I recently posted a quick story on my personal social media about the power of consistency when it comes to learning to speak with potential customers when you are working in a “sales position”. Script practice or role play is a very common practice for realtors to help them get more comfortable with prospecting for new business.

Whether its networking events, hosting open houses, calling leads, door knocking, or any other scenario you can dream of to generate new business in sales, there is probably a script for it.

When I first got licensed, I was a little wary of script practice because I did not want to sound, you guessed it, scripted lol. Honestly, I was a little more than wary of it. It is extremely important to me to sound and be genuine in every aspect of my life, personal and professional so the word “script” was a turn off from the start. I was wrong and here are a few things I’ve learned.

1. Every verbal interaction with another person involves a script of some form or another. Example: “Hi, how are you today?” “I’m good thanks. How are you?”. That is a script. The words may be interchanged to some degree, the tone can vary, but it’s still a script. One that many of us use on the daily.
2. Just because it’s a script does not mean it’s not genuine. I like to lump it in the same category with giving a speech or a talk on a particular subject. For it to sound natural, be convincing and hold people’s attention a speech or talk MUST be practiced. If it is not, the audience can almost always tell. The ummms will probably give it a way haha.
3. Script practice has made me sound LESS salesy or robotic. Instead of following a written script word for word anymore, I just have a conversation with people. Do I have some notes highlighted when I am on the phone? Yes. But it’s just key points, not a whole sheet of paper that I read word for word. My words interchange and tone varies depending on who I’m speaking with and that makes it a feel and sound more natural because it is.
4. I have been using scripts my whole life. Not just the simple one listed above. In my last business everything I said when speaking to or coaching a customer was some form of script or another. I just didn’t realize it because the material about that particular business was so ingrained in me, I could talk about it in my sleep. I probably literally did at times, ask Brett lol.
5. The last point I want to make goes back to the previous one. Know your material. I recently had a successful mentor tell me to never ask a question that I don’t already know the answer to when calling For Sale by Owners. Know your material or at least know a professional that will so you can refer. The more you know, the more confidence you will have. But in order to know more, you must do the thing and talk to people.

When it comes down to it, I have learned that in order to get better at scripts you must practice. The consistency of doing it with someone you trust several times a week, even for a few minutes is a game changer. Then, just do the thing. Make the calls. Knock on the doors. And talk to the people, they will give you the best feedback over time. Can it be hard? Yes, very. But just do the thing. I am just starting out in this new venture, but script practice has been a game changer for this introvert.