This is number 7 in a series of interviews I am conducting with subject matter experts and practitioners in the sales profession. I am examining where we are today with AI in sales and where we are going.
This interview is with Heidi Messer Co-Founder of Collective[i]. Collective[i] provides the most comprehensive solution on the market for companies seeking to optimize revenue using AI, connections, and collaboration.
Here’s a summary of our conversation and below this summary is the full transcript of our interview.
1. Traditional sales models vs. AI-enabled selling.
Heidi says we are moving into a new age of selling driven by the availability and adoption of AI (Sales 2.0?). She says “There’s been a bifurcation of the way people manage sales organizations: There’s the traditional model which dumbs down selling. This is the world of cadences, the world of playbooks, the world of scripts, the world of formulaic selling that assumes that every buyer goes through the same journey and that the best way to generate revenue is to have completely consistent execution across multiple sellers. There’s a newer more modern AI-enabled version of selling evolving that is more about seller empowerment and the ability to cultivate sales skills.”
2. More time on actual selling activities.
One of my key questions is whether AI is actually going to let salespeople spend more time selling. Heidi says yes but the real advantages come to those who shift time spent on tasks onto investing in their sales teams. Once AI is implemented, she says, “The question then becomes, ‘do sales organizations that use technologies like this shift their time to higher value activities, like training, researching prospects and strategy, so that when they do get face-to-face time to sell, they show up prepared and better trained?’”
3. Not cadence-driven
We need to get away from “robotic” cadences, where all salespeople do the same thing and there is no room for human creativity. According to Heidi, “Buyers have spoken. I think the last statistic I read is that over 80% of buyers are unhappy with the sales process (and this was based on buyers that actually ended up buying from that salesperson!) Think about that. You went through a sales process, and you actually bought the product and still 80% of you were unhappy with the process. The traditional sales model is robotic. It turns sellers into human spam. It’s very top down. Somebody writes a playbook and then nobody can deviate from that.”
4. Top salespeople will up-skill
Heidi sees a future where the top salespeople build their skills and the gap grows between average and top performers (this is a point David Kreiger also brought up in his interview.) “You’re going to see a delineation between the people who took a role in sales because there were a lot of sales jobs available and the really skilled salespeople who are in this as a long-term career. Those professional salespeople want to spend their time upskilling and not spending their time doing data entry and filling out forecasts.”
5. Cleaner CRMs
As I’ve said many times before, most CRMs are a mess. Heidi has seen the same thing and thinks that AI tools will help by taking data entry off salespeople’s plates. “Not one company that I have encountered before using Collective[i] had pristine CRM data–not one! That’s astonishing given the massive investment companies have made in CRMs. At Collective[i] we fully automate CRM data capture. That automation removes the tradeoff between productivity wasted on logging sales history and actually making sales. We keep all contacts in the CRM up to date using AI. So anytime a contact changes roles and our system becomes aware of that change, we update that in the CRM. This way not only is the activity database accurate, but the contact database is comprehensive and accurate as well.”
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Interview Transcript
Nigel: Where do you see AI impacting the sales profession the most in the next two to three years or further out?
Heidi: There’s an adage that’s been floating around social, you know, “AI won’t replace your job, but someone using AI will”. I think that’s a good sort of North Star.
There’s been a bifurcation of the way people manage sales organizations: There’s the traditional model which dumbs down selling. This is the world of cadences, the world of playbooks, the world of scripts, the world of formulaic selling that assumes that every buyer goes through the same journey and that the best way to generate revenue is to have completely consistent execution across multiple sellers.
There’s a newer more modern AI-enabled version of selling evolving that is more about seller empowerment, adapting to buyers, and the ability to cultivate real sales skills.
Buyers have spoken. I think the last statistic I read is that over 80% of buyers are unhappy with the sales process (and this was based on buyers that actually ended up buying from that salesperson!) Think about that. You went through a sales process, and you actually bought the product and still 80% of you were unhappy with the process.
The traditional sales model is robotic. It turns sellers into human spam. It’s very top down. Somebody writes a playbook and then nobody can deviate from that. Whereas AI is about precision, speed, and agility. AI helps sellers find the actions that will be the most impactful and of the highest value to the buyer.
