This is the fourth 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 David Kreiger. David is the President of SalesRoads, an award-winning B2B sales outsourcing firm providing appointment setting and lead generation services.
Here’s a summary of our conversation and below this summary is the full transcript of our interview.
1. AI will increase the gap between average and great
According to David, it’s going to be critical for sales organizations and individual salespeople to get up-to-speed on AI, otherwise they may be “lapped” by their competition in the future. David says, “I think AI is going to create a big divide between the great sales organizations and the non-great sales organizations. I think it is also going to separate the great salespeople from the non-great salespeople…exponentially.”
2. AI as a sales assistant
The most exciting application of AI will be as a sales assistant. David states, “I think AI will be really helpful in preparing for discovery calls. You will be able to ask the AI things like ‘What are some common industry challenges in the prospect’s industry?’, ‘What are some things that this public company has talked about in their most recent annual reports or that their CEO has been speaking about?’ These are things that good salespeople do already, but it takes a long time to do them.”
3. Fewer conversations, more results
According to David, it’s going to continue to get harder to speak to prospects but that does not mean sales results will go down. Email will probably become totally oversaturated with AI-generated/enhanced campaigns, this will likely make the telephone even more important than it is today in outbound campaigns. This “raising of the bar” in getting through to prospects will actually present an opportunity to the best salespeople. David sees a future where “I think the good salespeople are going to leverage AI to make the most of their sales conversations. So even if it continues to get harder reach people, you are going to have better conversations. We have seen conversations go down over the 15 years that SalesRoads has been doing this, but we’ve seen success go up!”
4. AI can be good for the buyer too
If AI tools are used thoughtfully to prepare for all calls with prospects or buyers, this could actually be good for buyers too. David notes, “This use of AI is a good thing for the buyer because you want a salesperson who understands what you do. If a salesperson can now do this type of research in a short period of time, they will be able to speak to you more intelligently on your call. You now can have much better sales conversations.”
5. Add tools carefully
It’s easy to end up with too many sales tools. Companies should avoid thinking that just adding a tool will solve their sales problems. Each tool should be carefully evaluated before purchase. David says, “I do think there’s tech stack bloat and I think it can actually do harm. If you’ve got too many different tools, it can confuse the salespeople and they don’t spend as much time selling because they’re filling in this and clicking on that…and so on. There are some great tools out there, but I would say proceed carefully and think about anything you are considering adding to your tech stack.”
….
Sign up for the Sales 2.0 e-newsletter to follow how AI and other advanced tools can help take your sales to the next level.
….
Interview Transcript
Nigel: Where do you see AI impacting the sales profession the most in the next two to three years? And how about further out?
David: I think in the next two to three years, there are three big impact points that we’re going to see.
- One is AI as a buyer self-service tool.
- Two is content and email acceleration, and
- Three, which I think is the most exciting in the short term and, and potentially the long term is AI as a sales assistant.
Let me say what I, I mean by each one:
- AI for buyer self-service: AI is going to be great for buyers seeking upfront information. If you look at the power of tools like ChatGPT and how we can ask very specific questions, you can see that there will be AI assistants that will look at all the case studies and all of the things your company has done in different industries give buyers really personalized responses.
- Content and email acceleration: I think for the short term, AI may just be used to make cold emails a little better. I think it’s going to accelerate the email channel. AI will generate emails that plug in your favorite basketball team here, where you went to college here etc. So we’re going to see email getting absolutely diluted with automated content.
Nigel: Given that we will have an almost infinite volume of email, do you think the telephone is going to become even more important?
David: Yes, I do. It’s still hard to get people to pick up on the phone but the conversations are more meaningful. And as you see the other channels being more challenged, it is the way to breakthrough.
Onto the third impact point…AI as a sales assistant.
- AI is a sales assistant: This is where I think we will see some exciting stuff in the short and long term too. Carrying out really good research before a cold call and generating good lead lists is difficult. For example, at SalesRoads, we have 12 people in sales ops building our lead lists.
I think AI will be really helpful in preparing for discovery calls. You will be able to ask the AI things like “What are some common industry challenges in the prospect’s industry?”, “What are some things that this public company has talked about in their most recent annual reports or that their CEO has been speaking about?” These are things that good salespeople do already, but it takes a long time to do them.
This use of AI is a good thing for the buyer because you want a salesperson who understands what you do. If a salesperson can now do this type of research in a short period of time, they will be able to speak to you more intelligently on your call. You now can have much better sales conversations.
Nigel: Every time I read something about how many attempts it takes to reach a buyer the number just keeps going up. With AI coming, do you think this number is going to keep going up or come down?
David: I think it is going to continue going up. There is so much competition for people’s attention. I think it is still going to be difficult to get people on the phone, but that’s why it’s going to be that much more important to be prepared for every conversation.
I think the good salespeople are going to leverage AI to make the most of their sales conversations. So even if it continues to get harder reach people, you are going to have better conversations. We have seen conversations go down over the 15 years that SalesRoads has been doing this, but we’ve seen success go up!
Nigel: You mentioned the words “good salesperson” a few times. I’m wondering what you are seeing when you say that?
David: I have an overarching thought on AI in sales. I think AI is going to create a big divide between the great sales organizations and the non-great sales organizations. I think it is also going to separate the great salespeople from the non-great salespeople…exponentially. Here’s why:
First from an organizational standpoint, there was a survey done by Sales Mastery last year that said of the companies that they interviewed, 15% of those companies don’t use CRM at all, and 42% use it for just storing information about customers and prospects—not for managing interactions, like conversations. If you use CRM this way, it is just an expensive database.
Those 57% of companies are not going to be able to use AI effectively. AI is going to be super-powerful but complicated to implement. If you can’t even get CRM implemented fully, you’re not going to be able to implement AI.
Then within each organization, there will be salespeople who are going to embrace AI. They are going to use it to aggregate data across an industry and look for pain points. Those who want to do thorough research and understand these AI tools, they’re going to blow out the other salespeople.
Nigel: Certain industry experts are now talking about “sales tech stack bloat”. Do you agree?
David: Yes. For our organization we have always been a firm believer in a lean tech stack. We really try to keep it simple for our sales team. I think software companies can be really good at selling and as a CRO or VP of sales you feel like if I just buy this all my problems will go away. Unfortunately, you can’t just throw tech at a problem. You need to start with process first, then training second and then finally tech.
I do think there’s tech stack bloat and I think it can actually do harm. If you’ve got too many different tools, it can confuse the salespeople and they don’t spend as much time selling because they’re filling in this and clicking on that…and so on. There are some great tools out there, but I would say proceed carefully and think about anything you are considering adding to your tech stack.
Nigel: What are the top two things you are looking at for your sales team to set you up for a good year?
David: in my space there’s a lot of demand for what we do. A lot of companies are looking to accelerate their pipeline. We’ve found to hit our sales goals we can’t just take on all clients. We spend a lot of time not only being interviewed by our clients and explaining what we do, but really understanding whether we’re a good fit for each other.
The second key thing is alignment between our sales and marketing teams. Sales and marketing meet every other week. We talk about messaging, we talk about the leads that are coming in, we talk about how our discovery calls are structured. It’s only when we’re aligned that we bring in the right types of deals.
Sign up for the Sales 2.0 e-newsletter to follow how AI and other advanced tools can help take your sales to the next level.