Learn Your Lines It takes practice to sell successfully over the phone--and you need a stellar sales pitch to capture customers. We've got 8 steps to help you create one.

Have you or your sales reps ever experienced phone choke?It's a pernicious malady that strikes most sales reps at onetime or another. You know the symptoms: a quivering voice, a drymouth, shaky hands, and a brain that goes utterly blank whileyou're on the phone with a prospect. To inoculate your salesforce against phone choke, crafting a sales script may be theprescription. Scripts can put reps at ease and help them make itthrough a full menu of your service's features and benefitswith a willing prospect. Here are eight methods to help you createa killer sales script for your company:

1. Don't be toorigid. A natural script may sound like an oxymoron, but awell-sculpted script can flow organically. The reason a cannedscript sounds so stiff is because the salesperson delivering itdidn't write it. One way to beat wooden script delivery is tolet your reps customize their own scripts so they come across intheir unique voices. Provide a template, and plan to review andapprove each rep's version before it goes into circulation.

2. Get to thepoint. You have less than the time of a TV spot to establisha connection. George Ludwig, author of Power Selling: Seven Strategies for Cracking theSales Code, says that, from the moment the buyer picks upthe phone, you have 20 seconds to "reduce tension and createinterest." Ludwig adds that the sales rep's number-one aimshould be to "rapidly create curiosity" to start rapportbuilding and lessen anxiety.