The sales job is posted. Maybe it went live this week 🐯

The plan feels right. A salesperson takes the calls, and you finally stop being the only closer in the company.

Then the strong candidate sits across from you and asks three things. I wrote them into my book because good sellers ask them almost word for word:

"Show me the script. Show me the conversion rate on your sales calls. Show me the recordings of good calls."

No script, no numbers, no recordings? The strong candidate takes the other offer. The one who stays learns by guessing.. on your best leads. And six months later you're back on every call 🐬

Why the new hire can't copy you

In Chapter 8 of Strategy Sprints I wrote down the sentence I hear from owners all the time: "I am not good at sales. I don't want to do it. Let me hire a salesperson. They will do it."

The answer in the book is one question: "However, without an excellent script, how can you hire and train people for sales?"

Your best calls work because you feel your way through them. Nobody else can feel their way through your calls. They can only follow a path you wrote down.

The book says what that path gives you in one line:

"it gives you a starting point, it keeps you in control of the conversation, and anyone in the business can use it."

Control of the conversation. Everything else follows from it. A buyer feels within minutes who is leading. When nobody is, the call ends with "send me a proposal".. and then silence.

The 10 parts of a script that keeps you in control

This is the structure from Chapter 8, written in 2021. Today we teach a sharper version of it as the 8 Steps of the Repeatable Sale. The bones are the same.

1. Agenda. "Thank you for being on the call, and this is what we are going to cover today." The book: "This puts you in the driver's seat."
2. Qualify and diagnose. "What are your ambitions?" "What are your current numbers?" "What numbers do you not know?"
3. Contrast. Repeat back where they are and where they want to be. Let them see the gap.
4. Benefits. "What changes in your P & L?" No feature tour.
5. Trial close, open. "Which one of these sounds interesting to you?" Then go deep on that one only.
6. Deliverables. The milestones that solve their problem. Still no features.
7. Trial close, closed. "Okay. Which one of these really interests you more?"
8. Proposal. "Let's get you started on (deliverable) so you can (benefits). My fee is X."
9. Close and handle objections. The book: "Expect five to eight objections to come in one call." Normal. Not a no.
10. Schedule a next step. A date in both calendars, not "let's stay in touch".

Notice where the price sits. Part 8. After the gap, after the benefits, after they picked what matters to them. Price after pain is why your number feels small next to theirs 🌴

The same chapter adds one question for the discovery call: "What happens when nothing happens to solve this issue?" Today it's Step 4 of our 8 Steps, Cost of Inaction. Let the buyer answer it. Out loud.

The 15 seconds that do the selling

Part 8 has the instruction founders find hardest:

"You must shut up for 15 seconds after you say the price"

Fifteen seconds is long. The line goes quiet. You hear your own breath. Your mouth wants to add "but we're flexible on that".

Don't. The book says the silence keeps "working inside them": the gap, the value, the solution. The first person who talks after the price usually gives something away. If it's you, it's a discount.

That's what "not needy" sounds like. Not a clever line. Fifteen calm seconds.

35 calls before you hand it over

When is the script ready for a new hire? The book is specific:

"I recommend that you run through this script at least 35 times with different clients to refine and improve your techniques."

Thirty-five real calls. Along the way you collect your 10 to 15 most common objections and how you answer each one. Then the script is a document someone else can run, not a feeling they have to guess.

The warning comes right after: hire salespeople before the script is fine-tuned, and the delegation "probably won't be successful".

And one more number from that chapter: I need 8 to 14 conversations to close a high-ticket deal. Your script tells the new hire that conversation three is not the end. It's the middle.

Run this with your team this week

Block 60 minutes. Put the founder and whoever sells next in one room, coffee on the table, last won deal on the screen.

1. Play the recording of your last won deal. Write down the questions you actually asked, in order.
2. Map them onto the 10 parts. Mark the empty ones (often the "what happens when nothing happens" question and the next step).
3. Write your price sentence: "Let's get you started on [deliverable] so you can [benefit]. My fee is [price]." Say it out loud. Count 15 seconds in silence. The first time it tastes strange. Repeat until it feels boring.
4. Put your top 10 objections on one page, each with your answer.
5. Count the real calls you've run on this script. Under 35? Keep running it yourself and let the new hire listen in.

You walk out with version 1. On your next call you'll feel the difference: you lead, and the buyer can tell 🐯

Where this comes from

This is Chapter 8 of my book Strategy Sprints: 12 Ways to Accelerate Growth for an Agile Business (Kogan Page). Teams read it together, one chapter a week. Anthony Iannarino said it best in the foreword: "Instead, do the work one chapter at a time."

Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Strategy+Sprints+Simon+Severino&i=stripbooks

Do it together

A script gets good in the reps, not on paper. Sprint Club is where founders do this work together, with the tools and AI skills we use ourselves. 7 days free: https://www.strategysprints.com

Ready to accelerate now? Book a Discovery Call: https://calendly.com/strategysprint/discovery-call

Happy hunting.

Simon & The Sprinters 🐬⚡️🐆