I'll be back.

I wondered when this debate would happen. And it happened sooner rather than later, we are only just into the start of 2019 and battle lines have been drawn. 

The scene below is from Terminator 3, where Skynet takes over...

This the post in question where this debated started. Gabe Larsen & Chad Burmeister are going toe to toe.

Of course, we are not talking about actual robots replacing humans - in fact, in Japan, a hotel has just fired some it's robot workers because they created more work for the humans.

So, is this the new Cold Calling vs Social Selling argument, sorry, I meant debate, I wonder...

I am no data scientist, or programmer of algorithms. However, I do read. I read because there is no doubt in my mind that AI and technology is evolving the way we live. I have 2 children. Olivia who turns 4 in May and Max who turns 1 in February. I want to try and understand, as a parent, what world my children are going to grow up in, and how to support them through this. 

I highly recommend

Technology Vs Humanity by Gerd Leonhard

Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark - here the author makes a good case for the concepts of Skynet not being too outlandish.

Surviving AI by Calum Chace

We cannot escape the reality (or virtual one) of the impact Facebook, Amazon, Netflix & Google, fondly known as the FANGs, has had on society. Both positive and in more recent times, very negative; depending of course which side of the political spectrum you sit, in either the US or UK. 

What Cambridge Analytica and Aggregate IQ has shown the world, is when you have enough data, understand the human psyche, with some very clever computer programming (lets be honest, this is all AI is currently) you can influence the right people to do what you want them to do. In real time. 

The irony is, this has been going on for years, albeit at a more basic level - the next time you do your grocery data, you scan your store card and a voucher gets printed, how do you think they know what to print? It's based on your previous shopping behaviours, frequency etc - why the voucher? They want to bring you back in store to spend more money.

I read Predictive Analytics by Eric Siegel. The final chapters around uplift modelling and how some consumer organisations are using this to understand which are the right audience to market to, based on how influenceable they are, is incredible. Interestingly, Obama was one of the first major political persons to use these tactics in his campaign - work out which people they should go and door knock vs those they shouldn’t. 

Isn’t this every Marketing and Sales person's dream? Know who to target because they are the most influenceable? Get the best Marketing Qualified leads you can (MQLs). Herein lies the problem with this debate on whether AI will replace SDRs. It’s too binary. This is not a simple yes or no answer. 

We can all cite the Kodak moment, saying Digital would never take off or Blockbuster being approached by Netflix as was and turning them down. Some of these SDRs do not even know what analogue is, they have never seen, touched or used it. They look at those of us that did with incredulity. Why would you do that? That’s just a crazy way of doing things. Who remembers sitting patiently as the 512k modem crackled into life, being told by your parents to get off MSN Chat because they needed to use the landline phone, that was probably attached to the wall by a cord.... 

Look at how Deliveroo or Uber are removing the human aspect in ordering food or a taxi. Soon we could no longer have humans driving our taxis. 

Imagine this conversation 10 years ago. You would have been laughed at. Even 5 years ago. 

"That's never going to happen, we will always need people to do these things!" Do we?

Amazon. Everyone knows how Amazon is disrupting or progressing, depending on how you look at it, the retail industry and more.

Ah ha I hear you say. These are all low value, consumable goods where there is limited risk for the buyer. 

Let's break this down.

You can now buy and finance your car, online, without stepping into a showroom, a bank, or even taking to a human. CarWow enables you to complete the entire transaction online.

You can buy and sell houses online, without having to deal with an estate agent/realtor. I just did this, as we are moving out temporarily and the whole process was done via an app or online. Questions where asked through a chat function in the app, for all I know, it was a chat bot.

You can (re)mortgage your house online without having to talk to a human.

All high value and varying levels of risk.

Imagine these “debates” 10 years ago, even 5. Pffftt - don't be so stupid, of course we will need people to do these roles.

Of course there are still Humans behind the scenes, leveraging their knowledge & expertise, which they have built up over the years. What they have done is evolved how they market & deliver this knowledge, subject matter expertise, to their audiences - they are evolving with how their audience wants to consume and interact, underpinned by technology (AI).

