Introduction

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

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

At my previous job, I was told to "just use AI for now," but to be honest, I only used it to proofread email text and for small bits of research. Since I had been using a proprietary AI tool developed in-house, I started out having never touched Claude.

In this article, I'll introduce the "role-play 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. No coding knowledge is needed, and no difficult setup is required.

Why I Thought of Having Claude Be My Role-Play Partner

Since joining Classmethod, I've needed to take in knowledge about new products and services.
But simply getting knowledge into my head is not enough.
I felt it was important to hone "a sense of what is useful in which situation, through conversations that assume common scenarios in actual sales meetings."
What that requires is role-playing in realistic situations.
I could ask a senior colleague, but I had these concerns:

• I want to practice repeatedly, as many times as I like, at my own pace
• With my current level of knowledge, I might end up spending the senior colleague's precious time just on basic explanations of the cloud
• I want to get explanations and feedback many times along the way, fully understand, and then try again

Claude fulfilled all of these "selfish" wishes.

What I Tried First

What I did first was simple.
I just loaded the materials I use for sales into Claude. That's all.
There was no special preparation and no difficult commands. I simply copied and pasted the PDF or the text of the materials.
I also honestly told it about my position and the situation I'm in.

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

This time I chose B and started the role-play.
The image that "preparation would be a lot of work" was completely a misconception.

Stopping Mid-Role-Play to Check with Claude

While going through the role-play, I thought I had asked the customer a situational question,
but they asked back, "What is that?" and I was at a loss for words.
So I typed "stop" to pause the role-play and checked with Claude.

Claude then explained it, and after I understood, I restarted the role-play.
This time I was able to answer the customer's question with confidence.
Being able to learn at your own pace without fearing failure—I felt this is the greatest value of using Claude as a role-play partner.

Leveling Up Further: HubSpot and MCP Integration

While looking at articles on DevelopersIO, I wondered whether I could do more precise training,
and thought that Claude has a feature called MCP (Model Context Protocol) that might be usable.
To explain MCP in a nutshell, it is "a mechanism that connects Claude to various tools and data sources."
For how to set it up, please refer to the past article below.
→Past Article
(https://dev.classmethod.jp/articles/claude-business-use2/)

We use HubSpot as our CRM tool.
By setting up the HubSpot MCP, Claude can refer to past interactions with customers in HubSpot.

What I used was not individual customer information, but an understanding of patterns such as "what kinds of questions tend to come up often."
When I asked, "From past interactions, please tell me the trends in the questions we often receive," Claude promptly summarized the trends.

Based on that, I asked, "Please do the role-play based on the trends in frequently received questions," and the responses came back far more realistic than in a role-play using only materials.

You can prepare based on "what actual customers care about."__
With MCP integration, I was able to proceed while holding my own hypotheses.

Conclusion

What I felt from trying this is that even people who have never touched Claude before can use it with a low barrier to entry.
Claude isn't only about improving work efficiency; it can also be used to improve 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 more accurate information.
Not only can you type your replies to Claude, but it also supports voice input, so you can practice by speaking out loud.

I'd really like people who feel "I don't know what to use Claude for in the end" to try this at least once.