The biggest problem with most companies is that they do not schedule time for their salespeople to practice.
The inconvenient truth is… Your salespeople are always practicing. The only question is are they practicing on their colleagues or are they practicing on your prospects?
One is cheap. The other is costly.
One activity that has helped me to scale my previous company from a sales team of 0 to 60 full time salespeople, generating RM100 million sales on our third year of business, was Role Playing.
Here’s 5 steps I would love to pass along from my experience with this technique:
Step #1 – Get your team into a group of 3
A plays the role of the salesperson.
B plays the role of the prospect.
C plays the role of the observer.
Step #2 – Give Every Session A Subject
The subject can include greeting a prospect, building rapport with clients, fact-finding what clients want, product demo or product presentation, objection handling, closing the sale, handling complaints, and many more.
At every session, let the team take turns to become the salesperson, prospect, and observer.
Step #3 – Create a Safe Practice Environment
Challenge your salespeople to make mistakes and that it’s OK to make mistakes during practice sessions. As your salespeople develop greater competence, get the “prospect” to raise the challenge level to be at least somewhat a demanding or resistant prospect.
Step #4 – Feedback
There is 2 types of comments from the observers:
1. What did the salesperson do well?
2. What can the salesperson improve?
Step #5 – Provide Templates But Encourage Free Play
As a business or sales leader, it’s important for you to provide templates or formulas so that your salespeople will know how to handle every situation. At the same time, encourage ‘salesperson’ to use their imaginations and their instincts in responding to the myriad situations that confront them.
At the end of the day….
“Always remember that the more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in war.”
This phrase also applies to sales teams. For many salespeople, standing up in front of their teammates and getting comments on their performance can be painful. But through pain comes learning.
Also, do remember that experienced salespeople need practice too!
Isn’t that sets a mediocre athlete from a world class superstar?
Training should continue throughout a salesperson’s career. A superstar never stops practicing!
Have a great time scaling and selling!
Jonathan Quek
Founder of Owners Circle