Episode 237 - Practice Before the Call, Not After It | Neha Gupta

Neha Gupta got so excited about her product on a sales call that she did every bit of the talking. Then it ended and she realized she had no idea who she'd just spoken to or what their problem was. That warm lead said "we'll get back to you" and never did. That call is why she built Breakthrough, an AI role play platform where reps can be bad at their job in private instead of on your actual customers. Drewbie and Neha get into why salespeople hate role play so much. It's awkward. You get pulled up in front of the room, paired with a coworker who's more interested in hitting you with 19 objections and making you look stupid than actually helping. Or you get paired up and just... talk about the role play instead of doing it. The part that surprised Neha most? It wasn't the new reps who got the biggest lift. A woman with 30 years of client-facing work told her a couple of role plays helped her finesse something she'd never figured out on her own. Nobody coaches you at that level. You just stop learning. They also get into audio versus video avatars (the creepy forehead problem), why 11 hand-tuned personas beat a prompt you type yourself, and how the AI actually gets angrier when you keep saying the wrong things… and calms down when you start showing empathy. If you've been doing this 10, 20, 30 years and you know there's a spot where you keep falling off the process, this one's for you. In This Episode You'll Learn ➣ Why practicing on live customers is the most expensive place to make your mistakes The two ways companies run role play, and why both of them fail for the same reason ➣ Why Breakthrough is audio-only, and what video avatars do to your attention during practice ➣ How a role play persona escalates when you miss and de-escalates when you handle the pushback right ➣ Why a generic AI chatbot is the wrong practice partner (it's built to be nice to you, and buyers aren't) ➣ What a 30-year veteran got out of two role plays that no manager had given her ➣ How to spot the unconscious competence gaps that show up after years in the game Find Neha Website: https://joinbreakthrough.ai/ - LinkedIn:   / nehagupta   Call The Damn Leads "By sales professionals, for sales professionals - Tales of your wildest sales stories and tactics to succeed in your sales career across various industries." Join Drewbie Wilson, a sales veteran with over 20 years of experience, as he brings you insider stories, humor, and actionable strategies to excel in your sales journey. Your weekly dose of: ➤ Wild Sales Stories: Engaging tales of real-life sales adventures. ➤ Proven Tactics: Actionable strategies to boost your sales game. ➤ Humor: A fun and energetic perspective on the world of sales. ➤ Expert Insights: Learn from seasoned professionals in various industries. Don't miss out on the insights, humor, and strategies that can take your sales career to new heights! Sales professionals, entrepreneurs, and small business owners striving to enhance their sales, marketing, and personal growth to achieve financial success and time freedom. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORK WITH DREWBIE 🎤 Book Drewbie to speak at your event Your people already know what to do. Getting them to do it is the hard part. https://callthedamnleads.com/products... 📞 One hour. Your numbers, your actual problem. https://callthedamnleads.com/products... 🤝 Get in the room Apex Entourage is where the group coaching happens. Come see if you fit. https://callthedamnleads.com/pages/th... 📚 The books https://callthedamnleads.com/collecti... 🎧 Sales training that isn't theory https://callthedamnleads.com/collecti... 🧢 Gear https://callthedamnleads.com/collecti... ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Call The Damn Leads "By sales professionals, for sales professionals — Tales of your wildest sales stories and tactics to succeed in your sales career across various industries." Join Drewbie Wilson, a sales veteran with over 20 years of experience, as he brings you insider stories, humor, and actionable strategies to excel in your sales journey. Want to be a guest on the show? Tell us why your story needs to be heard: https://callthedamnleads.com/pages/po... Follow Drewbie:   / drewbierides   Follow Call The Damn Leads:   / callthedamnleads