Yet salespeople still exist — and thrive — even after the internet changed everything. The key here is that salespeople must stay current with how AI can help them in their role of finding and cultivating clients.

This blog article will cover how AI is changing sales, how it can become a tool for salespeople, where it can help identify opportunities, and why sales skills matter more than ever to compete and be successful.

How AI is Changing Sales: Real-Life Tools Making a Difference

We recently met with the CEO of a small tech firm who has developed software to help target and focus a salesperson’s daily outreach activity. Using AI to evaluate current client data, they serve up a daily lead list of prospects with similar qualities in priority order — with complete contact information — helping salespeople stay focused on prospecting activities that will have the most impact in reaching their goals.

Salespeople no longer need to search around for who they should call, saving considerable time and effort. This tool also minimizes distractions. Think about how easy it is to get on LinkedIn for a purpose and suddenly you're reading posts and looking at connections. All good activities — but not as targeted as a custom-built daily calling list. This is one example of how AI is changing sales.

The role of Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRMs) has evolved over the years, and in today’s world, AI is playing a large part in providing predictive insights from client and industry data. Many CRMs are connected to email automation tools with some level of conversation intelligence — meaning they can read actual customer conversations to predict deal outcomes and forecast projections with unprecedented accuracy.

This is how AI is changing sales: allowing a company to provide data that helps salespeople get smarter and more focused in their business development efforts.

Where AI Helps in the Sales Process

Let’s break down where AI can help salespeople in their daily job. First and foremost, in prospecting with lead scoring and prioritization that identifies warmer leads more apt to respond and engage.

AI can also help in follow-up with automated reminders for appointments and emailing of information, as well as email sequences. These email sequences can be set up to send relevant information to targeted prospects.

We recommend being selective with the use of these automated emails, as those on the other end may be inclined to unsubscribe, causing a future inability for outreach. Relevancy and trustworthiness are the factors determining cold email success in 2025, as just published in a recent Hunter.io study. So, it is important to make certain that in outreach — whether automated or customized (preferred by most) — your messaging is relevant to the end user.

AI can also help the sales process by analyzing calls for coaching purposes and in forecasting, helping companies manage their pipelines with more accuracy and effectiveness.

Why Sales Skills Still Matter

Referencing once again the Hunter.io article: relevancy and trust are the two most important factors when a new salesperson comes calling.

AI cannot build trust, develop relationships, or strategize with a business owner on solutions. AI also does not handle objections like a salesperson can: asking the right questions, uncovering real reasons, and helping prospects navigate the mental roadblocks involved in making a decision.

The power and the value of the sales role is to apply emotional intelligence and relationship-building skills alongside appropriate AI intelligence.

According to the #1 sales evaluation company in the world, and our partner, Objective Management Group, one of the 21 Core Sales Competencies is relationship building, which includes quickly developing rapport and building relationships over time. It is these qualities that drive customers to stay at a company — or follow many salespeople to new companies if they move. As of today, this cannot be replicated by AI.

To illustrate: when a business owner must make a pivotal decision about the business that will alter strategy, revenue, and profit for future years, will they turn to AI or the right consultative salesperson for resources?

Most salespeople have heard about and explored ChatGPT and other similar AI tools that can help them improve their own communication and self-marketing. Salespeople will benefit by embracing these tools, finding time to understand them, and learning how they can help improve their calling efforts and conversations with prospects and clients.

AI is changing sales and is doing so in a positive manner for those salespeople and companies who stay informed and embrace these resources to improve results.

Every sales leader’s calendar should have regularly scheduled slots for coaching salespeople. You should hold coaching sessions every week, say on Tuesday from 10 am to noon. Although you may not know who you will be coaching or what sales skill you will be working on, you will put on your coach’s hat every Tuesday for those two hours. Your salespeople will know that you are available and that they are invited to this session each week. This practice sends a message to your salespeople – “I am here to help you succeed during this time. I am not just here to collect data and remind you when you are failing to execute.” It says that you are committed to consistent sales coaching and their success is a priority to you.

Why Consistent Sales Coaching Matters More Than Ever

Whether held virtually or in-person, you must have coaching on your schedule weekly. Effective coaching focuses on skills and behaviors—the techniques. Sales coaching should include the following:

1. Asking questions

2. Drilling down to get real answers

3. Getting commitment

4. Helping salespeople overcome their own objections

5. Correcting sales performance issues

This time is not for teaching product knowledge or structuring a deal. It is for delving into the art and science of the sale rather than the mechanics of the product/service design of the offering. You can measure your coaching success by the improvement you see in the sales behavior ratios of your people. For example, if more first calls turn into opportunities or if closing ratios improve, they are getting better. You will also know your people are improving when they perform consistently better in the field. Driving improvement through consistent sales coaching takes commitment, from you and your salespeople.

