There are some small things that you can do in your telemarketing script to improve your sales results. And one of those small things is to perform a soft takeaway at the beginning of the call.

 

What is a Sales Takeaway?

A sales takeaway, which we refer to as a soft disqualify, can be explained a little easier by switching over to our terminology and starting with looking at what it is to “disqualify” a prospect.

To fully disqualify a prospect in your telemarketing script is to determine and confirm that the prospect does not fit at all with what you sell. To soften that a bit, making it a “soft” disqualification, instead of confirming that the prospect does not fit, we are just expressing concern or doubt as to how good of a fit there is.

To express this doubt or questioning in a statement or question is what we call a soft disqualification and is what many might call a sales takeaway. Here are some examples of what you might say to do this:

  • I don’t know if you need what our services provide.
  • I don’t know if you are a good for what we provide.
  • I don’t know if we can help you in the same way that we help other businesses.
  • I don’t know if you are the right person to speak.

When you add this to your elevator pitch, it might look something like this:

Great. The purpose for my call is that we help sales managers to decrease sales staff turnover and get underperforming reps to meet and exceed expectations.

But, I actually don’t know if you are a good t for what we provide. And that is why I was calling with a question or two.

 

Why This is Helpful in Your Telemarketing Script

When a prospect answers your call, they will have their guard up at a medium level as they will be trying to determine who you are and what you want. Everything that you say in your telemarketing script will either get them to increase or decrease this guardedness. We have shared a lot of small changes you can make to decrease the prospect’s guardedness in other blog posts, and this is going to be another small yet very powerful thing that will help you with this.

This is effective because when you say something like this, it tells the prospect that you are not going to push something on them if they do not need it and that you are looking out for their best interest. This can not only help to disarm the prospect and decrease their guardedness, but it can also help to build rapport and trust.

Delivering your elevator pitch followed by a soft disqualify statement (sales takeaway) creates a very powerful push/pull effect. Your elevator pitch will share something enticing, and then your soft disqualifying statement is going to slightly take that away.

This by itself will not make someone pull out their credit card to purchase, but if you replace a scenario where you would normally talk like a salesperson who is trying to convince someone to buy something and instead use this one-two punch of elevator pitch and takeaway, you will make a big improvement on how you open and establish prospecting phone calls and your telemarketing script.