Improvisation improves sales effectiveness by 50%

How many of your sales calls or meetings have gone 100% according to plan? Well, that's right... Using a sales script rarely works. What's more, it doesn't allow flexibility with the customer and even prohibits deviation from a rigid scheme. As a result, it tires the salesman, as well as the customer himself.

Think now that you can make customer-oriented sales, during which you hear, understand and accept the customer's perspective. As a result, you are able to offer solutions tailored to that particular situation on the fly. You accurately identify the caller's needs and can build on what he or she says. As a result, you build a relationship with the customer, have greater job satisfaction, and your sales results increase. Sound like a dream? It's all possible by developing the competencies that improvisation teaches, and there's research to prove it!

In this text you will learn:

1. What is the skill of improvisation and how to apply it in sales,
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2. How improvisation training can help you sell,
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3. What research says about the use of improvisation training in sales.

Improvisation as a key skill (also in sales)

Improvisation is a human competence. It is not an action without preparation. It is quite the opposite. It is finding ourselves and behaving in a new situation in which we use all our knowledge, experience and competence. It is as if we have been preparing all our lives for the moment that surprises us. 

Improvisation seen as a skill consists of three factors: 

1. noticing a change or new circumstance,
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2. A change in operating strategy or approach,
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3. Taking a new action and changing a previous behavior.
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How can this skill be used in sales?

An effective salesman is one who sees the customer's needs and problems and is able to connect them with the product or service's capabilities. This is where improvisation in sales comes in, helping the salesperson to easily bundle a particular customer's need with one of the product's features, and thus make a more effective sale with a personalized approach, focused on the customer and his expectations.

What improvisation training teaches, and how it helps improve sales effectiveness

Improvisation workshops train many of the interpersonal skills we use every day. They are especially important in sales, where contact with another person is the key to success. So let's take a look at some of the skills we develop through improvisation training:

1. active, empathetic listening and attentiveness

A key skill that we learn at the very beginning of improvisation training is active listening. It involves noticing the nuances of what our partner is saying and fully understanding the context of what they are saying and their needs or emotions. In sales, this allows us to better understand the customer's perspective.  

Research conducted by Moncrief and Marshall clearly indicates that listening is an essential skill that a good modern salesperson should exhibit. The results of a survey of sales managers from a variety of industries just identified listening as the most important attribute of a good salesperson. ‍

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2. responding adequately to the changing situation.

Reacting to change and getting used to the lack of control is one of the fundamentals of improvisation. If we learn to let uncertainty not paralyze us then we can break the pattern and better adapt to the situation at hand. In their study on the use of improvisation in sales, Rocco and Whalen point out that salespeople equipped with impro tools are much quicker to adjust to the customer's needs and are better able to respond to them by spontaneously creating the real possibilities that a product opens up for the customer.
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3. create on an ongoing basis the real opportunities that the product opens up for the customer

This skill is a kind of combination of listening, responsiveness and increased empathy. It allows us to create new ideas based on what we have received, to build proposals based on what the customer has told us, what he expects, and what knowledge we have about the item we are selling. In this way, we can point out to our interlocutor the features of the product that will interest him or solve his problem, and he will be more likely to make a purchase. ‍

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4. creating customer relationships and the art of communication

Importantly, improvisation teaches us another very important thing - to have interesting conversations. This gives the salesman a full set of skills that allow him to connect the needs of the customer with the possibility of the product being sold, and to present on the fly those features of the product that suit our interlocutor.

A publication by Yeboah Banin et al, (2016) shows that improvisation helps salespeople have better conversations and maintain positive relationships with customers. In addition, an improvisational salesperson works best if he or she has access to both knowledge of the product (and service) being sold and improv skills. 

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5. courage and confidence 

Improvisation training ensures that unknown or unplanned situations do not make us lose our resonance. We are better able to cope and accept uncertainty or ignorance. Impro allows us to believe in our competence regardless of surprising situations or customer objections. This allows any impro salesman to be confident all the time by combining his substantive knowledge with techniques for dealing with the unknown / unforeseen. Not to mention their secret weapon - humor.

