Participating in sales roleplays is an undervalued way to take your sales reps to the next level. Having a safe, controlled environment where reps can practice and build on their existing skills can make the difference between a successful close. 

We’ll give you an overview of what these roleplays are, why they’re so beneficial, and seven essential sales roleplays you should try with your team.

What Is a Sales Roleplay?

A sales roleplay is a risk-free way to practice and improve your sales skills in a practical  scenario. Instead of practicing with a potential customer, sales reps can practice in a safe yet realistic setting and gain the experience of handling cold calls, pitches, outbound customer discovery, and other situations they could encounter later on.

Why are sales roleplays so helpful?

The main benefit of sales roleplays is that it allows reps to use their skills as they would in a real client call without the risk of losing a potential deal. 

If a sales rep were to practice their skills with a potential customer, for example, there’s always the risk that they could fail to close the deal. With sales roleplays, that risk doesn’t exist. Plus, it gives them a realistic environment where they can experiment and try new things — things they might not be ready to try in an actual sales conversation. 

Even the best sales training companies endorse the benefits of sales roleplays.

Top 3 Benefits of Sales Roleplays for Teams

Roleplaying is one of the most useful tools for sales reps when it comes to improving their communication abilities and confidence. However, there are tons of unique advantages and benefits of leveraging this type of roleplay.

Here are the top three benefits of using sales roleplays with your team.

Better communication skills

One of the best advantages of leveraging sales roleplays as a training tool for your reps is improved communication skills. Roleplaying offers a safe way for reps to practice effectively communicating with clients and other key stakeholders. They can practice basic small talk, articulating the advantages of the solution they’re selling, and objection handling, for example.

Roleplaying also gives teams a chance to work on their active listening skills to ensure they give customers the respect they deserve. 

Smoother onboarding for new reps

When it comes to reps who are brand new to the company (or new to sales in general), sales roleplay can facilitate onboarding. Instead of having the newest, inexperienced reps work on their skills live during calls with clients, they can leverage roleplaying for realistic customer conversations and other interactions. It’s especially helpful for new reps who are learning how to best sell their solution and articulate its value proposition. 

Boosted confidence

Sales roleplays can also help boost the confidence of your team and their abilities. It can be tough to work on a rep’s confidence in a risk-free environment, but roleplaying provides exactly that. Folks can practice their skills and make mistakes without risking a lost client, deal, or other opportunity. After all, seeing success and improvement after roleplaying can make reps feel more confident in themselves and their abilities to interact with clients. 

How to Set Your Team Up for Success for Roleplaying

No matter if your team is full of inexperienced sales reps or seasoned professionals, a little roleplaying can go a long way with regard to refining their skills. Here are some essential guidelines and tips to set your team up for success when it comes to sales roleplaying. 

1. Set goals for each sales roleplay scenario.

Before you have your reps get started, set some key objectives. How detailed you’d like the objectives to be depends on you and your goals for your team. For example, you might want one of your reps to work on their negotiation skills. In that case, consider drafting a few detailed SMART goals that demonstrate exactly what you expect from their practice. 

Setting goals for sales roleplays will not only help your team stay focused and on track, but it’ll provide some guidelines they can shoot for when evaluating their performance after the fact.  

2. Make sure the roleplays are as realistic as possible.

Because the goal of roleplaying is to mimic real-life interactions with customers, you’ll want to ensure your sales roleplay scenarios are as realistic as possible. If you’re planning on doing in-person peer roleplaying with team members, assign everyone a role so there’s no confusion. Focus on some of the most common types of sales scenarios, like discovery calls, cold calling, and product demos (more on that below!).

You can also leverage AI-powered roleplay to provide a more realistic experience. That also removes some of the awkwardness teams might experience at first with peer roleplaying. 

3. Prioritize constructive, helpful feedback.

Your ability to deliver helpful, constructive feedback after sales roleplays can make a huge difference in the success of roleplaying. You want to make sure the feedback is specific, professional, and relevant. With AI tools like Yoodli, you won’t have to worry as much about delivering solid feedback since the tool provides an in-depth analysis based on performance.

