The purpose of this exercise is to practice the initial communication with the prospect. This may seem unnatural or challenging to some. What do you talk about? Where do you start? This drill is intended to eliminate any questions or doubts and get one used to really just communicating with the prospect on a personal level and being interested.
This drill is done with two people on a turnabout basis.
Step 1: Set up the scenario or the setting for the drill, based on your field of business, the prospect you will be talking to, and your form of selling. This drill can be done whether you sell over the phone or in person, drill accordingly.
Step 2: One person acts as the salesperson and the other the customer. You begin conversation and get into communication with the customer. Ask appropriate questions based on the setting and type of prospect determined in step 1. For example, if you are selling to an executive or business owner, it would be appropriate to ask about his career history or the history of his company. If you are meeting the prospect at his home, it may be appropriate to ask about his family, his home, or something observed within the home. The key for the coach (the customer) during this step is to really observe if the salesperson seems genuinely interested. If not, start over and keep drilling. You may also run into moments of not knowing what to say at which point you should stop and discuss what other things would be appropriate to talk about.
Step 3: Do the drill in step 2 again but this time, really try to be disinterested in the prospect. Ask a few questions and really beuninterested. This should be fairly obvious to both the customer and the salesperson.
Step 4: Switch. Whoever was acting as the salesperson will now be the customer and vice versa. Remember, the purpose here is to really generate this genuine interest for the prospect. Drill several scenarios that may come up in the sale, and engage in longer conversations each time you drill.
Nick Terrenzi
Senior Partner
SELLability The Pro Sales Network
+1.702.943.0234 (office)
Info@sellability.com
This drill is really helpful because I feel like sometimes I say things just to fill the void instead of finding something really interesting to keep the conversation going.
Excellent! We want to commend you for realizing that as well. So many salespeople talk, talk, talk!
This really helped!
That is great! We are happy to help!
This was very helpful as I have always been reserved about striking up conversation with new people that I meet. I used to wait for them to start the conversation and if they didn’t, there was none, just a nod and a smile. Now I can use the setting or the circumstance to take the first step in beginning the conversation and go from there.
Awesome and thank you for sharing. This will go a long way in helping you get more out of your daily activities.