Conversation Mapping: A Sales Tool For Beginners

[BizyDad]

If you work for a sales organization, you tend to have an easier go of learning sales. This is because the organization has done a lot of the heavy lifting on sales scripts. They've hopefully tested them, improved them, and your job is simply to learn them.

When you jump to entrepreneurship, you don't necessarily have the skill of creating sales scripts.

That's where the concept of conversation mapping comes in. A seasoned salesperson in a role for a while will naturally be able to jot down the flow of a conversation.

A new Business owner, should do their best to write up not only a sales script, but a full-on conversation map.

What is a conversation map? That's exactly what it sounds like. Flowchart for the conversation.

Jot down your sales script. Then draw up the possible responses.

Usually, you have roughly two to five possible responses.

So let's say you have two responses, maybe yes or no. How do you respond to yes? How do you respond to no?

Then draw the possible responses to those responses.

Keep the process going until everything leads to either a closed sale, an agreement to speak again later, or a no.

Now most of the time there are more than two responses. That's normal. But if you find that you're coming up with more than five responses to your script or your response, see if you can group some of the responses into a single similar group. Ideally, you should have no more than five possible responses to any of your scripted words.

If after grouping you are still struggling, then you need to come up with a better script or response.

The best way to do that is with questions. Everybody always says ask open-ended questions. But too open-ended can be a challenge also. Narrow down the scope questions in a way that feels natural not forced.

But Bizydad, how will I know if I have successfully narrowed down the scope?

Well, first off you can test it out. In the real world trying to make a sale, or practice with a buddy to act like a client.

In practice you will see/sense if the scope of a question is still too broad.

Lastly, there will still be stuff that comes up that you didn't think of. That's okay too. The classic response to that is something like:

" That's a good question. No one has ever asked me that before. Let me talk to the team and get back to you."

So if you're a new entrepreneur, or maybe you're just expanding a product line or trying something new in business, if it involves some facet of sale or convincing someone, and if you are scared to "just go do it", conversation mapping is the best way to plan ahead and prepare for those moments.

Hope this helps someone.

 

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[BizyDad]

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