The AI That Builds Sellers vs. The AI That Just Keeps Them Busy

Well, hello everybody, and I'm really excited to talk with you today. We're going to spend the next 10 minutes talking about how we can maximize the positive impact that AI has on sales performance. And I'll tell you that the key here lies in how we handle what really is our number one obstacle and opportunity— grounding. So let's start with a simple definition so that we're all aligned on what grounding is and is not. And really, Particularly important is the difference between training and grounding. So training is what the model has already learned. That includes, and we need to all be aware of that, that includes pretty much everything that's ever been written about selling that it could access. It is massive and it is genuinely useful. However, it is not grounding. And here's why it can't differentiate us, because everybody has access to the latest, greatest models with all of their training. And grounding is different than that. Grounding is what the AI can reach and actually use in the moment that it acts. It's your methodology. It's your environment. It is small, and it's the part that is unique to your organization. So what I want to do is treat this not as binary— you either do it or you don't— because it really exists across a continuum. In 4 different phases. So let's talk about that. What I would refer to as phase 0, the first state, if you will, has no grounding. Notice the boxes around here. They represent the kinds of areas where AI can and is, as you've heard during the sessions here, helping sales teams. Nearly all sales teams are actually using this kind of AI now, in some cases without management even being aware of it. It's what we're doing when we ask ChatGPT or Claude to help us write an email or a proposal, or a manager asks for help with coaching a struggling rep. The problem with this approach, as a couple of speakers have already highlighted, is you're going to get confident answers, but they're going to be confidently wrong and in some cases contradictory. So the next state, level 1, can actually be harder to recognize, and it can even be more painful. Here, you have a methodology. Somebody wrote it down. There were workshops, but it lives in slide decks, in PDFs on a shared drive. It lives in workbooks and in the heads of some of your people. That's all real, but none of it is readable by the machine. And I think yesterday Tim at Corporate Visions did a really nice job of explaining some of the technical reasons for this and the problems that it creates. Suffice to say that this isn't where we're going to get the most significant positive impact on sales and certainly not going to get a competitive edge. What we're going to get is a mix of answers that may look even more real because they have some stuff that's unique to us in them. We've also written a blog about this, and I think Jeff is going to drop a link to that. So in the chat now, so if you want to learn more about this, you can check out that blog, and there will also be some. Some useful tools that link to that also that you can get access to. So let's go to the next level. The next level, in our 3rd level, we're really getting somewhere real. The AI can reach information and use information about our methodology and our environment. So the answers are yours instead of everyone's. And this is a significant improvement, better answers in every one of these areas. But look at what's still true here. Practice knows your methodology and your selling environment. Coaching knows your methodology and your selling environment. Same for selling and forecasting. So that's great. Unfortunately, none of them knows what the others are finding. So the practice tool learns that a sales rep can't handle a price objection. The coaching tool, not knowing that, works with the rep on something completely unrelated. The manager walks into a one-on-one with no idea that either of those things are happening, let alone what's come out of them. And the forecast tool has no clue that the 2 largest deals are being run by the 2 least proficient sellers. Everything is smart, but it's not compounding, which leads us to the highest level, level 3, which we'll say is a system. All right, I think I went one slide too far there, sorry. The final state is where you get what you get when you have AI that isn't just grounded in your methodology and environment, But it's powering a system that knows your people, where each of these components knows what the other one is seeing and learning. And when it knows who's good at what and surfaces insights where they're needed most, whether that's coaching, learning, selling, or forecasting, you start to get a flywheel effect on performance. Not going to try to illustrate every use case for this. But I do want you to see a couple of examples of what this approach actually looks like in practice. So let's take a look at that. We don't have time to demo all of these, by the way, but I want to stress that everything that you're going to see next is in use today by sales teams. So this isn't slideware, they are pictures of a live system. So let's start with practice. Here, our sales rep, we're going to call her Ava, Ava Bennett is about to practice a very specific skill, the meeting objective and agenda. Now, she's not going to do this with some generic scenario. She's actually going to do this with a scenario that's very specific to her role, her company, her solutions, the people she competes against, and the AI practice partner is going to play the role of a buyer she recognizes with all the background, of people she typically meets with. That is environmental grounding. When she's done, she's going to get detailed feedback about how she executed the skill versus an ideal conversation model of that skill applied in that background, in that environment. So that's methodology grounding. Now, if this is all we have and we're helping Ava develop her skills That's great. But what we really want is for those skills to be applied to real conversations. And the reality is, and anybody that's tried to implement a methodology, been through or implemented sales training knows this, that's probably not going to happen unless Ava is actually coached. Now, it would be great if every manager could track every salesperson's proficiency development, Follow up with each one to address any challenges they're having, help them determine where and when they're going to apply the skills they're developing in the field. Unfortunately, managers rarely have the time, and they may not know the methodology well enough to engage with every seller, meet them wherever they are, and engage with them in this way. But AI does. And because it knows what Ava just demonstrated proficiency with, or what Ava just tried and couldn't do, it can follow up with her right away while it's fresh. And that's what this screen is depicting. And by the way, notice Ava can decide— she has some agency. She can decide if she wants to do this by voice or she wants to do it by text. The AI Skills Coach has total methodology knowledge, and it knows how proficient Ava is, so it can help her if she's stuck. Or it can bridge the gap between practice and application in the field, which is what it's done in this example with Ava. Not only has she demonstrated improved proficiency with a skill, but she's also made a commitment to applying it with 2 real accounts, a commitment, a commitment her manager is also going to see. By the way, side note here, you don't have to take my word for this that this works. Jeff is dropping a link in the chat now where you can go in and you can actually experience a number of different skill paths for yourself so you can see how this all integrates together, the learning and the practice and the coaching conversation in real time. So that's what it looks like, but now it's time for Ava's manager to have their weekly one-on-one. Now we've seen how AI practiced with Ava. We've seen how AI conducted a development review, a coaching conversation with Ava to address any concerns she has or help her decide where she's going to apply it in the field. Now that she's ready to apply that, it's time for the manager to have the conversation. And not only does AI know all this, but it also knows everything else that it has available to it. If it's connected to CRM, it knows Ava's CRM data. If it's connected to the learning system, it knows what Ava has learned, what she's good at. And rather than just presenting all of this to a manager or making it available where a manager can go find it, it's going to provide her manager with insights and recommendations. So it's going to dramatically reduce the prep time and make the meeting faster and more efficient. And it will even intelligently summarize the meeting and create follow-ups for Ava and for her manager and send that out to her. So it doesn't— it's really important to understand this— this does not replace the managers. It provides what they weren't able to do, which is this regular involvement in the rep's development Right? And answering and helping them with the challenges they're having. And it makes it easier to do what only the managers can do. And I love some of the conversations around how AI works with the human part of our jobs. Only the manager can provide that encouragement, support, accountability, and the empathy that Ava needs to achieve her best potential. So these are just 3 examples of what a grounded, properly grounded, integrated AI system can and is doing for sales teams today. And what's really great about this approach is any system is going to get better with time because it gets more and more information about what's working and what isn't working. So here's the question that all of you get to answer for yourselves: which direction is really right for you and your organization? Everyone has essentially the same 4 paths available to them. And there's no solution that we're going to see here or through lots more evaluation that's going to be the solution that everybody should use, including ours, by the way. What's best for your team really depends on your business and your decision criteria. What we can do is help with that part. Even if we don't have the right solution for your team, we can help provide you with the kinds of questions that will allow you to define the path that's best and the solutions that are best for you. And on the screen here, you have just a couple of examples of the kinds of questions we're providing. There's nothing you need to do to get that other than attend today. So you'll either get it in your email or you can hit the link to the blog that Jeff posted because that will also have a link to the tool that has the questions in it. But those questions are designed to help you make the best choice possible. And the reality is that it's likely every salesperson sales team is going to be using some form of AI. And in fact, many are going to use the same AI solutions that know the same things every other AI solution knows. The question is whether yours knows anything that theirs doesn't know.

