This is why most AI sales agents fail

Salesbuzz dot com.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, actually my own route started in two thousand two when I wanted to help my wife who had a business at the time. And I I want she was a small business and really couldn't afford like Google ads, paper click, things of that nature. So I learned how to do SEO for her to get her ranked naturally and it worked and then her business like took off. And then so I'm like, you know I'm working for other people, but now I have this skill. So then I started selling it on the side. And so I actually started my own company in two thousand two. And then within five years, I had a seven-figure exit. I grew it and sold it. matter of fact, the company was out of Sweden that bought my company. so then in 2007, I took some time off. Obviously, we had the 2008 housing crisis and whatnot, but around 2010 is when I started really got sales buzz going because I just have this passion to be able to help other sales reps. Like I really I really perfected the the formula, the step by step process. So no matter what I was selling, if I follow this process and I can adapt it to I fit the pieces into the industry so the the lingo would change, but the steps were always the same. And I was always like one of the top reps. And so since I knew that and I unlocked that cheat code, if you will. I just had this passion to teach other people who are struggling because I do know what it feels like to have the phone feel like a twenty-five-pound weight and you just don't want to pick it up anymore. You know, you're not making money, your bills are piling up, you your your boss is hanging over you, you're getting frustrated, and you're just not you're trying every little thing. You try this technique, you try that technique, you're learning from all these different people, but what ends up happening is One, you either take bad advice that you don't know is bad advice, or you have the f steps all jumbled. So I put them into a to the right puzzle pieces for you, put them into the right roadmap, if you will. and then that's when I started my my Sales Buzz training company. because I wanted to be able to to I wanted to be able to to help people. And what the way I wanted to do it, I didn't want to just like Have a place where people had to come to me. I didn't want to have to travel to them. So I believe I was one of the first, if not the first, online sales training company that was successful, meaning I was literally training people live online. I created an eight-week course. it wasn't just per person, it was I could have 10 different companies in there because the system works no matter what vertical you're in. So I would use my own sales techniques, get people to sign up, I would do the training. rinse and repeat every month. And I did that for well since like technically started in two thousand eight, but two thousand ten is when I really, you know, started to take off.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's right. That's right. Yeah, absolutely. So so the first thing is this is the process works. It doesn't matter if it's cold calling or or if it's warm. And and now the first thing is most people have confuse what those definitions are. They think if the prospect knows who you are, it's a warm lead. That's not a warm lead. A warm lead is a hand raiser. So they fill out a form, they show some kind of interest, they want to get some information, what have you. Cold lead is your contact. Whether they know you or not, you're calling them out of the blue. The good news is, is the sales process works in either way. So for example, If I were to ask you, okay, you're about to make a cold call, what is your objective of your opening value statement? You know, what you say after Hello, my name is. What is your objective? What are you trying to achieve there? If you ask a group of sales reps at, if you ask 10 sales reps at, you're probably going to get six or seven different answers. The answer should be the same every time, no matter what vertical industry you're in. Your opening value statement job, which is step one, by the way, right? Because you have to introduce yourself. You have to open up the call, right? So we call it an open. Is to peak interest and gain permission to continue the call. That's what the process is supposed to be. Now, if you listen to a lot of people out there, like on LinkedIn or whatever, they're gonna tell you per that's called permission-based selling. No. a lot of times when somebody tries to do a permission-based selling, they'll do something like this. They'll go, Hi, I know you're not expecting my call. Do have 10 seconds to hear why I'm calling? It's it's they're trying to gain permission. The reason why that's wrong. Is because people do not care unless they have a what's in it for them. So you have to put a step in front of that, a mini step in front of that, which is called peak interest. I when you answer the phone, I do a quick introduction, I tell you why I'm calling. The w the reason for my call has to pique your interest. It has to agitate a pain, scratch an itch. And then you gain permission. Once you start doing it that way, all of a sudden you get less rejection, you get less hangups, you get more people saying, sure, I got a second. So now you're on step one. Then you got to go to step two. Most people don't know what to do on step two. So I just have this whole process that's all the that works all the way down.

