Let's say that you were a business owner or executive manager at a company and you get a phone call that went like this:
Good morning Mr. Decision Maker, this is Cold Caller from XYZ Corporation. The reason I'm calling you this morning specifically is so that I can stop by and tell you about our new product that will cut expenses for your company. I’m sure that you, like your competition, are interested in cutting expenses.
(Cold Caller now waits for a positive response from you)
That's great Mr. Decision Maker, let's get together. How's tomorrow morning?
This is a variation of a sample cold calling script from Stephan Schiffman's book "Cold Calling Techniques That Really Work" in which the corporate sales trainer discusses methods of cold calling to prospect for sales leads. You could find many more examples of free cold calling scripts by searching the internet. So how would you respond to such a phone call? "Well, golly gee, I certainly want to cut expenses. Come as soon as possible. I can’t wait." A canned sales pitch certainly deserves a sarcastic reply.
I don't advocate cold calling as a prospecting method, but if you do do it and if you do use cold calling scripts, think about how you sound. Would you buy from someone that speaks to you like this? Of course not. You buy from salespeople that are empathetic and salespeople that you think are trustworthy. These traits cannot come from a canned sales pitch.
Don’t even think that you can pull it off. You are not a Hollywood actor. If you were you would be reading scripts in front of a camera. You are a salesperson and you earn a living by closing sales and earning commissions. You won't get many opportunities to close sales without any sales leads. And, you won’t get many sales leads by using a cold calling script that makes you sound like an emotionless computer.