Get Commitment from Your Salespeople

Gaining commitment is key to the ongoing development and improvement of a sales team. Salespeople commit to what is important to them. What motivates each salesperson is their own set of personal objectives, goals and ambitions. Your job is to help each individual uncover these personal goals and help them understand that, if committed, they will reach these goals.

Next, you must help each discover where they stand relative to these goals. When there is a gap—such as when the personal income forecasted from their current sales pipeline and closing ratio will not be sufficient to buy their dream house—you must help them discover the pain of not achieving this goal. Help each understand, through a series of “drill down” questions, what their future looks like based upon current production. This process is an important part of getting a salesperson to commit to personally desired outcomes.

Once you have gone through this initial discovery and drill down process, you will arrive at the salesperson’s ultimate desired outcome. In the case of a salesperson who is underperforming or failing to execute effort or skills, you must get them to agree that failure to achieve the desired outcome is not an acceptable option.

You must ask, “Is that a problem? Are you sure that’s a problem? And is it compelling enough for you to make changes? What will you do differently?” Only after the salesperson verbally acknowledges that they want and need to change can you move to the next step. Only then can you get the salesperson to agree to some form of disciplined structure around changing their sales activity.

Once you have a salesperson’s commitment to fix a problem, you must get them to agree to do everything possible to succeed. At this point, you can implement a consistent sales coaching process that can help them move toward their goals. Do not ask for a salesperson’s commitment and then not do your part. If you are to be an effective sales coach, helping your people to achieve their goals, you must make your own commitment to do whatever is necessary. A lack of consistent sales coaching on your part will translate into a lack of commitment in salespeople.

Effectiveness as a sales manager requires many skills, tendencies, and attributes. We partner with Objective Management Group (the #1 Sales Evaluation and Assessment Tool), and together, we have identified five must-have competencies for a sales manager:

1. Managing Performance
2. Coaching
3. Motivating
4. Recruiting and Upgrading
5. Coaching an Effective Stage-Based Sales Process

These five functions, plus some additional content related to systems, processes, and effective selling, make up our Sales Managed Environment (SME) program for managers.

A number of years ago, I went through ocular plaque radioactive surgery. It's a procedure where my eye surgeon knocked me out, manipulated the eyeball, and sewed a gold-plated disc to the back of the eye. The purpose was to kill the cells associated with a choroid melanoma. Post-surgery included placing an antibiotic cream under the lower eyelid, covering that with a patch, and then covering that with a lead eye cover. It also, in the state of Ohio, mandated that I stay in a room with a lead door for four days. After four days, they took me back to surgery, removed the disc, let me recover, and sent me home. That is when I really began to notice the importance of two lenses to view the world.

For a while, I could not see anything on my right unless I turned my head. I now have some peripheral vision to the right, but really just beyond my nose. The other night, Linda and I were walking the dog, and I turned my head to the right to talk to her—and she was gone. I had to do about a 270-degree turn to find her.

It became very apparent that, in order for me to function effectively, I have always counted on two lenses to see, work, and enjoy the world. Without both lenses, it forced me to work harder and not nearly as effectively as I did prior to surgery. So what does this have to do with sales management effectiveness?

Everything!

I've been teaching and coaching our SME™ program for 25 years, and the personal experience with my eye that I just described has made me view our approach in a different way. Each one of the components of SME™ is really a lens for a company sales leader to use to "see" how the sales group is performing. Kind of like my doctor used a blood test, a CT scan, and a biopsy to determine how well my body was functioning. One data point alone doesn't tell the story. Another negative analogy to use would be looking at the scoreboard at the end of the game to determine how well the game was played. The score is a lagging data point and only tells you who happened to win. It doesn't tell you why one team won and why the other lost. That is what sales leaders need to know to drive sales effectiveness with their teams.

Using all five lenses in your organization will tell you several things. In the words of marketing guru Seth Godin (you should watch the video), you will better understand:

1. Why they are racing to the top or the bottom
2. What they need to do differently to race to the top

For more information on these five lenses for sales managers, feel free to pull down our eBook, The Extraordinary Sales Manager. This new view just might give you what you need to see your team’s activities from a new perspective—and tools to execute the necessary changes to improve your team’s sales effectiveness.

