Taskmaster Mini Conference Mood Shifter

Some sales outfits have a final year-end push gee-up. Full of rah-rah, ending with a supposedly super-motivating peroration. Others prefer to wait until all the planes come home and opt rather for a new-year kick-off event.

In either case, launch pr around the book from successful comedy panel show Taskmaster [reddit thread, youtube playlist, curated best-of list] threw me ideas for just such upcoming Salesteam forums.

Taskmaster; 200 Extraordinary Tasks for Ordinary People appeals to Forbes so much, they recommend the setting of such gameplay as an essential antidote to ‘the vast majority of CEO’s (77% according to PWC) [who] are worried about talent cohesion and skillsets in their businesses’.

Their bulging bag of Task tricks involves many based on pure chance and the humour of haplessness. Yet several too do require participants to think, “laterally, creatively and on their feet. Players need to be both tactical and imaginative…”

It is from this well where we can plunder a wealth of winning Sales conference Taskings.

Here’s a quick trio selection of workshop-type tasks. I’ve chosen from their “Solo Task” category. For the more adventurous, ‘team’ options also abound.

45sec Listings, Backwards

Here’s their rules first;

simply list (out loud) things that you can wear

but you can only go alphabetically, backwards, starting from Z, heading back towards A

45 seconds….Go!!

7 seems to be a typical number. Pressure mounts, especially when you say answers in the wrong order.

Adaptations aplenty may exist in your living rooms; food, things that make you happy, items you use throughout the day. So too for the business remix. You could list clients, best features, benefit labels.

New Word

Another example from the book of a “Solo Task” is to create a neologism. Something I myself have used with success inside internal sales meetings. Also blogging on several times over the years. Here’s their instruction;

You can add stipulations to these as required. The scenario for the word, its context, what it ought evoke. Something unique to your offering, memorable so as likely to stick in the mind of your prospects and which helps gets across where you best succeed.

Avoid Specific Terms

An evolution for their “order a pizza without using specific words”. Can your team members pitch Product X without using any specific word(s)? Even better, if such exclusions are as chosen by any other ‘team’.

As with their standard rubric, no prior warning should be given before allotting Tasks.

bonus : Everyday Pitch Prop

If you’ve a touch more time, either around a conference venue or prep at home beforehand, then how about asking for a 30-second video clip. There’s quite a few “do something unusual with…’ style-Tasks. So rather than getting clever with a potato, you could get salespeople to create short footage on their phones. For instance, taking an everyday item and using it in a pitch as a prop around your latest focus product.