Five Business Uses for Snake Oil The #1 Selling Game

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1 Overcoming Fear of Speaking in Public Snake Oil Therapy Business Meeting Ice Breaker Human Resources Marketing and Product Development Brainstorming Sales Training 1. Overcoming Fear of Speaking in Public Snake Oil Therapy Glossophobia, or the fear of public speaking, is remarkably common. In fact, some experts estimate that as much as 75% of the population has some level of anxiety regarding public speaking. Public speaking is the number one fear in North America second only to fear of death! The vast majority of careers involve some level of public speaking, from participating in meetings to giving presentations to clients. If your phobia is severe, you may find yourself unable to perform these necessary tasks. This can lead to consequences such as limiting your success up to and including losing your job. Of course, many people are able to manage and control the fear. A speaker's anxiety can be reduced if one knows their topic well and believes in it. It has been suggested that people should practice speaking in front of smaller, less intimidating groups when they're getting started in public speaking. Additionally, focusing on friendly, attentive people in the audience has been found to help. Many suggest that speakers should remember to not take themselves too seriously, and further suggest that they should remind themselves if they make a mistake that there is a good chance the audience won't have noticed. Gaining experience in public speaking often results in it becoming easier for the person. Playing Snake Oil creates the perfect situation to gain public-speaking confidence. The play occurs in a small group, usually amongst friends or family. The zany products that you create to sell to the customer cannot be taken seriously, only with laughter. You can t make a mistake. Your sales pitch can be as short or long as you want it to be and we suggest no more than 30 seconds to keep the game moving at a good pace. Often the most unlikely product is selected by the customer. Playing with people outside of your immediate circle might seem more intimidating, but Snake Oil requires only your imagination. If you have a tendency to imagine things are worse than they are, let that imagination run wild as you make up your sales pitch. Winning the round is way down on the list of reasons to play Snake Oil - Laughter is on top. You will get to know the other players better through the stories they create and your stories will get better as the rounds continue. The more often you play Snake Oil with different groups, the more confidence you will gain in selling your ideas. Snake Oil can start you on the path to becoming a better public speaker. Once you have successfully worked through the worst of your fear, you might want to consider joining a speaking group such as Toastmasters. Such groups can help you polish your public speaking skills through repetition and constructive criticism from fellow members. Building confidence in your ability to speak in public can further reduce your anxiety. Lions, Optimists, Kiwanis and other clubs are always looking for speakers for their meetings which are attended by positive thinking people interested in serving their community.

2 2. Business Meeting Ice Breaker When you attend business meetings with people with whom you are not familiar, a certain level of tension can inhibit the progress of the meeting. Good meeting administrators break that tension with icebreakers. An icebreaker is a chance to introduce yourself to the group in a creative and interesting way. A good icebreaker can make your meeting more productive from the very beginning. Getting people comfortable and receptive in a group setting before a team meeting can be the best investment of time that you can make. Ice breakers get creative juices flowing, increase the exchange of ideas, establish team identity, and create a sense of community. All of these items are important in forging top productive teams. But how do you get people to participate and feel comfortable with an ice breaker? For meetings in a business setting in which participants are professionals, ice breakers that require actions not normally associated with day-to-day behaviors in the office generally make people uncomfortable. Successful ice breakers for these type of groups generally consist of having attendees share memorable information with each other, create innovative ways to get people to introduce themselves to each other, or have group members collectively work on a problem where everyone has to contribute. Snake Oil meets all of the requirements of a successful icebreaker activity: Everyone participates Each participant is challenged to be creative Can be played as individuals or as teams There are no winners or losers only laughter One way of using Snake Oil as an icebreaker is for the speaker to represent a customer (using a customer card from the Snake Oil game OR- as yourself) and have two to six teams create a sales presentation based upon two of six randomly selected Word Cards from the Snake Oil game. Each team gets less than 1 minute to give its presentation. Have either the selected customer or the entire audience choose the best presentation. A second round of Snake Oil could start by selecting someone from the team that won in the first round to be the next Customer. As presentations are made members will learn more about other members sense of humor, creativity, and persuasive skills. Once you have a better knowledge of the Snake Oil game, you may create your own variations. A few rounds of Snake Oil will take less than 15 minutes* and put the participants in an open and creative frame of mind. *WARNING! The audience may not want to stop playing.

