The 5 Fundamentals of Critical Thinking for AI in Sales

Hi, I'm Celie Smith. I'm the CEO and founder of Sales Fuel. I've spent my entire career working with sales teams to build their credibility at every stage of the sales process so that they can generate more business. I've been recognized as a leading sales consultant by Selling Power every year since 2018. I am the best selling author of the book Sales How Buyers Qualify Sellers and I'm the co host of the Manage Smarter podcast which was ranked by a couple. CRMs is the number one podcast for sales managers and others in the top 10. So we hope that you'll give that a look at well, so today we want to talk about critical thinking. And here's why this is important. How you interact with AI changes rapidly, sometimes from day to day, but how you influence people does not. So you heard a great presentation just now on how to use prompts, and you've heard other presentations then on on using AI and interacting with AI. So how we do that is first through prompts, then chatbots, and now we're using agents. And then the years to come, it'll be something totally different than what we're used to seeing now. But how to influence people really hasn't changed since the days of Aristotle. And think about all the advancements we've had in industry and technology over those decades. And yet the principles of influencing people are still the same. It's about building credibility, earning trust. It's about making an emotional appeal and backing that up with logic. So today we're tackling a new challenge that every sales leader faces, which is how to maintain and build trust in a world where AI changes how we interact with our prospects and customers. And the big message that I want to impart here is that AI can either help you build your credibility or or destroy your credibility. It is a classic two edged sword. And we're all familiar with incidents where high powered executives have been burned by using fake references and misinformation and taking out AI output at its face value. Your influence with buyers, your team, your market now depends on your critical thinking skills more than ever. So to make sure that AI empowers your ability to influence customers into making the change that they need to make to get the outcome that they want. Making sure that AI helps you build credibility relies strongly on your ability to influence buyers using critical thinking skills. In fact, 71% of customers, according to Salesforce, believe it's important for a human to validate AI output. The problem is that according to new research that we've just released like two Days ago, the Voice of the Sales manager study of 289 sales managers with at least three direct reports, only 30% of them ranked critical thinking as one of the top 10 characteristics that a salesperson must have to be successful on their team. So what we're looking here at, what we're looking at here is a leadership gap, and we're going to close that gap today. First, let's define critical thinking before we go too much further. And, and I'm going to define this as not just a healthy skepticism, but careful analysis of data using human judgment, domain expertise based off of your experience in current and previous jobs, your volunteer experience, your side hustle, if you have one, and ethical reasoning before you take action. So with that, there are five fundamentals that I have found of critical thinking. When we apply that to using AI in sales, that mitigate the risk and improve the benefits. So let's get into the first one. Are the sources reliable and are they clearly cited? This is one area where AI struggles. Even if you give it instructions in your prompts, you really have to be deliberate about it. So first thing you want to do is make sure that the AI tools web search function is turned on. And so what's happening here is that it uses Google search. It does do that, but it also sends out these bots. And I know this firsthand because the salesfuel.com website is chock full of new market research and sales insights and strategies. We put those out every single day and we get these bots which clearly identify themselves as feeding an AI tool. That's great. The problem of it is that not every website has reliable information on it and not everything posted on the Internet is true. Ask AI to cite the sources of its information in your prompts and then ask yourself when you get the output, is the source reasonably well known? Is it even real, for that matter? And more importantly, will the recipient accept the source as reliable? So, for example, I'm going to use politics as an example because it's on everybody's minds right now. If you have somebody, then that has a more conservative point of view about world politics and all that, they may not accept a source, for example, that quotes the New York Times. And if you have somebody that leans more on the progressive side of politics, they won't accept anything that's quoted from Fox News as an example and more of an extreme example. So how you do this is you ask AI to provide a deep link. That's the terminology you want to use that you can click on to Verify and can the information be tracked back to that source? And if it can't, that's a concern. If you get a 404 error, which basically means it's a page not found, then use the information it provided in the sources search function to be able to verify that that's actually where it came from. And if it doesn't, you may want to rethink using that information. Number two, is it accurate and is it up to date? So I want to present to you here some research that was done recently by Deloitte and they have asked how enterprise use generative AI in the leading tech companies in the world. Here you see then the leading barriers to AI adoption even in companies like those. The two things that I put a star here now those are the ones that can be overcome by improving critical thinking skills. Mistakes, errors leading to real world consequences is the number one barrier. Number four, a general loss of trust due to bias, hallucinations and inaccuracies. The challenge here is that AI is so confident in what it says, it can be easy to overlook that what it's saying may not always be right. First thing you want to do is determine the publication