Automation, Evil Geniuses, and the End of Outreach

Discover how automation is reshaping the landscape of sales outreach, from cold calls to emails, and what it means for the future of personal connection in sales.

The young, evil genius connected with me on LinkedIn to share his new creation. He built an automation that makes 30,000 cold calls without human intervention. It then schedules meetings on your calendar. I explained that I am firmly opposed to this automation.

Vint Cerf, a pioneer in computer science, said, “I've come to learn that pornographers are almost always the first ones to adopt new technology. If there is a new way of distributing their product, they'll find it.” As it pertains to using AI, the pornographers are no match for those evil geniuses ensuring cold outreach becomes close to impossible.

Revolution in Sales Outreach: Beyond Emails and Calls

Recently, Google and Yahoo announced that any domain sending over 5,000 emails in a single day with three spam complaints will suffer the death penalty. These companies may have come to this decision because of the automation of email enabled by AI, “personalizing” the email message. When there is no person, there can be no personalization. This clever use of AI and email is a parlor trick.

Those who email to their prospective clients will have better odds of winning the lottery than getting their emails read. The overwhelming amount of email flooding everyone’s inbox is great enough that many delete anything and everything that isn’t important enough to deserve their attention. An email from a salesperson has the same chance of the contact reading the email as the sender acquiring a pet unicorn. In fact, the unicorn may be more likely.

The End of Traditional Phone Calls in Sales

One person automating cold calls isn’t a problem. Even if a single automation makes 30,000 calls, that is a small number on an average day in the United States. The real danger is that many other companies will replace their SDRs with automation. In the same way that email and fully automated prospecting sequences have ruined your ability to reach contacts in their inboxes, automated cold calls will have people avoiding their phones.

You and your contacts probably approach unknown callers the same way. When an incoming call comes from your area code, you are certain it is from a group of criminals trying to gain access to your debit or credit card. The more sales organizations adopt these types of automations, the more challenging it will be to reach your contact.

Automation in Sales: A Double-Edged Sword

One company using automation is not a problem. The second company using automation is a problem. The third company is a bigger problem. As more companies enter the automation war, each company makes more automated calls to ensure they keep pace with their rivals.

Let us call this newfound automation vocal spam. If you believe your contacts don’t particularly enjoy taking cold calls, imagine how they will feel about automated cold calls. Thanks to the constant ringing of vocal spam, when you make a cold call, your contact may be even more grouchy than they used to be.

Embracing Timeless Sales Practices

For those of us who practice this craft we call selling, the advantage accrues to us. Some things don’t change. In The Only Sales Guide You'll Ever Need, the third chapter was on caring, which some suggested didn’t belong in the book. Caring is a variable when creating and winning sales opportunities.

When a salesperson uses automation, it sends a message that the sales organization is not willing to provide you with a human to help you. It is just another way sales organizations regress into transactional sales strategies in a time when buyers and decision makers need more help.

One who seeks better sales results would do better by becoming an expert and an authority in their industry. In Elite Sales Strategies: A Guide to Being One-Up, Creating Value, and Becoming Truly Consultative, you will find advice on how to pursue creating value for your clients.

Given a choice between having a robot make cold calls or developing a relationship of trust, the latter will do more to improve your results than automation. Empathy, deep understanding, and experience is a better bet when reaching your sales goals. There is nothing more human than human, even if our technology feels like it is sentient.

The Unchanging Truth of Sales

For as long as there have been humans, we have tried to acquire an outcome without having to do the work. Be it weight loss, making money, or something else that requires effort, like making a phone call to a prospective client to schedule a first meeting.

Sales, however, is different. It is a conversation about change. It comes with uncertainty and a risk of getting the decision wrong and harming their business. Leaders have always sought experts to help them make important decisions. Those who believe that automation will improve their sales results would do better to build value creators with the ability to help leaders make the decisions that will solve their client’s problems by helping them produce the strategic outcomes they need to succeed.

Picking Sides: The Choice You Must Make

Each of us must decide between automation or being human, something you are already. I am firmly in Camp Human. There are better uses of automation than cold calls. Automating cold calls suggests your contact is nothing more than a wallet you want to reach into to grab the cash and run.

The fact one can do something doesn’t mean they should. This is especially true when one does something that harms others by making it more difficult for them to produce the outcome for which they are responsible.