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Your ability to succeed as a professional is directly related to your ability to communicate in a clear and engaging manner. Obviously, this isn’t rocket science, but the question persists: why are so many professionals stuck in canned responses and scripting that sounds like they’re telemarketing for pyramid schemes in the 1990s?
Joking (but not really), we’ve all been on the other side of that conversation: you say something that throws the “professional” off their script, and you can hear the gears turning as they think of how to respond. Like witnessing an accident in rush hour, you cringe in anticipation as the wreck unfolds before you. Pages flipping, filler comments such as “umm” and “yes” and “that’s a good question” (with an extra draw on the “o” in “good” to buy more time). If you were on the fence beforehand, you’re off the fence now.
So what happened? The answer is simple. We stray away from those who are ingenuine and lack confidence, and the individual in this hypothetical scenario seems to be both.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is old verbiage used by professionals beyond their prime, refusing to accept responsibility for the fact markets have shifted. Our belief? As illustrated in our fourth core value, it is impossible to have everything working perfectly; there is always room for improvement. Scripting is one of the major culprits of this adage.
The issue is scripting still produces revenue. The professional sounds canned and feels insincere, but calls hundreds or thousands of people, and alas! Some prospects buy. The professional confidently believes that their use of scripts is what drove the result. In reality, you could beg on the street and still find cash––the fact that conversions exist in your pipeline doesn’t mean you’re capturing every opportunity. It’s entirely possible to pigeonhole yourself into this rhythm and not recognize a harsher reality; that you’re likely leaving money on the table, and capturing 30% of what would typically be a 60%+ conversion rate is not winning (or it’s winning so slowly you’ll lose by default).
“Capturing 30% of what would typically be a 60%+ conversion rate is not winning (or it’s winning so slowly you’ll lose by default).”
Scripts don’t work because they don’t allow any room for adjustment. Scripts don’t allow you to elaborate in an organic way, and scripts don’t force you to think on your feet in a manner that’s sincere. Scripting reinforces the demand-and-response conversational format that forces a professional to talk at you, with the hopes of receiving a favorable reply. Today’s consumer is extremely educated not just in the market they’re buying in, but also in the climate they’re buying in. Let’s be honest; have you recently met a new homebuyer who hasn’t started their search online with saved Instagram posts of their favorite interiors and a mood board of house ideas? I may be out of the real estate game, but I sincerely doubt any consumers are coming to the table empty-handed in 2021.
Do scripts have a distinct place in the workplace? Yes. I don’t believe they should be thrown out entirely, but the goal should not be to spoon-feed salespeople through rigorous scripts, but more so get the inexperienced salespeople comfortable with basic communication about your product and move them off of scripts as quickly as possible. When I work with sales teams that are underperforming, I typically see systems that fail to move the team to the next step… which is the common question, “if we get rid of our scripts, what do we do next?”
I love the mountains. In the summertime when I’m not working, you can often find me in the depths of the remote wilderness of Colorado, rock climbing, hiking, fly fishing, and disconnecting from hectic day-to-day life. The central Rockies shoot up in the sky, with giant piles of granite collecting at their base. Sometimes these granite pieces fall down the mountainside––huge, multi-ton boulders––and land in the rivers below.
Let’s go there for a moment; you’re walking along the river and notice how these huge boulders are resting in the water. The waters flow effortlessly in a certain direction, but when they hit the granite boulder, they take a sharp right, left, or split around the rock face before continuing. This metaphor is the perfect example for anchor points.
Anchor points are used to structure and steer conversations. We’ve all experienced situations where the conversation starts to go off track a bit––I remember one of the early pitches I presented in my career, where my client was talking about her granddaughters’ new shoes when we were initially talking about the pricing and terms of the contract. I remember thinking to myself, “how did we end up here?” And more importantly, “how do I bring this conversation back to the topics we need to get through, in order to get this deal done?”
Anchor points are the modern way to guide conversations, because they allow for extreme flexibility in the conversation without breaking away from the objective you originally set out to achieve; likely to get a sale, garnish a referral, or move the prospect forward in the sales process.
This gap is the exact reason we are kicking off 2021 with the anchor points coursework in Obsessed Academy—because this year is the year you break free of your boxes and scripts and limitations in dialogue, and master the art of communicating with power and conviction.
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