Simplify Selling with AI & Technology
Jordan Ledwein
The AI Sales Guy - I help sales teams Sell Smarter - Sandler Trainer & HubSpot Partner
The AI Sales Guy Newsletter may be getting some exciting changes soon!
All with the goal to deliver more content, more value, more easily.
I'll share more at the end of this article along with details on upcoming articles.
In 2024, sales is more complex than ever before.
The last 20+ years of technological advancements has brought a long list of changes along with it.
Most notably, the internet and smart phones completely changing how sellers and buyers communicate.
We have also seen social selling become more important and continue to grow from Facebook to Tik-Tok and everything in between (I don't care how much business I am missing out on - you will not see The AI Sales Guy on Tik Tok).
And most recently, we have seen virtual selling become a much bigger part of most of our lives and our sales processes.
And now we have to learn AI?
Which is arguably more advanced and impactful than anything mentioned previously (yes, even the internet)?
Yes...but I have good news. AI is here to make all of this easier. Not harder.
AI isn't one more technology or piece of software to learn.
AI is a tool and understanding how to use it is a skillset that can:
If you have your ticket to the 2024 Sandler Summit, you'll get to see my entire presentation on how to Simplify Selling with Technology & AI! It's still not too late to get tickets so you can join the rest of us down in Orlando, FL...
But for those of you who can't join us (or if you don't want to be down in Florida while it's sunny and in the mid-70's or 80's), there are virtual options available as well.
In my opinion, using AI to simplify the selling process is the best use of the technology as it relates to sales.
And, my opinion is based largely on research from Gartner.
Last year, they released an article where they listed their #1 use case for AI in sales being "Seller Role Simplification".
This is my main focus for using AI in 2024 and the foreseeable future for a few reasons.
If you've seen me talk about AI before, there is a very high chance you've seen this image from Salesforce.
And Salesforce isn't the only one to do a study on this topic.
Along with HubSpot, Oracle, Gartner, and more - they all find that the average sales rep spends about 1/3 of their time selling (28 - 36%).
Of course this depends on company, industry, role, and individual seller. But I think we can all agree that there are more non-selling activities required today then ever before.
The fact is that today, most sellers are simply overwhelmed.
And according to Gartner, 75% of reps say they cant complete all of the tasks assigned to them and maintain the quality of their work at the same time.
This needs to change!
On top of drowning in non-selling and administrative tasks, sellers are drowning in technology.
And that is coming from someone who sells technology...
I quickly took a look at the 20 different software programs on the right of the image above.
I use 16 of them on almost a daily basis. Along with more tools on top of that...
But according to Salesforce, 66% of reps say they are drowning in tools.
And this is important because sellers who feel overwhelmed by technology are 43% less likely to hit their quota.
We need to use technology to SIMPLIFY the sales process. Not make it more complex.
And I can effectively use 15 - 20 tools daily because I've been able to integrate them together and set up automations that push the data from one program to the other.
What exactly is "Seller Role Simplification"?
This could mean so many different things it can be hard to narrow down.
But as a whole, think of automating or streamlining activities that may be essential to the sales function, but are often seen as administrative.
领英推荐
Think of anything that you are doing in your role as a sales rep or sales leader that requires a lot of your time or effort.
And then think, do you really need to be the one doing it?
Or do you need to be doing 100% of it?
Could AI or technology be used to delegate this tasks or at least a portion of it?
Finding these bottlenecks and solving them is Seller Role Simplification.
What stage are you in?
When it comes to using technology, every company and every individual comes in with a different level of comfort and experience.
Let's be honest, it can be intimidating or overwhelming learning new technology.
Especially if it is different than what we are used to.
So we need to identify where we are in our journey of "Sales Tech Maturity"
Many of us are still in Stage 0 doing everything manually, and that's okay!
We all have to start somewhere. And that is the key. Starting.
Is this worth your time?
Only you will be able to decide if it's worth investing the time in learning how to use AI.
But before you decide, you should see the prediction Gartner makes for the future...
More time spent on conducting sales calls.
More time spent on negotiating deals.
And extra bandwidth added on top of that.
Sound too good to be true?
I saved over 110 hours last year with just 1 of the AI tools I implemented...
How do you get to the next stage?
There are 4 questions I always ask when I am trying to help a company implement AI into their sales process.
In order to add AI to your sales process, you need to have a sales process.
And if every rep has their own process, how do you add in the right tools?
To see the rest of my presentation, you'll have to join us down at the 2024 Sandler Summit on March 19th and 20th!
And thank you for those of you who have reached out and told me you'll be there.
In addition to my newsletter here on LinkedIn, I have a mailing list of about 100 people where I share occasional updates and exclusive projects I am working on.
In the coming weeks, I am hoping to have finalized a project that will:
And when this is launched, I am planning to revisit a lot of the articles I wrote last year and update them with the newest tools and technologies for things like:
If you want to be the first to hear about this, be sure to join my email newsletter here.
Sell Smarter,
The AI Sales Guy