Revelation by a Luddite: Using Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) to Close Sales?

Article By Jay Payleitner

I write for a living. It’s a life skill that has served me well. In their attempt to be helpful, several of my tech-savvy friends insist I should be using software like Jasper, Rytr, or Wordtune. My response is an unequivocal, “No way.”

I have no interest in using artificial intelligence to craft books and articles. In my Luddite mind, a machine could never replicate the nuance and beauty of the English language, an appreciation and proficiency I have been polishing for 30 years.

In the same way, the desire to control my personal safety leaves me with zero interest in using artificial intelligence to drive my car. My ongoing battle with Alexa has also left me doubtful that machines can really choose songs worth listening to or movies worth watching. While A.I. may be able to book dinner reservations for our anniversary, I am confident it will never be able to write a love song to my wife.

But dang it, I am starting to believe that A.I. may be worth trying, especially in areas in which I have had little success. I am thinking back to my first job out of college which was selling photocopiers, and I was terrible at it. I remember my sales manager schooling me in many tricks of the trade, but none of it stuck. Back then, artificial intelligence existed only in the imagination of Silicone Valley whiz kids. But a recent demonstration sponsored by The SolutionPeople Network (TSPN) convinced me that A.I. might be the key to soaring sales success.

For more than a century—even before Dale Carnegie wrote How to Win Friends and Influence People—sales and marketing people have been trying to get into the heads of potential customers. Favorite tools included memorized sales scripts, three-martini lunches, high-pressure closing techniques, and offering “a deep discount for a limited time.”

In those days, the best sales reps could gain a competitive advantage and close more deals by researching their customers before their sales presentations. That took time and still depended on gut feel and the ability to memorize a few facts that may or may not be pertinent to the deal you’re trying to cut.

My perspective changed recently when I took the personality test from Benjamin Bressington and Brett Rademacher of Behavior Sales. Or more accurately, I gave them permission to analyze my LinkedIn profile of less than 300 words. In 15 seconds, they knew more about me than I knew myself including my personal motivations, the way I make decisions, and how best to communicate with me.

To be clear, I didn’t fill in three pages of circles with a number two pencil. I didn’t undergo hours of psychological analysis. The crew at Behavior Sales did not probe into my buying history, Google searches, or credit report. They simply accessed my publicly available LinkedIn profile, which I wrote about two years ago, and cut-and-pasted those short paragraphs into their software. In less than a minute, they had a comprehensive report on, well, who I am and why I do what I do.

I showed the report to my wife, and she said, “Yeah, that’s you.”

Here’s the point. Going into a sales presentation, if you had this information about me, I would probably say yes to whatever you are selling. Specifically, the “Rapid Assessment” A.I. platform instantly assesses a prospective buyer in areas such as intrinsic motivations, hot-button phrases, non-verbal objections, and 100 other behavioral and linguistic metrics. That’s a little scary, don't you think?

After a sales presentation, the platform can even assess the clarity of your sales message, whether that message influenced the buyer, and how close they are to making a purchase. I didn’t see it demonstrated, but I’ve been assured that artificial intelligence can gain similar insight from analyzing speech patterns and body language.

If this all sounds unlikely, that’s because most of the population believes machines can only analyze and draw conclusions from hard data. For example, when your rearview mirror warns that a car is in your blind spot, that’s because a computer took a measurement of speed, road conditions, and the location of two vehicles. That’s hard data. But it’s an entirely different realization to learn that a machine can make an in-depth and accurate personality assessment based on soft data such as your brief bio, a speech you gave at a Rotary lunch, or how you fold your arms. In other words, the future isn’t just coming, it’s already here.

Years ago, my fear of cold calls and inability to ask closing questions led me away from office machine sales. But if I had the “Rapid Assessment” A.I. platform, perhaps I could have made a decent living at it. Still, I’m glad to be a writer who—for now—enjoys sitting down at a keyboard and creating from scratch. Check back with me in a year because I may give those implausible A.I. content writers a try.

Jay Payleitner, national speaker and best-selling author of 52 Things Kids Need from a Dad and Don’t Take the Bait to Escalate.

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