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Communication Skills

Practice with oral and written communication can help prepare students to talk to all audiences. These activities bolster key business communication skills like negotiations and personal selling.

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Buying and Selling Activity

Planning a wholesale trip and subsequent selling event are highly recommended because they provide a hands-on learning experience of the key principles such as:

Economics of One Unit
Target Market and address meeting consumer needs and determining what those needs are through research. How much of each product will customers be willing to buy? Market Research Survey, suggested (1 week before the buying trip)

  • Writing the survey questions can be a class activity where you may ask them what their fellow students or the teachers and staff at their school may buy at a selling event.
  • Create typed and copied, have each student take 20 copies and give the survey to other students during lunch, or before or after school.
  • Once your students bring back the completed surveys, tabulate them and discuss the results with the class as to what they should buy at the wholesale district.

This activity provides focus to the buying trip and makes the selling event more successful.

The NFTE selling event is planned in conjunction with the NFTE Wholesale Trip. Although it may be difficult to plan these two large activities so close to one another, I would recommend not waiting a long time between these two events. The students are very excited and energized after the wholesale trip, it’s important for the students to use this energy and excitement towards preparing for the selling event. Once the students have made their purchases, they are often very excited to jump right into the selling event. The selling event provides the students with an opportunity to practice advertising and marketing their products, negotiating and selling their products to their peers and staff in the school, they learn about setting a selling point for their products, creating special deals and promotions, and about the risks taken when buying and selling such as the possibility of either making a profit or losing money.

Negotiation Game

In this activity, students are put in a situation where they must negotiate with another student and come to a compromise. From completing this activity, students will practice the vital communication skill of negotiation, while learning that in true negotiation there is not necessarily a “winner” or “loser”.

Mock Sales Call

The goal of this exercise is to make students think about what makes a good salesperson. Because all entrepreneurs are salespeople in some form, this exercise will give students another opportunity to evaluate their entrepreneurial potential.

Sales Pitch Taboo

The goal of this exercise is to make students think about what makes a good salesperson. Some students may have some misperceptions about what a salesperson is – even possibly some negative impressions concerning salespeople. Because all entrepreneurs are salespeople in some form, this exercise will give students another opportunity to evaluate their entrepreneurial potential. (a great alternative to the Mock Sales Call)