Are you a sales or marketing director managing salespeople or telemarketers? Set aside any biases: a well-prepared sales script is a major asset, not a source of rigidity. Winston Churchill, one of the most brilliant orators of the 20th century, famously said, “An impromptu speech is a speech written three times.” Like this great leader, ensure you persuade your prospects and support your call center teams with a meticulously crafted, detailed, and error-free sales pitch. This tool, tailored for your product and adapted to your end customer, is the key to success for your telemarketing campaign. Turning calls into qualified leads relies on a meticulously crafted pitch.
What is the importance of using a phone script?
The secret to successful telemarketing is simple: your salespeople must memorize the sales pitch. It’s the only way to fully adopt it and appear completely natural; the phone script must become your own. Its role is therefore crucial.
At Leads Provider, we apply the principle of over-preparation in drafting the pitch: anticipate everything that might occur during your calls and have the best responses ready for effective sales prospecting.
To quote Vauban: “There is no impregnable fortress, only poorly prepared attacks.”
Everything hinges on this stage: preparation.
To convince you, here are the main advantages of using a well-thought-out, written, and memorized phone script :
Why you should always use a prospecting phone script?
A well-prepared sales pitch frees the conscious mind.
Since they know the phrases to say and the questions to ask during prospecting calls, your salespeople are fully present with their prospects and focused on important elements of the sales process such as:
- the information to collect;
- the cues in the tone of their prospects' voices;
- the questions to ask during the call with their contact and the order in which they should be asked.
If your salespeople improvise, the likelihood that they will remember is very low, and in sales, these mistakes are fatal because they impact the very foundation of the process: the quality of the information collected.
Using a prospecting script prevents you from saying nonsense.
Without a well-written and memorized pitch, salespeople might make a great first impression during the call by saying impressive things in the first few minutes. However, as the conversation drags on and the prospect becomes curious, asking more complex questions, the salesperson may run out of arguments. The conversation then starts to falter, and the salesperson’s blunders escalate to the point where the prospect's mind categorizes them as a "novice"… and the sale is lost for good.
But experts don’t say foolish things; that’s reserved exclusively for novices!
With a phone script, even if your salesperson is a novice, you can be sure they will always use the same phrases and choose the right words during the call with their contact. They won't improvise and spout nonsense.
A phone script prevents problems.
A phone script eliminates regulatory issues by preventing your salespeople from inventing, exaggerating, or stating falsehoods during calls.
Contrary to what one might think, salespeople do not lie intentionally. However, when they run out of solid arguments during calls with potential clients, they may end up saying inappropriate things and, sometimes unconsciously, mislead their prospects. In certain regulatory environments, these mistakes can be extremely damaging.
Now that we’ve convinced you to use a phone script with your prospects, and after drafting hundreds of pitches, I’m sharing with you the eight key traits that should be present in your pitch.
How to write a phone or sales pitch.
Don't present the major benefits of your product right from the start
It’s all about structure, not the quantity of information and data.
If you present all the strengths of your product in one go, you will run out of arguments when your prospect raises their first objections during the call.
It’s very strategic: progressing step by step allows you to build a stronger relationship with your potential clients, gain their trust, and maintain control of the conversation.
Your sales pitch should revolve around the benefits.
For some reason that escapes me, and although it’s fundamental in sales and prospecting, many salespeople linger on technical features instead of focusing on the benefits and advantages!
Never forget that prospects are only interested in what makes their lives easier, like getting home earlier thanks to automation, or in other words, eliminating or reducing their pain points.
Let’s be clear: this isn’t about a script that avoids technical features entirely. Mention them, but briefly, and only to support or explain a particular benefit.
Your B2B prospecting script should be punctuated with pauses.
If you rattle off powerful arguments one after another, they lose their impact and end up blending together in your prospect's mind.
An effective phone pitch is based on smooth, interactive communication, where data and questions play a crucial role. It should include several pauses to keep your prospect engaged in the conversation.
Examples of intermittent questions :
- Is everything clear for you so far?
- Does my reasoning make sense to you so far?
- Is it clear enough so far, or are there any areas you’d like us to go over together?
If they respond "No" during the call, you will have the opportunity to provide additional information and clarify your points before continuing.
These pauses serve two purposes :
- Create rapport between you and your prospect.
- Ensure your demonstration is firmly fixed in their mind before moving on to the next arguments.
Short sentences and simple yet strong vocabulary
Let’s start with the vocabulary. Here, balance is key. Write the phone script in conversational French; you can allow some leeway by avoiding formal language.
Don’t try to impress your prospect with tedious expressions and obscure jargon during the call!
Speak with spontaneity as if you were talking to a friend. However, don’t forget that you are an expert and shouldn’t speak as if you’ve never been to school.
In other words, your prose should be natural without undermining your credibility as a specialist.
Favor positive words and phrases.
If you read the phrase "don't think of a pink elephant," the idea of a pink elephant immediately pops into your mind. The same applies to negative formulations. Avoid them by using alternative phrasing in your sales pitch. For example, instead of "useless," use "rarely used," or replace "don't worry" with "everything is fine" during your prospecting calls.
Negative phrasing weighs down your speech and makes it less dynamic. Positive sentences combined with strong vocabulary strengthen your pitch and make it more convincing during the call with your prospect.
Don’t exaggerate! Your prospecting pitch should be the truth well told.
When reviewing your call script, ask yourself the following questions:
- Am I misleading the prospect?
- Have I omitted any facts?
- Is it clear enough?
Never forget that if you provide your sales team with a pitch that includes exaggerations or, worse, lies, the consequences will be disastrous for your entire company.
Your sales call script must be clear, precise, compliant, but also incredibly engaging. The two are not mutually exclusive: your script should be irresistibly compelling and impeccably honest.
Facilitate the purchasing process
A few seconds before making a decision, your prospect’s brain conducts a very quick mental calculation to compare the total energy they will expend from placing the order until the product’s delivery, against the unparalleled (immediate and future) benefits you have promised them.
And they will ask themselves: “Are the benefits I will gain worth the energy I will expend?”
From there, they will make a preliminary decision.
In your B2B sales pitch, you need to explain to your prospects that the process of obtaining the product is simplified, meaning they won’t have to spend much time or energy in exchange for the unique benefits you have promised them.
Conclusion
Like the formidable orator Winston Churchill, don’t hesitate to write, rewrite, and perfect your B2B sales pitch.
The goal of the sales pitch is to convince using strong, irrefutable, and persuasive arguments specifically designed to address your prospects' needs. A script that clearly defines the issues faced by your target audience and the solutions provided by your product motivates your sales team, supports them regardless of their experience, and, most importantly, ensures qualified leads.
Demonstrate your expertise and be convincing, ready to address all objections during your calls with a well-prepared and flawless sales script.