How to Tackle Your Roleplay!

How to Role Play

By: Dana Schoolsky

With District Conferences around the corner, it’s time to start preparing how to tackle your Role Play events. Whether you’re an individual competitor or part of a team event, these steps will help you ace that Role Play!

Step 1: Introduce yourself to your judge. It’s important that you state your name, shake his/her hand, and politely ask if you may take a seat.

Step 2: Go over your agenda. Tell the judge who you are, why you’re meeting, and what you will discuss. It can be helpful for you to play a character, perhaps an employee at the company. Act the part confidently!

Step 3: In your agenda, include the Performance Indicators. Tell your judge up front that you will be discussing A,B,C,D,F. Then, he or she will know what to expect and you’ve already stated the PIs… now it’s time to elaborate on each of them.

Step 4: Explain all the details for each Performance Indicator as related to the scenario. Go in-depth on ones you’re more comfortable with, but be sure to discuss ALL of them.

Step 5: Use visual aids! If the scenario lends itself to you drawing a poster, drafting a social media post, or even making a business card, go for it! Judges love the extra effort and it really goes to show that you put lots of effort and thought into your presentation. It doesn’t matter if it’s the most artistic-looking visual aid, anything is appreciated. If you don’t have time to make anything, do not stress at all, these aren’t required by any means, they are just something that can make you stand out.

Step 6: After you’ve addressed the problem and introduced a solution, sum everything up and plan a “follow-up”. In the real world, meetings don’t end after the given time period set for them; there is always a follow-up call, email, etc. Remind your judge that he/she “has your contact information” and should feel free to reach out anytime. It makes the situation seem realistic.

Step 7: Thank the judge for his/her time and wish him/her well. Congrats! You made it through your DECA Role Play 🙂

Some general tips:

• Be creative, but not too far-fetched. You don’t want to be so unrealistic that your judge thinks you don’t know your stuff (don’t make first year projections too high, don’t expect that a celebrity would love to be a part of your small-shop campaign).
• Know your buzz words! Learn commonly used vocabulary for your specific event, whether it be accounting terms or auto-motive terms, and even learn some general marketing terms! It really shows that you know what you’re talking about if you can utilize the proper jargon.
• Be confident! Silence is better than “um” or “like”, and when you make eye-contact, have good posture, and handle yourself professionally, it will read very well. Don’t forget to smile, and don’t be too uptight! Judges are humans too.
• Have fun!!!! DECA provides invaluable, applicable experience that is hard to come by. Don’t stress yourself out if it doesn’t go exactly how you planned it- that’s life. Just give it your all and be yourself.