Before web development and artificial intelligence, there were more than 20 years of sales and marketing. Much of it on the phone, in call centers: first as an agent, then as a supervisor, then a director, and finally as the owner of my own call centers abroad. That sales and marketing experience shaped the way I work, all the way to my AI SEO pipeline.
It didn’t start very well, though.
At first, it was a student job, nothing more. And I wasn’t good at it. I got fired from my first two phone sales jobs.
Looking back, the reasons are clear: a lack of experience, a lack of motivation, and above all not following instructions. The famous sales script, I didn’t follow it. I didn’t understand it, and I was convinced it didn’t work.
Then I decided to get better. And along the way, I came to enjoy the job. What fascinated me was the moment when someone closed off, who says no from the very first sentence, ends the conversation by agreeing to buy or to book an appointment. Nothing magical happened in between. A well-built conversation happened.
It took me four to six months to understand what I had missed at the start. I wanted to do more, and I noticed I was wasting time with certain customers who led nowhere. Those who fit the target clientele, on the other hand, responded perfectly to the script.
The script wasn’t flawed. It was also a filter. It was designed to work on a very specific type of customer, and to quickly bring the others to light. When I found it ineffective, it was because I was judging it on people it wasn’t meant for.
That idea has never left me. A good message doesn’t try to convince everyone. It speaks very well to the right person, and it helps the others quickly understand that it’s not for them. That’s true on the phone, and it’s just as true for a web page.
Once I understood the principle, I started optimizing the script for that customer. A bit like an A/B test, and in a very granular way: I tested each part separately, to check that it really did its two jobs, qualifying the customer and closing the sale.
That’s also when marketing came into my life. I started writing my own scripts, sharing them with my colleagues, suggesting improvements. Writing to convince, measuring what works, fixing, starting again: without knowing it, I was already doing content work.
The results followed, and I climbed the ladder fairly quickly: supervisor, then director, then owner of my own call centers abroad. Along the way, I sold just about everything, mostly in outbound calls: heat pumps, doors and windows, construction, insurance, phone service, internet and TV for a major telecommunications provider. Each industry has its objections, but the principles stay the same.
I trained hundreds of agents. It may come as a surprise, but the sentence I repeated most often was this one: “Read the script!”
I know, it’s ironic coming from someone who got fired for not following it. That’s exactly why I cared about it. A good script works. It has been tested, corrected, improved. It gives more consistent results than improvisation, even with a talented agent. Improvisation can make a good call; a good script makes a good week.
My scripts were built on neuro-linguistic programming, NLP. The principle that served me most is simple: adapt to the customer, and reframe things in a positive light.
An example. The customer asks: “How long will the appointment take?” You could answer: “It will take an hour of your time.” The answer is true, but it presents the hour as a cost. You can answer instead: “The technician gives you an hour of their time to explain everything properly and answer all your questions.”
The length hasn’t changed. What has changed is who gives what to whom. The customer no longer loses an hour; they receive an hour of attention. It isn’t manipulation: it’s choosing, among several true ways of saying the same thing, the one that answers what the person really wants to know.
If I had to sum up those 20 years in one sentence, it would be this one: customers change, and you have to change with them.
A script that worked perfectly one year could run out of steam the next. Objections evolve, habits too, competitors change the conversation. A salesperson who clings to what worked yesterday ends up talking to customers who no longer exist. That’s why the testing never stopped.
When I built my SEO pipeline, after more than 15 years in web development, it didn’t feel like changing careers. I found the same reflexes:
Even “Read the script!” found its place. With AI, the script is the frame you give it. Left to itself, AI improvises, and it picks the most ordinary answer. With a good frame, tested and improved, it produces consistent results, at scale.
If you’d like to see how these principles apply to your market, discover the AI SEO pipeline, or write to me to talk about it.