10 Role Play Tips to Use With Your Sales Team

What Is a Sales Role Play?

Sales role play is a simulated sales conversation designed to prepare reps for real customer interactions. It allows salespeople to rehearse key parts of the conversation (like discovery, objection handling, or negotiation) before stepping into a live selling situation. Role playing helps identify gaps in preparation, test out messaging, and gain feedback in a risk-free setting. When implemented correctly, it's one of the most powerful tools for improving sales execution, confidence, and agility.

10 Tips to Make Your Sales Role Play Sessions More Effective

1. Prepare Your Role Play Partner

The more real the role-playing experience, the greater its value. A knowledgeable participant will present a realistic setup and real obstacles that are more natural for you to practice. Make sure the person playing the buyer has fluency about the deal and direction on what to ask or answer, so they can play the role effectively.

Using what you know and/or don’t know in your deal so far and your prepared agenda for the actual meeting, build out a “buyer brief” that you can share with your colleague to help them understand the role of the buyer and background on the deal.

To ensure you can practice your conversation in the most relevant way possible, your “buyer brief” should help your partner know key components of the deal, including established negative consequences, positive business outcomes, metrics and required capabilities. 

Make sure they’re also prepared on the objectives and outcomes of the call, as well as any challenging parts of the conversation you want to practice. Build your buyer brief accordingly so you can practice active listening and being audible-ready or flexible to respond. 

If you can't prepare your colleague or AI tool well enough for a realistic role play or build out a sufficient buyer brief — that's a red flag. Consider doing further discovery with your buyer or going back to step one and recapping what you heard more effectively. Check out our course on conducting sales role plays with AI.

2. Use Realistic Customer Cases 

Develop realistic customer scenarios for the role plays. Be sure to include details that will test skills and concepts you’re trying to reinforce. You can enable your coaches to provide great feedback by having everyone work from the same scenario for at least one role play. That way, the coaches become experts in the content, and other learners can do an aligned group debrief afterwards. 

Then, consider having the reps role play with real-deal scenarios after doing the simulated scenario. Working with a deal that’s in the pipeline can help the rep transfer learned skills to a real-world situation and prepare for an upcoming customer conversation.

3. Stay in Line with the Logistics of the Call

Different environments have different requirements for successful conversations, so it’s important to make sure that you do role plays in a way that will mirror your actual conversation. For example, if you’re having a meeting with your prospect over the phone, practice your role play over the phone.

This added touch to preparation may seem small, but remember, there’s as much differentiation in how you sell as there is in what you sell. Professionalism is a minimum expectation your buyers have, and you’d be surprised how many salespeople skip simple steps — and regret it later, because they weren’t as prepared, and therefore, as professional, as they could have been. See how well you’re able to move beyond your competition just by taking these extra steps.

4. Start with a Fishbowl Example

Consider doing at least one “fishbowl” role play first before everyone splits off into groups. (A fishbowl is when the entire group observes one role play.) The group debrief afterward can help get everyone on the same page about expectations. Just don’t do fishbowls exclusively, unless everyone gets to play the rep role. If you require some reps to do it, while others sit and observe, it may be “learning” but doesn’t provide skill practice for everyone. Every rep needs to practice in the sales role to sharpen their own skills.

5. Be a Stickler for Time and Benchmarks

Make your role plays concise and highly impactful by sticking to the same schedule you’ll have for your actual conversation. One idea may be to have your role play partner attempt to stop the conversation, in a way that your buyer might if you start to go over time.

Executing the conversation in this way can help you see where you can simplify your agenda and ensure a strong, timely close.

6. Allow the Rep to Reflect First

Invite the salesperson to share a few positive and negative reactions to their own performance. Doing so causes the rep to analyze their approach and get talking points out before you give feedback. The rep may bring up areas he/she needs to improve, without you having to offer your perspective. It also sets a positive tone for the feedback conversation.

7. Include Experts

Stop using other reps or people who are on the same learning level as observers and coaches. When possible, have expert coaches who are well-versed in the content attend the role plays. Peer-to-peer feedback is great, but having someone watch the role play who can effectively articulate changes the rep needs to make or tactics that he/she should try can be invaluable. 

Also consider using actors or other employees who can be prepped well in advance to represent a realistic customer. Hiring actors won’t always be feasible but may be worth the cost and effort for high-value simulations or especially for certifications.

8. Reinforce the Positives First

Confidence and sales success go hand-in-hand. Make sure to ask for positive insights from the rep first and give your own positive feedback first. Highlight specific steps or actions in the rep’s process that are strong. Since role plays are about improvement, making this an intentional effort helps guard against only highlighting areas to improve.

9. Make Feedback Specific and Actionable

Ask for specific, actionable feedback that can be used in the sales conversation. If your manager tells you to add more open-ended questions, ask for examples. If you’re unsure how to execute on feedback, clarify. Your goal is to use the feedback to make a bigger impact in real sales conversations.

10. Re-run the Role Play After Feedback

Stop moving on to another role play or other activity immediately after the role play debrief. Provide the learner the opportunity to summarize and playback the feedback, and give them time to prep and re-run the role play. If they’re able to incorporate the feedback soon after receiving it, they’re more likely to retain what they learned, improve their skill level and make a behavior change. If you develop a blended curriculum and flip the classroom, you will open up classroom time to allow for this. It’s worth it.

Why Effective Sales Role Play Matters in the Long Run

Mastering the art of sales role play can significantly elevate your team’s readiness and performance in real-world conversations. When done well, these simulations go far beyond simple rehearsals—they build confidence, uncover gaps, sharpen messaging and empower reps to handle objections with clarity and poise. But, not all role plays deliver equal value. 

By following the ten best practices outlined above, from realistic scenarios and expert feedback to actionable coaching and structured re-runs, you create a culture of preparedness and excellence. 

Sales role play should not be a check-the-box activity; it’s a strategic tool that, when used with intent, drives meaningful behavior change and better outcomes across the sales organization. Make it count.

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