Role playing exercise with Unca' John

I need to write this up anyway, so I might as well share it on the blog.

Unca’ John has been helping me with starting my business. He knows the marketing part is new to me and is hard. Similar to the marketing piece I showed you (Jess, I’ll send a copy), he has been working with me on what to say the first time a potential customer calls me.

We decided he would call me at an out of the blue, unplanned time and do a role-play of being a potential customer so I could practice.

The first hilarious aspect of this exercise is how nervous I was about it before the call came. For the love of Bob, it’s just Unca’ John and it’s just role playing. But I was nervous nonetheless.

He called me this morning, role playing from the beginning.

He said he had heard about my company from a friend and from the website. I thanked him for his call and asked him about his project. He described a very challenging situation. I then described how I could help as a facilitator with processes and techniques, and we talked more about his project. He asked me about my experience and my references.

Afterwards we laughed and talked about how nervous I was and what went well and what his recommendations for improvement were.

The first topic we talked about was I need to get my reference list straight. I have references lined up regarding employment and resumes but not about an independent business. I need to call my references and discuss this.

We talked about how well the interactive phone call went as opposed to me having to come up with some kind of spiel that I hope would work for everyone. I realized that, of course, I’m much more comfortable discussing the project with someone versus giving them a spiel. I’m glad I’m more comfortable with this because it is a better method anyway. I need to have aspects of a spiel ready, but the more interactive the better.

Among the questions/promptings he recommended I include were questions like:
What have you tried in the past?
Tell me about your concerns?
Talk to the person about my initial assessment and then discuss it

I need to remember the potential customer is interviewing me from the very beginning of the phone call. I need to make the right impression.