Amy: All right.
Welcome back to close call here.
We have the one, the only James Urie who is back with us,
not just on Close Call Show, but also back with us at Close.
So we're very excited to have you here, James.
And today we're gonna be talking about talk tracks.
So what are they, when do you use them?
How do you make them?
Let's find out.
So first off, James, maybe you could just give
us like a, a quick introduction to talk tracks.
What is a talk track?
James: Sure.
Yeah.
I think a lot of people think of a talk track
as like a checklist of things that you need to
cover, um, in a sales conversation in the demo.
Um, whatever it might be.
I necessarily don't think about that.
I think about it as a line, um, that you can
write down and take from some of your sales
reps that are already used them that communicate
complicated ideas or concepts in a simple way.
Right?
So.
We as salespeople, whatever industry you're in,
there's always gonna be some sort of technicality
that you need to explain some sort of complicated
idea or concept that you need to describe to people
on a sales conversation, where it resonates with them.
And a lot of times it's really easy to have to basically
produce a new line for that on every single sales call.
Instead, what you should do is as a salesperson, try and
find, or write down a really, uh, a way to really simply
describe that concept or idea that come up most commonly.
So then anytime it comes up, you can just
nail it with an easy, uh, to go to talk track.
Um, and then it's repeatable, right?
And so you can pass it along to your other
sales reps as well, so that they can use it.
And, um, yeah.
So talk tracks, in my opinion, explaining.
Complicated ideas are con concepts in
a simple way and a repeatable fashion.
Amy: Awesome, that makes sense.
So then, there's this idea of the, the
difference between talk tracks and sales scripts.
Of course, we've talked a lot about, uh, on the, on our blog
as well, we've talked a lot about sales scripts, building
a sales script, um, for cold calls and things like that.
There's a time and a place for it, maybe, but in what
situations would a talk track be better than a sales script?
James: Yeah, it's a great question.
I completely agree.
Sales scripts definitely have their place when you're
training, especially at scale, brand new sales reps.
Scripts are also excellent for when a sales
rep has zero or very little product knowledge.
They need to get in.
They need to start selling.
They need to get in, get that motion, um, in
training, but they have no product knowledge.
So they need a script to go line by line to help them
through those, uh, sales conversations and get them
familiar, um, with selling the product and on, uh,
get them familiar with being on sales conversations.
Um, scripts are great for high volume short sales cycles.
So basically you create a script, you test it,
it works really well in these short sales cycles.
And then you can produce repeatable
results based on that sales script.
Sales scripts are great for those scenarios.
Right?
Um, now talk tracks should be introduced when the
sales rep has more familiarity with the product.
So again, they have product knowledge, they're
on more complicated sales conversations.
They are communicating complicated thoughts and ideas.
Um, overcoming complicated objections.
This is a good time to introduce a talk track.
When this objection comes up, this should be a
line that you can use to easily overcome it with
confidence and grace without getting yourself
stuck in the weeds, fumbling over your words.
Um, just a very clean, simple line that
explains that concept really easily, right?
They already have the product knowledge.
They understand it, but they need some words
to really, uh, articulate those concepts
and ideas in a very clean, simple way.
Um, and then I think that talk track should
offer more flow and feel more natural, right?
It it's sales scripts.
A lot of times you can tell this is a sales script.
It doesn't feel natural.
It doesn't have a lot of good flow.
Talk track should feel natural and have flow.
It should feel like the sales rep, they are such an
expert and they're so confident in what they do that
they just pulled that line out of their back pocket
because they are the best salesperson on their team.
Right.
And that's not always true.
It's just.
The sales team or the sales manager, you all work
together to figure out who has the best talk tracks, and
you take those, you use them as like a, a cheat sheet
for describing those complicated concepts, objections,
ideas, um, and you take 'em and it, you come off as a
sales rep as, as being an expert and extremely confident.
And then I believe that talk track should leave room for,
uh, allowing a sales rep to introduce their own voice.
So you take that initial talk track, and we'll
talk about how to produce good talk tracks
and how, uh, sales reps can, um, access them.
But taking those talk tracks and allowing the sales rep
to introduce their own language to the talk track, right?
You give them the, the foundation of this is useful.
This is a good way to describe this complicated concept.
But as they use it more often, you'll naturally
hear them introduce their own voice, their own tone.
Uh, maybe swap out a couple of words
that they're more comfortable with.
Um, so then it feels even more natural.
Amy: Hmm, that makes sense.
And so that kind of ties in with the next question.
Talking about how do we build these kind of talk tracks,
uh, if it's the sales manager or the sales reps doing it,
but how can that process kind of go to create a talk track?
James: Yeah.
So a lot of, if, if you're a sales manager and you're doing
sales and you're hiring, you'll naturally realize that you
have talk tracks that you use that are effective, right.
And you need to write those down, so as you hire
or scale your team, um, you can start to document
those and communicate, uh, and share those with
your team as your cheat sheet, if you will,
for describing those, uh, complicated concepts.
Now, if you're a sales manager and you're not in the cockpit
and you're not selling you should rely on your senior reps.
Your senior reps will also naturally, um, have their
own talk tracks that they feel very confident about.
And you'll find that your reps will have really high quality
talk tracks for different points in the sales conversation.
Right?
So sales reps, senior sales rep a might be awesome.
They might have awesome talk tracks for this concept,
this concept and this concept, and then other senior
sales reps have really high quality talk tracks for the
other concepts that the other sales reps don't, right.
So there's a natural collaboration that can take
place amongst the sales team to produce documents.
And what I would recommend is, what are your
FAQs that come up on sales conversations?
What are, what's your demo flow?
Like, how are you describing specific
elements of your product, your service?
