Here are six tips for your telephone script.

1. Try to not sound like a salesperson trying to sell something.
One of the most important things that we want you to start thinking about is that your prospects get a lot of calls from salespeople that are trying to sell them something. Not only is it not fun for your prospect when they get one of these calls, but it also puts them in a defensive mode when they answer a call from someone they don’t know.

If you agree with that assumption, you can use this to your advantage by modifying your approach so that you don’t give off the impression in your telephone script that you are a salesperson trying to sell something.

2. Don’t ask “How are you doing?”
One small change that you can do to not sound like a salesperson is to avoid asking the prospect how they are doing right at the beginning of the call. This is what a lot of salespeople do to try to check the box of being courteous and also try to manufacture rapport.

3. Don’t talk too much about your products in your introduction.
Another thing that you can do in your telephone script to avoid sounding like a salesperson is not to talk about your products in your introduction or as you open the call. Most salespeople will start a call by explaining or stating what they sell.

If doing this will make you sound like a salesperson, then doing something different might alter the impression you give off.

4. Share some sort of value proposition.
Instead of talking about the product that you sell at the beginning of your call, share a value proposition statement. This is a one to two-sentence statement that explains the value that your products offer.

This is not a mention of what your products are or what they do. More so, this is a statement that simply shares the main benefit that your products help to deliver.

5. Do a small takeaway.
One very small yet powerful tactic for your telephone script is to perform a small takeaway. A sales takeaway is a tactic where you take away what you are trying to sell the prospect.

If you do a very soft version of this at the beginning of the call, it can be very helpful in decreasing the prospect’s guard. The way to do this is to simply say something like this right after you share your value proposition:

I don’t know if you are a good fit for what we provide.

6. Ask a couple of good probing sales questions.
At the core of your script should be some good questions that you can ask your prospect. Asking questions on a call can not only help to get the prospect talking, but if they are designed correctly, they should help at extracting valuable information from the prospect.

We hope these tips help you to improve your telephone script.