How AI Is Transforming the Way We Sell

Speaker A: When we prospect with integrity, we will get customers who have integrity. Integrity is the foundation from which everything is built on.

Speaker B: You better understand value. But at the end of the day, sales is a relationship business. It is a people business. It is emotional business, Foreign.

Speaker A: This is sales logic.

Speaker B: All, uh, right, it is Saturday morning, 8am M. Eastern, and audience, you need to know that Mark Hunter beats me every single week into this podcast. And it's very important to him because he comments on it every single week. All right, it is 8am M Eastern. It is time for Sales Logic. And you know what? For mark, it is 7am M. Eastern. So it's even more impressive that he beats me in to this, um, to this podcast. But Mark, it has been a busy, um, busy week headed into, um, getting really close to 4th of July weekend and uh, a lot going on in the sales space. So what's on tap for today?

Speaker A: Well, thank you, Meredith. And we had a busy week. We recorded some videos this week in Vegas. You'll be hearing more about those in a couple of weeks. So, hey, great show. No, you, you are first to the show many, many weeks. So it's okay. Okay, the topic, how AI is transforming the world of sales. We got a question, we got a book, and the lightning round. I'll go ahead and throw it out there. Right now. It's top 10 emotional intelligence skills. You need to build your sales. Wow, that's kind of a bookend to AI. So let's talk. How is AI transforming the world of sales?

Speaker B: You know, Mark, I love this topic and I love the fact that we're going to be talking about AI then we're going to be talking about, um, uh, emotional intelligence. It's kind of like you said with the bookend, because you're really going to need both in, in today's marketplace. But I got to tell you, I ended up doing a little bit of research on the topic for today because I'm not really sure I'm using AI as well as I need to be using AI. But the first thing that came to mind for me was, um, was really prospecting and research. It's probably one of the biggest ways that that AI has. I, um, mean, yeah, that artificial int is really shifting the sales market. And I think it's doing it in two ways. Number one is I think there's a higher expectation from customers that we've done our homework. I think that has increased tenfold. I think the other is it makes it so much easier to go really deep on a prospect or a customer to really, intimately understand not only their industry, but to truly understand, um, them as individuals.

Speaker A: The tools are there, and what you just described is so real because AI can give us a tremendous amount of intelligence and insight. I'm going to go with a little bit of a counterpiece. I had dinner the other night with several CROs, and they were sharing how their investors are adamant that they employ more AI to reduce headcount, to get rid of the SDR role, to get rid of the BDR role, to get rid of all of these. These functioning salespeople that aren't truly bringing what they say, value right now. And it's very interesting, but every one of the CROs was pushing back and asking me for insights. Mark, here's the deal. We're getting pushed to reduce headcount, implement more AI, but we're not seeing an ROI from the AI. And I totally agree, because this is the whole thing. All it's doing is creating more noise out there, but is it breaking through? That's why I think our lightning round is so key, because it is so imperative that we have a personal conversation. Personal, Whoa. There's a radical concept, a personal relationship, personal conversation with our customers. And that's a little, little bit of a conflict with AI, unless we're doing what you're talking about, and that is using it for the research and the insights and still picking up the phone or however we communicate to reach out to that customer.

Speaker B: Yeah, but I think that what AI does is, I mean, I do, in my personal business, I think I'm seeing the ROI of the investments that I have made in, um, AI. Not that I've made the amount that, you know, companies are, but, um, But I had four proposals to do this weekend, and my ability to personalize those proposals was so much better and so much quicker. Like, four proposals that need to be really personalized would have taken me all weekend long to do. Now I'm able to take what is, you know, basically, um, you know, information and say, help me really tailor this to the, you know, to the energy space. Help me really, you know, make sure that this addresses this. Now I still have to go back in, and I've got to edit it and I've got to personalize it and all those types of things, but. But the speed at which it has given me to provide what I think is a far better proposal for my client, which, And I really want to emphasize that it doesn't take me out of it. Like, it educated me so that when I get on the platform and deliver I'm going to deliver so much better. A presentation.

