SELLING ON VALUE: USING THE PURPOSEFUL CHOREOGRAPHY AS THE BASIS OF AN INNOVATIVE SALES ROLE PLAY

ABSTRACT

Few academic disciplines make as frequent use of experiential learning exercises as marketing and sales. This is particularly true in selling courses, where a sales role play often serves as a culminating exercise in which students are tasked with building rapport with a buyer, uncovering buyer needs, overcoming objections, and closing a sale. However, we contend that this typical sales role play can be extended by tasking students with the need to perform independent research to speak convincingly about the concept of value. In response, we describe an innovative role play based on the purposeful choreography, which tasks students with presenting a compelling, and novel, business case to a buyer. Moreover, we highlight opportunities and challenges for sales professors who are interested in adopting this role play into their advanced selling courses.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Students in the class are generally all over 21 when completing this exercise, and typically have some baseline knowledge of the beer and wine industry. However, this exercise could easily be adapted for students who are under 21, or for instructors who don’t feel comfortable asking their students to hypothetically sell alcoholic beverages. For instance, instructors could have students play the role of a packaged meat salesperson, produce salesperson, etc.