What makes sales practice difficult is that many salespeople just don’t like it. Here is our advice for the sales leaders: they don’t have to like it, they just have to do it. Once that is made clear, and leaders initiate structured time and scenarios to incorporate into their sales practice plan, salespeople will begin to get more comfortable with practicing sales techniques.

Here are just a few unedited comments made by salespeople about sales practice and role play in our sales training this year:

• "Allowing us the practice, although uncomfortable really allows me to get a feel for the layout of the conversation and dig deeper to have more successful conversations."
• "As uncomfortable as roll playing can be, practice makes perfect."
• "Discussing the different sales bases, what information needs to be collected in order to move forward. The role play & seeing it in action helped me a lot."
• "Drilling down within my real-life scenarios made be better prepared for my meeting tomorrow than I would have otherwise."
• "Makes you be prepared. Role play gets to the pain. Am I a commodity or do I bring something valuable to the table other than save you $. Listen, drill down. Lots of good stuff, even for those like me who have been doing this for a long time."

Much like salespeople, sales leaders might not like to run sales practices, but they too just need to do them! It can be difficult for managers because they may feel on the spot to demonstrate how the sales conversation should sound and may not be that comfortable themselves. Yes, to some degree, sales leaders should understand and be able to role play an effective sales conversation. However, here is an effective tip: rely on others. One of the effective approaches for sales practice with a team is to gain the insights from other producers.

Here are some other good guidelines for sales practice and how to role play:

• Leaders, have regularly scheduled time and topics to role play on your team’s calendar

• Don’t get too fancy, just dive in!

• Determine roles: prospect and producer

• Salesperson should share the opportunity’s background in 5 minutes or less

• Remember, this is not a strategy discussion; the conversation must be in the role

• Begin and continue the conversation as you would with your real prospect, making sure the prospect uses typical objections

• If you need to step out of role play to make a point or gain feedback, state “out of role play”

• After sales practice, gain feedback and insights from the team

  

What should the team sales practice?

If a company is operating without a defined, stage-based sales system, it will be more difficult to create productive sales practice sessions, so start there. Using the ACTG sales approach, here are areas that salespeople should practice to become proficient, along with some tools sales leaders can use in practice sessions:

1. Making the initial prospecting call: 8-Step Compelling Phone Process Worksheet

2. Uncovering problems and pain that must be fixed, asking consultative questions to discover if this is a real prospect or just a shopper: Drill Down Questions Worksheet

3. Asking real questions about time, budget, and resources: Are They Really a Prospect Sales Brew

4. Overcoming objections and asking about the incumbent are always tough areas and must be role-played!: Winning Sales Pitch Sales Brew

5. If a prospect is fully qualified, in a sense, they should “close” themselves, but here is an effective approach to sales practice for closing: Critical Closing Questions Sales Brew

Every sales leader would agree, it is important that salespeople practice their sales techniques with co-workers so that they do not practice on their prospects. Improving skills, practicing the game plan, and getting feedback from the practice sessions are crucial for success. Sales leaders, just get started and don’t get caught up in making it perfect. Practice is never perfect.

Prospecting is difficult. It is not usually fun. If you are a manager, don't tell your people to "just pick up the phone and have fun with it." They will know you don't know what you're talking about and haven’t recently dealt with rejection in sales.

Facing rejection, not talking to anyone, having people hang up on you, having people ask you to never call again, people lying or avoiding you, not returning calls or emails, pretending to be interested just to get rid of you, asking for free help, taking your info to fix the problem themselves, or canceling last-minute — ZERO FUN. And the list goes on.

If prospecting isn’t fun, then what is it? Here’s another truth: You don’t have to like it; you just have to do it.

Salespeople must put a lot of preparation, emotion, intellect, and skill into being successful at prospecting. Our evaluation partner, Objective Management Group, has found that one of the biggest contributors to sales success is the ability to be rejection-proof. Even with all the skills, techniques, scripts, and preparation, if a salesperson cannot handle the rejection in sales and emotional roller coaster of prospecting, they will struggle, be inconsistent, and fail more than they succeed.

The Strength of Handling Rejection in Sales

When dealing with rejection in sales is a strength, an individual will:

• Be able to ask tough questions and challenge their customers to earn their respect

• Remain objective and actively listen to prospects and customers

• Feel empowered to take positive action without being sabotaged by negative self-talk

• Push back over price objections, competition, and indecision

• Lean into discussions about budget and funding

• Get back on another sales call immediately after being rejected without feeling hurt

In the end, salespeople need to prospect. If they have a solid phone approach so they don’t look, act, and sound like everyone else, they have a chance.

