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Getting Veterans on Board for Training
The Penny Exercise
by Susan Onaitis, Principal, Global Learning Link
Opening exercise
Instructions for Penny Exercise
Getting veterans on board for training
This exercise takes about 10 minutes and is a great way to begin a session in which you have senior salespeople or managers.
Begin by saying: Before we get into our training today, let me just ask you a question.
ASK THE GROUP: How many pennies do you think the average 40-year-old person has had cross his or her hand in his/her lifetime so far?
Get a few responses from the audience, then say:
Researchers have found that the average 40-year-old has actually had about 40,000 pennies cross his or her palm during their lifetime so far – about 1000 per year.
Now in your own head, not out loud, please take your age and multiply it by 1000 and you will have the number of pennies that have crossed your palm in your lifetime.
So if you are 28, about 28,000 pennies have crossed your palm.
Now on the sheet I have given you, please draw in complete and accurate detail both sides of a penny without looking at one. I will give you about 2-3 minutes to do that. (And I won’t be grading for artistic ability.)
ASK THE GROUP: How many people think they have drawn a penny in complete and accurate detail – all the words spelled correctly and put in the right place, all the numbers in the right place, etc.?
Get a show of hands (usually there are none).
ASK THE GROUP: Why is it that no one can draw a penny accurately and in complete detail when at least 1000 of them cross your hand every year?
Let people respond in a variety of ways, then say:
So what I hear you saying is:
-pennies are something I am very familiar with – I use them every day and so I somewhat take them for granted;
-because I use them everyday, I hardly pay attention to them.
ASK THE GROUP: If I had told you I would be testing your ability today to draw a penny accurately and in complete detail, what might you have done before this session?
Get their responses.
ASK THE GROUP: If I had told you there would be a $100,000 reward for anyone able to draw a penny in complete and accurate detail, what might you have done before coming to this session?
Get their responses, then say:
We often take for granted things that we use every day. We may do the same thing with our selling skills. We use them every day in a variety of ways. But everyday familiarity or use of something doesn’t necessarily mean we know it as well as we think – as we saw with the penny.
If I had told you there would be a reward in studying the penny in greater detail, you might have studied it under a magnifying glass, you might have practiced drawing it, and you would have done a much more effective job of drawing it today.
It is the same with your job as a salesperson (or Manager). Most of you use your selling skills every day –you take them for granted, especially if you have been doing it for a long time.
However, if we take those skills and study them in a little more detail – put them under a magnifying glass - practice them, you will get even better at them. And you will realize a reward for doing it.
Even the World Series winners go back to Spring Training the next year!
So that is what we are going to do today. We are going to look at your skills, give you a chance to examine them and practice them, so you don’t run the risk of taking them for granted.
[PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION]
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