Every business conversation that’s unscripted–and that’s about 99% of them–is an improvised scene. How ably we improvise usually determines the success of the scene. In sales, the audience for the scene is the customer, and the ultimate ‘applause’ is a sale. Furthermore, in sales scenes, the customer is not just the audience, her or she is also a player in the scene. This is important for salespeople to understand, because it means you are asking the customer to judge their own performance in your scene together. If they they give their performance in your scene a thumbs-up, chances are you’ve got yourself a sale.
Big Note: The customer judges his or her performance, not yours, in the context of the scene you co-create.
The implications of this are huge. Here are a few:
1. Learn the script, then throw it away. The single biggest mistake salespeople make is trying to follow a script. The customer doesn’t know your script! In trying to stick to a script known only to you, you’re putting your customer in the worst possible position–that of a performer who doesn’t know his or her lines. The playwright Christopher Durang built an entire play, The Actor’s Nightmare, around this premise. You following your script and trying to get your scene partner to play along with it is The Customer’s Nightmare.
1A. Don’t show your script to the customer. If the customer does know your script, because, let’s say, you’ve sent them your PowerPoint deck in advance of your presentation, you cause a whole other set of problems. For one, you’re not giving them anything new. You are, in essence, asking them to play a role you have written for them, which fosters a kind of built-in resentment. Another problem with showing your hand ahead of time is that it burdens the audience with expectations. By knowing ahead of time where you’re going, they will be measuring the scene against what they imagine it will be–good or bad. Thanks to the internet, the customer already has access to plenty of data about your product. Save something for your sales scene!
2. Your number-one concern is getting your customer to feel good about your scene. You do this by helping them look good. You help them look good by ‘giving gifts,’ to use the parlance of improvisation. There are unlimited ways to give gifts in a sales scene, ranging from sharing a dinner at a great restaurant to enlightening a customer with knowledge, to conferring status on them by having them enlighten you with knowledge. Whether they ‘applaud’ your scene by making a down-payment on a timeshare, driving off your lot in a new car, or by clicking to buy a better mousetrap, chances are they’ll be doing it because they felt good about the interaction with your and your brand.
3. A scene is not a soliloquy. You are sharing the stage with the customer. It’s a dialogue. Give and take. OgilvyOne recently announced a contest to find the World’s Greatest Salesperson. They’re asking contestants to ‘sell’ a commonplace item, a red brick, using YouTube. The winning video will not be the best soliloquy, but the one that’s best at generating and sustaining a dialogue with its audience–via YouTube comments, Twitter, Facebook and other platforms.
4. Begin by listening. As with longform improvisation, a good way to get things rolling is to take a ‘suggestion from the audience.’ When you begin your scene by listening instead of speaking, you give your audience/customer the opportunity to invest themselves in the scene. Their satisfaction at seeing an idea they’ve given you turn into action will earn their applause.
5. Build and heighten. A scene should be designed to expand, its energy elevate, its theme evolve. Surpass where you started. Never end up back where you began. Don’t be afraid to start your scene with the seed of an idea and let it grow. Be afraid of starting with a grand vision that diminishes during the course of the scene.
6. Agree on the game. What you’re looking for in your scene is quick identification and agreement on what we call ‘the underlying game.’ We define a game as: Roles, Rules, Environment and Objective. The sooner you can define these, the sooner you can agree on them, and the sooner you agree on them, the more likely you are to close the sale. ‘Yes-anding’ the customer is the single best sales technique there is.
6A. The customer’s objective is not a sale. The customer isn’t in the scene to help you hit your quota or earn a commission. A sale may be your objective but it’s not theirs. Theirs may be to prove their love, earn the respect of their peers, look good to a boss, save money, gain status with their neighbors, or ensure the birth of a healthy baby. Your objective is to help them achieve their objective.
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The most basic concept in all of improvisation is ‘Yes and’. If we are in a scene together and you make a statement, it is my obligation as an improviser to ‘yes-and’ your statement. By ‘yes-anding’ you, I not only agree to your reality, I add to it with perspective of my own. In this way, we can ‘triangulate’ on the problem to be solved, and also bring dimension, and new levels of collaboration to the scene.
The name of the BJP campaign ( in his essay Bierut calls it the ‘brand’) was India Shining. Produced by Grey Advertising’s Indian division at a total cost of $100 million , it was designed to subtly credit BJP for India’s surging economy and its new hifalutin status in the Networked World. It had all the anytime-anyplace-any-platform bells and whistles, from TV spots to SMSpam, the same kind of blitz Hollywood launches four weeks before a Spielberg film.