AI and Sales: Why You Shouldn’t Sweat

Being as that I am a Computer Information Systems major, I feel that I should talk a little bit about technology and it’s effects on sales. It is a pretty common topic in the world today- how computers are going to take away many jobs across the board. You may have noticed an increase in self-checkouts at the store, or self-service touchscreens in fast food joints. Technology such as this even has salespeople shaking in their boots. However, I found an article that explains why salespeople should not be worried about AI and Sales. According to the author, Kyle Porter, AI will never replace an excellent salesperson.

Porter explains that salespeople exhibit six very humanly traits or themes that enable them to connect with prospects. The traits are:

1. Being caring toward prospects and persistent in solving their pain
2. Personalization and differentiation
3. Not particularly enjoying manual tasks (taking notes, button clicking)
4. Exercising the emotional aspects of sales
5. Competitiveness
6. Creating trust that makes prospects feel safe in their buying decisions

Porter suggests that these traits cannot be easily substituted by a robot. If anything, AI and sales will come together to actually enhance the abilities of the salesperson. For example, it is likely that salespeople will take advantage of AI to aid in qualifying leads by sorting through the vast amounts of information at hand.

At the end of the day the prospect will want to engage with a real, genuine person, because this evokes trust. Each and every one of us have an identity- we love, hate, get distracted by, and think about many things. This causes us to be relatable to our prospects, thus building trust. Trust is perhaps the most important ingredient in a sales situation that ends well. With this being said, salespeople will continue to have conversations, or “meetings of the minds,” to connect with prospects. If anything, AI in sales will only strengthen the best salespeople.