Speaker A: Oh, without a doubt. See, now that's using it, right? And hey, we got a user from the DFW area. So that's great. Two, two of us. Two of us here from the DFW area. But anyway, let's jump into this more because again, what you're using is you're using it to get you intel. There's a lot of tools out there. Um, one tool that I like is humantic and full disclosure, I'm an advisor to the company. But they have a terrific AI tool that, that scrapes the Internet and allows you to even put together a disk analysis. I can go in and type in your name, Meredith, and it'll come back with a disk analysis on you based on what they can find. But here's the challenge with all this. All this is great insight, great information if the person you're trying to reach has a sizable footprint on the Internet. And let me tell you something, there's still a lot of industries that don't. I work in several industries where people really don't have much of a footprint on AI. So therefore that personalized information is not going to be there. The industry information is going to be there. But see, this is where I find that investors are pushing, hey, just replace it, put it in with, uh, a whole AI voice bot. I tested a couple of those this week. And you know, it's interesting, they're good, but boy, I can sure tell it's, it's, it's a, it's a fake voice and it's there yet.

Speaker B: Yeah. I do think though, customers have lowered their expectations on, um, on, you know, if they need simple, clean answers. I don't think they mind it being um, a chat box. I think about this like in grocery stores when, when self service gross. You know, the self service line came up. We all resisted it because we're like, we would never do that. And now you find yourself gravitating, um, towards it. And so I feel like, you know, some of these, you know, some of these chat box and things like that, it's acceptable at a certain level. But to your point, with the emotional intelligence, we have to strike the difference. Mark. One place that I just started using AI that I am loving is, um, is the forecasting is. We've, um, we've applied it to my CRM. Now my CRM is not as clean as my CRM needs um to be. And my, um, my uh, salesperson, um, Teresa, she, boy, she keeps a clean pipeline. If I could be like her. We'd have amazing data in there. So it's only as good, but it's like being able to, to not have to guess at probability, but to use some of those tools to weigh in, I feel like takes a lot of work and um, and really gives you some honest feedback that you need as a, as a salesperson.

Speaker A: Wow, you're going to get me, uh, on, on a, uh, rampage here regarding forecasting. But anyway, but hey, Brent, Bryn Tillman jumps in. AI will make good salespeople more efficient. It won't replace them. So true. So spot on. That is a mic drop comment. Thank you, Brent. Here's my feeling on using AI to forecast. It's a great tool from a macro perspective. The more data I put in, just as you said, you know, your salesperson is able to put in tremendous amount of data, it becomes more accurate. Where forecasting breaks down is when it becomes more of a micro. And I've only got one or two deals because at that it's really, it's a flip of the coin. I see they're going to become a deal or it's not going to become a deal. But let's back up the bus here because AI is giving us a lot of insight. But here's the whole thing and I'm still going to go back and I've been saying this from the beginning. AI is a starting tool. It's not a finishing tool. In other words, like you said, you use it to help you get researched, but you still have to go in and personalize it. You still have to go and put that. The person who takes AI and uses it to write the email completely and send it out, they are doing themselves a huge disservice because that is going to scream loud. You know, you can tell when you get an email that's AI generated, without a doubt.

Speaker B: Yeah, I would agree with that. I think, um, but I do think that it's, um, you know, the. Well, let's, let's do this. I don't want to get any further. What's the question from the audience?

Speaker A: Yeah, well, the question builds on it because it says, I think a valuable podcast would be to address how salespeople are utilizing AI and perhaps how the SDR role is being automated with so many AI, uh, agent tools. That's exactly what we're talking to is that came to us by way of an email a week ago.

