Why AI isn’t showing up in your results

Conversation after conversation with revenue leaders have been evolving into two conclusions lately:

1. AI is changing so much. We knew we had to do something, so we bought a bunch of stuff, and tried a bunch of stuff. Nothing actually moved the needle. We’re feeling behind, so our priority is making sure we don’t get lapped.
2. We all agree that the human element is quickly becoming more important to differentiate, not less.

There’s this perception across organizations that AI can do so much more than what’s actually happening within their organizations. Maybe it’s the Facebook effect (which I think I just made up – although I know there was a book written about the company itself by that title), where we feel, from reading the social posts, that everyone’s life is better than ours.

If I were back in a C-seat role, I’d probably be thinking this right now, too. In fact, for the last couple of months, I’ve been feeling that way in my own business.

As I’ve dug in further, while also studying the history of advanced technology breakthroughs applied to the world of sales and business, I have a theory as to what’s going on. 

Could it be that we are placing so much of our attention, training, and enablement energy on the technology, and forgetting to place as much attention on point #2 above…the human element?

We’ve Experienced This Before

Back in the early 1900s, the telephone was going to change selling…and it absolutely did. Prior to its arrival and subsequent slow pervasiveness into the world of selling, salespeople had to be face-to-face with every prospect and customer. 

The telephone had the potential to change that. It became all the buzz. Companies sprang up everywhere selling technology, and selling the dream that your salespeople no longer have to physically travel to communicate with their customers. Businesses could reach customers faster, at a lower cost. Salespeople to talk to many more customers in a day….across much wider geographies.

Companies then focused their attention on the technology. It didn’t take long for the salespeople to forget that there was a human, just like them, on the other end of the phone. Companies made “scale” the priority. The pendulum swung towards technology, then swung back towards humanity, and eventually settled in the middle.

We can say the same thing about email, which became pervasive decades later.

Then again with eCommerce. 

As a matter of fact, even before the telephone came, the concept of combining mail order catalogs and advertising. Companies thought that if they nailed that combination, 

“A large number of concerns who still employ salespeople have practically eliminated salespeople from their business-getting plan, in favor of advertising.”

“A salesperson is no longer the essential factor in marketing wares, since advertising has become so generally popular and so prolific a source of orders.”

“The catalog order craze practically puts a salesperson out of business.”

These quotes are all from 1907. 

The Pendulum Swings Again

I’ve been ear-deep in studying the philosophies of the selling wizards from the early 1900s. Arthur Sheldon, the GOAT of them all, believed that our capacity to sell and serve depended on four elements, which he called AREA:

• Ability – the knowledge, skill, and judgment to know what should be done
• Reliability – the character, trustworthiness, and ethics to make others believe in you
• Endurance – the physical and mental capacity to keep going and perform consistently
• Action – actually doing the things you know need to be done.

Thinking through the AREA framework through the lens of AI. Which one of these four is currently being changed the most? 

I’d argue that AI is increasingly supplementing the first one…our Ability. It’s giving us knowledge, information, analysis, and even guidance instantly.

AI represents an extraordinary expansion of human ability. I’m using it every day. It’s helping with the research; it’s creating messaging, summarizing our conversations, identifying coaching opportunities, and building proposals that, not long ago, took us hours to do. That’s awesome. 

But what happens to the other three? Reliability, Endurance, and Action?

The pendulum has swung, in terms of our attention and focus, hard towards the technology side.  I may be wrong here, but that’s how it feels…we’re in a race to teach people how to use the technology.

But doesn’t that also potentially mean we’re underinvesting in the HUMAN capabilities we all agree will likely matter MORE because of AI?

One CRO recently told me about a conversation he had with another CRO. Their reps don’t even know how to dress for a face-to-face meeting, much less have one. It’s like we’ve turned salespeople into computer programmers!

AI isn’t making customers trust you, believe you’re reliable, be someone who always does what you say you’re going to do, work through problems with you, and take action. AI can support those things, but not outsource them.

Why AI isn’t showing up in your results

When we spend all of our time on the AI stuff, our ability to leverage it to our advantage goes up. However, at the same time, when we don’t spend any time enhancing our capabilities to be human beings, serving our prospects and customers reliably, with endurance, and taking action, we end up right in the middle again, don’t we? No growth. One side went up, the other went down, and here we are in the middle.

In other words, I am not saying you should stop the AI train. 

The telephone gave sellers greater ability to reach customers, but not how to act when we have them.

Email gave sellers another incredible communication gift, but didn’t teach them to write and be human.

The internet and eCommerce provided buyers and sellers exponentially greater access to information.

Every time, we swung hard towards the technology. Every time we underinvested in our differentiator, being a human being.

As Arthur Sheldon wrote in 1911,

“True salesmanship is the science of service. Grasp that thought firmly and never let go.” – The Art of Selling

In other words, we’ve got to keep making sure the investment in humanness (if that’s a word) is keeping pace. 

Am I off?

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Todd Caponi, CSP® fell into sales and fell in love with the decision science and history behind it. He’s held multiple sales leadership roles, helping build one company into Chicago’s fastest-growing, another to an IPO and nearly $3B acquisition, and earning a Stevie Award as Worldwide VP of Sales. Todd is the author of The Transparency Sale, ranked by Book Authority among the best sales books of all time, and the award-winning The Transparent Sales Leader. His latest book, Four Levers Negotiating, was released on January 27th. He now speaks and teaches revenue teams worldwide and hosts The Sales History Podcast.

Reach out (email to info@toddcaponi.com) – for inquiries about speaking at your event or sales kickoff, for programs to upskill your customer-facing teams and leaders, or just to nerd out on sales or sales history.

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