Selling is naturally a human trait, and it’s a crucial one. The fundamental characteristics of an excellent sales rep, are all human ones: strong communication skills, a great listener, empathetic, personable, able to understand people’s problems and find creative solutions.
At Kiite, we believe in the idea of intelligence augmentation, meaning machines help us, not replace us. AI and Machine Learning technology can be leveraged for continuous learning and developing a higher skill set to reach our full potential. Performing faster, more efficient, and better.
Make AI work for (not against) you and become better at being human.
There’s no doubt that AI will shape the future of work and help make your company (and is already making your competitors) more dynamic, profitable and human-focused. The future of work is changing the focus of your work, and as a sales leader, you cannot afford to be stuck in the technological dust.
Automate With AI
Right now, sales leaders that are not using AI automation are spending a lot of valuable time performing specific, usually unattractive, uncreative and non-personal tasks. Tasks such as scheduling meetings, answering repetitive questions from sales reps or CRM management. But, a good sales manager can prioritize and efficiently manage time, working smarter with the power of AI intelligence.
AI Automation has come a long way and continues to evolve year after year. Some of the AI automation solutions out there include:
- AI-powered meeting scheduling and email follow-ups
- Data entry software that automatically captures data from documents, whether they are scanned, photographed or digital
- An Intelligent Sales Enablement Platform such as Kiite to access company knowledge proactively and on-demand through chat
- Bots that automate sales and marketing activities such as digital ads
Once automation takes over, what’s left for you as a sales leader?
It’s the people and creative stuff. Free of many of the mundane daily tasks, AI will let you focus on valuable things that form the core of your role as a sales leader — the human factor.
AI for “Smart” Sales Enablement
Managing people can have its own set of problems that can interrupt daily workflow. A significant amount of sales leaders end up spending more time as a chief problem solver vs. sales enabler.
Problems such as:
- Ramping up new sales rep hires, and not focusing on the continuous development of seasoned reps
- Answering repetitive questions asked by reps through team collaboration tools like Slack or in person
- Resolving client issues and opportunities
- Attending meetings and preparing forecasts
Using AI-powered sales enablement tools such as Kiite, will not only give you back valuable time in your day, but it can drastically improve your sales rep performance. With Kiite, your sales teams institutional knowledge gets passed on and documented to support new hires, without interrupting their workflow. Instead of new hires reaching out to peers and managers for common questions, they can ask Kiite as frequently as they want and get the answers they need, 24/7.
Give your sales reps the tools they need to be self-sufficient, build continuous knowledge and improve their sales efficiency.
Shift Focus Back To The People
Can AI perform specific tasks more efficiently than a human? No doubt. But, creativity, empathy, critical thinking and leadership, all traits required of a successful sales manager are qualities that AI technology is lacking. Now that the admin tasks are out of the way, you can focus more on the people.
AI for automation and sales enablement frees up time in a managers schedule to focus on human-related tasks such as:
- Meeting with reps one-on-one weekly to review performance, progress, and targets
- Personalized coaching of individual sales representatives and prospecting sessions to help improve sales performance
- Participate in spontaneous sales call rides and planned field days
- Develop a scalable sales process and ensure representatives adhere to it correctly
AI will bring in a new era of “smart” sales ops. AI can collect large quantities of data (related to sales pipeline analytics and rep performance for example). Machine Learning is now able to determine which leads are most likely to be converted into a deal or reveal when reps are struggling to sell at a particular stage in the sales cycle.
Managers can use this data for personalized coaching, empowerment and identify knowledge gaps within their team. Each rep may have a different coaching experience based on this intelligence. Personalized coaching will help hold reps accountable, drive performance and create a culture of accountability.
For companies to succeed in the AI-powered workplace, we will need to double down on our humanity. Technical skills will no doubt, remain as relevant as ever, but as the automation of repetitive tasks becomes normalized, our emotional intelligence and soft skills like creativity, empathy, critical thinking and leadership will be required and sought after in the future of work.
