What goes into a persona
A useful buyer persona reads like a briefing on a real person. It covers their job title and responsibilities, what they are measured on, the problems that make their job harder, the words they use for those problems, the objections they raise, who they report to and how they prefer to evaluate purchases. Most sales teams have several personas for one deal, such as the user, the manager and the finance approver, because each cares about different things.
Example
Priya, VP of operations at a mid-sized logistics company. Measured on on-time delivery and cost per shipment. Frustrated by manual handoffs between systems. Skeptical of vendors after a software rollout went badly. Likely objection: 'We tried something like this before.'
Why it matters
Personas help reps prepare. Knowing that a finance leader cares about cost certainty while an operations manager cares about time saved changes the questions you ask and the examples you use. They also make training more realistic: practicing against a defined persona, with real objections and a hidden concern, is much closer to a real call than practicing against a generic 'prospect'. Personas built on guesses can mislead, though, so update them from real conversations.
How to practice with personas
Pick the two personas you sell to most and write down what each one worries about and the objection you're most likely to hear. Then run practice calls against each, and notice how your opener and questions need to change. In Vonvo, the scenario builder lets you set up your own personas, objections and goals on the Starter plan and up, so you can rehearse the same call with different buyers.