4 Sales Call Scripts to Level-Up Your Sales Program

What’s the difference between saying “we provide” and saying “you can get”? On a cold call, the difference is about a 22% ding to your close rate. Words matter: Sales scripts can help you ensure you’re using the right ones.

I want you to take a minute and think about your most successful sales calls. What do those calls have in common? Probably a lot of things, admittedly, but the core commonality between them is likely this: You didn’t get tongue-tied.

For most sales professionals, their most successful calls are the ones they approach most confidently with the right language. Sales call scripts can help make those elements consistent across all your calls.

Let’s examine four sales call scripts. I’ll go over their strengths and weaknesses, and help you determine how you can use a script to level up your sales program.

Why High Performers Use Sales Call Scripts

It’s a common misconception that sales call scripts are just a crutch for new salespeople. While it’s true that newer sales professionals can benefit from the use of sales scripts, they’re not the only ones. Let’s look at a few of the benefits of sales call scripts you can enjoy at any seniority or experience level.

• Objection Handling: A sales call script can help you anticipate and overcome objections. Most of your prospects will have similar objections, and a sales script can help you go into each call with a game plan to challenge those objections.
• Active Listening: A great sales conversation is just that—a conversation. You should be listening more than speaking. Using a sales script takes the pressure off you trying to think of what you’ll say next, allowing you to listen to your prospect fully and actively.
• Practice Makes Perfect: Even professional athletes train. Senior and high-performing salespeople need practice and training too! Approaching every sales call with the same script allows you to hone your delivery and approach, making every call better than the last.

When I started working in my family’s staffing business, I was provided with five index cards and a small binder. The first card was the cold call script designed to acquire a meeting. The next four cards held the language for the four objections I would continually hear, starting with the dreaded “we are happy with our current provider.” The language did a decent job, but I would argue what made the difference is knowing what to say and how to say it.

We get calls from some of the largest and most respected companies for help with scripts when they launch new products, pursue new initiatives, change their pricing, or communicate a change that will impact their clients. These scripts not only need to be strategic in nature, but they also have to provide salespeople the talk tracks with language they find effective.

G2’s Sales Call Scripts

The first sales script you can use for your sales program is G2’s sales call scripts. A strength of G2’s sales call scripts is that there are a number of options for scripts built on different goals you have for your call.

Let’s take a look at all of G2’s scripts and their strengths and weaknesses in a bit more detail:

• Options Script: While it’s not the worst thing in the world to introduce yourself and then say “How’s it going today,” you are far better off explaining why you are calling the person. Much of the script is designed on a very old closing technique called “the alternative to choose” by asking the client to choose between two options (removing the possibility of neither). There are no prospective clients who enjoy enduring a set of qualification questions to determine if they have a budget and authority.
• Connections Script: Most of the script is good, but if you are going to talk about the results you are delivering, you may be better off directly explaining what those results are, like “increasing their revenue by 12%.”
• Voicemail Script: You are going to set your team up to be disappointed if you have them asking their prospective clients to call them back. You are far better off leaving a message that you will call the client back the next day.
• Get Personal: There was a time when you might be able to create rapport by asking about the client’s experience in college, but that rapport building is not a great way to open a call, as people are busier than ever. It can also cause the client to believe your salespeople are time wasters with no real value to create. Modern rapport-building is a business conversation.
• When you want more information: These scripts are pure legacy approach choices that directly ask about the client’s problems. One of the reasons buyers don’t want to talk to salespeople is because this approach to discovery has been completely commoditized. More still, you should already know what your prospective client’s problems are, and you will score more points by providing them with an understanding of how and why they have those problems.
• Sound Familiar: There are very few contacts who are going to say they read a salesperson’s email, let alone one they received seven days earlier. The second part of the script on how their data can help the contact is good.
• Referrals: This script has a number of problems, starting with “I hope things are going well on your end, especially with using G2’s buyer intent data.” The best way to ask for a referral is to ask your client if they find your results to be valuable would they be willing to give you a referral to someone who would also benefit from those same results. You ask this question when you sign a contract, and as soon as your client is getting the results you promised, you call and ask for the referral. 

Most of these scripts are built on a legacy sales approach, but still, they may be a good starting point. You can take the scripts from this program and adjust them to take a more modern approach, like our voicemail script option.

The best way to use G2’s sales call scripts is to use them as a base upon which to build your own customized scripts for your business.

MailShake Sales Call Script

Another option for sales call scripts is MailShake’s script. One strength of MailShake’s script is that it encourages you to make your own scripts. Creating your own scripts helps you make the conversation more personalized and organic for your team. This resource also offers solid advice on preparation for a cold call, though it’s important to note that it doesn’t actually provide a solid script for you to work off of.

A few weak points of MailShake’s script is that it uses a lot of self-oriented language. “I wanted to reach out and talk to you about our software. Switching could save your company thousands of dollars each year. . .” This feels like a pitch, even though the language that follows softens it a bit.

Additionally, the advice on meetings is less than advantageous. The advice to ask a client a dozen questions may be okay if you intend to engage the client there and then, but if you really need a meeting, asking a lot of questions can make it easy for your client to disqualify and dismiss you. You are better off asking for a meeting where those questions will be treated differently.

This resource is more of a guide on how to build your own sales script, so you will have to work from scratch if you’re using this as your base.

RiseFuel Outbound Sales Call Script

RiseFuel also offers an outbound sales call script. One strength of this script is that it gives options based on the caller’s answers to key questions. Let’s examine the three scripts provided in more detail:

• First Script: The first thing to notice about the first script is that it is platonic, an ideal call, and one that isn’t likely to resemble a call to a real client. You will notice the client always says, “yes.” A better script would be one where the client isn’t so compliant.
• Second Script: The value proposition for the call is almost there, but it could be improved by making the ask about sharing information and ideas that would improve the client's results. This is good enough to use, minus the client always saying “yes.”
• Third Script: The words “did I catch you at an okay time.” If you want to know why decision-makers don’t like cold calls, this is it. The contact has no idea why the person is on their phone and is unable to know whether or not it's a good time. This ploy will cost you your credibility. The reference to their competitor is also an approach that is more likely to harm your results. I would avoid this script completely.

One of the weaknesses of these scripts is that the voicemail script asks for a call back instead of promising one. Additionally, the scripts don’t leave space for much listening, seems to be very talk-heavy scripts rather than encouraging questions and listening.

You can use these scripts as a base for your own customized script. Build on these scripts by removing the greetings and adding the responses when the prospective client isn’t so compliant, including their objections.

Talk Tracks

Lastly, I want to discuss my sales call script option, Talk Tracks. Of all the scripts on this list, Talk Tracks is the only script that takes a modern sales approach. Modern sales conversations focus on making sure your staff always have the right words to say.

The Talk Tracks sales scripts are customizable, tailored to your team, and come with a training program to get your team ready to use them effectively. The chief weakness of Talk Tracks is that we don’t provide a large number of Talk Tracks for transactional sales.

You can use Talk Tracks to adopt a modern sales approach. The modern approach of cold calling is built on trading something of value for your client’s time. Most salespeople adopting this approach book four meetings out of ten conversations instead of the one meeting out of ten you can expect with a legacy approach.

Beyond the Sales Call Script: Level-Up Your Team

Regardless of your team’s experience level, sales call scripts can make your salespeople more confident, increasing close rates and team morale at the same time. Using scripts will give your team the chance to listen to their prospects, overcome objections, speak with confidence, and more.

These four resources are a great start to leveling up your sales program, but if you are interested in providing your team with support that goes beyond the script, check out the Sales Accelerator today!