Sales & Improv Comedy: More like PB&J Than You’d Imagine
My default answer for anyone who asks about improv is to point to the TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway? A group of us get together, establish games, and then make shit up off the top of our heads.
That’s the lazy answer, but it gets the point across so people will come to my shows. That and the cheap cocktails.
Improv is actually so much more than just a performance. The games we play are role-playing scenarios that challenge us to imagine an environment, pay attention to detail, and listen to what our partners are saying. The difference from other role-playing is you have to create the scenario yourself, forcing you to think logically and creatively to drive the scene forward.
Improv is based on the entertainment that comes from spontaneity and unpredictability. In most cases, improv uses audience feedback and suggestions to shape what transpires onstage. Said Roehl, “Every performance is completely different, and there’s an element of risk involved since there’s no guarantee that any given scene will ‘work.’”
If you’ve ever been to or seen an improv show (or even watched Whose Line Is It Anyway?), you’ve seen that there are many different ways to set up or structure an improv show. One of the most common is to present a series of improvised scenes or games that may or may not be connected with a theme. Another popular approach that was originated with Theatresports and has since become the backbone of popular troop Comedy Sportz is the competition. In the improv competition, there is typically an actor or player (or sometimes even an audience member) who acts as a judge and manages the scenes and competition between two or more teams of improvisors.
At the core of improv are several principles that guide the actors:
- Yes, And
- Trust
- Acceptance
- Emotions
- Environment
I took a deep breath and ran through the scene and the characters who’d be playing each role quickly in my head, and then I just went for it.
No one can help you at that point.
I just had to play the game as me.
I’d gone through the classes.
I had all my fellow actors cheering me on — rooting for me to succeed — and an audience on my side 100 percent. This was the last scene of the night, and nobody else was on this stage but me, and I had never even seen Mary Poppins.
And the characters I’d be playing: a series of names from Mary Poppins that I’d never heard of.
But I was authentic, I was committed, and I was me. And it worked. I felt good about it, and person after person came up to me after the show, saying it was one of the funniest things of the entire night — and for a couple, one of the funniest things they’d seen during any improv show. And that’s how we ended the show.
And that’s the moment I realized I was back.
I’d found out what I’d lost and realized there was a way to get it back.
And it was all thanks to a cartoon penguin. (And no, I still refuse to watch Mary Poppins. Don’t think I ever will.)
What the hell does this story have to do with sales you ask?
- I hated the game because everything was unfamiliar
- I had no choice but to just do everything with what my brain allowed me
- I was forced to let go of my focus and allow my creativity break out
And it turns out that list is ALSO the secret of sales.
If we can alter our mindset from thinking of our sales interactions as a transaction to a scene where we’re unfamiliar, uncertain, have no choices and let go and be creative, we can sell.
It’s called YES AND.
(More on that soon.)
