My wife and I add plants to our perennial gardens each year. She chooses the plants and decides where they should be placed, and I have the important job of digging holes. One thing I have excelled at in my hole digging responsibilities is cutting into the coaxial cable that makes up our dog’s invisible fence, rendering it useless each time. As long as I know where the break is, I can splice it back together again.

AI for sales outreach sounds great in theory. I know. I thought the same thing 15 years ago. For 10 minutes. Until I really thought about it. Then I laughed and went on to the next thing. Then last month, I wrote a controversial column called "We All Know AI Can't Code, Right?" in which I argued that while generative AI is good at creating compilable syntax

Aggressive salespeople are no more effective than passive salespeople but if I had to choose one over the other I would take my chances with the aggressive salesperson and attempt to get them to tone it down. While the challenges with passive salespeople are obvious, there is one mistake I consistently observe being made by aggressive salespeople and wouldn’t you know it, the salesperson approached us and made the mistake. That made me want to sit in a messaging recliner to get the stress out.

Last week, I posted an article on the Impact of Relationship Building Challenges in Sales. The article explored what happens to salespeople who are skilled at selling, but aren’t very good at building relationships, as well as those who are great at building relationships but aren’t very skilled at selling. While there were some terrific insights, the one thing that was missing from the article was what great relationship builders do that everyone else fails to do.

Compared with other business functions, sales has a tendency to be less adaptable. At many companies, sales process remain the same for long periods of time. Now, as digitization changes the way many customers buy, sales teams need to evolve continuously. Four practices can help with this shift: Anticipate where customers are going, redeploy resources to match customer behavior, shift emphasis from closing sales to helping customers realize value, and embracing agile decision-making.

In my newsletter several weeks ago, I hypothesized that we may experience a recession. It is our job as leaders and sales professionals to prepare for such an eventuality. You don’t want to be caught off guard and find yourself in the dangerous place of being reactive. Well, it looks like the likelihood of a recession is a lot higher.

It’s hard to think of a word that triggers more reactivity and drains more trust from conversation than “but.” Notice how often you hear it (and say it) when you’re negotiating or arguing. Notice how this one word changes the temperature and tone in the moment. To prevent the damage that “but” inflicts, the author offers three hacks: 1) Focus on what’s said before “but,” 2) Replace “but” with curiosity, and 3) Stop before the “but.” Each of these moves requires courage, patience, and practice — and the return on investment is impressive.

In sales and business, we call the most effective salespeople a “CLOSER.” Sales can be a position that experiences the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Many people have theories about how the best salesperson outperforms their peers. But I believe that no matter what the salesperson's individual style is, there are attributes all great salespeople share. The good news is that it is possible to develop these characteristics and skills through training, study and hard effort.

For decades, salespeople have been taught that there is only one possible reason for lost sales: that salespeople have failed to defeat the customer’s status quo. Perhaps the customer doesn’t fully appreciate the problem that their solution is designed to solve. Or maybe they don’t yet see enough daylight between their company’s solution and that of the competition. So, salespeople break out their arsenal of tools to prove to the customer the many ways their solutions will help them win. And, when all else fails, they dial up the “FUD” — or, fear, uncertainty, and doubt — to tap into the customer’s fear of missing out.

My articles begin with analogies so we'll start by asking, has baseball changed? Games take longer, there is role specialization, starting pitchers rarely complete games, hitters are stronger, pitchers routinely throw in the mid 90's and there is a trend towards either hitting a home run or striking out. But it's still baseball. It is still played the same way. The changes are superficial.

And in the context of how it affects salespeople, has buying really changed?

In-person meetings between customers and salespeople were once at the heart of B2B buying and selling. Now digital communication is embedding itself in every aspect of business. This had led some organizations to look at the future and ask a simple question: Will we still need salespeople?

Before I became a business school professor, I worked as a management consultant. One engagement in particular had a profound influence on my career. The project involved working with the Asia-based sales force of a global consumer products company. This company practiced “route sales,” which meant reps spent their days visiting mom-and-pop convenience stores, servicing accounts.

There’s always some level of uncertainty in the world of sales but external changes can make it challenging to know where to focus, what to do and what not to do. Neil Rackham, author of SPIN Selling, consultant, academic and founder of Huthwaite International, discusses the three big mistakes that salespeople make when times are hard and how to avoid them.