7/30/2024-Role-play, or a dentist’s chair?

You cringe when having to role-play because nobody taught you how to do it properly. Start first with a friend and frequently use your do over privileges. Call "Time Out" if you need to.

When you hear "role-play," do you nervously look around for a chair on a stage under a bright, klieg light? …do small beads of sweat start dripping down your back?

If scar tissue remains from past exercises, get an attorney and go after that dastardly sales manager for damages.

Or, pick yourself up and try the new modern version of RPing.

Successful role-playing is based on three simple guidelines guaranteed to invite you back into the training room.

They’re so simple that you can get in some practice today.

Today…practice a selling scenario you want to improve and follow these tips:

1. Recruit a friend for a role-play session…pick someone you know well, are comfortable with, and trust to help you.

2. Practice one specific scenario. Run it until you feel super comfortable and have worked out the kinks.

3. Call a "time out" if you don’t like how something sounds coming out of your mouth. Do-overs create learning. Real-time course correction is the best way to practice and learn how to do it right.

The alternative to role-playing is to practice on your customers…and that ain’t too cool (or productive).

Why wouldn’t you practice with your work besties?

The old way of cementing skills was based on caveman thinking that you’d perform great if you sat in a chair on a stage in front of your peers going through some funky sales scenario.

The problem with that approach is nobody taught you very well before you sat knee-to-knee. Learning how to practice is a real art, and if your manager isn’t going to do it, you need to do it.

Role-playing provides the most direct path to perfecting a skill and/or trying a new approach. For optimal results, focus your RPing on skills application.

It’s common for role-playing sessions to devolve into analysis and color commentary sessions; above all else, resist the urge to over-discuss the issue.

Focus on role-playing and act out the scenario. Certainly, you’ll need to talk about certain moves and responses, but make sure you do the playing – that’s where the learning comes from.

This clip from The Office also ran a few weeks ago on July 9, but if you missed it, don’t miss it again here. Watch Jim take Dwight and Michael on a hilarious journey during their role-playing exercise.

Take your role-playing seriously, but have fun too.

Go ahead and laugh at the stupid things your partner says, but laugh louder at what you say.