7 Rules of Improv for Sellers (Part II)

Best laid plans can go right out the window any time another person is involved! This is as true in sales as it is in other areas of our life. Improv training provides some great sales tips for dealing with anything we hadn’t planned for — whether it’s an unexpected objection or an impromptu elevator pitch. Last week I introduced the First 3 Rules of Improv: Know Your Material; Fire the Editor and Be in the Moment.

The next 3 Rules have proven especially helpful in my sales presentations and client meetings. I hope you find them useful as well!

1. Commit to Your Choices
   Commitment? Yikes! As salespeople we reserve the right to change our opinion based on what the client thinks, right? Wrong! See your choices through; don’t be batted around by every wind. You may not win everyone over, but you’ll win something that is too often overlooked in sales: self respect. [...]

Seven Rules of Improv for Sellers – (Part 1)

“Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.”
– Paul Simon

Ever marveled at how skillfully Improv players respond to the seemingly unrelated suggestions thrown at them? There is no script to follow, no direction and typically only the thinnest of plots. Does this sound familiar to you? It should!

As salespeople, how often do we walk into a situation with a thread-bare plot (i.e., an information-gathering meeting), unsure of what’s going to confront us (objections, personality conflicts, budgets, etc.) and last but not least, an audience waiting to be entertained by our sales presentation. (Yes, your client expects some entertainment for their hard-won time and dollars!)

Sellers can learn some valuable sales tips from Improv players, like how to take a curveball and turn it into a homerun. But there is more to Improv than just spitting out the first thing that comes to mind. Here are the first of 7 Improv Tips for Sellers that can help keep us on our toes when the rules of the game are changing daily and reacting quickly and skillfully to the unexpected can mean the difference between winning and losing the sale.

The first 3 Rules of Improv for Sellers are:

1. Know Your Material.
   Sounds obvious, yes? But this critical step is often overlooked in our rush to get in front of a client. Before you can improvise something, you must know it inside and out, forwards and backwards. You must know WHAT you’re saying, and you must know WHY you’re saying it — and “My manager told me to” is not a good enough reason! Practice your sales script. Read it out loud to the dog. Rap it to your roommate. Know it so well that if you had to, you could pick it up at any point within the script, ad-lib it and run through it with ease.         [...]

How Can Acting Help Me Win More Sales?

“Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage.” The Experience Economy*

It’s a new Sales Economy out there. Even that winning “Sales Trifecta” of the right product, the right price and the right timing is no longer enough to ensure you get the business – much less keep it! So how do you rise above the competition when those old school sales tools and techniques are no longer working?

Imagine you are a Casting Director, seeing one actor after another read from the same script. After awhile they all begin to blur together. You struggle to stay awake. And then suddenly someone comes through the door and breathes new life into the script. His choices are unique, his presence riveting, his message compelling. The previous twenty actors fly right out of your head: this is the one that gets the part.

“But I’m in sales,” you say, “I’m not an actor!” Au contraire, my sales friend. Each time you force enthusiasm when you don’t feel it, feign indifference when you care or parrot words you didn’t write, you are acting. If an actor can bring an audience to tears or laughter, drive them to purchase a product in as little as thirty seconds or hold their attention for up to two hours, Imagine the potential to be achieved by using a set of sales tools drawn from an industry that attracts billions of people each year to theaters, movie screens and televisions!

Take an acting class. Read a book on acting techniques. Use a little SHOWMANSHIP to set yourself apart in these tough times!

To read more about the need to engage customers in this new Sales Economy, check out The Experience Economy by Pine & Gillmore: http://tiny.cc/rT4XB