The Case for Just-in-Time Practice Before High-Stakes HCP Meetings
The meeting is tomorrow. It's an important one: a key opinion leader, a difficult account, a high-value opportunity. Your rep knows the stakes. They've been thinking about it all week.
What they probably haven't been doing is practising.
Most reps walk into high-stakes meetings with whatever skills they've accumulated over time. They hope their preparation was enough. They trust their experience to carry them through.
But hope isn't a strategy. And the gap between "generally prepared" and "specifically ready for this conversation" is where deals are won or lost.
Why preparation usually stops at content
Reps do prepare for important meetings. They review the account history. They check what's been discussed before. They think about what the HCP might want to hear.
This is content preparation: gathering information, organising thoughts, planning what to cover. It's necessary and valuable. But it's only half the equation.
The other half is skill preparation: actually practising the conversation. Running through how you'll open. Rehearsing your response to likely objections. Working through the compliance-sensitive parts until they feel natural.
Most reps skip this step. Not because they don't care, but because the opportunity rarely exists. They don't have a manager available to role-play. They feel awkward practising alone. And by the time they think about it, the meeting is hours away.
So they walk in having thought about what to say, but not having practised saying it. The first time they hear themselves deliver the key message is in front of the HCP.
What happens without practice
When reps are content-prepared but not skill-prepared, predictable things go wrong.
The opening falls flat. They had a plan for how to start, but when the HCP responded differently than expected, they couldn't adapt. The conversation starts awkwardly and never quite recovers.
Objections catch them off guard. They knew the objection might come up, but they hadn't rehearsed their response. Under pressure, they fumble or get defensive. The HCP notices.
Compliance language sounds stilted. They know what they're supposed to say, but they haven't practised saying it naturally. The scripted quality undermines credibility.
They forget key points. The mental load of managing the conversation in real time consumes their attention. The carefully prepared messages don't get delivered.
These aren't competence problems. These are practice problems. The rep knows what to do. They just haven't done it recently enough for it to be automatic.
The case for just-in-time practice
Just-in-time practice is exactly what it sounds like: rehearsing specific conversations shortly before they happen. Not the night before, or between other calls, but close enough that the practice transfers directly to the real situation.
This approach has several advantages.
Specificity. Instead of practising generic scenarios, reps practise the actual conversation they're about to have. The specific HCP persona. The likely objections. The particular compliance considerations. This targeted rehearsal is far more useful than general skill-building.
Recency. Practice that happens immediately before the conversation is fresh. The phrasing, the flow, the responses to objections are all top of mind. There's less decay between practice and performance.
Confidence. Walking into a meeting having just rehearsed successfully feels different than walking in cold. Reps are calmer, more present, more able to adapt to what happens. This confidence is visible to the HCP.
Identification of gaps. Practice reveals what you don't know. If a rep stumbles during rehearsal, they can address the gap before the real conversation. Without practice, they discover the gap in front of the HCP.
Making just-in-time practice possible
The main barrier to just-in-time practice is access. Reps need a way to rehearse on their own schedule, often at odd hours or in the gaps between other activities.
AI roleplay tools are particularly well-suited to this need. A rep can run through a scenario in their car before a meeting. In a hotel room the night before an important conversation. During a lunch break when they're feeling nervous about an afternoon appointment.
The practice doesn't replace manager coaching. It supplements it. Managers can't be available for just-in-time practice before every important meeting. AI can.
For the highest-stakes situations, just-in-time practice might include both: an AI practice session to warm up and build confidence, followed by a quick call with a manager to address specific concerns or get strategic advice.
Building the habit
Just-in-time practice only works if reps actually do it. This requires building a habit.
Start by identifying which meetings warrant extra preparation. Not every conversation needs a rehearsal beforehand. But key opinion leaders, important accounts, new product discussions, compliance-sensitive situations: these all benefit from practice.
Make it easy. If practice requires logging into multiple systems or scheduling time with a manager, it won't happen consistently. The friction has to be low enough that reps will actually do it.
Track the results. When a meeting goes well, was there practice beforehand? When it doesn't, was there? Over time, the correlation between practice and performance becomes hard to ignore.
The opportunity
High-stakes meetings are high-stakes for a reason. The outcomes matter. The relationships are valuable. The consequences of getting it wrong are significant.
Reps who walk into these meetings having specifically prepared, having practised the exact conversation they're about to have, perform better. They're more confident, more fluent, more adaptable.
Just-in-time practice is simple but underused. The reps who embrace it gain an edge that compounds over time. The ones who don't keep hoping their general preparation is enough.
It usually isn't.
TrainBox helps life science teams practise real conversations so they're ready when it matters.