3 3. Human Resources Hiring the right person for a sales position. Selling is a wonderful blend of preparation and improvisation. It s a lot like a play in football - the first few seconds are what you plan and the rest is making the most of the chaos that follows. Know your customer, know your product, know your presentation, and learn to feel for the close. You have to use your imagination, think quickly, and enjoy the encounter. Snake Oil has provides a unique tool for Human Resource professionals to put a prospective employee in a situation that requires a creative mind, an active imagination, and the ability to construct a convincing argument. Since the interview process is usually a stressful situation, playing a game of Snake Oil can put the candidate at ease and give you an insight into how quickly she creates a presentation and interacts with the other players. Does he take a novel approach, disparage the other presentations, or play it safe. Team-building exercises Getting away from the job at a retreat or meeting is a common practice to remove team members from the stresses and distractions of their position and create opportunities to interact in different ways through planned activities of events. Some examples are Team Game Shows, Rope Courses, and Scavenger Hunts. Companies use team building activities for many different reasons. Some of these include: Improving communication, boosting morale, motivation, ice breakers to help get to know each other better, learning effective strategies, improving productivity, learning about one s strengths and weaknesses and many others. Team building activities can be used by any business, large or small, to promote better teamwork in the workplace, and as most business owners and managers know, great teamwork is one of the key factors associated with a company s success. a) One method of using Snake Oil in the team-building context would be to select one person from the audience to be the Customer (using a customer card from the Snake Oil game OR- as their self) and have four to six teams create a sales presentation based upon two of six randomly selected Word Cards from the Snake Oil game. Each team gets less than 1 minute to give its presentation. Have either the selected Customer or the entire audience choose the best presentation. b) A second way to use Snake Oil is simply to break a larger group into teams of four to eight members and play the game as indicated by the rules. As presentations are made members will learn more about other members sense of humor, creativity, and persuasive skills. Once you have a better knowledge of the Snake Oil game, you may create your own variations as have many of our customers. Orientation training to help transition into a new organizational culture New employees are selected partially for their ability to fit in and work in a team. The Snake Oil game can be used in two different ways to help in this transition: a) During the later stages of the interview process, the prospective hire can play Snake Oil with the team she will join. The other members of the team can discuss among themselves and with HR their impressions of the potential hire. b) Once the new hire is on board, playing Snake Oil with during breaks can accelerate the setting of the interpersonal glue that helps the team function efficiently.

4 4. Marketing and Product Development Brainstorming Madison Avenue advertising executive Alex Osborn developed the original approach to brainstorming and published it in his 1953 book, Applied Imagination. Since then, researchers have made many improvements to his original technique. Brainstorming combines a relaxed, informal approach to problem solving with lateral thinking. It encourages people to come up with thoughts and ideas that can, at first, seem a bit crazy. Some of these ideas can be crafted into original, creative solutions to a problem, while others can spark even more ideas. This helps to get people unstuck by "jolting" them out of their normal ways of thinking. The Snake Oil game is an engine for creative thought. A Customer Card is drawn from the stack and the sellers create products from two cards from six randomly selected Word Cards. Sometimes the product created appears to be a natural fit for the customer in question but often the player has to stretch to lead the Customer to choose his product. Using Snake Oil in a brainstorming session can be done in several ways: The first is simply to play the game as in the directions provided. The nature of the game play inherently brings creative ideas to the surface. A second variation is to select a Customer Card and spread all of the Word Cards out onto a table. Team members pull out pairs of Word Cards that create the more obvious products that customer would need or desire. Continue the process until no more obvious two-word Card products are evident. Place a time limit (e.g. two minutes) on the selection process. Have each team member make a short presentation on one of their two-word Card products. A third approach is to go through the process of selecting the obvious two-word Card products as in the second variation above, but to discard all of these products. Have each team member create a two-word Card product from the remaining Word Cards and make her presentation. This requires more of a stretch and greater imaginative effort. All of the exercises will generate laughter. When resuming the rest of the session for product development brainstorming, the teams brains will be in a more relaxed and receptive state. Researchers looked into brainstorming use in product development and found that applying brainstorming techniques to new product development works best when the collaboration employs participants from varied specialties gathering to develop a less complex product. Contemporary research and most current literature asserts, however, that group brainstorming is half as effective as individual brainstorming. Despite these findings (according to our research) the humor, laughter, and creativity found in a game of Snake Oil will put you and your team s mind in a better place.

