1/17/2025-Role-playing made easy

You cringe when being forced to role-play in a group because few managers know how to run a good session. Role-playing should begin first with 1:1 sessions with your favorite work friends.

Here’s the good news about role-playing: because you know all the junk a buyer may throw at you, there are a limited number of situations you need to practice.

However, you won’t improve your skills and reactions to those situations unless you practice them. The only way to practice is to role-play.

Effective role-playing requires emulating as much reality as possible. So set the dial on your partner to hard, and role-play the situation until you’re exhausted.

Today, grab a willing partner and role-play a scenario you know will arise in a meeting later this week.

Specify what you are working on and keep your session at 15-20 minutes. (But don’t cut yourselves off if the session is productive and you’re in a groove.)

And if you stumble, call time-out and exercise your right for a do-over. Even if you nail it, do it over again…and again.

Remember, it’s better to practice on each other than to practice on your customers.

It’s better to practice with each other than with your clients. Cement that one in your brain (it’ll resurface the next time you blow something in front of a customer at a pitch meeting).

Old and archaic practice sessions featured two chairs on a stage under bright lights…and that never really turned out well. The only thing you learned was to come late and sit in the back at your internal sales meetings.

The problem with the aforementioned setting was that there was little to zero instruction going on. It was mostly just saying the wrong thing and getting trampled for doing so.

And yet, role-playing provides the most direct line toward perfecting a skill and/or trying a new approach. Today’s role-playing template includes FOUR simple session elements:
1. Grab one friend for the role-play session.
2. Practice one specific scenario that came up, or will arise with a customer.
3. Use your "TIME-OUT" privilege liberally. If you don’t like how something sounds coming out of your mouth, call a TIME OUT and do it over.
4. HAVE FUN. Laugh when someone says something stupid (you will). Giggle when someone blows a line (it’ll happen). In short, loosen up and try to make it less intense than it has to be.

But whatever you do, get out on the pitch…. PRACTICE!

Watch futbol god Messie closely in this video of him practicing, and you’ll notice he’s having fun.

YES…practice can – and should be – fun. Even role-playing objections can be fun.

Even though Messi is playing a game and you’re playing a quota, you can still make practice fun! Go ahead and laugh when you goof up or say something stupid…it’s okay!