How AI is transforming the playing field for sales

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic right now, with lots of opinions both for and against it. Some people passionately believe that it will be good for us, while others believe equally passionately that it will be our downfall.

Either way, AI is an exciting advance that has the potential to change our lives, and whether that’s for the better or the worse is largely in our hands. But before we pass a verdict about AI, we’ve got to meet our sales quotas and score commissions, and AI definitely has a part to play in this arena.

The sales industry is being transformed by AI, and anyone who refuses to acknowledge this fact will be left behind. That’s what happened to Blockbuster when they pretended that streaming services didn’t pose any threat, and to Kodak when they disregarded digital cameras. We all know how those tales ended!

So it’s a bad idea to stick your fingers in your ears and pretend that you can’t hear anyone talking about sales AI. It’s better to embrace the change and discover how to use AI to your benefit, rather than worrying about being replaced and rendered obsolete. Nothing’s more likely to make your AI fears come true than ignoring the technology entirely.

In the world of sales, like the natural world, "survival of the fittest" holds true. To survive, you must keep adapting and improving your processes, and if you want to thrive, you must do so even more. AI offers a new way to do so, and it would be foolish to reject it. Here’s some advice about using AI to transform your sales processes.

How to apply AI to sales and keep your competitive edge

Your competitors are already using AI for various tasks like creating social media and email content, managing time, and even AI-powered sales training software, and it’s going great for them. They can operate non-stop, 24/7, all year round, which can put you at a disadvantage.

The only way to compete with that is to adopt AI better than them.

But you need to approach it in the right way. It’s a bad idea to rely solely on AI without human intervention. For example, you still need a human to:

Read and categorize incoming emails to prevent any misunderstandings. AI can still make mistakes.

Add a personal touch to cold emails to make them stand out from the generic, tedious ones that follow the same old template.

Proofread and adjust AI-generated content. Generative AI like ChatGPT is awesome, it’s just not 100% reliable.

How to use AI to turbocharge your existing sales toolbox

The trick is to use AI to magnify your current resources so they make you stronger than your rivals. Here are some tips for making that happen:

Amplify the impact of your salespeople by using AI to create compelling cold emails, develop innovative cold-calling scripts, and help them optimize time management.

Improve sales training even more by getting your sellers to practice these new skills in real time using an AI-generated role play partner that provides non-judgmental feedback and doesn't force you to sacrifice a lead to a practice call.

Augment the abilities of your sales trainers by using AI to teach your sales team how to overcome objections, execute effective cold-calls, ask great questions, and more.

Bolster the support provided by your sales assistants by utilizing AI to sort incoming emails into “urgent” and “important,” and to respond to simple information requests.

Boost your copywriter’s productivity by utilizing AI to produce engaging social media posts, blogs, and website content in mere minutes.

As these tools and skills become commonplace, organizations that accept and adopt them sooner will be the ones to gain the most.

Bringing AI into your sales department with Apollon and Second Nature

That’s why Apollon has partnered with Second Nature; to help you harness the power of AI for sales and crush your competition. Second Nature provides realistic AI-powered simulations that serve as role play partners, so our customers can ramp up the training experiences they deliver.

This partnership is part of our unique framework that helps revenue teams develop both hard and soft skills, so you can forge more effective teams faster. With Second Nature’s AI role play partners and timely, objective feedback, salespeople can grow their listening and objection handling skills, get certified on the brand message, as well as develop hard and soft skills all while mastering their company’s knowledge deck.

Contact us today to learn more about how we can help upskill your revenue teams to be more effective faster.

This blog post was written in partnership with Second Nature.