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Aim
This role-playing exercise provides an opportunity for participants to practice selling benefits as opposed to describing features when engaged in persuasion.
In this exercise participants will be given a random object that they have to sell the benefits of. It will take about 45 minutes to complete.
No separate task sheet is required.
Learning Objectives
Participants will be able to …
- understand the difference between features, advantages and benefits
- receive feedback from group members on their influencing style
- increase their powers of persuasion and influencing abilities
Preparation
You may find this exercise very helpful if your team is involved with selling of any kind. This could include ‘selling’ to internal customers within an organization if you are in a service or support function (e.g. training and development, information technology or marketing) or after a re-engineering or restructuring program. This could be used if you believe your team has not grasped the subtle differences between features, advantages and benefits and, as a result, their level of influence is not as high as it might be.
Collect a few random objects, e.g. mobile phone, an orange, a hairdryer, etc.
Allow five minutes for preparation and five minutes per participant to sell their object to the group and receive feedback.
Suggested Resources
- an object for participants to sell
- flipchart and pens
What to Do (30 minutes)
Introduce the concept of benefits and features to the team. Ask for examples to illustrate the difference between the two and ensure there is an acceptance that benefits are a more powerful tool of persuasion. Distribute task sheets and ensure understanding.
Allocate one of the random objects you collected previously. Examples might include mobile phone or fat-reduced crisps. Allocate five minutes for them to prepare how they are going to sell it to the group.
Give each participant a minute or two to sell their object to the group. Solicit brief feedback from the group on how successful the persuasion was, asking for examples of what was said and how it was said that worked or could have been improved upon. Try to keep the timing tight (approximately five minutes per person).
You may want to ask:
- How convinced were you buy the benefits of this object?
- What was it that made this object appeal to you?
- Think about the presenter’s language, tone and body language. Did this influence you?
- Was there anything about the presentation that turned you off?
Review Activity and Apply Learning (10 minutes)
Kick off an informal discussion around participants’ experiences of the activity and any learning points they found particularly helpful.
Ask participants to consider how they could apply any learning from this roleplay to their workplace, i.e. are there any benefits they could sell in an influencing situation relevant to them?
Invite each participant to suggest one thing that they will do in future influencing situations. Write this on a flipchart for everyone to see.
