Adding a Sales Call Talk Track checklist to your meeting schedule will help you prepare for your meeting with a potential customer. Talk Track is designed to ensure that when you leave the sales call, you have all the information you need to qualify for the opportunity and move the process along.
The Talk Track meaning is a valuable resource for entrepreneurs who lack sales experience, as well as for those who have sales experience but are attempting to sell to a new type of customer.
You must obtain certain essential information about potential sales risks and difficulties in order to qualify and manage a sales process successfully. The three categories of information are:
- Problems
- Positioning
- People & Process
An approach focused on customer qualification starts at the top of the list and moves through each category sequentially. When the sales call ends, you want to make sure you have:
- Support from the buyer
- Access to the economic buyer
- Confirmation that there is a budget to fund the purchase
Qualifying for a job opportunity requires all of these elements.
Talk Track vs. Sales Script
The purpose of a sales talk track is to guide the discussion between an SDR and a potential customer. Having too strict hands, however, will prevent meaningful talks and lead to missed opportunities.
In order to succeed in sales, new salespeople need to have successful discovery calls. By using these tools, you can learn about the customer’s needs, timeline, and how you might assist them.
In order to sell, sales leaders need to have conversations with their clients. With talk tracks, sales reps can have structured conversations, giving them a better understanding of what they should do and how they should do it.
We should not think of sales scripts as rigid, repeatable, word-for-word checklists that don’t allow for deviations – they should be seen as guides rather than formulas. It is crucial to be able to improvise and be confident during a sales conversation.
When engaging with prospects, a sales script can be precious in helping to shape the conversation. The result of going into a sales conversation blind – without a clear idea of what you want to discuss or a realistic sense of where it should go – can make you appear unprepared, uninterested, or sloppy.
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Advantages of a Talk Track vs. Sales Script
Here is the following comparison between the advantage of sale scripts and talk tracks:
Advantages of a talk track
The following is a breakdown of these talks’ tracks:
Thought leadership: The concept of thought leadership is telling an epic story about change with unique language and positioning that helps people see a better way to work in the world. It’s not a product pitch but a “thought pitch” illustrating your unique perspective as a visionary.
You must have an interesting point of view, regardless of whether it is provocative or intellectual. Book chapters, keynote addresses, fireside chats, platinum media, and other forms of thought leadership using thought leadership talk tracks
Sales: An organization seeks solutions to a specific pain point or problem during a sales cycle. In addition, they want to know who else has used the product to solve similar problems as theirs, as well as how it fits in or stands out.
The product’s features, functions, and benefits must be explained during sales talk tracks, and there must be demonstrations that show how it solves customer problems, customer use cases, and references from other companies that have successfully implemented the product.
It is essential to have a sales talk track on your website. There can be some references to your company’s thought leadership, but people are unlikely to search for your website using your thought leadership words. As a result, they will use words that they are already familiar with and are likely to use.
Investor: A potential investor wants to know how your company is positioning itself (thought leadership) to address a variety of business problems (sales) and why a large and addressable market will give it a phenomenal return on investment.
There should be a little bit of thought leadership and sales talk tracks included in the investor track for early-stage startups, but they must quickly explain why they will establish themselves as the category leader by providing proof. The more evidence you can present – product, revenue, team, growth rates, customers, etc. – the more likely you will be to generate investor interest.
Advantages of a sales script
Sales scripts keep the message focused and concise: Do you know anyone who isn’t good at telling stories? The storyline may start off on one subject and then shift from topic to topic, making it difficult to follow. Alternatively, they might include too many unnecessary details, resulting in a tedious story. A poorly-crafted sales script could result in your cold calls sounding like a story you forgot to tell.
You should be able to get to the point quickly and engage the listener, not bore them to death. Following a script helps you stay on course during your sales call.
Training becomes more accessible with the sale script: New sales reps, like an up-and-coming salesperson, are where scripts make the most difference.
The dialogue written in a sales script can be practiced by new hires repeatedly since it is preapproved. By repeating it repeatedly, new hires develop muscle memory, allowing them to present themselves more naturally.
Furthermore, it helps predict sales conversations even if they’re representing a brand new company with a completely different product line.
Sales scripts make scaling simple: Sales scripts are quantifiable because they are written down. In other words, the length of a sales script is significantly correlated with the length of a sales call.
It is advantageous if, for example, you want to shorten sales call times so you can make more calls. You can trim the verbiage as necessary by looking at the script. Additionally, hands are helpful if you ever want to add new details to your pitch, such as mentioning a new feature. You can just pull up the script and insert it where it makes sense.
Ways to Improve Your Talk Tracks
Pick one thing to speak about
In your pitch, avoid covering too much ground. Don’t begin with “Well, we do three things…” but instead, pick one thing to highlight, even if it isn’t the product you will sell.
Elevator pitches are designed to generate curiosity and extend or establish a call. In the same way, a good movie trailer needs to entice viewers and tease what’s to come; your pitch should do the same. Trailers provide little information about the actual movie plot, but they create a sense of curiosity through their audio and visual effects.
Identify the one thing your company does that gives it a competitive advantage, and make sure it is something you are proud of.
Use hyperbole.
Hyperbolic phrases and words like “the best” and “the greatest” are examples. Regardless of whether it’s my third or my fourth call, I will teach your reps how to go live on my first try when I get your business. How confident and passionate I matter most.
There are too many salespeople who approach sales like Goldilocks. In their efforts to avoid being too forthright, they serve prospects lukewarm porridge with phrases such as, “We have a great team of software developers” or “Customer service is of utmost importance to us.”
Hyperbole is not meant to persuade or convince; it’s meant to show your prospects how strongly you believe in what you’re selling.
Learn from the prospect.
Put yourself in the prospect’s position and assume you have the chance to learn from them. The prospect will not pay attention to you if you are trying to gain power in the conversation and only asking about their budget.
Examples of talk tracks
We have provided some common objections and related talk tracks below – feel free to give them a try.
Read More: Avoiding Burnout as an SDR (Sales Development Representative)
Talk Track for COVID
Objection: COVID is causing my business to face financial challenges, so I must wait until I can understand its economic impact.
Talk Track: My clients have the same concerns as you; this is how they feel too. In these uncertain times, what are the most critical areas of your business?”
As many questions as you can regard the most important things their marketing department should do during this time of uncertainty. We might be able to help the client or prospect achieve the desired business result with this conversation.
Related collateral: Examine and discuss the Forbes article in relation to this topic. Do not cut advertising when the economy is going through or may go through a recession, as this can be beneficial.
Talk Track for Results and ROI
Objection: I have tried this before, but it did not work.
Talk Track: “I don’t think you should be surprised.” Marketing can be done poorly in 50 different ways and well in just a handful. In this rapidly changing media landscape, we are proud to assist in reaching your target audience and guiding them through the consumer journey.”
Getting them talking is then essential: “What have you tried, how did you approach it, and what expectations did you have?
Related Collateral: Be prepared to support your statements with case studies.