Salespeople need opportunities to try an approach before they use it with a customer. Reviewing an offer or reading about an account can help with preparation, but neither lets a seller practice responding as a conversation unfolds. At Sandwich, we use two approaches to AI sales role-play: one for an upcoming meeting and another for ongoing skill development.
Preparing for a specific meeting
The first approach starts with a conversation the seller expects to have soon. The seller describes the situation in their own words: who they will meet, what they know about the customer, what they plan to offer, what they want to achieve and what difficulties they anticipate.
The system uses that information to create a virtual conversation scenario. The seller can then hold a practice meeting with an AI customer. They can test an argument, respond to questions and objections, and explore parts of the conversation that may be difficult.
This is a different preparation task from revisiting a presentation. It gives the seller a chance to rehearse how they will use what they know when the customer responds.
Developing skills through prepared scenarios
The second approach uses scenarios designed in advance around a particular skill or type of conversation. A scenario might focus on discovering customer needs, handling objections, negotiating price or explaining the value of an offer.
In these exercises, the AI plays the customer and responds during the dialogue. The seller is not selecting from a fixed list of answers. They can practice how to ask a question, follow up on a response or change course when an objection arises. They can also return to a situation and try a different approach.
Prepared scenarios and meeting-specific practice serve different purposes. One addresses a conversation on the calendar; the other makes room for repeated work on a skill that appears across many conversations.
Adapting the practice to the seller
AI role-play is not limited to onboarding. A new seller might practice the basic structure of a conversation and its main stages. A more experienced seller might work on complex objections or negotiations. Scenarios for experienced sellers can include greater uncertainty and more challenging customer behavior.
The same principle applies to relevance. At Sandwich, scenarios can be adapted to a company’s products, sales process, customer types and situations its sellers encounter. That context gives the seller a more specific conversation to work through than a generic sales exercise.
A place to try again
The purpose of a practice conversation is not to promise a particular outcome in the real one. It is to give sellers room to make a choice, hear a response and try another way forward before they meet a customer.
For teams considering where to start, the distinction between the two approaches is useful. If an important meeting is approaching, practice that meeting. If a challenge keeps recurring across the team, build a scenario around the skill it requires.