date of the source being used by AI. So if it's making references to Covid or pre Covid or something that happened two years ago, it may not be up to date. It may not be insightful. Then to the people that you're presenting it to, your prospects trust but verify. You want to validate important stats and facts that you glean from AI using other sources that you know to be reliable. And then you want to apply your knowledge and expertise to make sure that it makes sense. Number three, is it relevant and is it actionable? Keep in mind that AI is the tool. It's a tool that you use, but you are the authority here and first question you want to ask is is it believable? Do you believe it? And more importantly then will your prospect will your accounts believe it? And if not, don't use it. Verify the source's location of origin. When I was putting together this slide deck for this presentation today, came across a great stat that I wanted to use until I dug a little bit deeper and found out that they were surveying people in Bangladesh. Well, you know, that's a great market and everything like that, but I don't think it's going to be your market in all likelihood. So I scrapped it, didn't use it. So make sure that the data quoted by AI applies to your prospect's market and apply the AI output to the change the buyer needs to make. This is your value as a salesperson. It's not just to regurgitate and pass on AI generated information. They have AI too. They've already tried to solve the problem with AI. So it's your job basically to apply that to the product and service that you're providing and the successful use of that product to be able to solve their problem or help them achieve their goal. Your value as a salesperson. And most importantly, it's great to use AI for automation, but never sacrifice the human touch for the benefit of efficiency. Something I'd be remiss not to tell you about. There's something brand new in the team trait product. These are pre hire assessments that are used to keep you from hiring a mediocre salesperson. They now have a score for the candidate's ability or likelihood to be able to leverage AI in the sales process. And you can check out teamtraight.com at that website. Number four, could it potentially be biased? 31% of C suiters believe that AI is biased based on who trained it. And we put together a nice little photograph here of the tech bros. Okay, they tend to be white males of a certain age, but that's not representative of the world population. So it's something to kind of keep in mind that we constantly have to be watching for the bias in the AI output. We need to reject that bias and make sure that we're not amplifying it. So ask yourself the question, do you believe the source cited has its own agenda, its own political bias, and more importantly, will your prospect and I just covered that a couple minutes ago. Most importantly, never inject unproven or misleading information into your prompts. Stanford University just did a study on that that even the most advanced AI systems, if you repeat misleading or inaccurate information to in your prompts repeatedly or whatever, it will then basically reflect that information back to you in its output. About 20% of the time in fact. So be very careful not to do that and critically review AI output so it doesn't include stereotypes or misperceptions that might put you in the light of being outdated or have have wrong thinking and quite frankly make you unlikable. Number five is this one. Are you being transparent with how you use AI? 76% of Americans believe it's important for companies to disclose their marketing efforts that use AI tools. This is from Washington State University. Transparency builds trust. So you want to always disclose the use of AI on anything that is client facing up front. This also insulates you in case AI goes awry. It insulates you from catching flak for what AI puts out there. It's still your responsibility, however, to make sure that you are responsible for your own use of AI. But you also need to assure the buyer that you have not used any of their sensitive business information in your prompts or agents without their permission, just to reassure them. And then lastly, be able to answer questions about your company's responsible or ethical AI policy. The last point I just mentioned should be something that shows up in your ethical AI policy. And if you don't know you have one, well then somebody in your company hasn't done their job. So what you want to do is ask your sales manager or ask your VP of Sales or your CEO, anybody in the C suite, quite frankly about do we have a responsible AI policy? What is it? And make sure that your salespeople are able to answer questions about it in case they're asked by an account or prospect. So to sum it up, when using AI in sales, always ask yourself is it accurate and up to date? Does the output use reliable sources? Is it relevant and is it actionable? Could it be biased and is it being used transparently? Because it's not about how credible AI is, it's about how credible you you are when you use AI. Remember, they have AI. They've already tried to solve the problem with AI before they go outside the company. Your top competitors have AI and probably have much the same tools that you do and that does nothing basically to help you stand out and set yourself apart from those competitors. It is really about your deliberate and disciplined use of AI using critical thinking that will set you apart in the marketplace. This just scratches the surface of this topic. Your team can learn more in a 90 minute course called Critical Thinking for AI and Sales Pretty upfront that is offered by our company Sales Fuel through our Sales Cred product line. It is the power to be taken seriously. It's based on my book Sales Cred. We do sales training, coaching, consultant. It is where AI meets authenticity. You can learn more about scanning the QR code, visiting our virtual booth here at the conference or going to salescred.com so if you are interested in learning more, you want to schedule a free conversation or if you're just looking for a speaker or panelist in for an upcoming event, Visit my website Sealysmith.com or use this QR code to ask me more. So Perry Gara, I'm going to throw it back to you.

