As an increasing number of professions become very concerned by the development of artificial intelligence, sales teams are also considering their professional futures as we enter a turning point in the digital revolution. Technological innovations should be welcomed as an ally to sales but some continue to hesitate to climb aboard the AI train. Sales teams, in this article you can learn why you have nothing to fear from AI!
AI, an innovation which means no harm to sales teams
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Artificial intelligence, or AI, is feared by many professionals who associate it with the annihilation of their professions, but it is no threat to sales teams. This technological innovation has more than one trick up its sleeve to make the day-to-day activities of sales teams easier and help them to save time and increase precision. In fact, AI will help them to process data more quickly and with greater precision whilst also allowing them to search company databases with more complexity and efficiency or even help them to write better, more pertinent emails with no grammatical errors.
AI is a genuine multi-tasking virtual assistant able to simplify administrative formalities and accelerate client prospecting and relation missions. However, AI is completely incapable of replacing a sales representative when it comes to actually making a sale. You need to be a competent and productive human to be able to persuade customers and adapt to their needs as well as explain and maintain commercial relations once the sale has been completed. Far from being a danger, AI should be seen as an extra tool that will allow sales teams to focus on the most important part of their work: customer relations.
Being able to work with AI is now an essential skill
Whether you like it or not, AI is becoming increasingly present in the professional environment. Refusing to admit this is exposing yourself to the risk that you will be unable to fully understand or exercise your profession within a few years. To anticipate the changes that AI is already making in sales missions and careers, you will need to hit the ground running now and start learning to use this new technology.
The early adopters, those people able to use new technology before everyone else, are the ones that have a better understanding of the opportunities that this new invention is able to propose. With their already significant experience they will be able to use AI as a tool that serves their performance. It will certainly be in the interests of sales representatives, and their companies, to take professional training courses on the use and understanding of AI along with any further specific sales sector training that will give them the keys to getting the best out of artificial intelligence.
The impact of artificial intelligence on incentive compensation
Up to now, it seems unlikely that AI will be able to revolutionise how the incentive compensation and wages of sales representatives is calculated. However, it seems evident that the ability to use AI will soon be a part of the hard skills expected of any competent sales representative. The time saved through the use of this technology will allow sales representatives to focus their time on missions and tasks that are more profitable for the company. This increase in productivity will therefore have an influence on the nature of the objectives that will be set for them. And artificial intelligence will evidently have an influence on sales performance objectives and by consequence the calculation of their incentive compensation.
If AI is not actually going to ring the death knell of the sales profession, its increasing presence is inevitably going to lead to changes in the way the job will be done. This will be largely a positive influence, but sales representatives need to remember to take the necessary training to be able to use this technology. Being able to use AI will be an essential skill for sales representatives of today and tomorrow.
