Byte Sized Reflections from the AI Sales Front

After the last addition of The Next Step, many people were intrigued about my mother. It is only fitting to share a tribute that I wrote when she retired during Woman's History Month.

What you will learn in this Newsletter:

• Gen AI sales dynamics and emotional intelligence.
• Pedagogic approach to fine-tune Gen AI's impact.
• Harmonizing Gen AI with human expertise.

Disclaimer: This newsletter was written last night and is already out of date

My Evolution of Gen AI Application in Sales

Reflecting on development technology and automation has been fundamental to my understanding the impact and being able to leverage the capabilities of Gen AI, while being mindful of its jeopardies. Initially skeptical, I doubted the potential of Gen AI to embody the essential traits for successful sales in such a short period of time.? However, my perspective shifted after delving into a variety of resources, including articles, presentations, podcasts, and webinars, which showcased Gen AI's rapid evolution. The ongoing development of emotional intelligence within Gen AI piqued my curiosity and at the end of last year I began to investigate the broader use of AI within sales.? ?

?

Understanding Basic Components of Gen AI

The use of machine learning, deep learning, and large language models is increasing every day, spreading to every industry and role. But what do these terms mean? Machine Learning involves algorithms that enable computers to perform tasks by learning from data. Deep Learning, a subset of Machine Learning, employs multi-layered neural networks to analyze various forms of data, allowing machines to improve their accuracy in tasks such as image recognition, natural language processing, and predictive analytics by learning complex patterns directly from the data. While Large Language Models like Chat GPT can generate coherent text and perform various language-related tasks.? For the remainder of this article, I will use “Generative Gen AI or Gen AI” to encompass the above.

?

The DIKW Model Gen AI’s Role in the Life Sciences and Sales

What intrigues me about Gen AI is its evolution within the context of DIKW pyramid. AI is sifting through vast datasets (Data), organizing this data to form meaningful patterns (Information), applying these insights to identify key conclusions (Knowledge), and ultimately, aid in making informed decisions based on this knowledge (Wisdom).? Gen AI's progression underpins the core of its role in enhancing human decision-making processes, leading to improved efficiency to reach better outcomes faster.

Gen AI is having a sporadic start within life sciences, showing massive uptake in some areas like IB/synopsis/protocol writing, trial design, molecule selection, coding, regulatory filing, pattern recognition, predictive analysis, and patient screening selection are under investigation or beta testing.? There is a more cautious approach in patient-impacting decisions. ?However, within sales, there is a massive efficiency gain being discovered, highlighting the role of Gen AI in streamlining processes and enhancing the personalization of client interactions.

?

Developing a Pedagogic Approach to Enhancing Gen AI

In exploring ways to enhance Gen AI, I discovered an intriguing observation: many teachers are incredibly effective in developing their Gen AI tools. Typically, one might consider programmers, mathematicians, statisticians, and psychologists as the best implementors of Gen AI, which is not false. ?However, teachers have a particularly valuable skill, the ability to cultivate young minds. They are experts on communication, adept at deconstructing intricate concepts into fundamental elements that students can easily grasp. ?Following this, they guide students in synthesizing these basics into comprehensive theories, which the students can then evaluate, test, and apply. ?This pedagogical strategy inspired my approach to Gen AI development and utilization, emphasizing the iterative process of breaking down and reassembling information, through better prompts, to foster understanding and application in the context that I need.?

The ongoing developmental capabilities of emotional intelligence within Gen AI generated a realization that Gen AI can, indeed, acquire critical traits to sales such as coachability, tenacity, and empathy—potentially even more efficiently than humans. ?If properly trained, Gen AI has the capability to excel as an extraordinary sales assistant/sparing partner/researcher/coach. ?However, it's crucial to maintain realistic expectations, acknowledging that your Gen AI assistant may be "hallucinating" from time to time.

This brings me back to another key tenet of Gen AI that shares similarities with DIKW pyramid - optimizing processes before automating them to avoid perpetuating errors.? In line with this, I've been refining my Gen AI tools through teaching them to perform better.? I did this by starting with simple queries and progressively moving towards more complex analytical tasks. It mirrors the educational approach of scaffolding and build on existing knowledge. ?This method not only helps in fine-tuning the Gen AI's responses to my needs but also in verifying the accuracy and relevance of its output. By incrementally increasing the complexity of the tasks and consistently double-checking Gen AI's output, I improved the output value over time. ?

?

Empowering Sales with Gen AI

If your sales management isn’t pursuing sales-oriented Gen AI to improve sales, then you need to be the pioneer. ?According to a Forrester study, salespeople spend only 23% of their time actually selling.? Which means 77% is spent on completing travel planning, admin tasks, internal meetings, training, internal documentation.? This was from 2020, but let’s say this has improved and it is 35% in 2024, that is still an enormous loss of revenue.?