As defined by our sales evaluation partner, Objective Management Group, the Sales Process Competency measures an individual's ability to follow the proper sequence of stages and milestones of a structured sales process. So, while simply having a sales process is important, it must also follow a certain sequence to be effective. And of course, the role of the sales leader is to coach their people in this sales process, identifying choke points and offering effective strategies for skill improvement. Let’s dive deeper into this topic of what defines an effective sales process.

Follows Stages and Steps

The sales process followed includes appropriate and effective stages or steps.

Consistent and Effective Results

The sales process produces consistent and effective results.

Little Wasted Time

The sales process helps to minimize the time wasted with prospects that don’t or won’t buy.

CRM Supported

Today’s necessary strong CRM skills support adherence to a structured sales process. The sales process is integrated into the CRM and is a necessary tool for tracking and coaching the pipeline.

Strategic Use of Sales Scorecard

The sales process provides a scorecard that predicts the likelihood of winning business as part of qualifying prospects.

Here is an example of an effective stage-based sales process:

Top producers are not excellent due to luck. The chart below demonstrates the correlation of sales process to sales percentile. 87% of elite salespeople, the top 7%, follow a sales process, in contrast to 20% of weak salespeople.

Why Is a Sales Process So Important for the Coach?

The sales coach’s ability to demonstrate these steps will encourage their sales teams to execute their sales system. This mastery of the system is what then allows the coach to identify incorrect behavior when they observe their salespeople in a prospecting situation or role-playing session with peers. If the sales coach does not know, they cannot teach or coach an effective approach.

In order to get salespeople to know and own an effective selling system, the sales coach must also be able to teach the theory of the sales system, including the dynamics of the buying and selling process in today’s market and how to address each step of the sales system with specific industry nuances. They must be able to demonstrate and teach their people to not look, act, or sound like everyone else and how to differentiate themselves in their marketplace. Ultimately, the coach must teach the theory behind why asking for referrals, having a full pipeline, executing on a sales success formula, and participating in sales huddles all add to a salesperson’s potential success. Each of these is a critical component of following a stage-based sales process and achieving sales team excellence.

Don’t leave reaching your sales goal targets to luck!

The Role of Emotional Control in Sales Negotiations

It’s been said that the more you need a deal, the less likely you are to get it. Why? Because desperation clouds judgment. When emotions take over, sales professionals tend to make unnecessary concessions, give away value, or settle for less than what’s fair. The person who maintains the most emotional control will always have the upper hand.

To navigate sales negotiations effectively, keep these key principles in mind:

1. Want the Business, But Don’t Need It

The strongest negotiators approach sales with the mindset: “I would like this business, but I don’t need this business.” The only way to maintain this perspective is by keeping your sales pipeline full. When you have multiple opportunities in the pipeline, you’re not dependent on one deal, and that confidence translates into stronger negotiation outcomes.

2. Your Prospect is a Counterpart, Not an Adversary

Many salespeople make the mistake of viewing negotiations as a battle. In reality, the person across from you isn’t an opponent—they’re a counterpart. You want to sell something, and they want to buy something. Instead of framing negotiations as a win-lose scenario, approach them as a collaborative effort to find a solution that benefits both parties.

3. Articulate Their Position First

A powerful negotiation strategy is to clearly state your counterpart’s position before they do. This builds trust, lowers defenses, and increases the chances of reaching a favorable agreement. For example, if a prospect needs to cut costs due to budget constraints, acknowledging this upfront demonstrates empathy and understanding.

Here’s how it works:

“I understand that your company has been mandated to reduce spending by 27%. That puts pressure on you to find the best value while ensuring quality doesn’t suffer.”

By articulating their concerns, you position yourself as an ally rather than an obstacle. This approach encourages open dialogue and fosters a collaborative negotiation process.

The Bottom Line: Emotional Control Wins Deals

The key takeaways for mastering emotional control in sales negotiations are:

• Stay emotionally detached from the outcome to avoid making desperate concessions.
• Maintain a full pipeline so no single deal feels like a must-win.
• Approach the negotiation as a partnership, not a confrontation.
• Acknowledge and articulate your counterpart’s position before they do to build trust and break down resistance.

When you master emotional control, you not only improve your negotiation success rate but also build stronger, more mutually beneficial relationships. Good selling and successful negotiations!