Please ask yourself this very basic question: why are you in sales as a career?

Is it to earn a fine, substantially above average living? Are you in it for the money, or for some other reason?

Perhaps you like the lifestyle, an expense account, travel, a car allowance, not having a boss peering into your cubicle every five minutes. I don’t put these motivations down.

They’re perks, but really, the number one reason you should sell is to produce a great income, agreed?

If so, you should devise a set presentation, a script, and stick to it. Scripts will more consistently outperform “winging it,” day in and day out, and they’ll deliver a bigger, better living to you.

I’ve seen this happen across an extensive career, as a seller, a sales manager, and as a consultant and coach. A script is a tool that works for you, as much as a shovel that you might use to plant flowers in your garden.

You wouldn’t use your hands to break up hard soil, would you? You need something that has been fashioned for that purpose.

You wouldn’t change tools every day, if the task stays the same. You’d use the shovel, because it has proven its value.

Why try a rake?

But sellers will change their language from prospect to prospect, even though some word combinations are consistent winners for them. They justify this by saying that they don’t want to sound canned, that they have to appear spontaneous to be effective.

I agree, stilted pitches tend to fail. But just as a Broadway actor brings a script to life each and every night, making it fresh, so can we, with our presentations.

You were probably given the equivalent of a script, long ago, when you first started selling. Dust it off, and try using it, as closely as you can.

You’ll be amazed at how smart such a dumb little device can be!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman © 2006

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. A frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide, Gary’s programs are offered by UCLA Extension and by numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. Gary is headquartered in Glendale, California. He can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com

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