Speaker B: Yeah, see, and I think like, I think people who are naturally really, really great salespeople, they're not Naturally, naturally. Really great content writers, right? Like, they're not great email writers, they're not great blog writers. They're not all those things that you need to, you know, um, you need an idea to shoot a video to create your brand awareness. And I think putting all of that into tools and saying, look, I need to write a, um, I need to write an email to a, to a customer, to a prospect. I really, you know, they, they ghosted me. What are your ideas on the best way to get their attention and put that in there. And I don't know about you, but I find myself having conversations with AI, which may be a whole nother show about therapy, but I'll be like, you know, they'll spit something back to me and I'll be like, no, I don't really like that. You didn't really nail the point. This or that. And then I can take it and personalize it from there. I cannot tell you how much time that saves me. But also the fact that I don't need an extra employee to basically help me out with that. The amount that I am able to do. So I see the change, the role changing dramatically. I also feel like adoption rates are going through the roof. A year ago, if I talked to people, how many sales professionals I worked with that were using a tool. I still have an industry or two where they're not allowed and I'm just like, oh my gosh, you're going to be so far behind.

Speaker A: Oh, I, I, I think, I think without a doubt more people are using it. And that's good. Yes. Somebody jumps in and says Humantic is awesome for net new prospecting. Right. And it is. And these are some of the tools that we have to be on the lookout for. And there's dozens and dozens of tools out there that are going to help. Here's the key thing that you have to think about though. What are you using it for? And one of the things that you use, and it's how I use it. I've got a chat bot, or, you know, however you want to call it, agent. I've got tons of topics in there. And I go back and I go, hm, let's take a look at that one again. Let's, let's update that. And it's giving me a tremendous amount of industry. Is it replacing my phone calls? Is it replacing my emails? No. But here's where I think we're going to get into trouble. Just as adoption rate, like you said, self service at the grocery store. You're right. Go Back probably before a lot of people were born, there were no such thing as atm. So what's an atm? Nobody goes to an ATM anymore anyway. But such things as you had to call a phone number to make an airline reservation. Yeah, that's all become automated, and we appreciate it. So this machine is moving forward. SDR roles are going to become much more minimized. Here's a risk that I see, and this came up. This comes up in every CRO conversation I have. The problem is, if we do away with SDRs, who's going to train the account executives? Who's gonna. How are we gonna find. Because SDR roles create the next level AES for those that really pass muster and move up. So the SDR role is critical. We got to keep it around in some degree, but it's going to be vastly diminished over what it was five years ago.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think just like anytime you go through a transformation, it's just time to, to, to, to evolve the role. I mean, I think one of the, that SDRS need to change is they really need to become, you know, for lack of a better way to put it, I'm going to call them a signal interpreter. I mean, they're going to notice when things like the things that AI can't do or. I don't know, I don't know that much about AI, but, you know, I feel like understanding when, you know, the SDR is talking to the customer more than the salesperson is talking to the customer. So if you notice a shift, if you see a change, if there's an indicator that a new buying opportunity is happening or the customer is at risk of leaving, I mean, there's so much value in that. Holding on to one customer selling three products will more than pay for that position. So I think what you need to be doing is really thinking about, as an organization, how are we using AI and how does that transform, um, you know, the role? It's made me really think about, do I need to ask my executive assistant to do this or can I do it? Is it the highest and best use of her time? You know, with my sales professional, I don't want her creating lists. I don't want her doing anything of that. I want her client facing as much as she can be client facing. So how can I use these AI tools, um, to do that? So you got to think through, don't eliminate the SDR role. Um, think about how you evolve it.

