6 Must-Try Sales Role-Plays That Will Prepare Your Team for Every Selling Situation
Right now, sales role-play scenarios are a particularly effective coaching tool. Role-plays for sales training are essential for every seller's routine because a lot of sales teams have moved to remote work settings. Since sales is such a people-oriented field, coaching, mentorship, and shadowing are common ways for employees to acquire on-the-job skills.
As representatives work independently and are less likely to acquire these talents naturally because they aren't collaborating with colleagues in an office setting, it's critical to cultivate this skill set through specialized training sessions. Ultimately, role-playing enables sellers to rehearse and get ready for actual buyer encounters so they are equipped to manage any scenario that may arise during a sale.
Consider the many kinds of role-play scenarios that your team can rehearse. It's a good idea to start by figuring out which major areas are the most problematic or challenging for the representatives. Then, provide them the resources they need to be ready for those situations.
Here are the top role-play scenarios and some tips for executing them successfully:
- Discovery: For any sales representative, but especially BDRs who require assistance in determining the issues with the buyers, this is a crucial exercise. You may give representatives meaningful, in-video feedback on their role-play using an intelligent role-play tool, letting them know exactly where to improve their talk track or pose more challenging questions.
- Elevator Pitch: For a sales representative, a strong elevator pitch is crucial. Representatives can film or rehearse their elevator pitches over the phone, and their colleagues and boss can watch and assess the performance.
- Product Demo: It's usually a good idea for representatives to role-play a product demo with a more seasoned colleague or sales manager because your reps' messaging needs to be clear and their product knowledge visible during demos. These can be examined for filler words and keywords, as well as to determine how confident the representatives are in the information, particularly when unexpected questions are posed.
- Objection Handling: Reps can practice responding to difficult queries and addressing buyer concerns through objection handling role-plays. This helps provide less seasoned sellers the opportunity to hear directly from the source the kinds of objections that a normal prospect might have, then use their training to try to address their worries or answer their questions. This can be done online with top-performing sales colleagues.
- Negotiations: Excellent sales representatives are adept negotiators. By designing role-plays that mimic buyers requesting a reduced price based on rival pricing or budget, you may help your salesforce develop this skill. When assessing negotiation role-plays, artificial intelligence (AI) can be quite useful since it can detect the amount of filler words used, tone, and confidence, all of which are harder to evaluate without hard evidence.
- Competition: You want your sales representatives to be equipped and ready to manage instances where competitors come up in sales interactions. In order to achieve this, vendors can simulate dialogues that resemble scenarios in which a customer brings up a rival or inquires about similarities. Additionally, to make sure your salespeople are consistently hitting the mark, you may examine their role-play transcripts and urge them to set competitive traps in their product positioning.