Um, and then what are your objections?
Create those three docs and get your sales
team collaborating on those docs to share their
talk tracks that they use for those concepts.
And then as a sales manager, once that's completed, of
course you can introduce your own talk tracks if you have
thoughts and opinions on it, but finalize those documents
with the best talk tracks, and then, um, review those with
your sales team and push them as a go-to for your sales team
to use on a regular basis to describe complicated ideas,
but also to, uh, train new sales reps that come on board.
So again, you might have a sales script for the zero product
knowledge, but as they get in tune with selling a little.
Here's the talk tracks that we use commonly, um,
for overcoming objections for frequently asked
questions and for demo flow and how you describe
specific elements of your product or service.
Amy: Nice.
Great.
So then as sales managers are creating these
talk tracks for their team, what would you say
are some key principles for a great talk track?
How do they take it from just, uh, an average phrase to
something that's really gonna resonate with their audience?
James: Absolutely a couple, uh, of key principles would
be a talk track, should explain concepts, thoughts, or
recommendations in a simple, easy to understand way.
That's the first and foremost, uh, talk track
should be natural and have a sense of flow.
Uh, Um, talk track should be able to flow
into each other regardless of sequence.
Right?
So again, going back to the checklist,
uh, talk track, shouldn't be, I'm gonna go
in this order and this is my talk track.
It should be, sales conversations often jump around, right?
There's not always a perfect sequential order.
Talk track should accommodate that.
So if you're going from this concept in a
demo to this concept in a demo, um, and they
typically wouldn't, follow each other in sequence.
You should be able to jump from here to here with a
talk track and it should feel natural and it should
flow into another talk, track explaining a different
concept, um, idea, objection, whatever it may be.
Um, and then talk track should allow, uh, reps
the flexibility to introduce their own voice.
Give them, again, give them a foundation, uh, to use.
Which will ultimately evolve into their own voice.
Right?
You will hear these patterns and themes among your
sales reps using these talk tracks, but you will
notice that with time and as they use them, there
will be, uh, the sales reps, individual unique
voice introduced into those, uh, talk tracks.
And you should accommodate for that as you're creating it.
Amy: Cool.
So then next question for you.
How can sales managers make sure that
the reps are actually using talk tracks?
Cause maybe they put in all this
effort they've created the talk track.
It happens with sales enablement content.
No that sometimes the effort is made to create this,
but then the sales reps aren't really using it.
So what can sales managers do to make
sure that the team uses those talk tracks?
James: Absolutely.
So if you've created the documentation and you've
collaborated with your sales team to curate those
really high quality talk tracks, um, Hopefully
you one, you should reiterate that this is a cheat
sheet for describing those complicated ideas, right?
This is gonna be your best friend, and if you
use this, it is gonna make your job easier.
Because you're jumping on demos every
day or sales conversations every day.
And you're just gonna be stuck in the weeds,
describing these concepts over and over and over
again, trying to figure out your own language
versus just using the foundation that we've already
established that is really clean and simple.
So reiterating, this is your cheat sheet for describing
these complicated ideas, overcoming objections, uh,
in a graceful and confident way, even though you
may not have the experience that you need to sound
as confident as you will by using a talk track.
Um, so the reiteration there.
Now, I, I, I personally don't think that all talk
tracks should be mandated or a requirement.
It should be your friend, right?
Like if you say, Hey, we've created these talk
tracks to, you know, for FAQs objections, demo flow.
You shouldn't say you have to be using these, but again,
using the term cheat sheet for describing these concepts
is gonna be a better buy-in uh, for your, your sales reps.
They're gonna get it.
They're gonna say yes, I'm gonna use these
because it's gonna make my job a lot easier.
I'm gonna have to put a lot less energy into
rethinking and reinventing the wheel on every
sales conversation about these concepts and ideas.
Now, if a sales manager does create these docs and they
have effective talk tracks on them and they reiterate them
and they present them as a cheat sheet for making your
job easier and make you look confident and graceful as
a sales rep, um, there should be natural high adoption.
I've seen this amongst our own team.
Talk tracks that I started years ago where I
figured out a good way to describe something simple.
I'll still see it come out in the language of
our sales reps today, but in their own voice.
Right?
Like, um, and, and you think it, it really
like rings that bell for me that, oh man.
Like I, I recognize that talk
track, but I also see the, the.
Like Kate's voice now, um, in this talk track
that she used, that I came up with a couple
years ago and we did put together these docs for
objection, handling FAQs and things of that nature.
So there should be natural high adoption without
you having to really push it on your sales reps.
If you really are interested in tracking this,
um, the best way to do this is, you know, to
adopt an audio analysis tool, you know, like
a Gong or a Convin.ai or um, Chorus or Fathom.
These types of tools that are gonna transcribe
all the conversations and then you can
produce reports based on those conversations.
And then, you know, in those analytics, you
can say, look for these talk tracks, right?
Um,
Amy: Hmm.
James: Then then that would be one way of tracking
it to one, see if sales reps are adopting it,
but also to see what's working really well.
So you can look for patterns and trends, um, of
the best talk tracks, and that could also help you.
Um, Actually curate that document as time goes on.
So what talk tracjks are working really, really
well and what scenarios that can be a very effective
strategy, especially if you have a bigger sales teams.
Amy: Nice.
Excellent.
So, thanks so much for explaining talk tracks to us.
James, we've seen that when they work best,
we've seen how managers can create them, how you
can analyze them and how you can use them, uh,
in your sales team and in your sales process.
So thanks so much for joining us today, James.
James: Yeah, absolutely.
And if you have questions about talk tracks, you need help,
feel free to ping me on LinkedIn or shoot me an email.
Amy: Alright.