What Sales People Can Learn From Improv

A sales meeting is an interaction between two or more people. Understanding the dynamics of that interaction can help you lead the meeting to a productive end - for both parties.

Theater director and coach Keith Johnstone is the author of Impro: Improvisation and the Theater, a book that could be described as a handbook on human interaction. The first section of his book deals entirely with status interactions. Johnstone breaks down the dynamics of interaction between people and trains his students to use those dynamics to build improvised interaction that looks and feels genuine. His book is an exploration of the nature of spontaneous creativity.

Johnstone discovered that many staged interactions lacked reality because real interaction has a status component that influences the behaviors of the participants. Status behaviors often occur below the level of our conscious awareness, but without awareness of the status of their role, actors had trouble generating behavior that felt authentic to the viewer. They were flat. Let's look at status and its applications to selling.

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We're Not on the Same Page

A prospect emailed me back recently after reviewing a tailored summary and proposal I sent him. The message was short.

"We're not on the same page. We need to talk tomorrow."

You see, we met earlier in the week and while I had some ideas about how I might help him, it wasn't exactly clear to me what he wanted me to do. And, I'm pretty sure he thought I could help him, I'm also pretty sure it wasn't clear to him how he thought I might help.

Does this ever happen to you? What do you do about it?

You can keep hammering away with questions hoping to get a clear understanding. But if it's taking more than a few times asking the same thing in different ways, you are probably not getting anywhere but on the prospect's bad side...annoying him like your neighbor's ankle-nipping, high-pitched yapping dog.

Or maybe you just rush out of the room smiling when you think it's safe to escape, saying thank you, and send some very general mailing material with a quick note about how you hope you can do business and then spend countless hours, days, or even months following up.

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Good Sales Training Could Boost Profits

When working in sales, sales training is particularly important as it can provide advice on ways to make sales both face to face and over the telephone. Sales training focuses on communication skills between the seller and the customer; this will tutor the participants in ways to deal with objections that the customer may have and will inform them of the correct attitude to have. Having the right rapport with a customer is essential as it makes them feel at ease and therefore makes them more likely to buy from you. Far too often sales people lose their temper with difficult clients, but undergoing the correct sales training can allow you to learn how to keep your cool no matter how frustrated you become.

There is also the opportunity to improve through personal effectiveness training programs. These will give you tips on your presentation skills, time management skills and the personal impact you have on the business. These are all skills that many people think that they have naturally, but that is not necessarily the case; particularly with time management. Personal effectiveness training gives you the chance to make the most of yourself and will give you a competitive edge over other people in the same company as you.

Even those in the highest positions in a company may not actually be using the skills that are already at their disposal to the maximum. Having good management and leadership skills can cause your business to improve greatly therefore increasing profits and leading to a happier working environment. On a management training programs you will learn it's just as important to be friends with your employees as it is to be their employer; when there is a friendly vibe in a work place, people tend to be more productive. However, it is important to note that making the atmosphere too relaxed could lead to adverse effects.

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Blackjack Principles and the "Game" of Sales

Applying the winning principles of Blackjack for sales success

1. Understand the rules of the game.
A cardinal rule of the game stipulates that you don't invest your time pursuing low-probability opportunities, regardless of how much you want or need a sale. As in Blackjack, you must remain emotionally detached from the process. If the opportunity doesn't measure up...well then, it doesn't measure up, and it's time to move on and find one that does.

Low-probability opportunities exist when:
- There isn't a compelling reason for the prospect to buy your product or service or buy it from YOU
- The prospect isn't willing or able to make the required investment to obtain your product or service
- You can't meet all of the prospect's criteria for buying your product or service or buying it from you rather than a competitor.

2. Never risk more than you can afford to lose.
"Bet" your time wisely. Don't invest all your time pursuing one opportunity. That's not a winning strategy. You should have more than one active opportunity in your pipeline.

3. Know when to walk away.
Sometimes it's not in the cards. Some sales opportunities will progress predictably and perhaps quickly, and you'll add a new name to your client list. Other opportunities will drag on. Some prospects won't make commitments or, if they do, they won't keep them. In those instances, you need to cut your losses (of time and energy). You should close the file, walk away, and invest your time identifying other potentially more viable opportunities.

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Sales Coaching and Cold Calling

Are good sales people born or made? Can sales skills be learned or are they innate? Is there even such a thing as a "natural salesperson"?

As with so many things, you will get different answers to these questions depending on who you ask. Some people are convinced that you cannot teach sales skills to a person who does not have a natural talent for sales. Others will argue the reverse of this, saying that anyone can learn to sell.

My own view is that both sides of the argument are valid. While it is certainly true that some people are more gifted with innate sales skills than others, that does not mean that the rest of the population is totally devoid of the ability to learn some of those skills. There are many individuals who would not class themselves as natural salespeople who can still learn a great deal from the right kind of sales coaching.

This is particularly true when it comes to the issue of cold calling. You will frequently hear people say that cold calling only works for people who have "natural charm" or "the gift of the gab". Even more common is the view that cold calling doesn't work at all!

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