How this works
You practice the whole front end of a deal, exactly as you'd run it for a real borrower: the pre-call email, Call #1, and the post-call email with the needs list. The borrower is an AI built from one of our real borrower calls. Their numbers, their story, their objections and the things they don't volunteer all come from that call.
Everything gets checked. The call is graded against the Call #1 Master Script. The app also tracks whether each email went out, when, and with the right deck attached.
The process, step by step
- Book a call. Go to Book a call, pick a time and a borrower (or let it surprise you). You get a calendar invite with a Google Meet link. The invite and the booking screen show the borrower's email address and their time zone. Every practice borrower has their own address, and it looks like e.ashby+first.last@certuscredit.com.
- Send the pre-call email right away. Send it from your own Certus email to the borrower's address. Attach the Company Overview deck from Documents. Quote the call time in the borrower's time zone.
CC only e.ashby@certuscredit.com on practice emails. On a real deal you also CC b.musicar@, j.landry@ and f.magallon@. Don't CC them on practice.Subject: Certus Credit - Company Overview & Meeting Confirmation [First name], Hope you're doing well. Wanted to get this over ahead of [Monday]'s call at [10:00am ET], so feel free to review at your convenience. Attached is our company overview deck, so we can make the most of the time. We'll walk through the rest live and leave plenty of room for questions. Best, [Your first name]
Weekend send: open with "Hope you're having a great weekend" instead. No agenda, no "have handy" list, nothing about their business.
- Run Call #1. Join the Meet at the start time. The borrower asks to join from the waiting room under their own name. Admit them (they wait up to 15 minutes). You speak first. Run the call from the Master Script, start to finish: the open, the business and numbers, the deal-type insert, the rest of the file, who else has seen it, how we work, fees, and what happens next.
- For the NDA, run 7.1 and 7.5 as if you were sending it. Don't actually send a DocuSign on practice.
- Book Call #2 out loud with a day, a time and their time zone, like a real call.
- Say "end roleplay" to stop early, or just leave the Meet when you're done.
- Some borrowers talk a lot. Take notes and don't re-ask what they already told you. Some are guarded, so you have to dig. Every borrower is hiding something that only good questions surface.
- Send the post-call email the same day. Send it to the same borrower address, with the needs list built from what they told you on the call. Attach the Financing Programs deck. You can run the post-call email skill in Claude to draft it, but you own every line.
Subject: Certus - Needs List & Next Steps [First name], Thanks for making time today and great speaking with you. The NDA went out via DocuSign to this address during the call. Please take a look at your convenience. I've attached our financing programs as well, so you can see the kinds of capital the desk places. Once we have the file, we'll come back with which of these fits and why. Below is what we'd need to get started: Financials - [the years they said they have, named] - Last 4 months of bank statements, all business accounts - Backup for the [cash flow figure they quoted] [Deal section, e.g. Acquisition / Equipment / Contracts] - [only paper the call supports] Existing Loans - [every facility they named, with balance and payment] - A simple list of everything else owed: who it's owed to, balance, rate, payment, and what secures it Company - [entity docs, operating agreement if partners, short PFS if a guarantee is implied] - Which banks you've spoken with so far, so we don't cross wires As we discussed, if we can have the bulk of it by Thursday end of day, our analysts have the weekend to work through it and we can come to the second call with our recommendations and next steps. Call #2 is booked for [Day], [Month] [date] at [time] [TZ]. The invite is in your inbox. Best, [Your first name]
Every bullet should carry something the borrower said: a name, a balance, a year. Generic bullets are the tell of a lazy list. Never ask for paper the call doesn't support, like an LOI that doesn't exist. Never name which program fits them, and never quote a rate, a term or a fee.
- Read your report. A few minutes after the call, your graded report arrives by email and shows up under Reports. It includes your score against the script, what you missed, what the borrower was hiding, how you handled each objection, one thing to focus on next time, and the full transcript. The pre-call and post-call email columns update on their own as your emails land.
Never say
- "Loan adviser", "if a lender looked at your file", "we know the people who decide", "which lender we'd send it to". Anything that sounds like a middleman.
- A fee number or percentage on Call #1.
- "Not a lender" or "not a bank".
- Arguing the fee. Ask "are you opposed to that?" once, handle one objection, move on.
Practice now vs booking
Book a call is the full process: invite, pre-call email, call, post-call email. Use it by default.
Borrowers. The list holds borrowers built from our real calls. Pick A fresh made-up borrower to get one written from scratch that nobody has seen before. They're built to the same standard, with real-feeling numbers, history and objections, and each one is used once.
Practice now is for a quick rep. Open a Google Meet yourself, paste the link, and the borrower joins in about 20 seconds. There's no pre-call email on these, but the post-call email still counts.
Book a practice call
You get a calendar invite with a Meet link. At the start time the borrower asks to join.
Practice now
Already in a Google Meet? Paste the link and the borrower asks to join in about 20 seconds.
Upcoming practice calls
Send the pre-call email to the borrower's address before the call.
By rep
Practice calls
Documents
Everything you use on a booked call. Always take the copy from here so you have the current version.