Are your sales scripts creating sales zombies that kill your sales?
I was asked recently what my opinion of sales scripts are. I hesitated to say that I think they are a complete waste of time and create lazy salespeople, simply because many believe that they need them and I didn't want to chance offending the person asking.
But the truth is, sales scripts allow sales people to turn their brains off and stop listening to their prospect. Sales scripts= sales zombies.
Sales techniques from the Carol Burnett show.
When this metaphor came to me last week, I was thinking only in terms of characters and how personas are like the characters that actors become in a show like the epic Carol Burnett variety show.
The show was infamous for the characters they portrayed and the bloopers that they didn't edit out in their live recordings. I learned that the show rarely stuck to script, and that is what made it great. In fact, the show was taped in front of a LIVE audience and there was an ongoing "contest" between the actors to make each other laugh and mess up the skits. Improv is a test as to how well you know the characters and their reactions.
Sales Coaching with Personas is Improv at it's Best
The improv application to Smarketing is where things really start to get fun. Customer personas are your improv characters. Sales assessments are the actors (sales person's) character. To be able to predict your customer's behavior, move in the real time of the internet, and stay ahead of the competition around the corner or across the globe, you need to trade the sales scripts in for assessments and personas. Your product or service offer is the stage.