Wonderful. Thank you very much. I'm Going to. Because we've got a little bit of time on our hands. Can we get you to go back a little bit in your slides to your research from Washington University? Because I think that's significant for us to sort of. There we go. So talk to us a little bit about this. I think that it would be great to hear a little bit more detail.

I think that so many times, particularly in sales, every time we get new technology, there are, quite frankly, the lesser salespeople in our industry that want to use this technology as a crutch. And the issue there is that marketing automation systems being an example. So recently I was on vacation in Japan and so I stayed at a hotel at a brand I will not name to predict the guilty. And they asked me to fill out their client survey, which I happily did. And of course, I always have opinions about how to improve things. So I shared those with them. I get an email back that says, dear, insert guest name here. And then basically it just regurgitated the answers that I gave it in the survey. So really that, that left a bad impression on me. One, because they used marketing automation system, and two, there was no real human connection here. It's like, look, I took my time to actually give you suggestions that I thought were good suggestions and good observations about, you know, what I saw when I was in your hotel. And then you give me that. And so my concern is that the bad actors will use AI to do their work for them rather than to make their work better, more efficient, more powerful. And so this all fits into the same thing. It's transparency builds trust. And whether or not you're using it as an agent, basically, that's going to help them get the information that they're looking for or place an order or something like that, or whether it's a chatbot that's providing customer service or whether it's about insight that you're providing as part of a slide deck and a sales presentation. It's always important then to mention not only the actual source, but also the fact that this was AI enhanced.

Yes. Thank you. I remember recently, in one month, I had 10 different phone calls from the same bank to earn my service, my business. And I'm like, they're each different voices and they didn't have a record, obviously. So something went wrong with their AI. I think it was voice AI that was calling. Thank you. And if you want to go to your last slide again and let's take a look at. You mentioned. Oh, the slide before that. Sorry. There we go. And tell us a little bit because you mentioned a course. So tell us a little bit about that.

So what we do with the sales cred program is, first thing that we do is we have a situational judgment test. So not only do we measure your sales team's mindset and their will to sell, but the other thing we do is we measure their aptitude at every stage of the sales process. And, and this was a situational judgment test that was created by four well known leading sales consultants. And this is used typically for pre hiring, but we use it in a different way. We use it to measure your sales team, particularly in the use of leveraging AI using emotional intelligence and critical thinking. We do that first to identify the skill gaps and then we create a customized training program that closes those skill gaps based off of sales credit. And then lastly, we, when we leave, we also provide an app that has a lot of AI powered tools in it, along with our own research that's proprietary, so that you can continue using and leveraging those new skills that you acquired through the training program long after we're gone.

Thank you. We actually have a question from the group. And that is at this point, isn't it safe to just assume that almost every marketing outreach uses AI?

We're getting to that point, right? I mean, we're getting to that point. I think that. And the other thing too is it's obvious sometimes, right? It's like if you get something that says hope this email finds you well, or if you see words like delve or foster or something like that, you have a pretty good idea that it's AI. But if you're putting something else out there or whatever that has your name attached to the bottom of it, you may want to put like a little note down at the bottom below your signature or whatever this was AI generated, that those are not actually your words because if something goes awry, it still has your name attached to it.

Yes, that makes sense. Gerhard, would you love to share anything?

Well, I love the fact that Lee reminds us that we have a brain and we should not abdicate. There is no substitute for thinking and there's no substitute for critical thinking, and there's no substitute for natural curiosity. And I think that with, with every tool that we get that promises to improve things, we tend to misuse those things, those tools.

Yeah, that's a fair point. I definitely agree with that. I just want to make sure to make it clear that just because I get to play the role of the adult in the room, it doesn't mean that I don't love AI I use AI Every day. I build tools that use AI Every single day. I definitely believe in the future of it and how it's fundamentally going to change not only sales, but how business is done around the world. So I'm a big proponent. Nothing, though, will stunt its growth. Faster, though, than using it improperly and incorrectly.

Yes. Makes perfect sense.

Well, yeah, I think the brain is like exercise. You know, you. If you go out and do exercise, you feel fit. And if you don't use your brain correctly, you get dumber and you atrophy your natural abilities. And I think that we need to become more discerning, more nuanced in our thinking, and we need to ask, above all, better questions. I remember Werner Heisenberg, the Nobel prize winner. He said that nature does not reveal its secrets. It only responds to our method of questioning. And especially when it comes to ChatGPT, if your question is not brilliant, the answer is not going to be brilliant.

And again, that comes back to sales in general, or management, for that matter, which is, you don't have to have all the answers. You just have to have the right questions. And, Perry, one more thought before we go to what Gerhard was saying is that the brain is naturally wired for us then to seek out validation of our current opinions and beliefs. And we've certainly seen that at play in this country over the last two to three weeks. Right. But to have critical thinking, the first thing we have to do is we first have to suspend judgment. We have to resist that natural urge then to gravitate toward data and information that just reaffirms our current view. And so when we suspend judgment and we take a look at things critically, it opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

And I think we also get addicted to the megaphones that are out there, because I remember where I grew up in Austria, my grandmother ran a country in, and there were a lot of conversations all the time. There was no technology interfering with anything. And everybody has an opinion. Everybody was listened to. And I remember when I came to the United States, I thought it people were looking at proxies on television to discover their own opinions instead of expressing their own. And I found it bizarre.

Yeah. And we all know how that ended up, too.

Yes. Well, I think this has brought out some interesting thoughts and ideas for us to consider. And thank you very much, Lee.

Thank you, Lee. My pleasure.