PushPress Cuts Discovery Calls from 10 Minutes to Target with AI Roleplay

The Challenge

PushPress's discovery calls were running 10 to 11 minutes on average. The target was four to five minutes. The extra time wasn't coming from better discovery or sharper objection handling. It was lost to poor structure and inefficient question flow, mostly from newer reps who hadn't internalized the rhythm of a well-run call.

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The company had a fresh cohort of new hires who needed to close that gap fast. Manager observation and post-call feedback helped, but the feedback cycle was slow and depended on managers having spare time to sit with individual reps. There was no way to practice the conversation structure repeatedly before going live.

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Without structured practice, new hires were learning call pacing through real conversations with real gym owners. Every call during ramp was both a live sales opportunity and an unstructured training session. That's an inefficient way to run either.

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The Solution

Drilling gym-owner personas to tighten call pacing

New sales hires at PushPress use Outdoo roleplay as a core part of onboarding. They work through sessions with agents configured to reflect the most common buyer types they'll encounter: boutique gym owners with a Mindbody contract, skeptical of switching costs but open to a better pricing model. The focus is on question flow and conversation pacing that keeps calls within the four-to-five-minute target.

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Because agents can be cloned and adjusted, the team built variations for different buyer profiles without starting from scratch each time. A rep can practice against a gym owner satisfied with their current software, one who's done research and has specific questions, and one who's purely price-focused, all without three separate builds.

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“We could finally give new hires a way to practice the actual conversation before they had it with a real buyer. The agents are built around our ICP, not a generic sales scenario, which makes the practice actually useful.”

Daniel MutoSales Enablement Lead, PushPress

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Comparing practice scores with live call data

Beyond onboarding, the roleplay infrastructure supports ongoing development. A rep who consistently over-explains the product during discovery can practice that specific stage repeatedly and use scorecard feedback to track whether the behavior change is sticking.

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Post-call coaching draws on scorecard data from both live calls and practice sessions. That combination shows managers whether skills developed in practice are carrying over to real conversations, or whether something in the live call environment is breaking the pattern.

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“Having scorecard data from practice and from live calls gives you a much more complete picture. You can see if the practice is actually carrying over or if there is something in the live call environment that is interrupting it.”

Nick ReyesVP of Go-to-Market, PushPress

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Pinpointing which discovery stage burns the most time

Scorecards evaluate how well reps move through the discovery sequence, flagging where they ask the right questions versus where they over-explain or lose control of the conversation. Daniel reviews that data to identify the specific moments where new hires are spending too much time, then uses it in coaching to give targeted, behavior-specific feedback.

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That precision created a shared vocabulary for coaching across the team. Instead of vague feedback about calls being too long, managers can point to a specific stage where a rep is consistently losing three minutes and show them the data that confirms it.

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“Telling someone their calls are too long does not help. But showing them which stage of the discovery sequence is where they are consistently losing three minutes, and then giving them a way to practice just that stage, that changes behavior.”

Daniel MutoSales Enablement Lead, PushPress

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The Impact

Reps who completed structured roleplay practice during onboarding showed measurably tighter call pacing in live conversations. Average call length for that cohort moved toward the four-to-five-minute target, freeing reps to take more conversations per day and reducing friction for busy gym owners who agreed to a short call.

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Discovery call length moving toward the four-minute target

Calls that averaged 10 to 11 minutes dropped toward the four-to-five-minute target after reps completed structured roleplay practice. Halving call length means more calls per day and less friction for prospects. The practice infrastructure directly addressed the pacing gap that post-call coaching alone couldn't close fast enough.

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First new hire cohort practiced before their first live call

Every rep in the initial cohort completed roleplay sessions before speaking to a real prospect. Previous new hires had no equivalent preparation and developed their sense of call pacing through live conversations during ramp. That's no longer how PushPress onboards.

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Coaching shifted from vague feedback to stage-by-stage data

Scorecard data replaced general guidance about call length with specific evidence tied to individual stages of the discovery sequence. Managers can show a rep exactly where they're losing time and address that directly. Coaching sessions are shorter and easier for reps to act on.

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