Like so many skills, selling ability is a learned skill. Even someone with “natural selling skills” can be better. Perhaps the most effective training method is also the one that most people feel the most uncomfortable with: role-playing. The primary focus of this post is teaching selling skills; however, role-playing can help in virtually any training situation.
As children role-playing forms the basis of many play activities. As adults; however, anything that puts us outside of our comfort zones is something that most people purposely avoid. Working outside of our comfort zones is a necessary requirement for growth, regardless of the activity.
Everyone starts a position with varying levels of skills and experience. Through the effective use of role-play, incremental leaps in abilities can be achieved by learning from co-workers and sales leaders. Properly executed, role-playing will build and develop the competence and confidence each associate will need to make them and your organization successful.
Insisting and forcing people to role-play will not work. As a manager and an organization, you need to have a plan for role-playing success and you will need “willing cooperation” you’re your associates.
WHAT ARE THE ISSUES THAT PEOPLE HAVE WITH ROLE-PLAYING?
Feeling uncomfortable and awkward – Acknowledge these feelings. One of the best ways to overcome this issue is to work in groups of two people, preferably with two people who already know each other and will not embarrass the other. If they do not already know each other, as the sales leader it is important that you work with them to bring their levels of anxiety down and get them to relax.
Not natural or feels staged – Role-playing is staged; however, by initially focusing on small scenarios and keeping the role-playing exercise very simple, you can overcome this issue. I suggest starting by examining posture and how to stand as an initial point for speaking with customers or clients. Revealing to participants the simple skills that are often overlooked, will help them to see the value of the exercise.
Hate being watched and evaluated – By initially partnering a strong associate with a newer associate and trusting the strong associate, it is possible to make this a peer-to-peer exercise (instead of one where the manager is seen to be the person in “control”). As your associates become better at this type of training, and as each associate sees the value in the training, you can introduce complexity into the training. Eventually you can do a larger scale “role-playing” demonstration exercise and have a “more seasoned” group of associates lead the group; then your role-playing training becomes self-sustaining.
People can be very critical – This is why pairing is so important. When working with people of varying experience and temperament, it is vital to plan who you partner together. Pair the most critical and negative person with yourself.
GROUND RULES:
State the objective of training – The over arching goal of role-play is for everyone to get better. To accomplish your goals set a specific goal to be achieved and make sure that it is clearly explained without being patronizing; for example: How to greet a customer or client; How to demonstrate the features on an appliance.
Explain the scenario well – Give enough details so that your associates can relate to the situation; then allow them to improvise and deal with the execution as they would in a real situation.
Use small groups and never involve more than three people – Some of the sales people I have worked with in the past will know that I have made this mistake before. Two people is best, though a third can work. Three is particularly if the role-play deals with a couple and the dynamics that occur in those situations. Having anymore than three people involved is very rare in real-life situations and the extra person(s) do not really contribute to the scenario.
Separate the pairs so they cannot hear other groups – This is really important when you are trying to obtain willing participation. It helps build the connection between the partners and can help to eliminate the awkwardness that can accompany role-playing.
Never embarrass anyone – This is a common theme throughout this post: appreciate the issues that people have with role-playing. By being sensitive to those issues and showing you understand the situation, this tool becomes even more effective.
Acknowledge it is not exactly like a real-life situation – Selling the exercise as training for both participants makes a big difference, particularly if the more experienced person is ready and willing to impart their knowledge.
Every interaction your organization has that involves people can be role-played – Telephone skills, answering customer inquiries on-line, selling, giving reviews and performance conversations. “For Profit” and “Not for Profit” organizations can all benefit from this type of training.
For a new person – Role-playing is important to include as part of an organization’s initial training. However, role playing should done later in their training, never in the first few days. For most new associates, the first two to four days is a blur of learning basic systems and processes. Take advantage of that time to instill the organizations culture and values as well as the basic systems before tackling specific role-playing scenarios.
If e-learning is part of your initial training, introduce role playing as a method of re-enforcing the topics covered. Include information on proper body language, phraseology, and introduce more topics as the new associate gains confidence on the basics.
Role-playing is a great way to break up blocks of training. As a general rule, try to avoid having a new associate spend more than one hour on any particular training session at a time.
As an associate’s initial training is completed, select scenarios that encompass all aspects of training from start to finish. Sales organizations should practice the selling process from when the customer enters the store to when they leave, taking care to actually write sales bill in the same location where they are normally completed, especially when there are real customers present. Service organizations should practice all types of customer/client interaction. Charitable companies should pay particular attention to how to handle upset clients and how to effectively handle donations.
Pay attention to the small details that more experienced sales associates understand unconsciously. Many times, these steps are missed by new associates and their confidence can be destroyed. Inevitably they will get hung up on the small details and extra pressure that comes from working in a “real” environment.
For an existing person – Role-playing is just as important for your experienced associates, but care needs to be taken to make the training challenging and worthwhile.
As with your new associates, prepare and explain the scenario. Critique their performance in a positive manner, build confidence, and instead of saying the person did something wrong, suggest “better” ways to improve the opportunity for success. Try to have their manager or coach do the scenario as well. Point out the things that the supervisor did well and discuss ways to add those concepts into the associate’s presentation.
SUMMARY:
Role-playing is perhaps the most effective method of training that any organization can do. Using these few tips and strategies will help get willing cooperation from your associates and make your training much all the more effective.