San Francisco, Many Years Ago: Back in those days, I ran an answering service and later a voicemail company from an office on beautiful, scenic Geary Boulevard.
Fueled by a talk I heard at a trade convention, I began to experiment with ‘scripted’ sales presentations on the telephone. The lady giving the talk had claimed that a scripted sales presentation got more sales than just ‘winging’ it.
But first you got to write down the script!
How to do that?
Well …
In doing my experiments, I found a wonderful way to work out the scripts, to come up with stuff that was powerful. If you just try writing it down, it tends to wander all over the place like a lost dog sniffing after olfactory wonders in the woodland.
Plus, plenty of things that theoretically ought to work … don’t. But my organized method works wonders.
Later, I discovered I could simply sell the voicemail by leading the buyer into listening to my (recorded) presentation on the voicemail itself. These days a lot of selling is done on the internet, and still on the telephone. And there’s a mighty parallel between my older processes and the way things are sold today, on the phone and online.
Here is the method that worked again and again …
(Oh the sheer suspense!)
OK. Enough stalling. Here’s the plan …
(1) At first, if you can, arrange to take calls whenever possible, even if it’s a cheapo product.
(2) Improvise and explain your product as best you can. Answer their questions as best you can.
(3) After just a little time, you will notice that you are saying the same words to every caller, and you will notice that the callers are asking the same questions.
(4) Now write down (or record) those words that you are saying. Make a list of the questions that they most frequently ask, and weave the answers into your presentation.
(5) Now you have a tested and working presentation.
The human is always efficient. We learn not to waste time or energy automatically. Even without much thinking about it, you will notice maybe subconsciously, what ‘worked’ and you’ll repeat that behavior on your next phone call. You’re a human. That’s how a human naturally operates.
Try it. You’ll like it.
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