Planning and visualisation success is crucial for all individuals and organisations. After all, how can you reach your goals unless you identify what they are and how to achieve them? And, it would be best to be really committed to attaining those goals – to identify why they are so important to you.
As part of that journey here’s a fun, sensory focussed, exercise which we use regularly when planning and working with teams to promote best practice and embed it as common practice. It can be adapted and applied in the contexts of customer service (i.e. the design of a customer journey or experience), sales including the design of sales processes, sharing best sales practice, focussing in on questioning and associated skills, or focussing in upon internal (organisational) interactions.
Ask the participants to work in several syndicate groups and spend, say, 30 minutes (or whatever is appropriate in your context), working out the answers to your scenario for presentation back to the full group. Ask the participants to present their solutions / recommendations in whatever way they like; encourage them to be as creative as they like! (Flip charts, mime, song, poem, description, etc. – just think about the senses you want to engage!)
The brief: You have visited the insert name of your company / a company in your business sector here (i.e. Town Bank or Acme Widget Co.). You have just met with company X / client X / employee X for a customer service meeting or call / sales meeting or call / business meeting.
The participants need to imagine that they have spent, say, 60, 90, or maybe even 120 minutes with an accomplished professional who facilitated an experience (process) they have never had before; a meeting which made them think deeply and has changed their thoughts and feelings. Made them think about their needs, wants, hopes and aspirations, for themselves and, if appropriate, their family, or their business needs. About what keeps them awake at night or worries them from time to time; the really important stuff! (Again, you set the parameters according to the scenario you want to explore.)
The task is for each group to then identify and then come back and tell other participants what they now See, Hear and Feel that they didn’t before the interaction. Expect from them lots of detail, local colour. Explain that you want to know what they now see in their minds’ eye, what new thoughts and experiences they’ve had, what questions they have been asked which have triggered the emotions they now have, and, how they feel now about the value of regular meetings / reviews / performance reviews / key points of the sales processes, interaction, etc.
The exercise is particularly useful for:
- helping participants identify what they need to do to stimulate their clients to visualise their needs and wants, and so to facilitate purchasing decisions,
- in a financial services or similar context: mapping out a way to facilitate protection and pensions purchases, or similar intangible products,
- many consultancy contexts,
- a variety of manager – employee contexts.
Allow an appropriate time for the participants to discuss ideas and collate their thoughts, during which the facilitator can circulate and challenge / facilitate groups to come up with real life experiences, focus on some quality questions and identify where these sit within their organisational processes.
Then facilitate a series of syndicate group presentations and discuss, drive out and record the key learns and realisations.
Flip charts created can be captured and shared later to re-enforce some of the learning. The results can sometimes be the springboard for further work with individuals.
Fun with a focus and some very practical outcomes! Enjoy your sessions.
If you want to speak with us and have us facilitate similar exercises or help up skill your teams after you have realised what your skills gap is please get in touch:
-> Email us
-> Call us on 07767 302899 or 01227 763670
-> Follow us on Twitter: @motiv_competent – https://twitter.com/#!/motiv_competent
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