Participants are divided into two groups made up of customers and business teams. The business teams are then divided into the roles of team leader, customer representatives, and marketing and promotions people. The business teams are all given individual establishments to operate for the three virtual years within the simulation.

Each of the teams has the opportunity to build an organization on Planet X, recently opened for business because of the New Intergalactic Free Trade Agreement (NIFTA). They are rivals in the very competitive industry of intergalactic Water and Ice. Each team has a different brand of Intergalactic Flavoured Water, which is sold to the customer - the restaurants and bars on the planet. Each brand has its own history, product features and traditional markets. The end users of their products (robots, humanoids, and quasi-animals) frequent the establishments on Planet X and each group has a set of flavoured water preferences that change over time. Each establishment attracts specific end-users, each requiring a different mix of Flavoured Water. It is the job of each team to ensure that they modify their strategic plans, and base their resource allocation decisions (human resource time, money, promotional programs, etc.) on the changing economic, political, and social profiles on the planet over time.

Each team gathers and shares information, develops strategies and promotions, sells and services customers, and reacts to the dramatic changes sweeping the planet. The teams feel the effects of the entire business process and face both the rewards of long-term beneficial relationships and the penalties of short-term thinking. As the simulated years progress, only teams that have been able to build long term relationships with their customer base will have great success on Planet X.

Planet X is a powerful, dramatic, challenging, competitive and real sales and marketing experience. The business teams and the customers become very clear about which sales approaches work in the short and long term, what makes the customer stay with a relationship and what can be applied to their own sales and marketing teams back on Planet Earth.

LEARNING OUTCOMES
According to our customers, Planet X is the most challenging and exciting real life sales simulation on the market today. Participants leave with a renewed commitment to exceeding targets, to growing existing accounts, to developing new markets, and to understanding the real needs of their clients and customers. The Planet X learning experience:

• dramatically illustrates the importance of effective face to face selling skills and the absolute importance of ensuring that this face to face selling time is maximized.
  
• connects the importance of preparation to the results of each sales call and to the achievement of the entire sales program.
  
• demonstrates the significance of client relationships and the ever-increasing need for this relationship to invest value beyond the product being sold. (Service, information, and professional advice)
  
• Participants gain first hand experience about the customer's reality, an understanding of the salesperson and how the sales process is experienced from the other side of the table.
  
• emphasizes the need to have a strategic sales plan and to adapt this plan as more information becomes available.
  
• demonstrates the crucial role that gathering and sharing information plays to the selling process, and links this to each position within a sales team.
  
• illustrates the critical role played by the support functions to the sales team, and demonstrates the importance of the need for the entire team to commit to the sales goals.
  
• explores the need to think beyond one sales cycle and to maximise long term sales potential with clients and customers, while ensuring that short term goals are not ignored.
  
• illustrates the importance of understanding, segmenting, and targeting the market; and prioritizing and allocating resources against the key targeted areas. It also highlights the role of the leader as coach and pacesetter for the sales team.
  
• emphasizes the importance of character (persistence- the ability to never give up in the face of adversity) in achieving outstanding long-term sales results.