Every football team is essentially two teams: the starters and the practice squad (also known as the scout team). The practice squad's job is to represent what the competition's offense or defense game plan or playbook might look like. Each week, the starters practice against these players to prepare for upcoming games. 

As a sales leader, it is your job to ensure your team is prepared—not only for each sales call, but also for unexpected situations that might arise at any time during the sales process. You are a critical success factor—and, to improve the professionalism of your team, you must build a practice squad mentality.

To that end, role playing must become a cornerstone of your monthly sales training programs. One of the best ways to teach new skills and strategy development is to use a case study.

Case studies allow multiple salespeople to work together on a project basis and compete against other members of your team. Recently, we worked with a major technology company to build a sales framework that alters salespeople's traditional relationships with their clients. We used case study exercises to help ensure we could validate the understanding of the framework and use of the sales tools.  

In order to help you build this kind of learning experience into your training programs, I'll outline the process we used.

 Our case study included the following components:

• A detailed description of the firm and its go-to-market strategy
• A description of 7 potential players, titles, years employed
• A limited description of the existing technology
• An overview of the industry this company competed in
• Limited financial objectives
• Miscellaneous information: some distracting, some valid

The salesperson or team could make two sales calls, the first with one person, and then a second call with two other members of the company. Each call lasted between 10-15 minutes, which could vary based on the number of salespeople in your organization. There were pre-call planning tools and a set of Sales Discovery Guides and worksheets designed to summarize their findings.

Hint: The individuals who played the roles of the customer had their own case study with additional facts, inside political issues, defined personality styles and hidden agendas.

Once the salespeople finished their second call and discussed their findings, they had the opportunity to ask two additional questions of any person within the company. 

The deliverable included a formal presentation by the sales team, covering: 

1. What they uncovered during discovery,
2. Perceptions of the firm, and
3. Formal product/services recommendation, including a sales presentation on why buy from us!

Using this kind of training will allow the sales leadership team to view their salespeople in action, observe their skills, and test their creativity. Even if you don’t go to the effort to create this formal of a process, building more role-playing into your sales training programs will improve your team. Put them in pressure situations in the office, and they will perform as professionals in the field.

Ken Thoreson “operationalizes” sales management systems and processes that pull revenue out of the doldrums into the fresh zone. During the past 16 years, our consulting, advisory, and platform services have illuminated, motivated, and rejuvenated the sales efforts for partners throughout the world. His book Leading High Performance Sales Teams is a best seller, Ken’s 5^th book “JAMMED! for New Sales Managers" was published this summer. Ken provides Keynotes, consulting services and products designed to improve business performance.        

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