Improve sales with improvisation

Improvisation helps salespeople in a great many ways. They make the sales script a mere compass rather than a clearly defined path, and the salesman can become more effective through customer orientation.

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By learning improvisation, a salesman can improve his sales by:

1. better customization,
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2. Recognizing differences among customers, individual approach and establishing relationships,
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3. better conducting sales conversations. Improvisation helps make conversations flow, teaches us how to actively listen and understand the other party and respond to their needs,
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4. Use of the "Yes and more..." method. (one of the basics of improvisation), which makes it less likely to hear "no" from the customer and can better reach their needs,
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5. Building a positive relationship with the customer. Making the other person look good is another improvisation technique that makes it easier to build cordial relationships. In his work, Hultman points out that this is the basis for building a follow-up sales conversation, which further gives us the "fuel" to be customer-oriented. 

What does the research say about the use of improvisation in sales? 

I have already presented a lot of theory in relation to practical skills. Interestingly, it is not only salespeople who appreciate improvisation as a sales tool. Hill also concluded in his research that customers also appreciate improvisational salespeople. They point to the competence of improvisation as an important success factor and point out that it helps salespeople deal with the emotions that arise during conversations.

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Let's look at another study - conducted by Messrs. Rocco and Whalen. The purpose of the study was simple, to see how knowledge of improvisation techniques affects real sales conversations and their results. 

The sales group was divided in half. Part of them received sales training, while the other half received improvisation training  

The task of the salesmen after such training was simple. They were to sell tickets through phone calls.
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The results of this research are surprising. Improvisational salespeople had 50% more sales than salespeople after sales training. In addition, the conversations of those trained in improvisation techniques were longer, meaning that salespeople had the opportunity to establish a relationship with customers. The improv group had fewer rejected phone calls and improvisers were better at responding to customer concerns or objections.

Interestingly, such results also appeared in other studies - for example, Parhizgar, Elhami and Gheysari conducted similar research in hypermarkets, and their results were similar.

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The research says unequivocally! Improvisation techniques can improve sales effectiveness by up to 50%

Improvisation in sales - summary ;)

I would like to summarize the above article in 3 sentences, and leave you, dear reader / dear reader, with the answer to the question of whether it is worth betting on improvisation training in sales.

1. Almost every sales conversation requires the use of improvisation skills
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2. Improvisation training can develop the competencies necessary for successful sales, such as:
   - active and empathetic listening,
   - responding adequately to changing situations,
   - creating real opportunities on the fly, that a product opens up for the customer,
   - establishing relationships and the art of communication,
   - courage ora self-confidence of the salesman.
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3. Research clearly shows that improvisation training can improve sales performance. 

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Perhaps this is a good time to weave improvisation training into training plans for your teams. This will allow salespeople to develop the emotional intelligence of being able to listen or base a conversation on what a potential buyer has already said. Are you interested in this? Check out our dedicated course for teams and companies: https://www.improimpro.com/dla-firm/trening-impro-dla-sprzedazy

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You can read more about the commonalities between improvisation and sales from other well-known Polish authors - which I strongly encourage you to do:

Pawel Tkaczyk - https://paweltkaczyk.com/pl/sztuka-sprzedazy-improwizacja/

Artur Kuć - Sales Guru- http://salesguru.pl/index.php/2013/09/13-zasad-impro-w-sprzedazy-cz-i/

Sources:

• The evolution of the seven steps of selling,
  Moncrief and Marshall, 2005
• Teaching Yes, And ... Improv in Sales Classes: Enhancing Student Adaptive Selling Skills, Sales Performance, and Teaching Evaluations,
  Rocco and Whalen, (2014).
• Linking improvisational behavior to customer satisfaction: the relational dynamics.
  Hultman, M., Yeboah-Banin, A. A., & Boso, N. (2019).
• Performing Under Pressure: Winning Customers Through Improvisation in Team
  Hill, K. E., Bush, V. D., Vorhies, D., & King, R. A. (2017). 
• The Effect of Salesperson Improvisation on Sales Performance in 3 Hypermarkets
  Parhizgar, M. M., Elhami, S., & Gheysari, K. (n.d.). ‍
• https://happone.com/how-to-use-improvisation-in-a-sales-conversation/