In our experience, when making sales calls it is nice to set up a number of guidelines for yourself. This prevents you from being left with a mouthful of questions when a prospect gives substantive answers. An important condition of these tools is that they do not turn into a script, but that the tools form a guideline. This blog takes a closer look at what the difference is between a guideline and a script and how to create a good guideline that will help you move forward in telephone sales conversations. 

You have formulated a clear proposition and want to use it to approach your target market. As part of your new business strategy you will approach the market by telephone. Then it is of course important that you know what you are going to say when you get the decision maker on the phone. After all, you have no idea how he or she will react to the fact that you are calling, or what substantive questions will be asked. So make sure you are well prepared. To make sure that you are as prepared as possible, it is nice to draw up a guideline for yourself. In it you can, for example, list some things that you expect the prospect to ask questions about, or important information that you yourself must not forget to mention, such as your USPs. A guide is meant for you to fall back on the basic story, in case you get lost in the dialogue. This will make you more confident going into a sales conversation.

What a guide is absolutely not? A script! A script has written out, sentence by sentence, what you are expected to say in an acquisition interview. That is absolutely not the case in a guidebook. A guidebook leaves plenty of room to deviate from what is written out and continue the conversation on your own. After all, this is only very important; listening to your prospect and capitalizing on what he or she is saying. Having action-reaction is also central to the coaching we have with our salary specialists. Being able to catch on to what a prospect is saying ensures that you are perceived as knowledgeable, fine and credible interlocutor. Of course there are key things you want said in a conversation, there are certain questions you want asked because the answer is a valuable market insight for you, but this should not be at the expense of the dialogue. After all, the most important thing is for the sales conversation to be a dialogue, rather than a monologue.

Within our projects, we also use a guidance document. In addition to the project content information that we incorporate into this, we also incorporate a plan for bypassing the gatekeeper into the guide. In fact, we often find that telephone operators do not transfer calls when they suspect acquisition. In our guide, we put together handy and tips and tricks that our commercial specialists can use to bypass the gatekeeper.

For those who find it a challenge to structurally and professionally market themselves by phone, FindBusiness is a great solution. As a remote sales colleague we can support you in conducting qualitative sales calls. We would like to get acquainted to explain our way of working.