GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – JULY 06: Will Jackson, CEO and founder of British manufacturer Engineered Arts … [+]
Ever since sales teams swapped old-school Rolodexes for software-based Customer Relationship Management tools in the mid-1990s, the sales profession has been fueled by technology. So, it should come as little surprise that artificial intelligence (AI) is already transforming the art of selling.
I’m self-aware enough to know that I’m no tech guru. But as someone with decades of hands-on experience in sales, and sales enablement, I can report that while AI tools may be in their infancy, they are already adding value to my work and making it more dynamic. And I’m seeing signs that the early AI adopters—in use cases like training, research, task management, and more—are on track to outperform everyone else.
Sales leaders, take note. You should start harnessing the power of AI beyond the standard implementations available today. This is not an easy task given that best practices have not yet been established. But at the very least, you need to get smarter about it, quickly.
“It is time for sales leaders to seize this opportunity and drive AI adoption within their organizations,” Hewlett Packard Senior Vice President Kobi Elbaz recently wrote in Information Week. “However, to fully harness the power of AI, it is crucial to invest in comprehensive training and upskilling programs for sales teams.”
Tech innovators—whether they work with a behemoth like Salesforce.com or a niche-focused startup—are already marketing AI tools that are surprisingly useful. At my firm, FranklinCovey, we are investing in AI to give our sales teams ongoing, innovative learning support.
From my experience with AI I have already found three ways it can be helpful:
- Honest meeting feedback: It’s now commonplace to record meetings, making it easy to add an AI tool to most attendee lists. Now, after a meeting, a salesperson receives a recording that can analyze their effectiveness and offer actionable feedback. Some feedback is simple—maybe you said “ah” 15 times, or you use a filler word too much. This is helpful to note. But some of the more sophisticated AI tools offer more surprising feedback, too. After one recent meeting, my AI tool suggested how I could articulate my elevator pitch in half the time. After reviewing the bot’s suggestion, I was impressed and resolved to train myself to be more concise.
- Post-meeting reporting: Many of us are conflicted during meetings: Should I take detailed notes or pay attention and be present? AI bots allow you to be present and listen actively while the bot captures the details. (More details than would be humanly possible!) The bot can even draft a post-meeting memo, including discussion highlights, action items and deadlines, remaining points for negotiation and more. Some of us in sales (myself included) are terrible at the post-meeting follow-up note. Here’s our chance to improve.
- Avatar training: You can role play with a lifelike avatar, programmed using a large language model and refined by your sales enablement team. Interactive avatars will engage with you for as long as you like. Once a session ends, the tool offers feedback to improve your performance. I’ve written before about the “experience trap”—the notion that someone may have 20 years of experience that is more like two years repeated 10x. Often, seasoned salespeople feel like they know it all, but in reality, their skills have plateaued. All of us can improve with the right feedback. With AI, salespeople can continuously develop their skills, so the customer always receives an extraordinary experience.
Crucially, AI tools give salespeople what they need most: direct, objective feedback that would be tough for polite colleagues and managers to provide. Bots will bluntly tell me what I need to know. Maybe I think I’m being forthright and straightforward, but the bot tells me I come across as harsh. AI engines don’t care about feelings, they call it as they see it. Personally, I’d rather receive tough feedback from a bot than my boss or a customer.
As with any new tool, it’s prudent to proceed with a degree of caution. For a salesperson to learn through role play, they need privacy, so avatar-enabled training should (in my opinion) be treated as confidential and not be shared with others. Also, since these tools offer blunt feedback, be prepared, especially if you are sensitive. Finally, remember these tools are still in their relative infancy and not everything is perfect yet, so take any bot-generated feedback with a grain of salt and keep doing what is serving you and your clients well.
It’s tempting to sideline new technology, letting early adopters tackle the learning curve while you wait for a smoother ride. But in doing so, you risk ceding your competitive edge. Proceed with caution, of course, and apply human judgment—like my colleague who was flagged by an AI tool for saying “you guys,” a harmless New York colloquialism misread by AI, which flagged it as “bias.” Not every piece of feedback AI provides deserves a green light. But having the option to consider the feedback is a powerful tool in itself.
Despite its quirks, I urge you not to dismiss these advancements. Those who embrace AI will refine their craft in ways their competitors won’t, leaving skeptics in the dust.