Speaker A: You know, a concept that came up, I don't know, probably eight or 10 years ago. Buying signals. Buying signals. You know, we need it, you know, intent signals. And HubSpot was very big on that, and Salesforce came out with Trailblazer and all these things. This is just the next evolution of it. It is just the next evolution. And you've got to find. So this is what I'm going to challenge any organization with. You've got to go out there and you've got to experiment with what tools are out there. You got to try them, you got to test them. Not all tools are going to work. Not all tools are going to. Are going to stay in business. I mean, uh, man, I've seen so many tools come along that don't sustain funding, and they simply, they simply go away. But here's the whole thing. Use it to enhance what you do, not replace what you do. That is absolutely imperative. And here's the thing. I think we can reduce headcount because of AI. Yeah, I, I just said that. But what it does is it moves AI into a more personable role with the customer. That is what is absolutely adamant. What AI I think is going to do next is really help coach. Because if you stop and think about this, the typical SDR is getting fewer conversations. Right? Because nobody picks up the phone. So if I can use an AI tool to help me coach, to help me role play, role play, that's very, very important. That's going to be a huge benefit because otherwise the SDR can go all day and maybe have only two or three conversations. That's not enough at bats. So, um, use AI for where you think you can enhance the SDR role.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I think the SDR role is going to get more proactive rather than reactive. Right. I mean, the SDR role, you know, in their client facing time, it's more. It's more. When the client has a need, they react to that. I think they're going to get more of a proactive, um, role, which is a revenue generator. Right. I mean, reactive is great, but proactive is where, um, is where the revenue is really generated. So, you know, I think if I would caution getting rid of my SDRs and I would more talk about what we need to do to, um, to evolve, you know, really evolve that role. You know, I don't know, because I don't know a ton about, um. You know, I don't know a ton about AI. I'm certainly not an expert in it, and I'm playing around with it in my business, but I cannot believe how much more it has allowed me to be client Facing and be client facing more intelligently, I feel like is dramatically changing my business.

Speaker A: That's a huge piece because, you know, one of the things that I like talking about is CFT customer facing time. And it does having AI tools, it allows you to be more intelligent, more insightful, you have better questions, and it enhances the conversation. And it just simply gives you more time to make more calls because this thing is working in the background providing you information. So that's absolutely key, absolutely important. And this comes down to the fact of what are you using AI for? You know, I'm glad that you said you're not an AI expert. I'm certainly not. I tell you what, anybody who says they are, I really question, because it's changing so fast, it's unbelievable. But here's what, here's what I'm going to say. You have to have AI, uh, embedded into your organization at some level. If you're a solopreneur, you've got to have it embedded in there. The question is, what do you use it for? And the initial piece, I think, is just to use it for research, just to help you find more things and to help you sort through all of those, uh, through the forest to find the real opportunity. You can find real great needs, great, uh, intent signals, great buying signals, if you use AI in the right manner.

Speaker B: Yeah, you know, um, I think that AI is one of the best things that's ever happening to the sales field. Because I know as a sales leader, my biggest challenge was how do I get people out of the busy work and how do I get them client facing? I mean, it's always been my. It was always my biggest challenge. People would come up with a million reasons why they couldn't do certain things. And it was, you know, paperwork, it was filing, it was, you know, this or that. And now nobody, including SDRs, can hide behind really maximizing revenue generation. And so I think that it's, um, you know, I think. I think there's real. I think there's real power, um, you know, real power in that. You know, one thing I'd love to know from some of our audience members here is what tools are you, um, what tools are you using? What are you actively engaging in from. Ah, you know, we had somebody say, um, humantic, I think, went up here. I'm sure we're all using chat. I'm sure we're all using Claude. Um, you know, I'm just curious what other tools people are using.

Speaker A: Yeah, that would be great because I'll tell you what the tools that we're using. I mean, this is the whole thing. It all comes down to adoption, but this comes down to a whole separate piece in terms of how you're using AI, in terms of what are the prompts, what are the prompts that you're using? Um, anybody who has used any LLM for any period, uh, of time, um, has learned that prompting is everything. I love what Adam is jumping in with that. Yeah. While AI can make people more efficient, uh, it also amplifies bad selling. Garbage in, garbage out.

Speaker B: I think this is a mic drop moment, Adam. I mean, what a brilliant comment. You are so right. It is going to shine the light on whether you are good at this or not good at it.

