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FEATURESTORY
Jump!
Discussions at the start of a new year often turn to risk and reward. You reassess investments, consider career moves and, too often, decide to do nothing. We want you to shake things up with your sales team in 2008, and have found five unconventional strategies to get you started.
Looking for the Best Ideas? Ask for Their Worst!
You've brought the sales team together to brainstorm ways to develop new business, upsell to current customers, or tackle decreased productivity. How do you get started?
Ask them for their bad ideas. It sounds wacky, but it works, say marketing research consultants Pete DePaulo and Sharon Livingston.
Reverse psychology allows someone to gain freedom and insights useful for moving in the right direction. It helps respondents loosen up by relieving the fear of saying something dumb. Once bad ideas are voiced, participants are able to consider the other side Ð how to turn these problems into solutions.
A successful idea may be only a minor revision away from a "bad" idea. Therefore, hearing bad ideas often stimulates respondents to come up with great ideas. What's more, the converse of one bad idea is the possibility of many good ideas.
Humor also plays a role in this tactic's success. The resulting discussion is usually lively and high-energy. Respondents get a little giddy shouting out their intentionally outlandish ideas. It's fun to come up with "bad" ideas, and basic research has shown that people are more creative when enjoying themselves.
If introduced appropriately, the technique enhances the respondents' trust in the moderator, and intrigues them about what they will be asked to do next. DePaulo and Livingston say that what a respondent thinks is a "bad" suggestion occasionally turns out to be a market success without modification.
Bonus!
See also in: Jump! (...five unconventional sales strategies)
Looking for the Best Ideas? Ask for Their Worst!
If Customers Push, Push Them Back
Turn A Competitor Into A Colleague
If Your Reps Can Stand the Heat, You Need A Hotter Kitchen
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