AI in Sales: Enhancing Human Intelligence, Not Replacing It

Rick Kranz
Posted by Rick Kranz on October 23, 2024
AI for Sales: Sell Smarter, Not Harder

Let’s be honest—AI is on everyone’s mind these days. It’s in our feeds, our inboxes, and now, our sales strategies. 

But there's one question that keeps cropping up in B2B sales teams: "Is AI going to replace us?" 

Spoiler alert: No, it won’t. The robots aren’t here to take over; they’re here — right now — to do exactly what we tell them to, so we humans can focus on what humans do best: building relationships and closing deals.

In the latest episode of The ChangeOver Podcast, Greg and I took a deep dive into AI’s potential for B2B sales. I can tell you, the landscape is shifting fast. We talked about how AI is transforming sales processes — cutting the busywork and giving you time back to focus on the real sales game: connecting with people.

Ready to see how real AI tools that are within reach right now can become your new secret sales weapon? Keep reading for the highlights, or dive right into the podcast for the full rundown.

AI in Sales: Quality Over Quantity

Let’s clear up a common misconception off the bat: AI isn’t just about automating emails and cranking out more touchpoints. Sure, it can help you do that, but you already know, more touchpoints can have the wrong impact if they’re not intentional and thoughtful. So it’s better to think about ways AI can help you be more effective in your work than to simply add volume to prospects’ inboxes.

Where AI really shines is in the quality it can help bring to your sales interactions. It’s less about throwing more at the wall and more about making every interaction count.

The best part? AI isn’t here to outshine human intelligence — it’s here to augment it. Following are a few simple ways to bring AI into your sales processes to improve your sales performance.

AI Research Assistants: Your New Work Besties

Imagine this: You walk into every sales call armed with deep insights about your prospect: their company’s backstory, what’s keeping them up at night, and how you can help them out. Sounds like a dream, right? Now, it’s a reality. We’ve built an AI-powered research assistant that gives you this info in seconds. (Literally.)

Here’s how an AI research assistant can help change your approach to sales:

  • You’re always prepared – Hours of human grunt work can be completed in seconds by an AI agent, so you can focus on strategy, solutions, and connection
  • Every conversation matters – More relevant data means more engaging sales conversations built on real information, so you can get to the sales breakthrough faster
  • You gain more time – Less time spent on backgrounding adds up to more time spent connecting and selling

Google’s Notebook LM: Unleash Company-Wide Insights

Most of the golden nuggets from sales calls end up stuck in people’s heads or buried in meeting notes. But with tools like Google’s Notebook LM, that’s changing. It’s a user-friendly tool you can use now to unlock patterns and insights across all your sales conversations. Imagine having all the collective sales intel at your fingertips — and being able to share it easily with any teammate.

Notebook LM is an AI tool designed to help users organize, summarize, and interact with information in a dynamic way. It integrates with Google Docs to pull in content, allowing you to ask questions, create summaries, and generate insights from your notes or documents. Essentially, it uses AI to make note-taking smarter by helping you find key details, generate ideas, and manage information efficiently.

Think about the impact this can have:

  • Shared knowledge across teams
  • Actionable trends that no one might otherwise notice
  • And most importantly, sales intelligence you can actually use

AI-Assisted Emails: Let’s Keep It Human

We all know email is still the backbone of B2B sales. But writing the perfect email? Not everyone’s a wordsmith. That’s where AI comes in. 

AI can help B2B salespeople draft better emails by analyzing customer data and generating personalized, relevant content in seconds. It can suggest the best language, tone, and structure based on the recipient’s industry, position, and past interactions. This allows salespeople to send more effective, targeted emails with less effort, leading to stronger connections with potential clients.

This isn’t about robots replacing you. AI is there to assist, making sure your emails hit the right notes with clarity and impact, and in your own unmistakable voice. And that’s not to say your emails should run autonomously. It’s up to you to review, revise, finalize, and click send. Judgment and accountability remain firmly in the realm of human work.

The Human Element: Make Yourself Irreplaceable

So, speaking of human work, Is AI coming for your job?

Maybe — that is, if you see all those irritating, repetitive, time-consuming tasks as your job. But if you’re in B2B sales, the most important part of your job is helping prospects become customers, right? 

The most successful AI deployments will be the ones that free up your time to do what you do best: build genuine relationships, understand nuanced customer needs, and deliver tailored solutions.

I said it in the podcast, and I’ll say it again: Used strategically, AI doesn’t replace salespeople. But it does help them sell better

Moving forward, the best sales teams will be those that use AI to handle the time-consuming drudge work — while the humans on the team focus on connecting with people in a way no machine ever could.

Looking Ahead: What’s Next for AI in B2B Sales?

The future is coming at us fast. AI is evolving, and we’re seeing new tools emerge nearly every day that will reshape how we approach sales. From predictive analytics to AI-powered coaching tools, the possibilities are really exciting. But the goal isn’t to create a robotic sales force. The goal is to arm sales teams with tools that make them smarter, faster, and more effective.

Ready to dive deeper into how to transform your sales approach using smarter tools? Check out the full episode of The ChangeOver Podcast for more insights and tips. And if you’re curious about how to start using AI in your own sales process, we’re here to help. Let’s have a conversation about how we can supercharge your sales team with the power of AI.

Topics: Sales Enablement, Podcast

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