Wired for Sales

Recently, I published a tongue-in-cheek Artificial Intelligence piece defending my longstanding commitment to my own personal five North Stars (NS) of knowledge-based distribution sales. Since many of you may wonder, here’s the list:

NS 1: Know your products and how they’re applied.

NS 2: Use that knowledge to gain a competitive advantage.

NS 3: Get paid for what you know.

NS 4: Use technology to make your team better.

NS 5: Have fun along the way.

That article (which was created as a joke) clearly embraced North Star 5, but the AI reference struck a nerve. Several readers asked about using AI to sharpen sales efforts. Let’s cut through the noise: AI isn’t just another shiny object; it’s the most disruptive tech wave we’ve seen in decades.

Take a moment to think about it. Whole industries have been bulldozed by “small” breakthroughs. Remember those GPS bricks people glued to dashboards? Gone. My last two cars didn’t even come with CD players – instead they came with Bluetooth and four connection ports. Trust me: AI is bigger, faster, and meaner than all of that.

Here’s the rub: Aside from a few progressive distributors, most sellers still treat AI like a gimmick playtoy. One distributor told me, “Our best salespeople are already embracing it. The middle-of-the-road folks don’t want to dig for treasure.” That’s not just lazy, it’s dangerous.

AI isn’t crawling in; it’s coming like a fast moving killer avalanche. According to EPOC AI, a not-for-profit association tracking AI trends, its raw horsepower grows about 500% per year. That’s not an upgrade cycle; that’s warp speed. Early adopters won’t just win; they’ll lap the field.

Yes, there are pre-packaged “AI in a box” products for distributors, and eventually everyone will be forced to play. But the real advantage will come from building your own, testing, and iterating. Five fast examples:

Training can easily be developed for your own personal needs. Even the free ChatGPT (chat) offering has the capability to provide product information that can be tailored to the needs of specific customer types. For sales managers, this free version of chat can provide proficiency tests to better determine the existing skill-set of sellers.

Lengthy documents and pdf files can be analyzed and recapped in easy-to-digest format, providing the seller with just the most important information. Further, a seller who wants a more detailed briefing can create a podcast-like discussion to listen to during drive times.

Prospecting becomes easier because chat has the capability to provide manufacturing businesses and other potential customers in specific geographies and often can include number of employees. In some instances, the AI system can find indexes that estimate sales potential based on employee count.

Emails can be automatically produced, customized, and sometimes sent on your behalf without spending time developing and proofreading the verbiage of the system.

Recording and analyzing phone conversations and meetings via chat allows everyone involved to participate fully without the burden of note-taking. With a few clicks, chat summarizes and provides individual action items.

AI threatens “traditional” customer service departments – now. Customer service is already feeling the heat. For years I warned about the obsolescence of reps whose only role is to serve as human-to-ERP translators. I thought it was a decade away. Wrong.

I recently saw a demo of Distro’s AutoBid. It turns random emails, texts, and even pictures into real quotes and orders. Because the AI tool is tied directly to the distributor ERP, all this takes place with almost no human touch. This isn’t about someday. It’s happening today.

A CLOSING THOUGHT

Of course, not everyone is buying the AI hype. Some dismiss it as another fad, just the latest buzzword cooked up by Silicon Valley. Others believe over-reliance on AI could strip away the human touch that makes customer relationships sticky. Lurking behind all of this is a deeper fear: If AI really does automate quotes, emails, and even customer conversations, what happens to the traditional roles people have built careers on? Hell, what happens to our company? Our industry? Being a bit long in the tooth, I remember similar statements made about distributor ERP systems back in the late ’70s (1970s not 1870s). But our industry survived, grew, and evolved into a new model.

Let’s revisit North Star 4 – using technology to make our teams better: Being Wired for Sales now means harnessing AI. The future isn’t waiting – and neither should you.