Sales appointment calls created using a proven process for cold calling scripts that will work for any product or service and in all markets.
When I ask salespeople and appointment planners to start creating a new cold calling script, they all take the same first action, they all start writing down what they’re going to say. Well, here’s a better way, a process that makes creating a new sales appointment script easy and straightforward.
In just a few steps, you can have a new call that has clear direction and goals at all points in the call. There’s no verbiage or redundant phrases, and because you select the words you’ll use, it can be formal or friendly to suit your prospects and specific to your products or services.
Follow the sales training below and you’ll have a new and effective Introduction Stage for your sales appointment calls, and you’ll learn how to create the other stages of a call using the same effective process.
Step 1. The stages of the appointment call
The first step is to identify all the stages you want in your sales appointment call. This may vary slightly across products and markets, but here is a good effective basic structure that I have used successfully for many years:
Sales Appointment Call Stages
Introduction: This is the beginning of the call where you tell the prospect who you are and why you are calling.
Qualifying Questions: At this stage, you ask questions to see if the prospect qualifies as someone you want to meet.
win deal: The stage where you get the prospect’s agreement to a meeting with you.
This is just the basic stage structure of a sales appointment call. By starting with this stage structure, rather than trying to create a cold calling script that begins with the words you will use, you have direction and goals throughout.
You know that your goal in the Introduction Stage is to move your prospect along with you to the Qualifying Stage.
Once in the Qualifying Stage, you know your goal is to get to a position where you decide if you want to meet with the prospect and get a position where you can get their agreement for that meeting.
Now that you have the general basic structure of sales appointments, you can add the parts that make up each of the stages.
Step 2. Introduction stage of the parts of a sales appointment
We now have a direction and goal for our cold calling script introduction stage.
What we want to add now are the parts that will make up the Introduction Stage that will move the prospect in the direction of the target. Then we will have a frame in which we can wrap the words.
Here’s a basic framework that I use as a starting point for creating sales appointment introduction stages.
The introductory stage
- Introduce you.
- Present your company and/or your product or service.
- Associate a wide potential benefit to your company or product.
- Tell the prospect why they are calling using a potential benefit they could get from listening to you.
There you have it, a good short introduction that has two potential benefits to encourage the prospect to keep listening and move with you to the next stage. I also add a unique technique at the end of the Introduction Stage that works really effectively to advance the prospect to the Qualifying Questions Stage, I’ll tell you how to do that later.
Step 3. Now add the words
You can see from the basic framework above that you already have what you want the words to say, and what you want them to do for you, for each part of the Introduction Stage. Now it is very easy to add your words to this frame. Just look at each part on its own and select the way you’ll word it and the sales appointment cold calling techniques you’ll use.
One of the great things about this sales training process is that you can now customize the appointment script to suit your prospects and your market, and make it specific to your products and services.
If you want to keep it friendly and informal, you can use words and phrases, and a tone of voice that does just that. If your prospects expect a businesslike, formal style when you contact them, then use words to project that image.
The introduction framework above can be used for any product or service, and to contact any type of potential customer, because the words you use will tailor the outcome of this cold calling process. Now that you know the process, you can use it to create all the other stages of an appointment call.