In the previous post, we discussed the misadventures of the poor pickup artist, Sebastian.

 
We talked about how trying to copy the tactics of others without adding genuine value to your target audience often leads to a risk of “Not Gonna Make It” (NGMI is the scientific abbreviation).

We can see these same principles apply to someone in business

Let’s pick on a sales development rep. We’ll call him Sammy.

Sammy the Sales Rep is expected to make 50 cold calls a day for his SaaS company.

He is new to the role and really wants to hit his numbers, so he can get promoted to something higher paying and less mind-numbingly tedious, like an account executive.

 
His company gives Sammy a script and encourages him to study it, memorize it, maybe even eat it (like Francis Dolarhyde from the Hannibal series).

 
The script is pretty detailed. It gives Sammy minute instructions ranging from preparing for the call . . . to starting the call . . . to delivering the pitch.

He is told that “sales is a numbers game,” so he works his way down the list of leads, parroting the same script without doing any process improvement work to separate the qualified leads from the unqualified ones.

Sammy feels so insecure and eager for any edge that he tries to hide his southern accent, for fear of repelling his Kombucha-drinking urbanite prospects.

Sammy’s script gives him some questions to ask the prospect (e.g., “What are your main goals for next quarter?”). But, he is so hungry to close the deal, that he launches into the features and benefits of his product as soon as there is a pause in the conversation.

This is nothing more than an obnoxious attempt to steer the conversation the whole time—instead of listening to what the prospect has to say.

Now don’t get me wrong, for someone starting out, such a script might be necessary in the beginning.

But Sammy wants to climb the ladder of success. After getting dangerously close to being put on a Performance Improvement Plan (a warning to get better or get fired), he realizes that he is better off getting to know his market and cultivating within himself genuine expertise in his field.

There is no way around it. His job is a grind, but he likes his team and doesn’t want to let them down by giving up.

Sammy comes to understand that it’s not enough to blindly follow a script or cookie-cutter process. His market has changed dramatically in the last decade, and he wants to adapt and think for himself.

He decides to go beyond mere scripts and become an expert.

One of the fastest ways to be seen as an expert (or better yet, a leader) in your field is to grow your capacity for innovation.

Something I believe my free book  can help you with.

Here’s the link: https://powerpersuasion.net/