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.

These are the 10 top sales skills identified by OMG that measure the selling capabilities necessary to successfully find and guide potential customers through the sales process:

1. Hunting: Proactively and consistently look for new business by reaching out to targeted prospects.

2. Reach Decision Makers: Find a way to reach the person responsible for deciding to purchase the products or services offered, even at the risk of seeming "pushy."

3. Relationship Builder: Nurture and develop strong relationships by proactively and consistently talking with a customer until they become a friend.

4. Consultative Seller: Uncover compelling reasons for prospects and customers to buy from them by using active listening skills to ask good, tough, and timely questions.

5. Sells Value: Position themselves as a trusted advisor and provide the customer with crucial solutions unavailable elsewhere.

6. Effective at Qualifying: Ask about everything that could possibly derail an opportunity before determining that it is fully qualified.

7. Presentation Approach: Is very thoughtful about what to present, when to present, and to whom it should be presented.

8. Closing: Get a verbal agreement in advance of the expected closing call or meeting, and be certain of getting a decision.

9. Sales Process: Have a formal, staged, milestone-centric sales process that provides repeatable, predictable results.

10. Sales Technology: Daily user of CRM, frequent user of LinkedIn, and a regular user of video for sales calls and meetings.

Taking a deep dive into one of these top sales skills—Consultative Selling: How skilled are your bankers and agents at listening and questioning? Do they ask enough questions, the right questions, the tough questions? The Consultative Selling Competency means that your salespeople are doing a great job of listening and asking questions. Not only do they believe in asking questions, they believe in asking enough questions. They believe in asking powerful, robust, and crucial questions! These questions allow them to have conversations with prospects that other firms aren't having. At the end of the day, when your lenders or producers leave the call, their prospect is going to be thinking one of two things. One is, “I could have closed my eyes, and that could have been any advisor that I've ever talked to.” Or, your salespeople might cause them to think, “That was different. That was a conversation I haven't had before. And why isn't my current provider having that kind of conversation with me?” That's what it means to take a consultative approach.

What about the Qualifying skill? How thoroughly do your bankers and agents qualify an opportunity based on its ability to buy? The Qualifying Competency measures the degree to which your salespeople can sort opportunities into two different piles. The first pile is, “I've got little or no chance to catch this rabbit and win this business.” The second pile is, “I should pursue these opportunities. It makes sense, and I believe we have a shot at winning this business.” Qualifying comes down to answering a couple of different questions:

• Do we want to win this deal? • Can we win this deal? • How do we win this deal?

Great salespeople are great qualifiers. They rarely ever get fooled. They do not spend appreciable amounts of time on deals that they never ever had a chance to win. That's part of their mentality.

You can find out more about these top sales skills by reading our eBook, How Do You Know if Your Salespeople Will Sell? Click the button below to download the book for free.

Here are 6 key concepts for innovation in sales:

1. Do Whatever It Takes. We call this WIT, and top producers in sales understand that they really must do whatever it takes—assuming actions are ethical and legal, of course—to help their clients, sell the next deal, and attain their goals. What this really translates to is commitment: commitment to taking the time to think broadly when it comes to a prospect or an opportunity and doing what the other salespeople do not do. This might mean staying later at work to send a communication that includes helpful resources, or it might be calling a client to ask who they might know that would benefit from meeting with you. Bottom line, WIT translates to innovation in sales because your prospect or client benefits from your willingness to serve them to your fullest potential. How committed are you or your salespeople to doing whatever it takes for your prospects and clients?

2. Overcome Self-Limiting Beliefs. Napoleon Hill said, “Your only limitation is the one you set in your own mind!” This applies to everything in life and certainly impacts success in sales. High self-awareness is especially important for salespeople. Self-awareness helps you better understand the belief systems that you're consciously or unconsciously bringing into your sales calls. It also helps you understand how you might interpret a client's response to you. Here are some examples of self-limiting beliefs and more supportive beliefs: “Prospects are honest” vs. “I maintain healthy skepticism about what prospects tell me.” “Any lack of results is due to my competitors” vs. “Any lack of results is due to my own efforts.” We all have beliefs; however, being self-aware and analyzing what happens when these get in the way of a sale demonstrates innovation in sales.

3. Eliminate Non-Prospects from Pipeline. True or false: You or your salespeople have stuffed the pipeline with prospects that will not close, and you know it. There is safety in numbers, another saying, that when it comes to pipeline is unfortunately not true. Top salespeople are adept at fully qualifying their prospects along the process and eliminating them as soon as possible from their pipeline when they know that they are not qualified. In most cases, these salespeople have some mental or actual checklist they follow to understand if a prospect “fits” their criteria. Here is our Prospect Qualifying Scorecard that can help you and your salesperson make sure to eliminate non-prospects from the pipeline sooner rather than later.

4. Follow a Sales Process. The data is clear on this one: 93% of top producers follow a stage-based systematic sales process. Following a process keeps them from skipping a step in the buyer-seller journey. For example, do you or any of your salespeople skip too quickly from uncovering a problem/pain issue to providing a solution? This is a common example of not following a sales process because the salesperson has skipped over fully uncovering and understanding how painful the problem is, if the prospect has the time, money, and resources to fix the problem, what the decision-making process is, and if they are committed to fixing the problem. Following a consistent and systematic sales process is like following the instructions for assembling a piece of new equipment. It helps to ensure that it is constructed properly and will work! While sales processes themselves are not new, being adept at effectively executing a sales process truly is innovation in sales.

5. Prospect & Bring in New Business. This one is clear and short. Prospect every day. Find all potential avenues to reach prospects that fit your target. Innovation comes from the execution of this effort, as most do not execute on a daily basis. Prospecting for a salesperson must be Job #1.

6. Overcome Rejection. This is one of the most important findings from the sales evaluation that we utilize—the pioneer and leader in the industry, Objective Management Group. Here is a short description below:

   a. When this is a Weakness, an individual might feel hurt and hesitate for some period of time before reaching out to a prospect after being rejected.
   b. When this is a Strength, an individual might get back on another sales call immediately after being rejected without feeling hurt.

Elite salespeople are fast to get back on the wagon, and doing so helps them move on to the next, perhaps more positive experience, so that they do not dwell on the negative perspective of being rejected by a prospect. Top producers also take the time to analyze what happened and identify what went wrong in their process, enabling them to self-correct. In this area, innovation lies not in recognizing errors but in learning from them and applying those lessons to future opportunities.