Md Consulting

This post is an excerpt from my upcoming book, which will provide a guide to building effective go-to-market (GTM) strategies in the age of AI, whatever the size of your company: from start-up to mid-size and large companies. The book will explore how AI is impacting various aspects of business, from sales and marketing to operations. It will provide you with a new outlook on developing impactful, unique GTM plans that are partner- and customer-focused. This has always been my obsession: to start with the consumer or partner and then work backward in order to meet their needs.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is absolutely everywhere today, but I want you to be crystal clear that AI is not just a buzzword. I personally see this as the catalyst for a paradigm shift in how we engage with our customers differently. I know that AI can be perceived as something scary by many people. I strongly recommend you take control of what you can control in this rather than being scared and paralyzed by this new trend. Once you have learnt the basics and the potential of AI, you can explore further how this can help you in your daily job. In this chapter, I’ll explore how AI is revolutionizing sales strategies, providing deep customer insights, and enabling unprecedented levels of personalization. In GTM strategy, partner and customer differentiation is key. In “The Purple Cow,” Seth Godin emphasizes that to stand out in a crowded market, businesses must be remarkable and unique, like a purple cow in a field of regular cows. Differentiation is key to capturing attention and driving success. AI can definitely help you find the purple cow, identifying key differentiation pillars based on deep insights.

The AI Revolution in Sales

Throughout my career at Microsoft and Unilever, I’ve seen firsthand the transformative power of technology in sales, and this was well before AI. Generative AI has recently changed the sales landscape, offering new tools and providing great insights.

This is not anymore science fiction. The future is literally happy now. In this section, I want to deep dive in the key areas where AI is making its mark.

Predictive Analytics: The Crystal Ball of Sales

Nowadays, we can see that AI-powered predictive analytics are giving sales teams the ability to forecast future trends and customer behaviors with remarkable accuracy. By analyzing vast amounts of historical and real-time data, AI can:

• Identify high-value prospects with Lazer-focused precision.
• Predict customer churn before it happens, which is key in the subscription economy.
• Forecast sales with greater accuracy than ever before, which will better align supply and demand.

Hyper personalization: The Key to Customer Engagement

A very product-centric deck is obsolete. I had the chance to make many pitches across Americas, Europe, and Asia, and the constant question from any partner is, “What is in it for me?” To engage with the partner and create a real challenger conversation, this is key to having a real partner-/customer-centric pitch. Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson developed the Challenger Sales Methodology, which emphasizes educating prospects, providing distinct viewpoints, and taking charge of the sales conversation. To improve outcomes, it emphasizes educating prospects, providing distinct viewpoints, and taking charge of the sales conversation.

In summary, the days of one-size-fits-all sales pitches are gone. There is a real opportunity for AI to enable hyperpersonalization by:

• Analyzing customer data to better understand pain points and preferences
• Tailoring product recommendations in real-time based on browsing and purchase history
• Customizing communication channels to better match each prospect’s unique habits

This level of personalization could improve the partner / customer experience and lead to higher engagement rates and, ultimately, increased conversions.

Let me share a personal story that illustrates the power of AI-driven personalization.

During my tenure at Microsoft, I led the development of a revolutionary Sales Enablement Tool. I understood that account executives can spend excessive time customizing pitch decks for each partner. They can take multiple hours to develop a compelling pitch deck, finding the right data, distilling the right insights, and building a compelling story.  I have worked on a solution automating the creation of customer-ready sales presentations for our worldwide sales team.

To be able to design the first mock-up of this sales enablement tool, I have aligned with a virtual team with sellers and marketers from different region to understand what outcome we wanted to achieve. Then, I went out of my comfort zone, learning SQL Studio to connect to different databases (market data, sales data, etc.) and DAX to code on Power BI, which is a visualization tool we have used. Then, during the weekend, I started designing from scratch the tool with trial-and-error approach. I personally loved doing this, as it was for me a great way to explore innovative ways to address a very complex issue and come up with an easy solution for the sales team. I will explore this further later in this book, as this initiative involved precise alignment of sales/marketing and finance in terms of storytelling for the partner and how we will measure success at the partner level.