Nigel: One thing that salespeople certainly struggle with is time management. Do you, do you think these new AI capabilities are going to help salespeople spend more time actually selling?
Heidi: Yes, I absolutely do. One thing AI is very good at is improving productivity.
For example, an application like Collective[i] is designed to replicate the talent of thousands of economists and thousands of analysts studying your pipeline every day to provide you with insights and point you in the direction of where you can be the most effective. And then on top of that, it’s like having an army of assistants working for you. For example, we automate CRM data capture. Those capabilities can add a full day of productivity for salespeople.
To get the real benefits of AI depends on how you leverage the time no longer spent on low value tasks. The exponential gains come when sales organizations that use Collective[i] shift their time to higher value activities, like training, researching prospects and strategy, so that when they do get face-to-face time to sell, they show up prepared and better trained?”
Nigel: Do you think salespeople will actually take advantage of AI? And get full value out of it?
Heidi: I think so. I mean there’s a funny phrase used by entrepreneurs, they say that “there are tourists who come out when fundings a plenty and then there are living and breathing entrepreneurs who are there throughout it all—even when times are tough.” I think the same is true for sales.
The most skilled salespeople I know welcome the opportunity to train and hone their skills. They want to show up to deals prepared. They want to build real lasting relationships. They’re not in the profession to make 50 cold calls a day and repeat the same thing hoping that one person says yes. They really want to be professional about their craft.
I think you’re going to see a delineation between the people who took a role in sales because there were a lot of sales jobs available and those truly skilled professionals who invest time in developing skills to build a highly lucrative long-term career. Those professional salespeople want to spend their time talking to buyers, building their networks, and honing their craft, and not memorizing a script, entering data into CRM and forecasting revenue.
Nigel: The way you are speaking about salespeople, I’m picturing them as account executives. How, how do you see the job split between sales development and account executives evolving in the AI age?
Heidi: The conversational and cadence management tools have solidified this notion that if everybody talks the same way and everyone is on a similar cadence, your sales organization will be successful. But what I’ve heard in the market is that those things aren’t working anymore. Buyers don’t appreciate being bombarded with cold calls and they don’t appreciate their InMail being polluted with outreach that’s not well thought through. Buyers are more and more unhappy.
There’s going to be a major transformation in sales development. Being tenacious, resilient, and being able to concisely pitch a product in a short period of time will still be important but those sales development type reps are going to have to move their skills up a notch.
Nigel: One of the issues I’ve seen a lot over the years is dirty CRM data. What have you seen in this area?
Heidi: Not one company that I have encountered (before using Collective[i]) had clean and comprehensive CRM data–not one! That’s astonishing given the massive investment companies have made in CRMs.
Companies have been put in a difficult situation, where they have to give up productivity to get data. The people inputting data are human and humans are not designed for data entry. It’s boring, it’s mundane.
At Collective[i] we solve this in a number of ways. One is we fully automate CRM data capture. That automation removes the tradeoff of productivity for a log of sales history and contacts. We automate activity capture and even keep all contacts in the CRM up to date using AI. So anytime a contact changes roles and our system becomes aware of that change, we make sure it’s correct in CRM. This way not only is the activity database accurate, but the contact database is comprehensive and accurate as well.
Nigel: If you have AI running and you don’t have good data, I’m not sure you will end up with anything useful. Do you agree?
Heidi: It’s critical. I agree with you on that.
I would add that AI is next level in terms of that statement.
Before the rapid adoption of AI tools like ChatGPT and Collective[i], you could get away with time lost to log data or even having a mediocre data set from which you made decisions.
Today, you can’t. Hybrid work, recessionary conditions, demanding buyers, and disruptive markets all demand that sales organizations execute on a higher plane. Having insights that help your team adapt to buyer preferences and market shifts are essential. Productivity is paramount because budgets aren’t increasing. In short, no one has time to waste and no one can afford to waste opportunity.
The other point is that your data in isolation isn’t enough. The newer, more advanced forms of AI, like the deep learning we use to forecast revenue and odds, require such large data sets that no one company will have enough on its own data. That’s why we automate and cleanse CRM data but also offer our clients the ability to plug into Collective[i]’s foundation which provides insights that would not be possible using CRM data in isolation.
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