPECT – Yes/No.
SALESPERSON – Okay then you should know (or already know) that we’re the largest homebuilder in Mexico.(This lets the prospect know who you are, and also why your company should be respected—objectives 1 and 2. We’re off to a good start)
Now the reason I’m calling you is because we recently commissioned a study of issues facing Mexico and how that’s going to impact you and your employees. (Objective 4, focus on THEM and THEIR needs)
Are you interested in making your employees more secure, less stressed, and more effective on the job? (Again objective 4)
PROSPECT – Uh, of course. (Remember how quickly the prospect said “No” before? This time we don’t give them that option—objective 3, get them saying YES. On that note, what is a question that you can ask right away in your sales scripts that the prospect CAN’T say “No” to? Remember: the best way to close a sale is for the prospect to close themselves)
(Side note: who is leading this conversation? With that last question we passed the ball to the prospect, but they have no choice but to pass it right back)
SALESPERSON – That’s where we can help. You’re probably aware that Mexico is emerging in several areas as a leader in the world market. Since our company is one of the largest companies in Mexico (Objective 2), we feel it is our responsibility to assist this country in any way we can. (This establishes our company as both altruistic and trustworthy, accomplishing objective 5. Now watch as we keep the prospect saying “Yes,” and continue to LEAD the conversation with another question the prospect just can’t say “No” to)
Are you interested in making Mexico a stronger nation if it doesn’t cost you anything to do it?
PROSPECT – Uh, yeah, I guess. (Objective 3 again—what self-respecting Mexican citizen can say no to this?)
SALESPERSON – I’m sure you’re aware that there are government programs that make it so almost every employee you have can own a home. (This is where the sales script begins to educate the prospect. Education based marketing is an incredibly powerful and advanced tool—that we’ve developed into something we call a Core Story—that deserves a whole blog post unto itself. For now we will say only that this approach accomplishes or enhances almost all of our previously established objectives, particularly objectives 4-10)
PROSPECT – I didn’t know that. (But it’s an interesting piece of information, right?—objective 9)
SALESPERSON – Oh it’s a fantastic opportunity for individuals and also for the entirety of Mexico. See we work closely with various government agencies (objective 2) and now have a program that educates you and your staff about the growth of the Mexican economy, why you should have more pride in Mexico, and how almost every employee can afford now to own a home. (Objectives: 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Perhaps you get the picture and I don’t need to point out all the different strategies at work in every line. From here on I’ll mention just the highlights)
You see, if your employees own homes, they are more tied into the job, and need to keep it even more. Do you like keeping good staff around?
PROSPECT – Well, yes, of course. (ANOTHER YES. It’s almost too easy at this point…)
SALESPERSON – Then what I’d like to do is make this program available to your entire staff. Here’s how we do it. You send out a memo and make an announcement to each staff member. We will supply the announcement and memo (See how we leave nothing to chance here? We do all the work for the prospect, but more importantly we’re in complete control. This makes the call to action SIMPLE. People have a tendency to go where there is the least resistance. So we make it as easy on them as possible—objective 11), then we come by at lunch and also after work and talk to the staff. You win from this as people who own their own homes are better citizens, better employees, more stable and more dependent upon their job. Does that make sense to you? (By now you surely don’t need us to point out how this line actively contributes to objectives 3-11. Instead I’d like to guide your attention specifically to objective 8—resetting the prospect’s buying criteria. Two minutes ago this prospect had no buying criteria and was absolutely uninterested in us selling houses to his/her employees. By educating him/her however, we’ve completely changed his/her perspective on the matter. Now the prospect sees what’s in it for him/her. Through educating your prospect—which also accomplishes objectives 7-10 if the information is good—you can give criteria to buyers who had few buying criteria beyond price, and you can change the buying criteria of more knowledgeable buyers into criteria that are favorable to your company)
PROSPECT – Yes, it does. (How can they say no at this point? They have much to gain and all the hard work has been done for them)
SALESPERSON – Great, then we could get in there next week and get started. I’ll get you over the announcement and memo. (All that’s left is to iron out the details)
END SCRIPT.
It should be obvious that strategically and tactically the second script blows the first script out of the water. Remember the salesperson using the first script, stuck in poor strategic position with no tools at his/her disposal? At CHI we don’t believe in sending salespeople into the front lines of capitalism empty-handed; as the second script should demonstrate, we want them armed to the teeth.
RESULTS
Nobody can say that any sales script is effective 100% of the time, but it should be obvious that our script was far superior to the one that the company previously utilized. As you might guess, the results reflected this. Along with other tools we provided, this exact script was responsible for the homebuilding company landing Walmart as a client—dream client. In fact, in total, our efforts for this particular company increased sales to the tune of 700 million dollars over two years.
We want you to have these kinds of results.
Below you’ll find a free download of the template used to create this STRATEGICALLY SUPERIOR sales script. If you like the information in this blog post, feel free to share it on your favorite social media platform(s) and/or with anyone you know who might benefit from it.
Also consider subscribing to our blog. We’re in the process of implementing a new initiative concerning blog posts, and future entries promise to be packed full of concrete and actionable tools to help you succeed.
Cheers,
The CHI Team
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