Yeah, so so let me ask you a question based on your interviews you've done. Does anybody know what to do next after they get the c the So if I call you and I go, hi, this is Michael with salesbuzz.com. Reason for my call. I recently helped competitor X of yours solve this. There's a chance I could do it for you too. I just need to ask you a few questions. Would that be okay? Now I call that like the competition template. I have three different types of openers. That's the competition template. So if I call somebody and I go, Hey, I just helped your competitor solve this problem here, there's a chance I could do it for you. I just need to ask you a few questions. It's going to be super hard for somebody to say no to that. Even if their natural reaction is to say no, it's like because most people if they're if they're a high level exec, they want to know what their competitors are up to. So that's why you call it the competition template. So with that being said, if they go, Yeah, sure, I have a second, okay. In that scenario, if you ask your audience or the other people that you've had conversations with in my that are in sales, you know, what are you supposed to do next? Most people don't know. I have a very specific name for it. So once you go ahead, so I'll break it down for you like this. The entire sales process is like four quadrants. Quadrant one is you have to have an opener. Once you succeed with that, then it's qualifying, then it's presenting, then it's closing. These are the steps, like baseball, right? You got to go to first base before you go to second, second before you go to third. In each one of those quadrants, there's many steps. The opener has two peak interest first, gain permission. When you get to qualifying, qualifying has the most steps in it. And so I break qualifying down. A lot of times people go, Well, I already know they're qualified. They're the decision, they're the they have the title of the owner. Well, that doesn't mean they're qualified because qualifying means there's three things. The first thing is, do they have a problem your solution solves? That is the absolute first thing you have to identify when you're making calls, whether it's cold or warm. Even on inbound leads. I I've treated people and I I've Depend the receiving end myself, they get an inbound warm lead and they start saying, Hey, I need to get a price on what you are, you know, information on what you offer. And too many salespeople go, Great, what's your name? And then they start going into presentation. No. I'd be happy to see if I can help you solve XYZ. I just need to ask you a few questions first. Would that be okay? Sure. Great. Let me ask you this. And then I start with qualifying. Qualifying those three parts. Do they have a problem that your solution solves? If there's no problem, there's no need for a solution. You sell s we sell solutions as sales, correct? So if there's no if we can't identify a problem, if we can't get them to admit they're a problem, if they can't say that's a problem that needs to be solved, why are we why are we here? So that's the first step. The second thing is once you get established a problem, then you have to identify their role in the decision making process. There are five roles when it comes to every single prospect you ever speak to. When it comes to identifying their role in the decision making process, they're going, they're going to fit into one of five categories. They're either going to be the ultimate decision maker, which means they don't need anybody else's approval. They're going to be part of the decision making team, which means that you need their vote, you want their vote, but their vote alone doesn't get the deal done. Think of like if it has to go to a board or committee or something, or maybe two business partners that have to have sign off. The third category is called influencer. The influencer has the ear or ears of the people who make the decision, but they don't have a vote. Some people call it a champion. I call it an influencer. Okay. Next, you're going to go ahead and have the end user. So sometimes people will call, they're they're the person that's dealing with the problem, but they don't influence, they don't make a decision, they're just trying to gather information. And then the the last one is called an info gatherer. This is usually on inbound leads where like the secretary or an assistant or an intern was told to hey go get some information. So just because even on a warm lead, this is why so many people fail to close warm leads. They think that just because they got a warm lead and they're interested that they're a buyer and they go right to the presentation, then later on they chase it for three months, and then they find out, well, that person that called was just an info gatherer and they handed it off to the other people, and then she gathered the information from other companies. And now whoever made the decision went and chose somebody else already, you never even got a shot. That's because you didn't know to properly qualify them and then what to do if you find out that they are an an info gatherer. Are you with me or am I going too quick?