Hindsight is a fine thing, however, you would look pretty arrogant to sit there and say, it will never happen.

Another thing to consider is that this is the world the SDR, assuming the younger end of the scale in terms of the "Millenial" AND who they are selling to, the older scale of the "Millenial". This means they were 3 years old when Terminator was released to being born 14 years after it's release...

Anyone born between 1981 and 1996 (ages  22 to  37 in 2018) will be considered a Millennial, and anyone born from 1997 onward will be part of a new generation.

Pew Research Center 

The older generation of Millenial are now in a position if influence & decision making. In some cases they may have already built up and sold a business. They interact and buy in a very different way to those Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. Leveraging and interacting with technology vs a person is becoming ever more the norm these days.

You want to feel old, then watch this :

Artificial Intelligence has become a broad brush stroke term to cover anything that is technology these days

Let us break it down :

What is AI?

What is an Algorithm?

What is Machine Learning?

What are the different types of AI?

When it comes to AI and Sales, we are very much in the Narrow AI space, performing single tasks - could be emailing, robocalls, chatbots (which is just a layer of tech sitting on top of an Interactive Voice Response system you get when you call your bank, instead of a synthetic voice, you get synthetic chat) and so on.

If we stick with the ChatBot for the moment, this piece from Inc makes for interesting debate

"According to a 2018 survey, there are subtle but important differences between millennials and baby boomers in terms of their expectations of chatbots. Surprisingly, baby boomers are 12 percent more likely than millennials to expect 24-hour service and 20 percent more likely to expect an instant response. While rapid response times are important to millennials, this demographic is emphasizing high-quality customer experiences from chatbots. 45 percent of millennials expect "a good customer experience" from chatbots, compared to only 38 percent of baby boomers. Chatbots will need to become more human-like to meet the demands of younger generations. Before implementing a chatbot, make sure there is a focus on the human-feel. "

Yet

"Despite the enormous potential of chatbots, there will always be a need for a human touch when it comes to interactions with customers. According to a study by HubSpot, 57 percent of the people would rather get help from a real person than an AI program. Companies will put themselves on life support if they blindly supplant all human functions with chatbots. Genuine human relationships are an organization's most powerful resource."

This is what it boils down to - this is not an And, Or, debate - much like cold calling vs social selling, was, and still is not, an either or debate.

Focus on the Output - what are we trying to achieve? Get the first business meeting, business call, qualified lead - what ever it is, we want to engage with our prospects and clients as quickly and efficiently as we are able.

However.

This has to be, for the most part, on their terms not ours. This is what has fundamentally changed, the buyer is in far more control then they were, even 10 years ago - because of the access to information.

This is where technology can really start to come into it's own. I refer to this great piece written by Marcia Riefer Johnston back in November 2017.

Whilst this article refers to Marketers, you can replace Marketer with Sales - the same applies for both.

Data, Data, Data - this is where the modern SDR needs to be focusing their attention. If I were an SDR today, I would be demanding from both my leaders and marketing, what is our data strategy, what tech do we have in place to support me in what I am doing. How can we use this data to let the inbound take care of itself and where do I now fit in that outbound conversational piece - if at all. Maybe, just maybe, more value can be driven by an SDR watching the data and tweaking things accordingly - based on that understanding, they will still have conversations with prospects, but this will be based on a completely different understanding of that person they are talking to.

They will enable the purchase.

Microsoft is taking this approach with AI for Sales and AI for Markets Insights . They are taking the guess work out of whom to speak with, when to speak with them and what to speak to them about - if you have a coherent data strategy. This is why they paid $26bn for LinkedIn - data. The role of sales is changing beyond belief - the output has not.

This is the world of Account Based Intelligence.

However, to quote Falon Fatemi, founder of Node.io

The science is only as good as the art of selling

Maybe the role of the Sales Development Rep will evolve into a Sales Data Rep?

I will however, leave you with this short video to ponder upon