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I recently came across an old sales book, Secrets of Closing Sales, by Charles B. Roth.

In the book he wrote about a group of salespeople in Detroit who tried a new idea and increased their sales by 100 percent. He then described another group in New York City who used the same idea and increased sales by 150 percent. Finally, he cited several examples of individual salespeople who used the idea and increased their sales by as much as 400 percent.

Once again, what’s the number-one key to business building and more sales? Right, activity. Making lots of phone calls and/or in-person calls on lots of strangers that are potential prospects. Key number two? Right, having great sales skills. The new idea he’s writing about ties in with key number two: sales skills, and these days, this idea is not a new idea, though very few salespeople use it — even though it is one of the easiest ways to significantly increase sales in a relatively short period of time. So, what is the idea? Role-playing. That’s right, role-playing. Good old-fashioned practice where you practice your sales skills, hopefully with other salespeople and your manager but if not, with a friend or family member, your dog, in the mirror, or simply by yourself with none of that. Either way, if you consistently practice all the prospect/client sales situations you’re going to run into during the day, you’re going to get much better much faster and as a result, sell more.

When you think about it, role-playing is really akin to professional football teams practicing during the week before games on the weekend. In fact, let’s face it, college teams practice, high school teams practice, shoot, even Pop Warner teams practice. And of course, all teams, not just football teams, practice. Can you imagine any professional team in any sport not practicing? Crazy, right? I mean how could they expect to win many games, never mind a championship without practice?  At the same time, isn’t it interesting that we call ourselves professional salespeople and yet, the vast majority of us don’t practice? How can you expect to be among the very best without practice?

Keys to Role-Playing

There are a couple keys to role-playing, however. First, you want your responses to be scripted. I know there’s still some debate over scripts, though I don’t know why. Imagine your favorite movie scene for a moment, or one of them. Got it? Great, it’s scripted. Your favorite TV shows — all scripted. Obviously, the actors and actresses have memorized and practiced the lines and scenes that you love, and you need to memorize your lines too, but you simply must have what you need to say scripted into as few words as possible, using the most effective words possible.

And that leads to point number two regarding role-playing, which is: your ultimate success will only be as good as the content in the scripts and how well you know it.

You could role-play all day every day, but if you’re saying the wrong things, you won’t be successful so, of course, you want to be role-playing effective material and again, you want to make sure you know it cold. I should be able to wake you up at 3 a.m., give you a common objection, and have the answer roll off your tongue, no problem.

How much should you role-play? In the beginning, or if you are new to sales, every day until you have all your lines completely memorized. Even at that point it’s a good idea to do at least some role-playing every day. Also, sales meetings should always have a role-play portion in which you role-play difficult sales situations you’re running into or important upcoming calls. If you are a sales manager or other sales leader, you should be walking by your people when they are in the office and hit them with objections and other sales scenarios.

It still amazes me that almost 100 percent of the time I start working with a new sales group and I go into the first meeting and start hitting them with objections and other situations they’re running into, even the veterans are winging their responses which, by the way, almost always start with something like, “Ahhhhh….”

So, if you haven’t already, put together scripts with some great sales content for every situation and scenario you’re going to run into: every presentation, every cold call, every follow-up call, every objection, every stall, every close, everything, and start practicing those by role-playing them with other salespeople and your manager, and I promise, as long as you’re making the necessary calls, you’ll see a good increase in your sales numbers.

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