Essential Types of Sales Roleplays to Try With Your Team

One of the best parts of sales roleplays is their versatility. There’s not one, singular sales roleplay but an endless amount of scenarios. For best results, have your team try as many different scenarios as they can, with different objectives. Roleplaying is a simple sales enablement tool all teams should invest in.

For some inspiration, here are seven essential sales roleplays you can try with your team to boost their confidence and improve their skills.

1. Cold calling

Cold calling is one of the most challenging (but essential) types of sales calls. It’s difficult because calling someone who hasn’t previously shown interest in the service or product you’re offering doesn’t often yield results. There’s about a 2% success rate with cold calling, even for the most seasoned salespeople. 

This type of sales roleplay — though challenging — can be extremely fruitful and well worth your team’s time. Some of the specific skills sales reps can practice during this type of roleplay include: 

• Establishing trust and rapport from the get-go
• Building interest in your service or product
• Handling rejection

Some common cold calling scenarios include speaking folks who “don’t have a budget,” are too busy, or are simply not interested. It’s an effective sales roleplay scenario because practicing during actual cold calls isn’t realistic.  

2. Negotiation

In a negotiation, the goal is to reach an agreement with the client.Negotiation sales roleplays allow your team’s reps to practice some of the most essential sales skills they need to succeed — namely effective communication, building rapport, active listening— in a safe environment. 

For example, you could have your team practice specific negotiation sales roleplays such as:

• Contract negotiations
• Package or bundle deal negotiations
• Price reduction or discount negotiations

3. Inbound and outbound customer discovery

Inbound and outbound customer discovery sales roleplays are distinct from each other and both worth practicing. With inbound customer discovery, your sales reps will practice having a conversation with a prospect who made first contact.

In these types of inbound discovery scenarios, have your sales reps hone in on the client’s needs, the issue needing a solution, establishing a sense of trust, and qualifying the lead. 

Outbound customer discovery scenarios, on the other hand, focus on the aforementioned cold calls. The difference is, your reps will need to emphasize creating interest and engaging the prospect much more than someone who’s already interested.

Both these types of sales roleplays are essential scenarios that any rep needs to be able to handle.

4. Objection handling

Objection handling is another worthy scenario that proves difficult for many salespeople. It’s only natural for reps to run into resistance or concerns from clients at some point, and the best way to handle it is head on (ideally, in a safe environment first, with a roleplay). 

Engaging in objection handling scenarios allows leaders to better train their reps in skills like active listening, empathy, efficient communication, and most importantly, reframing the customer’s concern as an opportunity. 

For example, some common objection handling scenarios could involve things like resistance over the cost or even just bad timing. Unseasoned reps sometimes freeze when they face resistance, especially from a potential client, and practicing these kinds of scenarios helps give them more confidence to handle the situation.

5. Sales pitches

Everyone in the industry, no matter how experienced, can practice sales pitching. It’s an essential skill and arguably one of the simplest scenarios to practice, whether it’s for a new client or a sales kickoff pitch contest. In just a minute or two, a sales rep should be able to effectively pitch a product or service to a prospect. 

The most important considerations in sales pitch roleplays include understanding your target audience, knowing the product or service inside and out, and, of course, appropriate closing techniques. 

Sales reps who have existing pitches can further refine them through this type of sales roleplay.

6. Product demos

A product demo is very similar to a regular sales pitch but with the addition of demonstrating the product. These types of roleplays are critical for sharpening a rep’s ability to generate interest and highlight the product’s specs, benefits, and overall value for the prospect. 

For example, some specific product demo scenarios could include: 

• Addressing nuanced or complicated questions about the product
• Giving a live or virtual demo of the product
• Managing concerns about pricing
• Showing how your product stands out from the competition

7. Follow-up interactions

One of the underrated types of sales roleplays is follow-up interactions. This type focuses on the follow-up conversations with clients after they’ve already heard a sales pitch or have otherwise already been contacted. 

Some of the specific skills your reps can practice during this type of sales roleplay include: 

• Explaining next steps
• Addressing any follow-up questions, concerns, or objections
• Managing any new challenges brought up by the customer
• Effectively closing deals

Regardless of the type of sales roleplay you and your team want to hone in on, the benefits remain the same: improving your sales skills in a safe, risk-free environment. You can even leverage AI to make these scenarios that more realistic. 

