AI and Sales Management

I recently got to sit in on a transformation planning session that a tech firm’s HR group was conducting with the leaders of the company’s sales team as part of cross-functional initiatives. The focus was initially on how sales professionals needed to change to embrace artificial intelligence for sales. The emphasis then shifted to how IT would have to change to support sales teams. Then the HR lead made an interesting pivot and asked, “How does sales management need to change?”

I have often said if you have Sales 2.0 sales teams reporting to Sales 1.0 managers, you are setting yourself up for conflict. But looking at this through an AI lens, you can start to imagine massive challenges if an AI-enabled sales force is being led by traditional sales managers. So let’s explore some of the observations that were shared during the rest of this session

Replace gut-driven decision making with data-driven insights. In an era where sales was viewed as more of an art and less of a science, traditional sales management relied heavily on the instinct and intuition of experienced sales managers to navigate making changes needed to optimize sales performance. AI brings a whole new level of analytics to the table, and successful managers will need to be able to leverage those insights to more effectively identify patterns, create accurate forecasts, and optimize sales strategies.

Move from linear sales cycles to dynamic customer journeys. The traditional sales cycle often followed a fixed, linear series of steps where sales managers focused on sales professionals doing A, B, C, etc., with every prospect, on every opportunity. AI creates the ability to conduct personalized customer journeys based on preferences, behavior, real-time changes in the marketplace, etc., and sales managers need to ensure salespeople are handling each opportunity as effectively as possible vs. relying on one-size-fits-all selling.

Transition from reactive to proactive selling. Traditional selling often was the result of responding to customers expressing a need. AI sets the stage for sales teams to identify needs that customers may not even know they have and leverage that knowledge to create a first-mover advantage. This will require sales managers to challenge the creativity of their sales team members to create opportunities rather than responding to them.

Shift the focus to long-term relationships instead of transactions. Another traditional focus of sales managers has been managing the near-term sales forecast: deals that will close in the next 30, 60, or 90 days. Ensuring these transactions close has been an emphasis because they are the deals into which managers have visibility. But with AI, insights into customer lifetime value will become more readily available and will require managers to weigh the ramifications that short-term business decisions might have on the long-term relationships with customers.

Make technology adoption mandatory. I am still amazed that CRM usage is not ubiquitous within firms that have deployed those systems. Too many sales organizations allow salespeople to underuse or even not use CRM. If AI is going to achieve its full potential within a sales organization, sales management is going to have to step up and ensure every salesperson uses the systems on every deal, period.

These ae just some examples of how the profession of sales management is going to have to evolve, and probably sooner rather than later. So take a lesson from this tech firm’s HR department and start exploring that topic in more depth. It is a choice more companies need to make if they are going to really see AI optimize sales performance. 

Jim Dickie is a research fellow at Sales Mastery. He can be reached at jim@salesmastery.com or @jimdickie.

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