As a manager, if you help them understand the root causes of their prospecting woes (non-supportive beliefs, need for approval, etc.), you can help them improve. If you make them practice so their phone conversation is as natural as breathing, they’ll improve their results.

Dealing with rejection in sales is all about being resilient. Here’s our easy-to-remember philosophy: SW3 — Some will, some won’t, so what, move on.

Recently, one of our insurance producers shared this:

“I used to get hung up on rejection, but now I follow the model: some will, some won’t, so what, move on. That mindset shift has been incredibly freeing and has helped me stay focused and resilient.”

The bottom line is that rejection in sales isn’t fun. It’s about getting the job done — being resilient and tenacious in your prospecting efforts so you have solid appointments that turn into solid opportunities that turn into closed business. THAT’S where the fun is: new relationships and new opportunities to help clients.

Learn How to STOP Hiring Mistakes at our 30-Min Webinar on June 16th!

Yet salespeople still exist — and thrive — even after the internet changed everything. The key here is that salespeople must stay current with how AI can help them in their role of finding and cultivating clients.

This blog article will cover how AI is changing sales, how it can become a tool for salespeople, where it can help identify opportunities, and why sales skills matter more than ever to compete and be successful.

How AI is Changing Sales: Real-Life Tools Making a Difference

We recently met with the CEO of a small tech firm who has developed software to help target and focus a salesperson’s daily outreach activity. Using AI to evaluate current client data, they serve up a daily lead list of prospects with similar qualities in priority order — with complete contact information — helping salespeople stay focused on prospecting activities that will have the most impact in reaching their goals.

Salespeople no longer need to search around for who they should call, saving considerable time and effort. This tool also minimizes distractions. Think about how easy it is to get on LinkedIn for a purpose and suddenly you're reading posts and looking at connections. All good activities — but not as targeted as a custom-built daily calling list. This is one example of how AI is changing sales.

The role of Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRMs) has evolved over the years, and in today’s world, AI is playing a large part in providing predictive insights from client and industry data. Many CRMs are connected to email automation tools with some level of conversation intelligence — meaning they can read actual customer conversations to predict deal outcomes and forecast projections with unprecedented accuracy.

This is how AI is changing sales: allowing a company to provide data that helps salespeople get smarter and more focused in their business development efforts.

Where AI Helps in the Sales Process

Let’s break down where AI can help salespeople in their daily job. First and foremost, in prospecting with lead scoring and prioritization that identifies warmer leads more apt to respond and engage.

AI can also help in follow-up with automated reminders for appointments and emailing of information, as well as email sequences. These email sequences can be set up to send relevant information to targeted prospects.

We recommend being selective with the use of these automated emails, as those on the other end may be inclined to unsubscribe, causing a future inability for outreach. Relevancy and trustworthiness are the factors determining cold email success in 2025, as just published in a recent Hunter.io study. So, it is important to make certain that in outreach — whether automated or customized (preferred by most) — your messaging is relevant to the end user.

AI can also help the sales process by analyzing calls for coaching purposes and in forecasting, helping companies manage their pipelines with more accuracy and effectiveness.

Why Sales Skills Still Matter

Referencing once again the Hunter.io article: relevancy and trust are the two most important factors when a new salesperson comes calling.

AI cannot build trust, develop relationships, or strategize with a business owner on solutions. AI also does not handle objections like a salesperson can: asking the right questions, uncovering real reasons, and helping prospects navigate the mental roadblocks involved in making a decision.

The power and the value of the sales role is to apply emotional intelligence and relationship-building skills alongside appropriate AI intelligence.

According to the #1 sales evaluation company in the world, and our partner, Objective Management Group, one of the 21 Core Sales Competencies is relationship building, which includes quickly developing rapport and building relationships over time. It is these qualities that drive customers to stay at a company — or follow many salespeople to new companies if they move. As of today, this cannot be replicated by AI.

To illustrate: when a business owner must make a pivotal decision about the business that will alter strategy, revenue, and profit for future years, will they turn to AI or the right consultative salesperson for resources?

Most salespeople have heard about and explored ChatGPT and other similar AI tools that can help them improve their own communication and self-marketing. Salespeople will benefit by embracing these tools, finding time to understand them, and learning how they can help improve their calling efforts and conversations with prospects and clients.

AI is changing sales and is doing so in a positive manner for those salespeople and companies who stay informed and embrace these resources to improve results.