Morgan J Ingram discusses whether FaceTime works for prospecting and explores how sales development is changing with automation and AI. The conversation covers time blocking, staying personal as technology advances, and what sales roles will look like going forward.
Time blocking is very interesting, and it's a very. I think it's. People see it as an elementary topic, yet people don't do it. And the main reason that people don't do it and they don't go about it is because it's. You're like, okay, I got it. Like, it's very simple to be like, I'm good, right? I don't need the time block. I'm going to do these things regardless. And what happens is you don't end up doing those things. You end up wasting a lot of your time and. And you end up being in a spot where things are harder than what you thought they were going to be. The hardest part is getting rid of your ego to. To be like, oh, I'm going to figure this out myself. That's just a recipe for disaster. You could take that route if you want to, but you're not going to get awarded for being a hero. So you might as well ask the questions, figure out what's going on, and then allow and then basically take that information so that you can be successful in what you're doing. I wasn't naturally just good at saying I wasn't naturally good at the things that I did. I had to time block it because I'm ADD and I'm a squirrel. So the thing is, is that I needed those time blocks to be successful. That's why I'm able to talk to it in confidence and with clarity, because I do it myself. You'll notice if someone doesn't really done something, they can't articulate it with confidence. And that's the difference. To really be a great sales professional, to be in the top 1%, it's not just about the sales skills, you know, it's about the mental and it's about the stuff you're doing outside of work. So we're interviewing people that are founders, that are sales professionals, and getting their understanding of, like, what are you actually doing? Because I think a lot of people only see the posts that people post and they have a certain perspective of them and they don't really know what they do behind the scenes and the work that they've done to get there.
A lot of SDs I speak to are kind of scared, you know, because they're scared that role would kind of, you know, not remain in the next couple of years will be replaced by automation, bots, tools, whatnot. And while people want to be optimistic, hopefully we also want to be realistic as well. And since you are in that place where you can, and especially a lot of my SDRs are selling into the US they probably don't have the entire idea about what's happening out there. So, yeah, if you can maybe talk about what do you think the sales development future kind of looks like. You think SDRs will be replaced? You think automation will take over? That's also one of the question I ask you during my interviews and I get a mixed response. So, yeah, I'm open to hear your thoughts.
So this is my response to it all, is when you call. Let's. Delta. Delta is a good example. Airlines, right? You call the airlines, you need to change your flight. You don't want to go through the email. How annoyed do you get when you get the robot?
A lot. I mean, if you ask me, I would rather have an assistant who would do that for me.
That's my answer. Like every single person has not. No one has told me, yeah, I really love talking to the robot. No one has said that. So until people tell me that they like talking to the robot, automation and AI cannot take over. Because then you've, you've answered your question. You're already annoyed with the people at the airlines. You call to get an appointment and you get the automated dialogue. It's like, oh, I'm gonna help you. It does not help you at all. And you end up getting more frustrated. And then you're like, I don't even want to deal with this. And then you might even cancel what you were trying to either adjust or buy more of. So my take is that, like, as long as people continuously tell me that they get frustrated by the, the robot that talks to you before you talk to a real person, then that's the case. Because you wouldn't have called if you didn't. If you, if you knew that it was going to be a robot, you're trying to talk to a real person. So to go back to the point is, I don't see automation and AI taking over anything. What I do see it eliminating is people who are lazy and not willing to put in the work. You should be terrified. If you're not leveling up and you've been coasted, yeah, you should, you should probably be really scared right now. But if you've been doing the work, if you've been leveling up, if you've been skilling up, you should be pumped because you're just going to be able to use the AI and automation to eliminate the tasks that are taking you away from your active selling time anyways. So the future of sales ultimately is be progressive and innovate.
I'm sure you're aware of the whole FaceTime or no FaceTime debate, right?
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I was talking to somebody yesterday. It's actually. It's actually funny because about maybe it was three. Gotta be like two, maybe two and a half, three years ago. I was joking. I was joking around about it with a leader and another friend of mine, Kevin Dorsey, kd. We were just joking about it. I was like, cold. FaceTime is the next movement. So I was. I said this like two and a half, three years ago. But I just. I mean, I never, like, did it, but I was like. I was like, oh, we post about it. But I was like, I don't think anyone's ready for that right now. So it's just funny how this is coming about. I'm like, I knew it was gonna come at some point. So it's just funny because, like, we literally were talking about this like two and a half years ago, three years ago. So I. Hopefully people see it as a joke and don't actually take it seriously and try to be like, I want to do this because I would recommend you not to do that.
I think, I think we can. We can use it in a lot of ways. Like I said, you know, I use that in the follow up. I think I can use that in my subject line. Hey, FaceTiming you tomorrow. Come on.
