You don’t need more technology to improve your sales results. The only things you need are a CRM, a source of data, a meeting platform, and some effective digital assets. As sales stacks grow larger, win rates and quota attainment decline.
The promise of technology continues to grow with new developments like artificial intelligence. The explosion of these new technologies is a marvel to behold. It is good to live in the future, but there are some things that technology is missing that can only be provided by a human being.
You are probably already chatting to a large language model that feels human. This version of AI is a parlor trick. There is no intelligence. There is only an algorithm that provides the next word in the sequence to answer a prompt. What follows will be something different, something that Ray Kurzweil suggests will “rupture the fabric of human history.”
If you can set your smartphone down for a few minutes, it is worth meditating on what it means to be a human in a world of artificial intelligence.
Presence
There are some things that provide a human being with an advantage. As technology turns everything into a transaction, humans can compete by being more human. The first of the strategies that provide an advantage is presence.
Recently, I removed my social media apps from my iPhone. This has improved the time I spend with Cher and my family. There is no longer a reason to pick up the phone when there is nothing to see. In a world of distractions, your presence is a gift.
Caring
Technology may at some time pretend to care, but it isn’t going to match humans when it comes to empathy and compassion. Inside the technology, there are only bits and bytes. It’s cold inside technology. When you are ill, would you feel better if a robot held your hand or would you prefer a human being to care for you?
Listening
Both presence and caring precede this critically important interpersonal skill. People want to be seen and heard. They want to be acknowledged. They want to feel that what they say is important. Giving your full attention to another person is a gift. It can create a strong bond and improve your relationship.
Wisdom
Information isn’t the same as wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience, knowledge, and good judgment. When people struggle to make an important decision, especially one that may have negative consequences, they look for someone with the wisdom to help them decide. Artificial intelligence can provide information, but it cannot offer wisdom.
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Empathy
We talk a lot about empathy in business nowadays. We want people to be more empathetic, something that now includes salespeople. Empathy requires emotions. Only sentient beings with a heart are capable of empathy. Dogs display empathy. Technology is not capable of emotion.
Proactivity
Technology is not proactive. It can only respond to commands, prompts, and pre-designed decision trees made by humans. Maybe someday this will change, but until then, human beings are the top of the stack when it comes to proactivity. This is true even though many of us could do a better job of it. If you are in sales, this is one of the important superpowers.
Personality
In B2B sales, people buy from other people. They hope that salespeople have the attributes in this article. They also hope they have a good personality. We can add engagement and entertainments as parts of an attractive personality.
Curiosity
Technology does not have curiosity. Many humans are infinitely curious and interested in their world and how it works. They are the people who are prepared to succeed in business. There is a difference between querying ChatGPT to explain something and doing additional reading and research that is driven by your curiosity.
Actual Intelligence
Humans have actual intelligence that is not artificially programmed. When people need help, they look for others who possess the knowledge and wisdom that comes from experience.
Creativity and Imagination
There would be no technology were it not for human creativity and imagination. Everything on this list comes from human beings imagining something that, up until the moment it was created it was unknown. Imagination is one of the more valuable attributes of human beings.
Opposable Thumbs
We have them. Soon Tesla will offer cars that drive themselves entirely. But, even then, they can’t open a door with a doorknob. One thing you can do with thumbs is unplug your technology. At some point in the future, I expect we will need to unplug several server farms to avoid a crisis of some sort.
Analog Content
My son has around 300 vinyl albums. He also uses Spotify, but I raised him well enough that he prefers vinyl. He must pick up the needle and place it on the record. Analog is not available to digital. When you turn a knob to turn on a fan, you are analog. Those radio waves, also analog. This tangible content ensures we interact in our world in specific and direct ways.
Inefficiency
We are much too concerned with efficiency when we should be concerned with effectiveness and outcomes. This is where we lost the thread. When it comes to interactions with other humans, anything that can be done efficiently can be better accomplished by being purposely inefficient.
Time
Time is one of those investments that pays dividends. Sales leaders who prioritize “sales velocity” trade speed for the better relationships that cause buyers to buy. If you aren’t investing in your prospective clients, you are going to miss deals you might have won, had you given them your time.
Staying Human Alongside Artificial Intelligence
This list above is about your values, skills, and competencies. Yes, your values. As everything becomes technology, your differentiation comes from being human. Physical presence, caring, listening, wisdom, empathy, proactivity, curiosity, personality, and actual intelligence support relationships of value.