So there's one more. There's one more. So remember I said three. So the the the the first two were, you know, we got to uncover a problem. Then we want to identify their role in the decision making process. The third one, this is always controversial to people. Most sales reps are taught to not bring up pricing till after the presentation. And the the the teaching there is, you know, build so much value that by the time you're done with your presentation, they're gonna go, my God, that's great. It's worth the price. Let's do it. And it never works like that in the real world. The problem with Holding off on a price range till after the presentation is you might have just wasted your time to somebody who couldn't afford you to begin with. The other problem with that is if you don't let them know what the price range is beforehand, half their half the time you're doing a presentation, what do you think they're thinking? They're going, I wonder if I can afford this. I wonder how much this is going to be. So they're not even fully engaged in hearing your solution to solving their problem. So the third part of qualifying, so once I peak interest, gain permission to continue the call. I uncover if a problem exists. If if a problem exists, then I qualify them on their role of where they fit in the decision making tree. I will then ask for their time frame to solve that problem if they were the right person, if they were a decision maker, et cetera. And then before I get to the presentation, I go, just by the way, based what you told me, it's not going to be any less than this, but it won't be any more than that. So if you end up liking what we have to offer, is that within your price range? Now there's only three ways they can answer. It's yes, no, or maybe. So if they say yes, great. Let me just tell you a little bit about it. I'll answer any questions you have. If you like what you hear, we could take it from there. Fair enough. They go, Yeah, sure. Then I do presentation. If they say no to the pricing question, no, I no, that's not doable or whatever you say. Well, I I'll just say, well, let me ask you question. when you say no, do you mean no that's out of your prices, you couldn't afford it if your life depended on it, or do you mean no? You think you might be able to get something better elsewhere for less. What which no are we dealing with here? If they happen to say it's the latter, they're like, Yeah, no, I think I can get something better elsewhere for less. I go, you know what? You might be able to, I don't know. But my question is this once you do all your research and your homework, if you make the decision that were the solution you absolutely have to have, and it becomes and it's between this price and this price, is that doable under that scenario? And if they go, Yeah, if I did all my research and then I found out that you're the one I really wanted and that was a price, yeah, it'd be doable. Fair enough. Let me just tell you a little bit about it. I'll answer any questions you have. If you like what you hear, we'll take it from there. Fair enough? Sure. Qualified. Now it's 'cause now I got problem. I know what role they're in, and I qualify on a person. Guess what they can't say when I go for a close after the presentation? They can't say they can't afford it. That that that chess piece is off the table. They just they already told me. They they guess what else they can't say? They can't say, I don't make the decision on it because I already found that out. Guess what else they can't say? And we don't have that problem. We already uncovered it. So I'm I'm I'm taking all these chess pieces off the table. you know, before before we get to the close, they don't even realize it's so it's too

Yeah, so so as far the presentation will be a lot shorter than what most people think. a lot of times people th what they do is they want to cover every bell and whistle that their solution has. And the part of the problem is if if that wasn't their hot buttons, if that's not pertaining to the solution that they needed, then they're just gonna sit there and go, See, see, salespeople think the more I explain to show them, I'm gonna build value. What's really happening is the sale the prospect is going. I wonder if I'm paying for stuff I don't need. I wonder if there's gonna be something else out there that has less bells and whistles that'll be less money. So now what ends up happening, instead of closing the deal, since you showed all these bells and whistles, you actually created the exact opposite of what you want because now they're gonna now they have hesitation because they want to go see if there's something else out there that doesn't have all that stuff or less. Right? That that could very well happen. So it's really important. Remember when I said every quadrant has different amount of steps. The qualifying steps, I told you there's three major ones, but there's also little mini ones that I pepper in there. And one of them would have been, once I properly qualified them before I got to the presentation, it would have been just like Christian, what the top three things most important to you that you'd like to see in a solution of ours? When they tell me, well, I'd really like to see this, this, and this, I might clarify. Okay, yep, no problem with that. You it's interesting you want to see this. What is it about this that that that that you're hoping to solve? Or or what what is that why is this important thing here important to you? Well it's important to me because we had this, this, this this and this happen and we wanted to got it. Okay. So let me do this. And then I start the presentation. Guess what? I'll only focus on those three things. Now here's the thing. Most sales reps are you with me so far?

