sales tip scenario learning

A few days ago I read an article by Paul Bracken, Professor of Management at Yale in Futurist Magazine. In the article he addressed how learning is changing - and leaders need to be much more flexible and adaptive as we head into tumultuous times.He maintains that the prime learning tool to be used by Leaders or Learners of any kind is Scenario Learning.His philosophy is simple and elegant: Case studies don't work because the outcome is already presented. It's much more taxing, motivating and valuable to take scenarios that "could happen" and strategize around them rather than things that have happened (case studies).Be Preemptive In Your ProcessNow to some, that sounds absurd. "Why wouldyou want to waste any time working on things that will likely never happen?"To which I would say, hold on a minute. Who's to say the value is in predicting the future. To me it's in preventing the future-at least that future that's full of stress and anxiety because something happened you weren't ready for. Rather than waiting until something happens, why can't you take precaution so it NEVER happens. Can't you be proactive? Or preemptive? That's exactly what scenario learning will teach you.A Sales ExampleIn our sales training practice, there are a handful of customer encounters that happen all the time that drive you crazy.For example, here's a common one:You're all the way through the sales process and your buyer tells you it's not going to happen because there's no money in their budget.Now that is a scenario you've heard before, but are you ready to deal with it? Better yet, did you do anything in the sales process to prevent it? Probably not. In fact, most sales orgs spend most of their training time talking about how to handle it when it happens-rather than the right thing to do-work on how to prevent it.By examining "why" that scenario happens, you can aptly take preemptive action so it never happens to you.

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