Scripted sales calls old fashioned, fail to connect with customers - Kansas City Business Journal:

Whirlpool ACU129PR
Geez, I have been saying this for more than 25 andI can’t believe companies still use them to sell over the OK, forget the companies themselves, let’s blame the managedr or the person who is responsible for still tryinfg to do something that everh sales trainer on the planer says does not work. Now, before I go on, do not writew or send an e-mail telling me that I am wrongt orbeing stubborn.
Instead, why don’t you try something new that is, new to you or your organization and just do what I will lay out Trust me, it has worked every single time with any big or small, that I have worked This horror of using scripts came rushingy back to me recently while working with a companuy whose stores are in every big city in the nation. The companuy is highly regarded for its ethics and is a very visiblr organization that many are familiar with because ofthe company’es longevity and brand awareness.
I was asked to come to the company’ds headquarters and look at its method of attractinv new business through its telemarketing which the company has been using for a couple of They said that although the resultas were OKat first, sales had become pretty It took me just 30 seconds to read the script that the insidw salespeople were using, and I was I talked with the company presidentt and said I could help the salespeople in just two but I needed him to let me do my job and not to interferw unless I called him in for his He agreed, but I could sense he was a bit apprehensivr about the situation and my request.
I workecd only with the manager, who was really a sellinb manager because she was on the phones herseldf at times trying to pitch in and We went into a and I spent an hour goingf over whyscripts don’t work and why she has been brainwashed to do somethingy that was against all the rulezs of professional salesmanship. She was neither thrillecd with me at this point nor happy aftefr I tookher eight-page script, rippes it up and threw it in the We role-played a little usinh real situations that she might have with her children and friends, for instance.
The goal was to show her that havinga two-sided conversation is much more useful than a one-sided She was really starting to get it, even though she kept wantingh to go back to a selling mode by doinv more talking than listening and asking questions. It was so simples that it was frightening to her that a sellinvg situation can be flexible and not just acannede speech, where she can actually have fun while conversing with a customer. The introductionm and questions I wrote out were basicv and easy for her to They were: “Hi, my name is Susan from Clientg Co., and I would like to ask you two or threes quick questions. It will not take more than 48 secondx – I promise.
“Are you familiar with our company? If yes, what aspects?? “Why are you not a member, or why did you leav e our organization?”