Why Do Salespeople Hate Scripts? [Academy]

Why Do Salespeople Hate Scripts?

The great Bill Walsh, Super Bowl winning coach of the San Francisco 49er’s said, “People without plans are like a line of infantrymen without a strong leader, they’re much more likely to get overwhelmed and fall apart. He said, to avoid those risks I scripted the first 25 plays of the beginning of each game. That way I could sleep at night and know exactly what was going to happen before the game even started because I had a plan. He said you can’t just shoot in the dark and respond to what’s thrown at you. You need to have the plan and make your opponent respond to you. Don’t try to make it up on the fly.”

In my training sales sessions, I lay the groundwork for a step-by-step process on how to make sales calls that will lead the prospect to liking you, trusting you and wanting to buy from you. Later in my program I pull together everything we’ve talked about during the training and put it into a complete sale story that I then highlight and put in the form of a storybook. The storybook is intended to guide the conversation during the sales call from start to finish.

It’s not a presentation but a conversation. 

At that point in my training I pick a student at random to come up and role play a sales call with me and play the part of the farmer. Once the call is over and everyone sees how smoothly it can go using this process and almost everyone is impressed.

But there is always someone in the room who will yell out as my partner walks back to his seat, “You were way too easy on him.”

At that point the partner will respond, “You try to stump him or throw him off, you can’t do it, I tried. He’s in total control, leading the conversation where I don’t even know where I’m going and when I tried to object he handled it smoothly and got right back on track.” 

All of the partners I’ve had over the years will say, “YOU CAN’T DO IT, YOU TRY IT. 

The reason my sales calls, whether in the classroom or in the field with sales reps calling on farmers go so smoothly is because I write my story out word for word, then practice it word for word ahead of time. I role play it with a partner at least 10 times to make sure it sounds good and I know what to say when the prospect objects or asks questions. It’s all about role play practicing around a sales script.

But when I give my word for word script to students, most of them say, well, that’s not what I would say, or what if it doesn’t work like you want it to?

They have no script, no plan and no sales story of their own, but they’re quick to critique mine even after they see it work. 

I tell every sales rep who wants to know how to be successful making sales calls and become great at handling objections that it’s all having a prepared, well- practiced story, a plan. They need to write their story word for word then practice it that way. As they practice they will modify it for better fit. 

The sales story and the story book do several very important things for every seed sellers who want to make selling seed easier and more productive.

1. They force the seller to think about what to say, how to say it and when to say it. That’s the definition of being in control and getting what you want.
2. They serve as a guide when practicing and role playing the sales call. If you don’t have a play book to practice from, you can’t practice running plays to make sure everything is working the way you want it to.
3. The sales storybook serves as a conversation piece for the prospect and customer and keeps it from becoming a sales pitch. It allows the call to be interactive which prospects love.
4. A good sales story used with the guidance of a storybook more than doubles sales success. 

But why do most salespeople resist doing one of the simplest things that will make them over the top successful if they do it? It’s because they’re lazy. It only takes a few hours to put together a word for word story but for many that seems too hard because they first have to think about what to say and how to say it. But that’s what my scripts are for. If they did nothing else but follow my script word for word, they increase their chances of getting orders ten-fold. 

As all of you know, there are only two things you need to do to be successful in sales. 1. Make lots of calls and 2. Have a great story. The story is everything that happens once the contact is made. It’s how you look, how your vehicle looks, what your materials look like and how much preparation the prospect thinks you put into preparing for his or her particular sales calls. 

If you haven’t been preparing a script prior to making sales calls, the idea of having a great story goes out the window. 

Start writing your story word for word. It will tell you how good or bad your presentation actually is and wouldn’t it be a tragedy if your prospects thought you were really bad but you didn’t know it and they bought seed from you out of pity? It would be like having bad breath and no one telling you.

Your relationship is bound to be short lived.

Happy Selling,

Rod