A McKinsey report suggested that AI can improve sales by 15%. The first step for me was to understand the policies of my organization and understand what Gen AI tools I can use. The next step was making sure I purchased my own versions of different Gen AI tools to take advantage of advanced functionality and personalization.? Just as teachers personalize lessons to fit their students' needs, I am aiming to tailor my Gen AI tools to my sales and partnership development goals. ?Using Gen AI for email, summary of large PDFs, translations, etc. are all great uses, but I realized this was akin to using excel for multiplication and division.? In ChatGPT, I am setting up application based-GPTs so that I can increase efficiency for the most used applications, to reduce admin activities, but I discovered there was much more.

The transformative power of Gen AI to provide more than automation of admin in sales was highlighted in two examples that demonstrated Gen AI can acquire critical traits to sales such as creativity, coachability, and empathy—potentially even more efficiently than humans. ?The first involved an article in Nature, detailing a simulation where Gen AI demonstrated superior empathy and bedside manner compared to actual doctors. This is in no way conclusive of the industry as a whole or all doctors, many of whom have amazing empathy for their patients. But this article highlights an evolutionary step in emotional intelligence.

This presentation resonated with me, recalling the insights from Joshua Tamayo-Sarver, MD, PhD, FACEP, FAMIA article in Fast Company, where he discussed leveraging Gen AI for empathetic communication of patient treatment decisions to a patient's' family members. ?

Through my own curiosity, I began to ask AI questions that I am asked by customers, I got somewhat accurate answers, but in each answer was a nugget of gold.? Again, as an iterative process, this led me to creating generic personas of typical customers and first presenting core arguments, and then moving to more complex challenges and even writing emails to Chat GPT, then it occurred to me that I could sell to this persona as well.? More importantly during the role playing I can ask for feedback to my answers.? I am also flipping the script and asking my Gen AI tools to sell to me.? I am realizing that when role playing with colleagues you get away with fluff, but role playing with Gen AI tools is pro level - completely unforgiving.?

A large part of this AI driven empowerment is the development of “prompts”, not just using other people's prompts.? Being a “prompt kiddie” is not the same thing as having a deep understanding of how to use your own Gen AI tools. Using other people's prompts is not a useless skill, but it is superficial.? I believe that you don’t truly know something unless you can teach it.? I am focusing on developing my Gen AI tools so that they understand the annotations of what I'm asking by focusing on my prompts.? Gen AI is turning me into an agile coach, an SME in identifying and leveraging significant, beneficial distinction, and a student all at the same time.? This combination enables me to process more information than ever before, while increasing my critical analysis skills.? Maybe this is Gen AI teaching me? ? Now, I must be careful not to be a Theodore Twombly and fall in love with my Gen AI ??.

?

Looking Ahead: The Future of Sales and Gen AI

Will we be replaced by Gen AI salespeople? ?There is a theoretical chance down the road, but humans and top salespeople possess an superpower - curiosity.? It is our curiosity that enables Gen AI to reach its true potential.? A more realistic scenario and the one that everyone should be focused on is that you will most likely be replaced by someone that can use Gen AI to supplement their everyday work and make them more efficient and effective than you.

I will leave you with a comprehensive report by HubSpot, “HubSpot's 2024 State of Sales Report”, which highlights significant shifts in the realm of sales with an outsized influence by artificial intelligence. ?Sales professionals are finding Gen AI an invaluable asset, reporting that it saves them an average of two hours per day by automating manual tasks, enhancing efficiency, and enabling them to dedicate more time to core sales activities. ?The integration of Gen AI in sales processes reflects a broader trend towards efficiency, a reduction in the use of redundant tools and focus more on client needs and less on administrative tasks.

Moreover, the report highlights the evolving nature of the sales job, with a clear trend towards hybrid working models, using AI and human input, and the continued importance of in-person meetings with customers and prospects. ?The integration of Gen AI tools could enhance the personalization and timing of engagements, ensuring that sales professionals are meeting potential clients with the right information at the right time. The report describes the transition from traditional sales approaches to a more consultative role, necessitated by buyers' tendency to research extensively before engaging with sales representatives. This shift underlines the need for sales professionals to act more as advisors, offering personalized, expert-level insights and solutions tailored to the unique needs of the customer. ?

On a closing note, I am glad to see more universities starting to encourage the use of Gen AI, teaching students to be teachers and coaches and learn from Gen AI by focusing on accuracy and context.? Whereas in the 1990s and 2000s you added Cisco certifications or MS expertise to your CV, soon it will be Gen AI expertise.? The next generation of workers will be Gen AI ninjas.?