So far so so far so good. See, I ask those questions in the presentation. I did that on purpose because what I will do is if I say to you, what are the top three things most important to you and solving this? And they tell me when I start the presentation, I will start with one of those things. And then before I move on to the next one, I use what I call a tie-down. Now, a lot of times what when I say a tie down, a tie-down is designed to see if the prospect is still with you and and are meaning you you you have to check in with the tone and how they answer as well. So when I go ahead and I say, does that make sense? See, I I I've seen a lot of times on LinkedIn, people say, Don't ever say makes sense and makes the process feel dumb. Those those sales gurus, they don't know what they're talking about. They don't understand the the the importance of a tie down. The importance of a tie down, if I just explain one section of presentation for you before I go on to the next one, I want to make sure you're with me. So I go some because is does that make sense to you? Or so far so good? Right, I'll say something like that. And then I'm listening to not just what they say, but how they say it. So I have a rule that's called two plus two has to equal four. So if I go to so does that make sense? And they go, Yeah, absolutely. Two plus two. Their tone matches their words. Two plus two equals four. It does make sense to them. Great. I'm on to the next step and to the next feature that I wanted to show them that they said was important to them. If I say does that make sense, they go, Yeah. Two plus two is not equaling four there. Like I don't know is that is that a red, I use a what I call red light, yellow light, green light system. So when I'm listening to their tone and their words, when they say yeah, that that's a yellow light to me, they they could, their personality could just be, yeah, that makes sense. And that that yeah is is a hundred percent. Or that yeah could be, yeah, not really. I just don't want to hurt your feelings. So when I go, when you say yeah, I mean, it doesn't sound like you're 100% sure on this. Do you mind if I ask why that is? And they can go, no, no, that makes a hundred percent sense. Now I got the green light. Or they could go, Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm not really sure we need that. Or, you know, we tried something like that before in the past, it didn't work. If I never would have done the tie-down and dug deeper and I just kept presenting, I'm never getting that deal because deep down, they when I had to dig a little bit, they just said they tried something like that before and it didn't work. So, what I say in that scenario, if I uncover that, I go. You know what? I'm super glad that you brought that up. Because I'm assuming the last thing you want to do is make the same mistake twice, let alone pay for the same mistake twice. Am I right? And they're like, Yeah, I don't want to do that. Well look what look what we're doing. That natural rapport building. Notice when I said what's the what's the objective of the opening value state. Remember I never I never said it was rapport building. Almost everybody says you have to build rapport up. A a check mark in this process, it should be something that happens naturally as you go through it. So that would that in that scenario, I would have had a normal opportunity to naturally build reports. I'm like, listen, I'm glad you're telling me this. The last thing you want to do is is make the same mistake twice, let alone pay for the same mistake twice. Am I right? They're like, Yeah, I don't want to do that. The bond is naturally happening. I go, let me ask you a question. And then I'll ask a question about that scenario and what happened. And then once I get the information, okay. So if I could solve that for you without running into this problem, that's what you need to see? Yeah, okay. Let me show you this here. I explain that and then I do the tie down again. Okay, does this make sense? Yeah, we we good here. And I get my get my green light, my two plus two equals four. Great. I move on to the third step, the third, the third piece that I want to present on. Once I do that, get two or three tie downs. I'm about to wrap up the presentation. This is what most salespeople miss. This is this is going to be gold for the people that actually pay attention to your podcast. When you when you're doing your you do everything that I just said, and then you get to your to the end of the presentation, like you know the presentation is coming to an end. What you have to do is what I call close on solution concept. I'll say it again. When you're about to finish your presentation, you want to do what's called close on solution concept. What that means is the goal is you want to find out if this solution solves their problem to their to their satisfaction. So a lot of times I'll I'll I'll end up I'm wrapping up the presentation. I go, listen, I know I'm throwing a lot at you in a short time period. Let me just ask you this. What do you like best about what you've heard so far? Then I shut up and listen. They start telling me, I really like this, I really like that, or I really like how you mentioned this. What are they doing? They're selling themselves. They're telling me what they really liked about it. And I'm safe in asking that question if I've done all the steps leading up to this properly, and including the tie-downs, and I was trained to. To analyze in real time and listen to how they said what they said. So I could tell, yep, I got I 2 plus 2 equals 4 in that tie down, 2 plus 2 equals 4 in this tie down, or if there was a yellow light, I handle it, it turned green, and now I get to the end of the presentation. Let me ask, I know I'm throwing a lot at you. Let me ask you this. What do you like best what you've heard so far? And they just start telling you. So as they tell me, I'm writing it down, I'm taking my notes. You want to take these notes, everybody's listening to this. You want to take those notes and put them into your CRM because If that deal does not close on that call, or let's say you have a longer sales cycle, when you follow up with them down the road, you're these are called hot buttons for a reason. You're gonna want to be look your notes and go, they really like this, this, and this. You're gonna want to be able to bring those back up to heat them up later. But let's just say we're on this first call. They tell me what they really like about it, and then I just go, this is the closing solution of concept. It's a two step part. after I asked what they like best so far, they tell me. And I just go, Well well, let me is this sound like what you're looking for? Well, if I got a pain point, I they're a part of the decision making process, they can afford it, the time frame is there. I do the presentation, I get my check downs, I get the green lights, I ask what they like best, they give me positive feedback. What is the only possible answer I'm probably gonna hear if I go, Well, let me ask this does it sound like what you're looking for? It's almost always going to be some version of of I mean, how do you say no at that point? It d it wouldn't make sense, right? So they always go, Yeah, actually it does. It does. Gr so that's the then I finished this other part. Great. Other than price, anything else stopping us from moving forward now? And now it comes down to if it's other than price if they usually if they go, no, other than price, we're ready to roll, I've got a deal now. I already know it's co I already know they can afford the price range. Now it's all about negotiating the final price. So then I now I just move into the closed negotiation phase. But guess what? You could do everything correct, and I go, other than price, anything else stopping me from moving forward now? And they go, Well, yeah, yeah, I yeah, I wouldn't be able to because of X. So now you have an objection. And then I teach Reps how to how do you identify the object. You don't want to just handle that objection. You have to make sure it's a real objection. So then I teach them a five step objection handling formula, how to handle that. And then depending on how that goes, you either close the deal or you found a real objection that's going to cause them to why they can't buy now. But then you can set up the follow up call and you know what needs to happen to solve.

