How to Make a Sales Script Sound More Natural, Realistic

Most sales companies distribute professionally written scripts for their employees to use while making sales calls and/or presentations. While these scripts do have a high success rate, what your best sales team members aren't telling you is that they often have to make adjustments in order to make someone else's words work for their own pitches. In other words, they really are not reading the scripts word for word, and neither should you. While you should adhere to the sales script provided to you as closely as possible in order to ensure that your company's specific message is relayed to the customer, try implementing the following tips to make the conversation more natural, and thus encouraging your customer to feel more at ease.

First, always tweak your sales script's opening after you have developed a quick relationship with the customer. Pay attention and get a feel for the person before you start your sales pitch. Is the customer in a leisurely, talkative mood? Is the customer busy? Is he/she really the kind of person who would need or want your product? You can almost always pick up on these facts just from the first line or two of dialogue exchanged. When you have decided what you're dealing with, look at the opener on your sales script and see what words should be replaced or omitted. Figure out the attitude you need to project in order to further develop an open relationship with the customer.

Next, memorize your sales script word for word. Right now you're thinking, "Isn't that going to make my presentation sound even more rehearsed?" In reality, sales scripts sound more unrealistic when they are read off of a sheet of paper. Reading your script makes room for mispronunciations, skipped lines, and unnatural stopping points. Knowing your script by heart, word for word, ensures that you'll be able to concentrate more on the attitude you are projecting than on the next line of text. You will also be free to instantly move on to other lines in the script that are more relevant to your particular customer, and therefore will be able to actually tailor your speech as you go. Before you make that first call or sales presentation, have your script memorized perfectly and be able to add your own dialogue when and where necessary.

Next, make your own closing at the end, after the conversation has slowed. This is where you will have to be careful and make your own calls. Oftentimes, a customer begins to lose interest before the sales script is completely covered. Once you've lost that interest, you've lost your sale. When the customer becomes ready to end the conversation, end it. Most first time calls or presentations are not responsible for the actual sale. As any sales dream team member will tell you, a great deal of purchases actually take place in a follow up call or meeting that requires much less work than the original conversation did. If you haven't made a sale yet and the customer is getting restless, give your best closing and end the conversation while they are still listening. When you call back later on to follow up, a sale will be much more likely to occur.

Finally, and most importantly, convey a sense of urgency to your customer. This does not mean, of course, to threaten them with a limited offer or to highlight over and over again what they are missing out on. That doesn't work for you when telemarketers call your home, and it won't work on your potential client. Instead, having a sense of urgency in this case means speaking as if you are just as interested in this call not wasting your customer's time as they are. When your customer hears you on the other end or watches your presentation, they want to know that they are going to hear and/or see only something that is helpful and useful to them. Get to the point, get to the sale, and get going!