How to Use AI for Sales Roleplays

The benefits of sales roleplays for teams are essentially endless. It’s a safe space for reps to practice everything from sales pitching to cold sales calls and customer discovery. And there’s no better tool for sales roleplays than Yoodli. Well-known brands like Google, Korn Ferry, and Dale Carnegie have all used Yoodli to improve seller attainment and decrease ramp across the board.

Yoodli is an AI-powered sales coach that allows leaders to train their team at scale with realistic sales roleplays. 

Here’s how it works. Yoodli’s platform provides a plethora of existing sales roleplay scenarios to choose from. Reps can also build their own custom roleplay from scratch using Yoodli’s Builder to practice specific scenarios. Whatever the case, reps can engage in human-like conversation with an AI generated partner to best practice their skills and abilities. 

In the real world, sales reps encounter all types of customers and prospects, and it’s no different with Yoodli’s AI sales roleplays. Reps can choose from a number of personalities that will affect the responses, keeping reps on their toes and exploding them to a plethora of personality types in a risk-free environment. 

Using generative AI, Yoodli provides a realistic sales roleplay experience that’s completely customizable. Not only that, but team members get actionable, data-backed feedback from Yoodli on how they can improve their skills based on the roleplay. 

Ensuring your salespeople use the appropriate, brand-specific language at scale has never been easier. 

Start improving your team’s skills today with Yoodli’s customizable sales roleplays at https://yoodli.ai/. 

5 Specific Sales Roleplay Scenarios to Try With Your Reps

If you’re looking to give your reps a challenge with some specific sales roleplay scenarios, you’re in the right place. Here are five unique sales roleplay scenarios to put your team’s skills to the test.

1. Getting past the gatekeeper

When you’re trying to secure a sale, sometimes you encounter someone who doesn’t have decision making power but is reluctant to pass you over to the person who does call the shots. Think of that person as the gatekeeper.

In this scenario, assign someone to be the rep and another person to be the gatekeeper. The goal is to have your sales rep build rapport and credibility with the gatekeeper so they’re able to convince the gatekeeper that their solution is with their time. 

This type of sales roleplay scenario is great for reps who need to work on building trust, credibility, and report with indirect stakeholders. It’s also a good scenario for folks who struggle to push past that initial reluctance from customers.

2. Existing client doesn’t want to renew

This particular sales roleplay scenario is pretty common: You’re faced with an existing client, but they’re showing some resistance in renewing their contract. To make matters worse, they’re also dissatisfied with the solution you’re selling. 

In this scenario, the idea is to help your reps actively listen to the customer’s concerns during a high-stress situation. Unhappy or angry clients can add another layer of stress for inexperienced sales reps, so it’s a prime scenario that you’d want to roleplay. 

Have your sales rep home in on validating their concerns while also rebuilding trust and reframing the situation to encourage them to renew again. This type of scenario can help reps build their emotional intelligence and empathy, flex their conflict resolution skills, and work on their negotiation skills.

3. Cold calling with indifferent prospects

Cold calling is one of the most challenging situations for sales reps. In a world where phone scams are the norm, most people don’t enjoy answering phone calls from strangers. However, cold calling is still an essential skill for sales teams. 

With this sales roleplay scenario, have your rep start a cold call with a prospect who couldn’t care less. This scenario is perfect for practicing cold call opening lines that’ll hook and engage prospects while also establishing rapport. This roleplay will help stress the importance of solid opening techniques, handling those off-the-bat objections, and fostering interest in the solution you’re selling.

4. Upselling and cross-selling to customers

Now, imagine an existing client who’s satisfied with their current service or product. Have your sales rep roleplay to either work on upselling or cross-selling to the customer. Assign someone else (or use AI-generated roleplay) to be the happy customer reluctant to make further purchases.

This common sales roleplay scenario will help your team better pinpoint opportunities for upselling or cross-selling while also improving their persuasive skills to communicate the value.

5. Product demo with lots of technical questions

This next sales roleplay scenario is perfect for reps who need to work on their product demo skills. The main challenge here isn’t just to sell the product and its benefits, but also to handle tricky technical questions from the customer. 

