If I had fifty bucks for every time someone has asked me to write a telemarketing script, Id be wealthier than Bill Gates. Ok, maybe not that wealthy. I would think that readers of my best-selling books, You Can Sell Anything By Telephone! and Reach Out & Sell Someone, could do it for themselves; at least a rough draft. Anyway, what Ive told these script seekers is scripts are next to worthless, if you dont know how to bring them to life. You need instruction in how to use them. Today, I trained a telemarketer at one of my coaching clients sites, and he is a perfect example of what Im talking about. Hes a typical READER. What I mean by this is he sounds flat, bored, canned, and robotic. Isnt this how most of us sounded in English classes when we were forced to recite poems that we had to memorize? (Longfellow may have been a great poet, but that experience taught me to hate the word, daffodils, ever since!) My point is this: three things need to come together for a script to succeed: (1) Text (2) Tone & (3) Timing. I call this, no surprise here, The Three Ts. Leave out one T, and your script fails. Of course the fourth T, the one that gets the other three into action, stands for Training. People need training in precisely how to use a script, and this includes specific instruction in where and how long to pause. Hint: Its NOT at the punctuation marks! You could have a wonderful script, but without the training in delivery it can fail, miserably; while excellent training with a mediocre script can support at least passable success. So, please dont overvalue words on a page or a computer screen. In the final analysis, they do not and cannot sell for us; only we can! |