5 5. Sales Training Life is about stories. Each of us creates a unique story with our life a story that no one else can ever tell. It is with our stories that we relate to the stories of others around us. We blend our stories with others to create an unimaginable web of stories that connects us to every human being on our planet with every human being that has ever lived! We have the gift of imagination. We can create images and feelings in the minds of others that can influence them to act. The art of selling involves the seller creating a story that relates so well to the story of the buyer that the sale of a product, service, or idea proceeds to the benefit of all parties. At least that s what should happen. A sale in the traditional sense is a very focused activity. The seller has a product or service that has been designed to have specific features and benefits for a given group of buyers. The seller uses an acquired knowledge of his customer and probing questions to zero in on the critical factors that his customer will use to make a decision. A sale is made if the two stories match well enough. A sale can be a very simple or an extremely complex process. The more we can use our innate curiosity and imagination the more likely we are to find a story that leads to success. Snake Oil the #1 Selling Game is about digging into our experiences, engaging our imagination, and creating a story that will put the customer in the mood to buyer our product and we have less than 1 minute to achieve our sale! Sales Exercise 1: All Sellers are dealt 6 Word Cards. The dealer selects a Customer Card. Each Seller must create a single product from 2 of the 6 Word Cards in hand and present that product to the Customer. The presentation will take no more than 1 minute and the Customer can terminate the presentation at any time. Each Seller in turn repeats this process. The Customer should not give any verbal responses to the Sellers. (Note: Subsequent Sellers have the advantage of hearing the presentations of the previous Sellers and can adjust their presentations if needed.) The Customer can chose any Seller s product for any reason. It is helpful if the Customer cites the reasons for the decision. The first Seller becomes the Customer in the next round and all Sellers hands are given additional unused Word Cards to maintain a hand of 6 Word Cards. Sales Exercise 2: The hand is played as in Sales Exercise 1 except that each seller can make one additional 30 second presentation before the Customer s decision. Each Seller can reinforce the original presentation, change tactics, or disparage a competitive presentation. Sales Exercise 3: The hand is played as in Sales Exercise 1 except that previous to each presentation each Seller may ask one short question of the Customer.

6 Notes to the Facilitator: Sales Exercise 1 demonstrates something we all do when we sell. We make assumptions about the needs and desires of our customers. If we are very perceptive we can be successful, but more often than not, especially selling to those of whom we have little personal knowledge, these assumptions are more reflective of our own needs and desires. Sales Exercise 2 shows some of the knowledge obtained and dangers involved in a competitive selling environment. In this environment knowledge is gained from the other Sellers. The temptations for disparagement are greater and may provoke disfavor in the mind if the Customer for one or more of the Sellers. Sales Exercise 3 involves the Customer more deeply into the sales process and brings the stories of the Seller and the Customer into closer alignment. The later Sellers have the advantage again, since the more questions that are asked of the Customer, more needs and desires are uncovered. These exercises are designed to present very basic selling principles. They can be done during breaks or after intensive training to provide stress relief and lighten the mood. You will find that when you play Snake Oil the #1 Sales Game you will learn surprising things about the other players. I have played with many people that I have known for years that I now see in a new light. Enjoy!