Train your team on how to stay calm when facing a barrage of technical questions and how to reframe the situation to focus on the benefits if they don’t have a straightforward answer. Answering questions accurately is first and foremost, but reps should have a plan for what to say when they don’t have a clean-cut answer. 

This type of sales roleplay scenario will help reps work on their product expertise, stay confident during high-pressure situations, and answer questions, even when they’re unexpected. 

Common Misconceptions About Sales Roleplaying

There’s no doubt about it: sales roleplay is a tried-and-true way to improve your team’s ability to engage with clients and conduct sales. However, there are some common misconceptions when it comes to this kind of sales training exercise. 

Here are a handful of sales roleplay myths and misconceptions to be aware of.

1. Sales roleplays aren’t a good reflection of real situations. 

If you work in sales, you know that real-life sales calls have a certain level of spontaneity and unpredictability. Of course, no sales roleplay can flawlessly emulate the subtleties and nuances of client interactions, but roleplaying can prepare your team for the most common types of scenarios. 

Plus, with AI roleplays, the generative AI aspect keeps reps on their toes. AI sales roleplays are different every time, so one simulated cold call with an AI partner won’t be the same as another cold call simulation. 

If you’re working on roleplaying with your team, just make sure you focus on a variety of sales roleplay scenarios to best prepare your reps.

2. Roleplaying is too time-consuming of an exercise.

One of the beauties of using roleplay as a training exercise is that you and your team can control how much time the roleplay takes. For example, team leads might assign reps a five-minute sales roleplay scenario so their employees have a set time in place. Setting a time limit can help your team stay on track.

Even so, sales roleplays can be such a valuable tool that the measurable improvements in your team’s ability to communicate effectively with clients make it worth incorporating into routine training.

3. Sales roleplaying is only for inexperienced, beginner sales reps.

Many people who are unfamiliar with sales roleplays and how roleplaying can be used as a training tool assume that it’s only for beginners. On the contrary, any rep can reap the advantages of roleplaying, even the most seasoned sales rep on the team. 

For example, reps with more experience can work on upskilling and enhancing their existing skills. Plus, in an ever-changing environment like sales and marketing, teams need to be ready to adjust to new changes and scenarios. 

4. Roleplaying will feel too embarrassing.

It’s not uncommon for sales reps to feel nervous or uncomfortable at the idea of roleplaying. For many folks, the concept of roleplaying brings to mind games like Dungeons & Dragons or historical re-enactors. However, the advantages of educational roleplaying like sales roleplayikng are lesser known. 

Educating your reps and creating a positive, supportive work environment for your team will make all the difference. Reps are more likely to feel confident roleplaying when they’re doing so in a non-judgemental space. Plus, the collaborative spirit of sales roleplaying can improve a team’s overall teamwork skills.

5. Sales roleplays are always too scripted.

Folks who’ve never roleplayed before often assume that sales roleplays will be too scripted or “fake” to actually be beneficial. However, a majority of sales roleplays don’t rely on a set script. 

In fact, with AI roleplay tools like Yoodli, reps get a different experience every time thanks to generative AI technology. Your AI partner will adapt and respond based on what you say as opposed to relying on a predetermined script. This helps teams better prepare for real-life conversations with clients and other stakeholders with a more authentic experience.

The Main Takeaway

Engaging in various types of sales roleplays is an underrated way to elevate your sales team and, at the end of the day, close more deals. Practicing your sales skills in a realistic setting gives reps the confidence they need to handle even the toughest prospect interactions.

Yoodli’s sales roleplay capabilities will get your GTM team shipshape in no time. Don’t wait to leverage its AI-powered sales scenarios to train your organization’s teams, at scale. 

Sources

• MindTickle: “8 Must-Try Sales Role-Plays That Will Prepare Your Team for Every Selling Situation.”
• Investopedia: “Cold Calling: Definition, How It Works, Examples, and Difficulties.” 
• HubSpot: “10 Sales Role Play Exercises & Scenarios To Prep for Negotiations.”
• PitchMonster: “12 Sales Role Play Scenarios & Exercises to Sharpen Your Team’s Skills.”