Redesign, Don’t Automate: The Future of B2B Sales with AI

The Broken State of B2B Sales

I’m not the first person to share that the typical B2B sales “playbook” is broken.  Jason Bay shared stats that have been making the rounds:

• The avg. # of attempts per contact has nearly doubled from 7.3 in 2014 to 11.3 in 2022 (Bridge Group). And avg. # of quality conversations / day is down during that same period from 8 to 3.6.
• Avg. cold email reply rate is ~1% (Clearbit). And those ain't all positive.
• Avg. cold call pick-up rate is ~5% depending on the industry. Apple and Android will continue making ignoring and identifying unknown callers easier

Jon Miller, Cofounder of Marketo, recently said, “the old playbook simply isn’t effective.”

I could go on, but I won’t.

And yet, everyday I hear from sales and marketing leaders about how they are using AI to automate parts of their sales process - the same one that is broken. I see companies popping up left and right that claim they will automate your SDR’s work or your cold outbound research. But I don’t hear many people asking:

If the B2B sales process is broken, why are you trying to automate it with AI?

We should be redesigning the process, not automating it.

I’m sure there will be comments about how outbound can “be done differently” - it will be more customized, more personalized. Ya, maybe, but probably not enough to return it to the stats of ten or fifteen years ago. And the reason isn’t because of SDRs per se or lack of customization of emails. It’s because customers don’t really like it. They want to buy differently. 

We are witnessing what Brent Adamson aptly coined “the preference gap.”

“Simply put, suppliers aren’t selling the way many customers prefer buying. And that preference gap leaves suppliers increasingly exposed to the risk of a competitor or disruptor finding a way to bridge that gap in new and creative ways.” - Brent Adamson, Distinguished Vice President at Gartner and a coauthor of The Challenger Customer and the best-selling The Challenger Sale.

A recent HBR article highlighted that many B2B buyers of complex solutions strongly prefer a purchase experience without any sales rep interactions.

In a survey of nearly 1,000 B2B buyers, 43% of surveyed respondents agreed that they would prefer a rep-free buying experience. They then looked at it by generation and the results were even more stark - 29% of Baby Boomers preferred to buy solutions without a rep, while over half of Millennials, 54%, expressed the same sentiment. The point here isn’t that you should have zero humans ever involved in sales, it’s that your customers aren’t enjoying the interactions they are having with your current process.

Redesign, don’t automate

Enter AI and the ability to redesign the sales process for your customer, rather than just automating the process you have. We have this unique opportunity to truly be customer centric in sales. 

So, what do customers want in B2B sales? It boils down to four things: accuracy, expertise, speed, and convenience. They want information that’s spot on, interactions from sources that know more than them, exactly when they want them, and in an easy, hassle-free way. Simple, right?

But here's where AI comes into play. Instead of just automating the broken process, AI can actually help us redesign it to be more customer-centric.

Accuracy and Expertise: AI can easily be trained on your information and data and help prospects with direct answers. In hours it can be an expert on even the most technical products and go back and forth with prospects.

Speed: AI can respond in seconds and get prospects the answers they need in moments. As Kyle Coleman said recently the need for speed goes far beyond setting an initial meeting.  “As a buyer, I want my rep to be hyper-responsive. When I have a question, need some info, or want some guidance, I want it as quickly as possible.” AI can do this - and not just on chat…

Convenience: AI enables seamless interaction across multiple channels, so buyers can engage with your business through their preferred medium—email, chat, social media, or phone. And, of course, AI enables this expert information to be available when it works for the buyer.

By focusing on what customers want - accuracy, expertise, speed, and convenience - you can create a sales process that not only drives results but also delights your customers. The key is to use AI not just to do things faster, but to do them better—making every interaction more meaningful and every step of the buying journey more enjoyable for the customer. The future of B2B sales lies in this shift towards genuine customer-centricity, and those who embrace it will be the ones who thrive. So, let’s stop automating the broken and start building the better customer-centric buying experience. 

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