The importance of checklists, procedures and scripts
In 1934, a couple of years before the start of the second World War, the U.S. Army was evaluating aircrafts for their Air Corps.
Boeing, at that time a relatively young company, was on the brink of bankruptcy. The manufacturer entered the competition with their B-17 Flying Fortress. Winning the bid would mean saving the company. Luckily, earlier tests were passed with flying colours and many considered these final evaluations mere formalities.
Two experienced Army pilots took the commands and took off in front of evaluators. As the plane was climbing smoothly, it suddenly stalled, turned on one wing and fell, crashing into flames on the ground.
The investigation found “Pilot Error” as the cause of the accident, the pilots having neglected to unlock the elevator lock prior to take off. While some considered the aircraft off-the-running, with some newspapers dubbing it as “too much plane for one man to fly”, 12 units were delivered nonetheless to the Army. Any further accident would mean the end of its carrer.
The pilots sat down and came up with a solution to avoid any further accident: The pilot’s checklist was born.
As it turns out, the plane was not too much of a plane for one man to fly, only too much to remember. With the checklist in place, the 12 original planes flew several million miles without any serious accident. The Army went on to order over 12’000 airplanes and the B17 became the most widely used aircraft in WWII.
Checklist and procedures are so important that they have become ubiquitous in business, aviation, healthcare and anywhere reliability and effectiveness is of the essence.
Why not apply the same to your prospecting?
Phone scripts
There is a better way to make a phone call to your seller leads. Find it out, write it down and start using it. Make sure that you rehearse it and that you iterate it in the light of new evidence. Share it with the rest of your team if you aren’t the only one making phone calls.
Listing presentation
The same is true for your listing presentations. Find the best way to give your presentation and document it. Create a presentation document that you can go through with your clients. This will serve both as a document about your services that your clients can keep, but also as a guide that helps you remember every key point that you need to make during the discussion.
Key take aways
Stop improvising every time and don’t let your prospecting be determined by chance. Instead, document what has worked in the past, write your scripts, learn them, rehearse them and deliver them with perfection every time.
Good prospecting!