Good question. Every company will have an AI practice platform. It's just such a fundamental problem to solve, and it's obvious that practice is the next frontier. Yeah, the next frontier. I mean, it's here.

Yeah, absolutely.

I have a question for you, Bob. How does, um, how does the platform know that Ava is using those skills in the field? Is it a mobile app that she's opening and having listen in to a meeting?

Great question, Michael. So today, it's a feedback loop with Ava. So Ava is actually getting a task assigned to her to do what she committed to do. When she closes it, it gets feedback from her about how it went. It doesn't today, it could by the way, and at some point in the future, it might actually listen to Ava on the call and check that way. But that's something that we gotta be real thoughtful about actually implementing.

Yeah.

So the technology is not the issue there. That can be done obviously.

Yeah, so it's a debrief. She's going back into the platform and answering questions. Okay.

Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, that in and of itself is really important because one of the reasons that practice is so essential—it's not just that people get better with more reps; they get more confident with more reps. And so, if she goes and tries it, her experience is really important to take into account because it may be that we need to have a conversation about what went wrong. when she applied it, right? And why she feels like it didn't work the way she expected it to.

Yeah, we are running out of time. Bob, you've done an amazing job. I encourage the audience to click on the link that Jeff just dropped so you can get a demo and also connect with Bob on LinkedIn.

Yep, would love that. Thanks everybody, appreciate it.