Scripted sales calls old fashioned, fail to connect with customers - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

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Geez, I have been saying this for more than 25 andI can’t believe companiees still use them to sell over the OK, forget the companies themselves, let’xs blame the manager or the person who is responsible for still tryinv to do something that every sales trainer on the planeg says does not work. Now, before I go on, do not writ e or send an e-mail telling me that I am wrong orbeintg stubborn. Instead, why don’t you try something new – that is, new to you or your organizatiom – and just do what I will lay out Trust me, it has worked every single time with any organization, big or small, that I have worke with.
This horror of using scriptx came rushing back to me recentlyh while working with a compang whose stores are in every big city inthe nation. The company is highlgy regarded for its ethics and is a very visibl e organization that many are familiar with becausw ofthe company’s longevity and brand I was asked to come to the company’ headquarters and look at its method of attractingg new business through its telemarketing program, which the companh has been using for a couple of years. They said that althoughy the results were OKat first, salesa had become pretty dismal.
It took me just 30 second to read the script that the inside salespeople were using, and I was I talked with the company president and said I could help the salespeoplde in just two hours, but I needed him to let me do my job and not to interfere unless I called him in for his opinion. He but I could sensw he was a bit apprehensive about the situatiob andmy request. I worked only with the manager, who was reallh a selling manager because she was on the phones herself at times trying to pitch in and We went intoa room, and I spentr an hour going over why scripte don’t work and why she has been brainwasherd to do something that was against all the rulezs of professional salesmanship.
She was neither thrilled with me at this point nor happy after I tookher eight-pagew script, ripped it up and thre w it in the wastebasket. We role-played a littlwe using real situations that she might have with her childrenand friends, for instance. The goal was to show her that havingfa two-sided conversation is much more useful than a one-sideds script. She was really starting to get it, even thoug she kept wanting to go back to a sellintg mode by doing more talking than listening andaskinfg questions. It was so simple that it was frightening to her that a sellin situation can be flexible and not just acanned speech, where she can actually have fun while conversingv with a customer.
The introduction and questionzs I wrote out were basicc and easy for herto grasp. They were: “Hi, my name is Susanm from Client Co., and I would like to ask you two or thredquick questions. It will not take more than 48 seconds I promise. “Are you familiar with our company? If yes, what aspects?? “Why are you not a member, or why did you leave our