Fee Fi Fo Fum - AI, friend or foe in sales

As Jack hid from the giant that was trying to eat him his purchase of magic beans seemed a mixed blessing. Luckily for Jack things turned out well.

From his perspective.

From the giant’s point of view it’s a different story. Some horrible kid invades his home, steals his gold, chops down his beanstalk then kills him.

So when Top Sales Magazine asked me to write an article on “AI, Friend or Foe in sales” my first thought was ”from whose perspective?”.

Being lazy I started by asking Gemini AI its thought on the pros and cons of AI in B2b sales.

To be fair, its answer wasn’t bad. The style was a bit dry and it was a bit lacking in emotional language (and fairy tale metaphors). But it came up with some excellent bullet points about using AI for Research & Writing in sales. Here’s what Gemini said.

Research

Pros: a) faster insights into a company’s issues; b) predictive power of potential future issues; c) automated alerts.

Cons: a) Information overload; b) Accuracy concerns; c) Inability to factor in emotion.

AI as a wordsmith

Pros: a) Speed of content creation; b) SEO optimization (a bit of a furphy*) c) A/B testing efficiency (another irrelevance).

Cons: a) Lack of originality (yes, in spades – see below); b) Factual errors; c) Missing nuances

Verdict according to Gemini

a) Use AI for insights, not decisions; b) Focus on Relationship building. Both good ideas IMHO so not too bad so far.

(In my opinion SEO and A/B testing are both marketing issues, not sales issues. They also apply more to mass marketing than targeted selling to senior executives which is my area of focus.)

Lack of accuracy is inevitable, because AI gathers information from multiple sources and can’t distinguish accurate sources from inaccurate ones.

Interestingly Gemini didn’t mention one of the biggest advantages – finding companies that fit your ideal Customer Profile, finding the names or decision makers and researching the industry and company to discover likely issues you can help with.

But it was still a decent, if uninspiring effort. ?

How to misuse AI - an example

When Gemini highlighted lack of originality it was right was on the mark. Here's an example:

A while back I updated my LinkedIn profile. I just made some minor changes to a description of my role. LinkedIn deduced – incorrectly - that I had a new job. It created one of it’s silly “I’m delighted to announce I’ve started a new job” posts for me, complete with balloons and childish graphics.

I rewrote the post, beginning with “Can you believe the hackneyed way LinkedIn announces a new job. Talk about AI being boring. Why does anyone use this rubbish?”. I also made it very clear I DIDN’T have a new job.

What happened?

Forty-nine people sent me a direct message saying, “Congrats on the new job” (almost all using exactly the same words). Seven people said “congrats on the new role” in the comments under the post. I’m pretty certain none of them actually read the post (either that or they were terminally stupid) – they just clicked a button with a standard AI generated comment suggested by LinkedIn.

To quote Shania Twain “That Don‘t Impress Me Much”.

Don’t people think that many others will send exactly the same message and they become just one of a crowd spewing out the same hackneyed AI generated crap?

Someone did - seemingly - make an effort to be original. He wrote “The LinkedIn bird flew into my inbox today and told me you have a new position at Executive Sales Coaching Australia. Be sure to take time to celebrate this milestone with family and friends. Life is simply too short to pass up on days like these.” ?Corny, but at least it was different and he made a bit of an effort. Or was it? And did he?

No.

His problem was that the last time I changed my profile he me sent exactly the same message, word for word. Didn’t he realise I could see the same message when I looked at our previous correspondence? He may have written it himself once (I'm not sure AI could be that cringe-inducing) but he obviously sends it out to everyone who updates their profile without looking or thinking.

This shows the biggest disadvantage of AI in sales – drum roll

PEOPLE.

To be exact, the way salespeople will inevitably use it; to do more stupid stuff at scale. To respond to posts without reading them. To write emails exactly like the ones their competitors write. To write “thought leadership” articles on topics they don’t understand.

It also shows why it will be a foe, not a friend, for a critical group of people.

Customers and prospects.

Prospects are already overwhelmed by masses of sales & marketing garbage. If they're seen as a decision maker they receive a blizzard of emails, LinkedIn InMails and phone calls. Many of which are irrelevant or follow the "This is what we do, we're great, buy my stuff/ask for my white paper/see my demo/give me just 30 minutes" model.

It will be much worse when AI really takes off. Not only will they be bombarded with more garbage, it won’t even be garbage written by a human being.

Artificial Intelligence is a tool and a bandwaggon - and people have a long history of jumping on the latest bandwagon in such numbers that the wheels fall off.

Email begat spam. The phone begat cold calls, SMS begat spam texts, autodiallers begat faster spam calls. ?LinkedIn is crammed with “just 30 minutes” or “follow my boring page” messages.

As Mario Martinez, MD of Vengreso, developer of FlyEngage AI says, “a fool with a tool is still a fool.” Like me he knows human engagement is essential for success with AI.

But AI isn’t going away. Luckily there are many ways it can help you sell more effectively. It’s great for research, brilliant for finding companies that fit your Ideal Customer Profile, useful for giving you insights and ideas and identifying issues your prospects have that you can help with.

But only if you use it as a guide, not a master.

Sadly many salespeople (worse still, marketers) will use it badly. This will turn prospects off even more than they are turned off now.

Imagine trying to contact someone you really, really want to talk to when you’re competing with a thousand bots churning out a snowstorm of irrelevant rubbish. It's by no means impossible but it requires that rarest of commodities (so it seems, I may be a tad cynical) - intelligent thought.

Salespeople who use it AI intelligently to identify organisations that have issues they can help with, to find the decision makers they need to communicate with, to understand their perspective and priorities and then engage directly one on one as a human being will be streets ahead of those trying to do daft things “at scale”.

The biggest advantage of AI is that it helps you think and strategise.

The biggest disadvantage is it encourages you to act without thinking.

Written and authorised by HAL.

*Furphy - Australian slang for an erroneous or improbable story that is claimed to be factual.

Furphy originated in the First World War from the name painted on water and sanitary carts manufactured by the Furphy family of Shepparton, Victoria. During the war they became popular as a place where soldiers exchanged gossip and told tall tales, often when visiting the latrines.

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This is an expanded version of an article that appeared in Top Sales Manazine in July 2024. Here's the picture that came with it. I prefer my spider.

Please like and comment on this article to make sure the spider stays away from your house.