Leadership: Do you build it or hire it?

I recently asked a couple hundred business managers if they prefer to train and raise up leaders from within their organization or hire it from the outside.

They held the common thought: "raise it from your own people."

There were a couple who went against the popular belief and shared some great insights.  Really the question is a wrong question.  It forces the respondent to think either/or.  In many cases I try to re-frame questions posed to me so I can think both/and.

A better question could be, "Why should we raise up leadership and hire outside leaders for our organization?"

Three Benefits of Raising up Leadership:

1.  They know your vision, values, and philosophies.

2.  It gives others hope for career development.

3.  I gives your leaders a sense of personal fulfillment.

Three Benefits of Hiring Leadership:

1.  You get fresh ideas injected into your organization.
2.  You receive the rewards of another companies leadership development efforts.
3.  You can get a leader ready to step into a high level of responsibility much faster.

Human development and recruiting are not mutually exclusive.  A great leader does both at the same time.  Constantly looking for ways to develop their people and constantly looking for new talent.

Cold Calling B2B: Part 4 Scripts or no Scripts

So far on the cold calling routines we have looked at the foundational principles of successful cold calling.   We looked at the need to track your activity so you can either improve your own performance or know what is succeeding or failing.

Tracking is very important as we look at creating scripts and downloading lists.  If we don't track then we have to go with our gut feelings about what is working and which list is producing the best results.  However, if you are going to have any size business you need to put your monies and energies where you get the best results.  So, track your activities and corresponding results.

So let me address scripts, whether to use them or not.

Every time you go to the movies you don't think, "Hey, I don't like it when they all use a script.  I think that everyone should just wing it.  They all sound so fake."  No.  The actors have learned the script so well that they now can add their personality to it and even add appropriate improvisations that make that role (or phone call for you) come to life.  Good scripts helps them to know what to say and how to say it.

OK.  So my illustrations from "A Few Good Men" shows my age.

It sounds fake when the actors and actresses have the script in their hand on stage going through it for the first time in front of the director.  They are reading the script and trying to add personality to it but it is not the finished product.  Unfortunately most telemarketers stop at this point and never internalize the scripts.

If you want the truth and you think you can handle the truth:  my experience has been that the people who tell me scripts don't work are new and intimidated by cold calling, inexperienced, ineffective cold callers, or just don't want to put in the effort needed to become great on the phones.  They tell me scripts sounds too artificial.  The evidence they cite is we all had a telemarketer call us and it was obvious they were using a script. 

True.  Some people do not know how to use a script.  In fact some companies do not know how to use a script and it ends up sounding terrible on the phone.  They have a script.  Hire an employee.  Throw the script to them and in 10 minutes say, "Get on the phone and use the script."

The other problem with most scripts is that they are written with proper grammar.  Please forgive me Mrs. Anderson, my 8th grade English teacher.  Language properly written sounds different on the phone than language spoken in everyday words.

So here are some considerations:
1.  Scripts are effective if the caller has gone over the script so much that it becomes natural to them.  They know what to say and how to say it.  Then they get on the phones.
2.  Scripts are effective if they are written the way we would talk on the phone and not the way we would turn in for a creative composition paper at school.

Next time I will go through how to create effective scripts that everyone in your organization will like to use and will make a great impact on your potential clients.