Yeah. D do sh do wh yes, but let before I I get into that, let me do you know why they're not good?

Yes, I like where you're heading with this. So the pr the the problem is is that everybody that unless you're really diving into AI, which I think people should be, because AI is like the new internet or the new Google. Like when the internet came out and everything just went crazy, and then Google comes out and like that like it put the yellow page is out of business, right? Because now, you know, nobody gets a phone book to advertise in. You know, they do the advertising online to get their business going, right? And and and it created lots of opportunities. The internet created lots of opportunities. Google created opportunities. The AI is going to create opportunities. There's a lot of fear there. And I had it myself. I mean there's there's times where I you know I just thought this is gonna put me out of business because all of a sudden you're gonna have a bunch of AI agents that can just make phone calls, right? The reason why they're failing so much is because If you most people are under the assumption that AI is sm supposed to know all the great secrets. The origin AI is just pulling from blog posts and stuff like that, or gathering information if you don't teach it. So if you're teaching the AI agent, if you're actually building an AI agent and it's still failing, well, it's because it's your process. It's your intellectual that the biggest thing for AI for get for SDRs to work, the biggest thing that you can have. The most valuable thing you could have is your intellectual property. So knowing if you're giving the AI, if you're not giving the AI a playbook, and you then then it's just gonna run it amok, it's gonna go and look at all the popular sales blog posts, it's gonna think that's the way to do it, and it's gonna execute that plan, and that's why it's failing, because most of the information out there, most of the advice out there doesn't work in the real world, right? It's just good for clickbait, whatever. And the AI is proving that. But then if you're teaching the AI agent to do something, And you're y teaching it your sales methodology, if it's not working, guess what? It's because your sales methodology isn't is isn't as good as you thought it was. Does that make sense? That's what it comes that's what it comes down to. So the people who are really, really, really experts in their vertical, they should be creating their own AI agent and they need to protect it to make sure that you know make sure you have all the the firewall so that information doesn't get out. And then You can create and that that's what I'm doing. I'm building I'm basically building an AI agent that is going to be able to like you know, all those little processes that I just broke down for you, it's gonna know them and all the micro ones inside and out. Cause what I'm gonna do is everything that I just shared with you, I have an on demand course for that will teach all those things. You can just watch it over and over and over again. But now it's missing the practice. And most sales reps today are afraid to practice in front of their peers. They don't want to role play in front of their peers. I grew up as a straight commission sales rep, like in those boiler room shows that you've seen, like Wolf of Wall Street or the actual boiler room movie, things like that. You know, The Pursuit of Happiness. I grew up in that stuff. Today's reps, they don't want to role play in front of those people. So I'm creating an AI agent that the course will teach them what to say. And then the AI agent they can role play privately to get it and make it specific to the vertical. And then if the company wants, I have an AI agent that'll actually analyze the calls of their reps throughout the day and then give them one teaching lesson every morning when they get back to work the next day on one of their calls, on what they should have said. And it's it's not going to be a generic AI, like you need to do more discovery. It's going to be the prospect said this, you said this, you skipped this step, this is what we should have said. Try this next time you're in that scenario and watch your sales go up. That that's what I'm working on. Yeah.

Yeah, so I'll I'll come in and like I'll I'll if a company hires me to do like the big project, like if they just want their team to go through the on-demand course fine, you just buy it on your own. Go ahead, right? but if they want like the the AI coaching and role playing, well what what I'll do is I'll come in and well, I'll interview them and I'll rebuild their playbook for them. They're their sales scripts, everything, then teach the team on how this is this is what your new playbook is gonna be. Here's why, this is how you ask it. And then they can role play it with the agent, and then the c the call recording can make sure that they're following those steps. yeah. Every company needs a system. There's not 10 best ways to sell something. one of the biggest reasons why companies struggle to grow revenue is they have they they have too many sales reps doing their own thing. You got to get everybody on the same page, rowing the same way. They could be their own unique personalities, but when you get everybody following the same system, that that's when revenue start, that's when you maximize revenue.

Right now, salesbuzz.com is the best thing to do. You can get all the information there. Salesbuzz salesbuzz.com.

I appreciate it. Thank you so much.