How to Learn AI for Sales - Where to Start
Jordan Ledwein
The AI Sales Guy - I help sales teams Sell Smarter - Sandler Trainer & HubSpot Partner
This article marks the 1 year anniversary of The AI Sales Guy Newsletter!
Thank you to everyone who has subscribed and kept up with the articles, posts, whitepaper, webinars, and more along the way.
I've made some great new connections, rekindled some old ones, and the best part about learning about AI hasn't been the tech; it has been the people who have joined me along the way.
After 13 articles and 800+ subscribers, I've learned a lot about AI - and hopefully you have too! It looks like this is just the beginning when it comes to the impact of AI.
A lot of people ask me, "If I want to learn AI, where do I even start?"
So let's go back to the basics - and expand on them.
My goal for all of the content I released last year was for it to act as a starting place to learn AI as a sales professional.
But in addition to the content I released last year, below is a list of:
Top AI Creators on LinkedIn
This will not be a comprehensive list as it is growing by the day, but there are a few people that consistently create incredible content that is worth reading.
These creators focus on using AI, automation, or tech in sales and business ownership.
Matthew Lakajev - Matthew is a great resource when it comes to understanding how to capitalize on the power of AI on LinkedIn. And he shares a ton of posts that you should really have to pay to see - but he shares it for free.
Matthew is also the fastest growing LinkedIn profile in Australia...and used to work for Zoom.
Bjion Henry - Bjion is similar to Matthew in the sense that you should really have to pay to follow him and see his posts because they are that valuable. I've learned a lot from him and you will too.
Bjion started his career with Google and since then, he has Founded multiple tech startups including Navreo.ai.
Ruben Hassid - Ruben is another great resource. And while his content isn't 100% focused on selling with AI like Matthew & Bjion, I have learned a lot from his prompting techniques and posts.
And a few others worth checking out as well:
A lot of people are talking about AI right now, and some of the information I am seeing appears to be a human hallucination...or at least, more confusing than helpful.
Hallucination (n.) - incorrect or misleading results that AI models can generate due to insufficient training data or other factors.
In 2024, my focus for using AI in sales is SIMPLIFICATION.
How can we use tech and AI to simplify the role of the salesperson?
Not adding more tools and activities to complicate the process and overwhelm sellers.
Instead, adding tech strategically and intentionally so it integrates together and streamlines the sales process and role for the sales team.
领英推荐
I am building my presentation for the 2024 Sandler Summit in March on this exact topic right now (and I hope to see you there)!
But in case you can't make it, below is a list of articles I highly recommend reading (or at least skimming...or having ChatGPT summarize). I am using a lot of the data from these articles to build my presentation for the upcoming Summit.
Top AI Articles, Whitepapers, and Surveys for Sales
Sandler: 20 Tested ChatGPT Prompts for Salespeople - I was fortunate enough to write this article with Sandler Legends, Jody Williamson and Mike Montague , and we won the Gold Award for Top Sales Whitepaper of 2023!
Sell Smarter: A Sales Rep's Guide to Selling with ChatGPT - Prompts are great, but if you don't know HOW to communicate with ChatGPT, then you're stuck copying and pasting prompts that have worked for others. I created this whitepaper in an attempt to explain everything you need to know to get started and get better responses when using ChatGPT.
Harvard Business Review: Sellers Are Overwhelmed by New Technology - This article is the backbone for my "AI-Powered Selling" presentation. It is a review of a Gartner study on the top AI use cases in selling and how the role of the seller could transform in the future.
Gartner: Seller of the Future - What does the future hold for salespeople? What skills will be most critical? What will be the relationship between sales reps and tech? This article answers all of that and more.
HubSpot: Smarter Selling with AI - If you know me, you know I am all about Selling Smarter & HubSpot. This HubSpot article dives into the key's to Selling Smarter with AI!
Salesforce: State of Sales 2023 - You might recognize a few graphics from this presentation that I have used in past newsletters and presentations. This article is full of great data and insights to help us understand selling today and in the future.
I can almost guarantee you that you will find value and new perspectives after reading the articles above.
In addition to following the top AI creators on LinkedIn and checking out the articles above, there are a few other resources available for those looking to dive deep into AI.
Other AI Resources
IBM: AI Fundamentals - as a millennial, I'm a big fan of YouTube videos that I can listen to while I'm driving or doing other tasks. This YouTube playlist from IBM is filled with close to 20 videos to help you understand AI. They also have free AI courses on a site called SkillsBuild.
Google: Introduction to Generative AI - this free course from Google will introduce you to Generative AI and walk through the key concepts needed to understand AI.
OpenAI: Prompt Engineering Guide - what better place to learn prompt engineering than from the creators of ChatGPT??
If I were to start learning AI from scratch, I would start with one of the resources I listed above. But like anything, you can't master it if you don't use it yourself.
In Sandler, we talk about the 4-step path to mastery (in any subject):
I have not mastered AI. In fact, even if I thought I did, it would change again in a month and I would have more to learn. But also, mastery is not required for effective use of AI in your personal and professional life.
It's my goal that these newsletters and the resources I share can provide you with Knowledge.
It's up to you to apply it to develop the Skills.
And over the next year, we can get that much closer to Mastery!
Sell Smarter,
The AI Sales Guy