Maximizing Sales Success: How AI Transforms Sales Strategies and Enhances Human Connections

Imagine a world where AI helps you sell smarter, not harder. Welcome to the future of sales innovation.

Your phone rings, and the robot greets you with hello. You knew it was a robocall because the number it came from started with your area code. In the past, you might have been unhappy with humans calling your phone. Now, robots are doing the work that some people don’t enjoy, like cold calling.

This suggests that the company making the call believes you are not worthy of a human being’s time.

Should you speak to the robot, you will hear a human scrambling to take your call, armed with a pitch for something you certainly do not want or need, causing you to hang up on the poor person.

Right now, we are just at the beginning of artificial intelligence replacing human beings in sales. Large language models are effective enough to hold a meaningful conversation with a person, but those of us who enjoy helping others solve their problems and improve their results prefer to engage with people face to face.

Positive Applications of AI in Sales Processes

Despite the many bad ways AI is deployed in sales, there are many ways to use it well. To do this, salespeople can use the technology to support and amplify their abilities while maintaining the critical person-to-person connection that drives successful sales relationships.

• Meeting Preparation Made Smarter: You can ask AI to help you prepare for client meetings by analyzing your past conversations, the data you captured, and market trends. If you are not using AI for this application, you should consider adopting this strategy.
• Personalized Sales Content for Better Results: In The AI Edge, a book I co-wrote with Jeb Blount, we discussed personalization by tailoring presentations and proposals while leaving the critical human element to handle the interaction.
• Streamlined Administrative Support: We are at a point where AI can handle scheduling, follow-up reminders, and updates from your CRM. With these tasks managed for you, you gain more time for face-to-face conversations.
• Real-Time Sales Intelligence Insights: Some AI systems provide real-time insights during calls or meetings, supporting you in the sales conversation.
• Enhanced Sales Training Opportunities: There are already training functions that can help salespeople improve their effectiveness without practicing on prospective clients. The AI systems I’ve seen are highly effective, grading sales reps and offering valuable feedback. With the right learning paths and scenarios, many reps could benefit from this application of AI.
• Post-Meeting Analysis for Continuous Improvement: If you haven’t yet uploaded a transcript of your meetings to an AI platform, it’s worth your time. AI can analyze sales conversations and provide feedback and coaching to improve your approach in future meetings.

In each of these cases, AI serves as a tool to enhance human capabilities rather than replace the essential human element in sales relationships.

AI Replacing Sales Roles and Functions

While automated systems may increase efficiency in certain scenarios, they risk losing the valuable human connection and emotional intelligence that experienced salespeople bring to complex sales situations. This automation-first approach often prioritizes volume and speed over relationship building and understanding unique customer needs.

• Automated Cold Calling for Lead Qualification: AI is being used to make initial contact calls, qualify leads, and schedule appointments, reducing the need for human involvement.
• Chatbot Sales on the Rise: Chatbots appeared on websites some time ago, offering limited functionality that often caused users to abandon the chatbot in favor of finding a human to engage with. I am certain many deals were lost due to this strategy's inability to provide sufficient help.
• Automated Email Campaigns That Miss the Mark: The reason no one opens, let alone reads, your cold emails is that large companies have over-automated email sequences. Worse, these sequences continue sending emails even though earlier ones were never opened.
• Virtual Sales Assistants for Simple Products: While rare, these assistants handle the entire sales process for simple products, from the first connection to contract signing.
• Efficient Automated Order Processing: AI systems now manage the complete order cycle, from initial quote to fulfillment. This seems to be a task well-suited for automation.
• Smarter Lead Scoring and Routing: AI can handle lead scoring and routing effectively.

For as long as I have been writing here at www.thesalesblog.com, I have recognized that some sales organizations want to treat selling as a transaction, leading them to rely on technology for tasks better handled by salespeople. If you were to examine some of the points above, certain sales organizations might be better off selling their products on Amazon.

A few months ago, Google deleted one of my domains. It took more than four weeks to recover it. Until I acquired an expert, I struggled to solve the problem, even after trying everything myself.

Use AI to enhance human connections by taking care of simple tasks that are not client centric. This frees you up to spend more time on what matters—and what only a human can do. If you keep your client at the center of your sales approach, it will become clear when AI is helpful and when it is potentially harmful.

No level of automation can prioritize the relationship with the client because relationships are human. Instead, AI will seek quicker, more efficient outcomes. In many cases, it is unable to resolve a client’s problem in a way that demonstrates their time and business are valuable. Use AI wisely and consider your clients’ experiences. Don’t sacrifice your relationships in the name of efficiency.