Holding a sales conversation without a script

A script feels safe. You know what you are going to say, you forget nothing, and you have an answer ready for every objection. But your customer hears it. A routine sounds like a routine, and the moment the conversation takes an unexpected turn, you are left empty-handed. What is more: if you are reciting a text, you are not listening.

Structure in your sales conversation

Does that mean you should go into the conversation unprepared? On the contrary. The alternative to a script is not chaos, but structure. A script dictates your words, a structure gives you grip and leaves all the room to be yourself and to really respond to what happens.

The four steps of a sales conversation without a script

The structure that almost always works has four steps:

1. Understanding and acknowledgement. Summarise what you heard during the exploration. "If I understand correctly, your biggest challenge is X." That shows you have listened. It is stronger than any opening line.
2. Your solution. Present your vision or solution as the logical route to their goal.
3. Proof. Concrete figures, a customer story, the benefits for them.
4. A next step. Agree something clear, preferably straight into the diary.

Within that structure, your best instruments are skills. Open questions that draw out the customer's story. The silence after an important question. Stories instead of lists of facts, because a person remembers those. And above all: be yourself. Making mistakes is allowed. Searching for a word once makes you human, as long as your intention is honest.

How do you prepare a sales conversation without a script?

My own preparation is therefore mostly this: clearing my head. Before every important conversation I take fifteen minutes to focus on one thing: how can I help this person as much as possible? The rest follows naturally.

Try it in your next conversation. Take fifteen minutes beforehand, put your script away and write down only that one question: how can I help this person as much as possible? Want to practise it with role plays and live feedback? That is what we do in the Sales Excellence Training.