Not Your Average Role-Play
We hear this a lot…”My sales staff hates to role-play,” quite frankly I don’t blame them. Typical role-playing forces most people out of their comfort zone and into an awkward, nerve-racking situation. Think about what role-playing really is…asking an employee to act out how he or she will respond in a staged scenario that challenges his/her knowledge and performance, oh, and don’t forget the audience of peers and/or superiors there to judge them every step of the way. You have just created most people’s person hell. No one prefers to fumble, fail or look stupid in front of other people BUT isn’t this the point of role-playing?... If you are role-playing and your employees are not making any errors or stumbling or blanking out then either, you are clearly wasting time practicing how to handle scenarios they have already mastered, or every person on your staff is the ultimate Johnny-on-the-spot of sales, in which case what are you worrying about?!
No matter how much your staff dreads role-playing, as a manager you must incorporate it into your coaching. There is tremendous value to be gained from role-playing…Ghandi said it best:
“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”
…and he wasn’t even in sales. Practice is part of the key to being successful in the sales world. It helps employees to retain product knowledge, to have confidence in stressful situations and to handle customers with the utmost respect…even when they seem to be arguing your every point. It is practice and role-playing that gets results, not staff meetings or lectures. It emphasizes skills and it points out areas that need improvement.
Below are two ideas to get you thinking outside of the box when it comes role-playing activites.
- “Teach-the-teacher” Have an employee sit down with you and explain to you everything they know about the product they are selling. Ask questions and engage them like and real customer would. When you do this, you are helping the rep practice product knowledge as well as selling.
- “Game Film” Get technology involved, have each employee role play a different scenario with you, but instead of role-playing the scenario face to face, complete the activity via video chat. This way you will be able to record each employee in-action (be sure to disclose to employees that the interaction will be recorded). Later, gather all employees to review and breakdown the role-play footage together.
Using the post game review approach to evaluating the role-playing exercise is beneficial for 2 reasons:
- Employees will be more open to the feedback their peers will provide during the review session when they, themselves, have been given the opportunity to reflect on the successes and shortcomings of their own performance before recieveing the critique of others.
- Seeing is believing…having your employees watch video footage of their role-play allows them to experience themselves as Jane or John the Sales Person from the client’s point of view. Pairing verbal with non-verbal cues in conjunction with content delivery and timing are just a few of the many complex aspect involved in human interaction and while most people have a pretty good sense of how they may appear to clients, watching video of themselves will allow them to sync their inner narration of events to a third person view.
Be creative and Practice, Practice, Practice! Just remember what Ghandi said. He was ahead of his time when he spoke about practicing over preaching, and soon, you’ll be ahead with your sales.
For more info on getting your sales staff to work together download the free whitepaper below