Speaker A: I mean, how many times do we get the stupid email? Just because I can send out one bad email, but now I can send it out to a thousand. That's suicide. And that's what people are doing. And this is where I think investors pushing CROs, pushing sales teams to replace SDRs, because, oh, we can do this in more mass. We can do this more mass. And I think it's, it is denigrating the entire sales profession, period.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love what Osama is saying here. I use it to increase, categorize pipelines and get and update information about the industry such as recent trends, to share, share with, um, with customers. And Brent is chiming in with some of the, uh, some of the, you know, AI she's using and Fuel, man, you're going to hear a lot more about this with, um, with sales logic and some new things that we've got coming down the pipe. But fuel is powerful. Great.

Speaker A: And um, okay, and then, yeah, let Aggie do it. Dot com. I'm not familiar with that one. If that's connected with Texas A M M. Um, well, we, we, we won't go down that path. So anyway, but, anyway, but here's the whole thing. There are tools out there and you've got to take time each week to just play around. It's not looking for you to totally adopt, change, whatever, and be careful of the shiny object because you do got to validate. And remember, AI is still a, a starting tool. It's not a finishing tool. Hey, while time is ripping past, we got to get to the roof. The book is from our good friends who is an AI expert. Yeah, Ford sakes, it's AI Mind Shift. It's a great book. Came out in November. Still very, very relevant out there.

Speaker B: Yeah, you do laugh though. You do wonder, you think, how long will it be relevant though, because it's, because AI is changing, um, so fast. But if you're new to AI, if you're, if you want to learn a little bit more about it. Ford is really a great expert, um, to follow and his book is a great read. Yes.

Speaker A: Ready for the lightning round?

Speaker B: I do.

Speaker A: Top 10 emotional intelligence skills. You need to build your sales.

Speaker B: Um, number one is self awareness. You need to really be clear on what your strengths are, what your um, what your weaknesses are and how your emotions run.

Speaker A: Love it. Listen to understand, not to respond.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, um, number three, I'm going to say, um, motivation. Like what's your internal drive?

Speaker A: How about curiosity on steroids? Be that, that four year old kid that asks questions on everything.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, um, number five is empathy. You need to be able to really feel what your customer, your client is feeling.

Speaker A: It's just, uh, a brutal honesty. Brutal honesty with yourself and in every form of communication that you have with customers.

Speaker B: Yeah, I said self awareness. You need to have social awareness. You need to be able to adjust your style to better connect and better read the room and read others.

Speaker A: Wow. I'm going to build on that and that's accept silent moments. Accept times when there's no conversation happening. Accept it.

Speaker B: Yeah, um, I think communication is, um, your ability to connect, um, and communicate with people.

Speaker A: Oh, I like that. Hey, make it never about yourself, make it always about the other person.

Speaker B: Yeah, I would say, I'll say number nine is to, um, never stop learning. Um, it goes with the curiosity one that you said. But you have to be, you've got to have that, um, you know, that growth mindset.

Speaker A: Yeah. Number 10, use all your senses. You know, whether it be seeing, feeling, hear. Just use all of your senses. Hey, great show this morning. Great audience participation. Thank you so much. We got some big announcements coming out. If you're catching this live, you're going to want to catch our July 4th show because we got some cool stuff. But anyway, with that, we want to say thank you for listening to Sales Logic this week. If you, if you like what you hear, subscribe, rate and review the show on your favorite podcast app. Something we've said is earned you a single dollar. Consider telling a friend about our show because it's how we grow when we help you grow on Mark Hunter and

Speaker B: I'm Meredith Elliot Powell.

Speaker A: Remember, when you sell with confidence and

Speaker B: integrity, all of this uncertainty suddenly becomes

Speaker A: your competitive advantage and the sale becomes logical.

Speaker B: All right, we got some great, um, audience comments here. We'll make sure we include those in the show notes. Remember, tune in July 4th, Mark and I've got some big announcements coming. And join us right back here next week for another episode of Sales Logic. Have a great weekend.