Future of sales roles with AI

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve, more and more businesses are beginning to ask how it can be used in sales. It's no secret that AI is changing the way we do business - Gartner predicts that by 2025, 80% of b2b interactions will occur across digital channels. And with buyers becoming increasingly reliant on technology, it's important for sales teams to begin preparing for a future where AI plays a bigger role. So what does this mean for the salesperson of the future? In this article, we'll explore some of the ways AI is changing the sales landscape and discuss what role it may play in the years ahead.

The salesperson of the future is a data-driven, predictive powerhouse. They know how to use artificial intelligence (AI) to their advantage, and they aren't afraid to automate parts of their process. Buyers are increasingly interacting with businesses through digital channels, which means that sales reps need to be prepared for a more automated future.

One way that AI is changing the sales landscape is through the use of predictive analytics. By analyzing past data, predictive analytics can give sales reps a glimpse into what their buyers are likely to do in the future. This information can be used to tailor the sales process and improve close rates. Additionally, predictive analytics can help sales reps identify new opportunities and forecast future revenue.

Another way that AI is changing sales is through the use of automation tools. There are a growing number of tools on the market that allow sales teams to automate various tasks, from lead generation to appointment scheduling. These tools can free up time for reps so they can focus on selling, and they can also help improve efficiency and accuracy.

So what does all this mean for the salesperson of the future? It's clear that AI is going to play a big role in the sales landscape. Sales reps who are able to embrace and use AI will be at a huge advantage. those who don't may find themselves struggling to keep up.

The rise of artificial intelligence has led many to question the role of human salespeople. With such predictions, as mentioned that by 2025, 80% of business-to-business interactions will occur across digital channels, and that one in three millennial buyers do not want to engage with a seller, it's clear that the sales landscape is changing rapidly. We saw a glimpse of the future when Google showcased Duplex, it's AI assistant that can make phone calls on your behalf. And as more and more companies invest in revenue operations, intent data, and predictive analytics, the need for human salespeople seems to be diminishing. So what does the future hold for AI and sales? Only time will tell. But one thing is certain: the way we sell is changing, and AI is leading the charge.

Now to come clean - everything above here was written by AI, using JasperAI , including the title - could you tell? Yes I had to give some prompts around the subject matter and some key words I wanted in. After that, I just clicked compose.

This is what you get on the home page and the varying areas that it can work for you

I am not saying the intro paragraphs are by any means perfect, but, IMHO it's a pretty good starting point to help generate ideas for content, with minimal effort. As you can see it can work across different frameworks. I see this as supporting and augmenting a sales person who is struggling to create content - this could be part of an email cadence, call script, social media post for social selling and more.

This is where the intersection of human and AI get interesting. I use Lately to help atomise my content. This means I can turn a blog into multiple pieces of unique content, to distribute accordingly. How does it do this? By analyzing all of my historic social media engagement and looking at words and phrases that resonate with my audience. It then looks for those words in my content to generate posts accordingly. The next iteration of using Jasper is to feed it the insight that Lately gives me around a topic and then generate that tweet, social post, even a blog like this one - for me to finesse and add my human touch to it.

Here is a recent Live the team did to show you how their amazing platform works and their new UI interface :

AI in video

The explosion of video is obvious for everyone to see - intended pun there. However it is time consuming to create - even short explainer videos, tutorials, pitches, follow ups and more. Well you have tools like Synthesia that solve for this - and this may seem like we are trying to replace a human, and may be in some parts of the sales process we should.

Have a look here :

Pretty cool in my view. However this type of AI created content needs to be used in the right part of your sales cycle, likely in my view to top of funnel, vs the decision making phase.

Back to the point of freeing up peoples time to be, well human when humans are needed most.

Buyers are buying in a different way:

To the point about millennials, used in isolation this stat tells you one thing - however, what it goes on to say is that, and I paraphrase, millenials don't want to be sold to, they are happy to interact with a human, as long as the agenda is not selling them something - and therein lies the conundrum. I would suggest that this is the same for most buyers if we are honest with ourselves, not just millenials. I would suggest there is a certain level of personalisation we expect, or timeliness of response - what we do not want however, is the lazy seller just plugging us into a sales cadence and expecting the AI to do the rest - we are more than just a data point.

Data

Back to the Gartner prediction - why this is important is that amount of data that this generates. At scale humans cannot process this or even have the understanding how to. This is where AI can play it's part - helping the seller understand what aspects of the data are relevant, and, what the next best action is. Companies like 6sense are looking to solve this very challenge. Again - this is not about replacing the seller, but augmenting them in their role - freeing teams up to do what they are employed to do. But in a way that makes sense both for the seller and the buyer.

Those that follow me, will know that I bang on about the research Seth Marrs and the team at Forrester are producing - Seth refers to this as :

Dynamic Guided Selling :

Dynamic guided selling is a concept that is poised to become a reality in B2B sales organizations

Integrating sales tools to build an iterative process enables sales teams to win more

E-commerce guided selling, configure, price and quote (CPQ) systems, customer relationship management (CRM) and AI are the foundation for every customer interaction

He goes on to say :

Sales tools have traditionally been used to enable administrative efficiencies for sales leaders who can drive adoption. Tools can identify top prospects, reduce admin and provide improved visibility to pipeline reporting. These things all sit at the periphery of what salespeople value most — winning the deal.  

Full blog here

This where we need to start shifting our thinking. It is a cliché but the way we sold yesterday is not the way your buyers of tomorrow are buying.

Justin Michael & Tony Hughes co-authored this brilliant book - Tech Powered Sales. They tackle this subject head on. They centre it around this concept that as sellers we all have our TQ - Technology Quotient. To be a modern seller, we all need to up our TQ and really get to understand what out current tech stack can do, where we can automate, where we can leverage AI & data to help us sellers be better at what we do - or as they say "achieve super human sales skills".

I will leave you with this final thought, a tweet from 2017, shared in this blog :

This is the world we now find ourselves in. But it is not a new concept. It is now, however, achievable.

Jasper would like to end with this question :

Do you think AI will have a positive or negative impact on sales?