Leverage AI to Gain Time and Sell More

Many books and articles have been written (and more to come for sure) on how to leverage AI in Sales. Regardless of whether you feel AI is good for sales or us humans in general, the fact remains: It’s only getting more sophisticated as time goes on.

So far, most of these books and articles discuss how AI can help you with gaining time. And why not? In sales, time is not your friend! Their recommendations are around:

• Summarizing customer meetings through AI conversation intelligence
• Providing data enrichment and identifying hot leads
• Personalizing email outreach
• Recommending next steps in account management
• Forecast indicators at the opportunity level

One size fits all?

There‘s no single, one-size-fits-all way to leverage artificial intelligence apps that will work for every sales organization by default. Often, you have to buy multiple applications, which can become costly. Still, making the right choices with advice from, e.g., Gartner can help sales organizations drive efficiency.

But do these actually help you sell more? Well, some may increase the probability of getting you in front of customers. But, yeah, most are helping with gaining time and being more efficient, not necessarily selling more.

Sell More

So, how can AI help you to sell more? The answer is actually quite simple. AI needs to help you to be better and more impactful in customer conversations. If AI can help you with that, then you will sell more. However, if you are still using outdated traditional sales approaches, your meetings will be more transactional and approached from a seller’s perspective. So, it’s not just AI that can help; it’s also the sales approach and the sales conversation process that will help you sell more.

When you sell with the Buyer’s Perspective, you follow a sales process aligned with the buying process. Following that process, AI should help you with the information you need for your call preparation. That information has two objectives:

1. To earn credibility early in the meeting
2. To change the customer’s perspective.

When customers recognize a change will benefit their business, they will need your help to see the return on investment, and you will sell more. But this sounds too easy. The reality is that it isn’t. Without AI, sales executives already face challenges with both objectives. The irony is that although it is challenging for sales executives, customers enjoy talking to these types of salespeople. Customers are hungry for insights that can help them grow their business. They like to talk to someone with business ideas and a growth mindset rather than listening to the typical sales pitches (those applying the traditional sales approaches)

Business ideas

AI is already smart enough to suggest business ideas that can help customers grow their business in a different way than expected. Of course, you need to train AI to think like you, a Salesperson who sells from the Buyer’s Perspective, so that:

1. You gain situational knowledge and understand the customer’s business
2. You gain the needed insightful information aligned to the customer’s challenges

Situational knowledge

Ideally, this information is segmented by Company, Industry, and Stakeholders and described in an easy-to-understand way. In the first five minutes of the meeting, show that you have done your homework and have a good grasp of their situation and challenges. This is not a sales conversion; instead, we are talking business.

Insightful information

The more your business idea and insightful information align with what’s on the company’s senior management agenda, the more relevant you are and the greater your chances of gaining the customer’s commitment to explore more with you.

Train AI to be specific:

• When your customers are in Why Change, you influence them with third-party research to back up your business growth idea.
• When more stakeholders move into Change to What, your insights change to the solution criteria needed to make your business case work.

What your customer can not:

Some think your customer is using AI to do exactly the same, but there is one thing they cannot: linking your solutions to these business ideas and the impact on their top and bottom line when making changes. Hence, salespeople who sell with the buyer’s perspective will stand out from others. The reason is again simple: you are helping customers grow their business, keeping their interests in mind, and coming equipped with the right knowledge for their meetings.

Leverage AI to sell more!

Did you enjoy this week’s post? Get insightful content like this every week in your inbox. Subscribe by providing your email address, and never miss a post—it’s free!