I recently participated in a sales skills improvement meeting that ran for 4 days and was very focused on presentation skills as well as the information in the presentation. One of the interesting tools we used in the meeting was the controlled use of Nerf Guns. Mike Hillyer and I concocted the evil plan to keep presentations on track and avoid bad words like "ummm".
"Nerf Guns", you say? Yes, that is what I said - and they work great. We work in a customer facing environment where a good presentation can win a deal and a bad one can mean death (of the sale), or at least leave a bad impression with a client. As Sales Engineers, we are tasked with presenting complex information, typically with PowerPoint and live demonstrations. We need to avoid "death-by-PowerPoint" as well as droning on for too long and overrunning the meeting. Worse is annoying a customer with incessant "ummmm"s throughout a presentation. When the customer stops listening to the information and starts counting how many times you say "ummmm", you have lost the sale. We chose to discourage bad behavior with a little fun and only minor pain.
So the deal is this: all participants with the exception of the presenter, are issued a Nerf gun with ample ammunition. There were 5 of us, so we had 4 guns and about 900 rounds of Nerf darts. The rules of engagement are simple.
1) Your colleagues are armed and dangerous
2) During your presentations, you will be SHOT...
- Every time you say “Umm…”
- Every minute you are over your allotted time
3) Only the presenter can be a target (no shooting across the table)
4) Unlike Zombieland, head-shots are discouraged
5) Reloads are permitted at any time
6) Not wrapping up logically within 3 minutes of overtime is worth a “Double Tap”
It worked like a charm. In the initial sessions, presenters including myself were pelted with darts. It is amazing how many times you fill empty space with that annoying noise and don't even realize it. Running overtime was also a cause for bombardment and as in the real world, bad things happen when you run over your allotted time. However, by the end of the second day, the dart guns were oddly silent. Speakers had learned to slow down, think about the next words and find alternate, more pleasant ways to fill that empty space. Presentations finished within the allotted time with enough room for questions while not impairing the information. By the end of the week, we were all very conscious of our speech patterns and time frames.
I sat in on several client presentations over the next few weeks and was pleasantly surprised to see that the training stuck. Client receptiveness to the information was also up which is a great thing for sales.
It may be extremely unconventional, but hey, that's how we roll. Feel free to adapt this to your own internal training sessions. Credit for the idea would be appreciated.
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