Sales leader Kevin "KD" Dorsey argues that predicting when AI will reshape sales matters more than if it will. He points to AI teachers, therapists, and automated appointment-setters already in use, and cites Moore's Law showing how fast technology doubles. The real edge for sales pros is willingness to adapt.
Chapters
1, 2, 3, 4.
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What up, y'all? KD here. Really, really excited to be a part of RevCon this year and to dive into this idea of the future of sales, right? Where are things going? Because the better we are able to predict and adapt, the more set up we will be. So I'm gonna give this a go. I'm not feeling 100% right now, y'all, but I didn't want to miss out on this. So I wanted to make sure that we had a chance to dive into this idea of the future of sales, because if we can nail this, We can start making the changes we need to now to set us up for a better future. So let's dive in here. I'm gonna share my screen and we will rock this. All right, so the future of sales, and you can see there's an asterisk on there for a reason, because can we really predict the future? No, but I'm gonna give you the best bet of what I believe is going to occur over the next 5 to 10 years in our industry. So hopefully leave some ideas on what to do about it. Right? So now we think about predicting the future, right? Can you— like, can you really predict the future, right, with a whole bunch of certainty? If we could, we'd all either be billionaires or everything wouldn't be the issues that they are right now if we could predict it, right? So, but yes and no in terms of predicting the future, right? Because does history repeat itself often? Think about this for a second. Does history repeat itself often? It does. And so if you know that, you can sometimes take a look and go, okay, this has happened before, maybe it will happen again. So we can predict a little bit. But also, are there black swan events? All right, so those of you not familiar with black swan, right, black swan is like it comes out of nowhere. Everybody thought swans were white until they found a black one. There was nothing to predict. There was nothing to even imply that a black swan would exist. All of a sudden it was just there. So similarly, right, things just pop up out of nowhere. that can throw off our perceptions of what's happening. Okay? Right? But interesting enough, predicting the future actually isn't that hard when you really pay attention to things, right? It's predicting when it will occur that is hard. So for example, all of y'all probably have some ideas on some things you think will happen in the future, whether that is things around AI, whether that is flying cars, living on Mars, right? So think about it this way. How many of y'all think we will eventually live on Mars? I think there's a high likelihood, right? But it's when. So technically, we're predicting the future. We will colonize Mars. We just don't know when we will. Artificial intelligence will continue to replace certain roles. We just don't know when it will. Automated cars. We just don't know when it will, right? And so predicting the future, if you think about it, all like the soothsayers of the past and everyone that's ever tried to predict, oftentimes they've actually been right. They just got the when wrong. And so that's the key to remember with predicting the future. It's not always about what will happen. I think a lot of us actually have some ideas on what will happen in the future of sales. It's when and being ready for when it actually occurs. So let's talk about Moore's Law here real quick as we talk about the future, because obviously technology is a huge, huge part of our lives. And you can see here on the image, right? So the idea behind Moore's Law is basically every 2 years Technologies' capacities double, right? It's gotten a little bit different over the last like 4 years because things are accelerating so quickly. But like, look at this image. 2005, 128 megabytes. 2014, 128 gigabytes. And if you look at the thumb drives now, you have terabytes on this size. Every 2 years, just doubling in terms of capacity. So if you think about where technology is now, Look at it. What do tools do now? Where is technology now? Think about what 5 years from now means in terms of how much further along the technology will be. So like, obviously right now, like, you know, you see things dabbling like with auto driving, like with the Teslas. That's now. Can you imagine 5 years from now as it gets doubly better and doubly better in this period of time? Let this sink in for a second because this is important. Right? Because oftentimes we look at how things are now, and we forget how quickly that continues to accelerate. Think about your phone. Think about your phone, right? The capacity it has now, compared to 2 years ago, compared to 4 years ago, compared to 8 years ago. Think about your phone 8 years ago to what it is now. That's how technology is moving. And we need to realize this, right? So think about some of the things that AI is already doing. That's very important, because this is the space, especially in sales. And trust me, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go into this. When we talk about AI replacing us or not, everyone's like, no, impossible. Are you sure? Do you know what AI is actually doing right now already? Do you know there's actually AI teachers out there right now? There's AI therapists out there right now. That's now that Google released this. This was now 2 years ago. They showed a clip of their like AI booking calls, right? Setting appointments like for a salon and for, I think was for a theater. That was 2 years ago. Imagine what that can do in 2 more years, 5 more years around technology. So we need to know this. Now, one caveat I did want to put out here, I've actually spent a lot of time diving into this. This is not me just sitting in like my little office corner here thinking like, here's what I think. Like, I've spent a lot of time reading on what is technology doing, how is it transpiring, because there's so much that we don't even know is happening in our own little bubble. So I did want to give you some of my favorite reads around this so that you can start educating yourself as well. This is not me and just my opinion. This is me reading a lot on this and then looking at my space and then creating an opinion around it, right? So The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly is a great read. Humans Need Not Apply, which is also a great read compared to Only Humans Need Apply. The Future of Artificial Intelligence and Scary Smart. These are some of my favorite reads around how technology is shaping, shifting, and how technology is starting to create technology, right, and how it's able to connect things together that we've never seen before, right? So things around this, I would encourage y'all to really start educating yourself on what technology is doing outside of our space, right? What is technology doing in terms of nature and food and healthcare? All of those things are so important to know as we predict on where things are going. So definitely give some of these a read. They are very interesting, and they might even scare you. A little bit. Okay, so now here's what you got to ask, right? So anyone attending a webinar predicting the future, you have to ask yourself, are you willing to change and adapt? Because if we don't change and adapt, what happens in the future actually doesn't even matter. Doesn't make any difference, right? So the key to all of this is actually being open-minded. I might put some things out in front of you today, you're like, dude, Katie, that is— no, that's ridiculous. That will never happen. But what if it did? What if it did? Would you be prepared for it? Are you willing to change your way of thinking? Because if you're not willing to change, if you're not willing to adapt, then honestly the future doesn't matter because you're still going to be doing the same things you are now, just getting worse results, right? We all know that, that silly analogy, right, where they say if, you know, if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it jumps out right away. But if you heat up the water around it, it doesn't notice until it's too late. They've actually disproven that, but— and I'm sorry for the gruesome imagery, but you get my point here. I truly believe for a lot of us in sales, we are in that boiling water moment right now where things are changing very quickly around us, but we're sitting in it and we don't notice it as much. Whereas if we jumped out for a second and took a broader look at how things are changing on a micro and macro level, we'd be more willing to admit some things are going to change, right? Because this is something we always say we're adaptive. We always say we're willing to change. But y'all know this, right? Like, I get to speak with leaders and reps all the time. All the time. It's my job right now, right? I coach leaders and orgs on how to run a business, how to do sales the right way. And it's still shocking to me how many people will not be happy with the results but still not be willing to change. Well, I don't want to do that. That won't work. It's like, okay, then fine. But these are the things you have to think about, right? Are you willing to change things that you've always done? Because if you're not, again, the future doesn't matter. You can jump off this webinar right now, just go back to doing what you're doing. But if you're trying to adapt for the future, some things are gonna have to change.
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