Introduction

I'm Kawasaki from the Eastern Japan Sales Headquarters, Hokkaido Sales Division.
I joined Classmethod in May.

Classmethod is a group of professionals in cloud and data utilization, including AWS.
There are many members in the company who use AI tools on a daily basis. I jumped into that environment as a complete AI beginner.

At my previous job, I was told to "just use AI," but honestly, I only used it to proofread email text or do a little research. Since I had been using a proprietary AI tool developed in-house, I started with zero experience using Claude.

In this article, I'll introduce the "role-play utilization method" practiced by a sales professional who has been using Claude for one to two months.
Improving work efficiency isn't the only use for Claude——I hope to convey that through my experience. Zero knowledge of code is required, and no complicated setup is needed.

Why I Decided to Have Claude Be My Role-Play Partner

After joining Classmethod, I needed to absorb knowledge about new products and services.
However, simply putting knowledge into my head wasn't enough.
I felt it was important to sharpen "the sense of what is useful in what situation, through conversations that simulate common scenarios in actual business negotiations."
That meant I needed role-play in realistic situations.
Asking senior colleagues was one option, but I had these thoughts.

・I want to practice repeatedly at my own pace
・Given my current level of knowledge, there was a risk that the precious time I received from senior colleagues would end up being spent just explaining the basics of cloud
・I want to receive explanations and feedback multiple times along the way, fully understand, and then try again

It fulfilled all of these "selfish" wishes.

What I Tried First

What I did first was simple.
I just loaded the materials I use in sales directly into Claude. That's all.
No special preparation, no complicated commands. Just copy and paste the text from a PDF or document.
I honestly shared my position and situation as they were.

Then Claude even proposed customer settings, and the role-play began right away.

This time I selected B and started the role-play.
The image that "preparation seems like a lot of work" was completely a misconception.

Stopping During the Role-Play to Check with Claude

While progressing through the role-play, I thought I was asking the customer a situational question,
but I was asked back "What is that?" and found myself at a loss for words.
So I typed "STOP" to pause the role-play and checked with Claude.

Claude then explained it to me, and once I understood, I started the role-play again.
This time, I was able to answer the customer's question with confidence.
Being able to learn without fear of failure, at my own pace——that's what I felt was the greatest value of having Claude as a role-play partner.

Taking It Further: HubSpot and MCP Integration

While reading articles on DevelopersIO and thinking about whether I could do higher-precision training,
I thought that Claude has a feature called MCP (Model Context Protocol) that might be useful.
To put MCP in one sentence: it's "a mechanism for connecting Claude to various tools and data sources."
Please refer to the following past article for setup instructions.
→【Past Article】
(https://dev.classmethod.jp/articles/claude-business-use2/)

Our company uses HubSpot as a CRM tool.
By setting up HubSpot's MCP, Claude becomes able to reference past interactions with customers stored in HubSpot.

What I utilized was not individual customer information, but rather understanding patterns of "what kinds of questions tend to come up frequently."
When I asked "Please tell me about trends in frequently received questions based on past interactions," Claude immediately summarized the trends for me.

Based on that, when I asked "Please do a role-play taking into account the trends in frequently received questions," the responses were incomparably more realistic than role-plays based only on materials.

Being able to prepare based on "what actual customers are concerned about"__
By integrating with MCP, I was able to move forward while holding my own hypotheses.

Closing

What I felt from trying this was that even people who have never touched Claude before can use it with a low barrier to entry.
Claude can be used not just for improving work efficiency, but also for enhancing your own skills.

You can do it just by talking to Claude, and once you get used to it, you can integrate MCP to extract even higher-precision information.
In addition to typing your responses to Claude, voice input is also supported, so you can practice by speaking out loud.

For those who feel "I still don't really know what to use Claude for," I really hope you'll give it a try once.