I need to develop an one-hour activity for 25 salespeople who are in the business for a long time and in their late thirties. this activity is used as an exercise to help them change their opinion on an old product in inferior quality and accept the revised new model. So that they will be willing and be enthusiastic to sell. Followed this activity will be a two-hour product knowledge training on the revised model. Could anyone please help and share with me any good activity I could use to help them accept the new model which has better features?
Great thanks,
Alice Ma
3 Responses
two options
Hi Alice
1. IF YOU CAN GET THEM TO DO SOME WORK BEFORE THE DAY.
Get six of them to mug up on the new model beforehand and set them into two teams to debate the advantages of the new model (eg the motion is “This house believes that the new model is a complete waste of development money”. “for” and “against” each get 15 minutes to present their case, 20 minutes chaired debate, 10 minutes audience Q&A)) The others act as an audience who then are asked to vote on which they’d prefer to SELL.
alternatively….
2. Run the 2 hour product knowledge session FIRST. Then in the one hour get the delegates into groups of five and give them a set of flipcharts, pens glue scissors and magazines and task each group to come up with the most effective advertising poster for the new product. Give them 30 minutes. Each group presents their poster in 2 minutes to the rest of the delegates. Allocate each person 3 sticky stars to vote with on their preferred poster. Award a nominal prize to the top two teams. Consider using the posters for the real advertising.
Hope that helps
Rus
Assumptive?
Very concerned by the terminology here
“Old dogs” and “salespeople who are in the business for a long time and in their late thirties”
Training is subject to discrimination laws and trainers really should not be bandying about outdated discriminatory stereotypes such as this. It may not be their AGE thats the issue underlying their behaviours. Behaviours and attitudes could also be formed by prior experience, poor management, weak corporate culture, unsupported staff, weak systems etc. Understanding and incorporating these factors into your training design aid the success of this course however there is no easy fix and you need to look carefully into your TNA before prescribing a ‘one size fits all’ solution.
Please dont blame issues purely on people’s age – its discriminatory, and somewhat lazy – age is a vague nebulous concept and doesnt form the basis of ones personality or attitudes.
Sorry if this sounds harsh but as trainers we should be setting an example.
Let Them Express the Improvements for Themselves
Skimming over the political correctness response (I took “old dogs” and “late 30s” to just mean we were dealing with an experienced sales team to be honest), hopefully the new product will speak for itself and clearly demonstrate its improvements.
So how about helping the sales people to see the differences themselves?
Before the product demo, get them to list the good and bad things about the older version. Then after the demo, get them to debate how the new version improved still further on the good aspects and tackled the not so good qualities of the old.
Hopefully, they will then be able to convey the improvements to their own clients as well as be clear in their own minds that this is a better offer.
Finally, get them to think about their clients’ current needs and how the new product could meet those better…and how they could position the newer version. Hopefully, by looking foward in this way, they will slowly stop thinking back to the “bad old days”. Whoops, used the word “old” there! Sorry! 😉