Wendolyn,

I too am very curious why you don't want to use role plays with sales people. Sales people generally have out-going personalities and wouldn't shy away from role plays. With some groups, I understand the hesitation, but sales people.......?

quote:

Originally posted by KaliKo:
Wendolyn,

I too am very curious why you don't want to use role plays with sales people. Sales people generally have out-going personalities and wouldn't shy away from role plays. With some groups, I understand the hesitation, but sales people.......?

Fwiw: In my experience, most salespeople do not like role-playing. Sometimes the most secure and most successful people (who also like to be the center of attention) like it because it gives them an opportunity to display their superior sales skills, but most other salespeople simply don't like it.

The stereotypical salesperson is outgoing, but I don't think salespeople as a group are anymore or less outgoing than the general population. As a sales trainer, I get to meet many sales professionals, and many of the high-performing ones are markedly introverted.

Having said that, I'm a firm believer in the role of role-playing in the process of identifying, practicing, and improving sales behaviors in sales training and sales coaching.

I think most of us know why people don't like to do it, but I also believe that if your job requires you to interact with people in a certain way, that role playing in a safe environment with immediate feedback is essential. Would these sales people rather just be thrown to the wolves without the opportunity to make sure they really get it? From observations and experience, I believe it's in the way it is facilitated and framed. Role plays warrant the response they get because so many facilitators fail to establish a positive environment where the participants feel its okay to be goofy, make mistakes, experiment, etc.

I think the other part is very telling of the participant. Did the company hire the right person for the job?? If he/she can't handle a bit of constructive critique about his/her performance in what should be a safe environment for learning, how on earth is he/she going to handle him/herself with actual customers??

In short -- if you have a participant who cannot handle a role play, it's time to critically examine at least two key things:

1) How is the facilitator framing the learning experience?
2) Is the participant an appropriate candidate for the job?

Thank you for your feedback.

...Wendolyn? ... was kind of hoping that you'd provide more information about the situation so we could better understand it and learn from whatever it is. That, to me, is the main purpose of a board like this. People provide their feedback in hopes of learning from one another. Would you please share? Thanks!