Writing a call script people do not hang up on

A script is not a thing to read aloud. It is a shared answer to the four or five moments where an unprepared rep loses the call — and everything outside those moments should be left to the person talking.

The first ten seconds

The person who picked up is deciding one thing: is this worth my attention or not. Most openings answer a different question, usually "who are you and what do you sell", which is not what is being asked.

What works is naming the specific problem you fix, in their words, and then stopping. The pause matters. A rep who keeps talking through it has taken the decision away from the other person, and they will take it back by hanging up.

Write the objections, not the pitch

The pitch is the easy part and reps improvise it fine. What they improvise badly, under pressure, is the four responses they hear every day: too expensive, not interested, we already have something, send me an email.

Write those four properly. Not rebuttals — a rebuttal is an argument, and arguments end calls. Write the question that comes next. "Already have something" is answered by asking what they have and what it does not do, not by explaining why you are better than a product you have not asked about.

What to leave out

• Company history. Nobody has ever bought because a supplier was founded in 2018.
• Feature lists. Features answer "how", and nobody has asked "how" yet.
• Anything you would not say out loud to a colleague. If it reads like marketing, it sounds like marketing.
• A close in the first call, unless what you sell genuinely closes in one call.

Keep it on one screen

If the script does not fit on one screen next to whatever you dial from, it will not be used on a busy day. A script people abandon is worse than no script, because you now cannot tell whether an approach failed or was never tried.