Intelligent Lead Scoring: Quality Over Quantity

When you make lead generation of the new customers, it is sometimes challenging to stay focused on the customers that could represent the highest opportunity in terms of future business. This is good to use a pareto rule.

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, is a concept that suggests that roughly 80% of outcomes (or effects) come from 20% of causes (or inputs). The Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto observed that approximately 20% of the population owned 80% of the land in Italy, leading to the naming of this principle after him. In business and productivity contexts, the Pareto Principle is often used to highlight that a small number of tasks or inputs can lead to the majority of results. In Sales, 80% of sales often come from 20% of customers.

I recall having to face this type of challenge, particularly in emerging markets where you have a large number of accounts covering a large number of countries. This is the case of Latin America, where I develop the business on Office and Windows across 42 countries. In this context, AI can help you to sort through leads and rank them by how likely they are to become customers This means:

• Sales teams can focus on the most promising prospects, maximizing efficiency in terms of reach
• Higher conversion rates and improved ROI on sales efforts; over-spending where there is potentially more opportunity
• More efficient use of sales resources, allowing for strategic allocation of time and energy

This Pareto principle works pretty well when you have already a set of customers and want to prioritize them. However, it is more challenging to apply this rule when you prospect new customers.

During my time as Country Manager for Microsoft’s Retail Sales & Marketing Division in Belgium (more than 10 years ago), we implemented well before the AI revolution a manual approach to better qualify our partners based on some factors like strategic alignment, growth potential and profitability. In the new AI era, I believe we can revolutionize channel strategy and customer prioritization by implementing more automation through AI-driven lead scoring systems. By analyzing factors such as past purchase history, customer engagement, and online behavior, we will be able to prioritize our efforts on the most promising leads. We will also explore further this in the book.

The Human-AI Collaboration

I personally believe that the way we need to treat AI should be ethical. I don’t believe this should be seen as a way to reduce or replace human salespeople—it’s about augmenting their capabilities.

People often paraphrase Karim Lakhani, a professor at Harvard Business School, when they say, “AI will replace people who don’t learn about AI.”. He stated, “AI is not going to replace humans, but humans with AI are going to replace humans without AI”. This emphasizes the importance of learning and integrating AI into one’s skill set to stay relevant in the evolving job market.

The most successful sales strategies will be those that effectively blend insights coming from IA with relationship-building skills.

AI-Assisted Customer Interactions

Imagine a sales call where AI provides real-time insights and suggestions to the salesperson, helping them:

• Proactively address customer concerns before they bring them up.
• Offer the most relevant solutions based on the customer’s unique situation.
• Navigate complex negotiations with data-driven confidence and personalized value propositions.

This perfect collaboration between human and machine is the future of high-performance sales teams. Don’t see the machine to replace humans but rather leverage the machine as your assistant. You are in the driving seat. This is critical to understand this deeply. This paradigm shift will be a good trigger for you to better understand how to talk to the machine (Large Language Model), understanding the basics of prompt engineering. This will definitely help you to take most of the machine.  I’ve personally witnessed the start of transformation during my time at Microsoft. We are just at the start of a more fundamental transformation.

Focus on the controllable

I like to say to focus on the controllable. This is part of my DNA. The quote “focus on the controllable” is often used in both sports and business contexts to emphasize the importance of concentrating on aspects within one’s control.

This mindset of “control the controllable” helps individuals optimize their efforts and achieve success despite external factors. The idea is to avoid wasting energy on things you can’t control, such as other people’s actions, the weather, or unforeseen events. Instead, by focusing on what you can control—like your attitude, effort, and response to situations—you can improve your performance and reduce stress. This concept is widely attributed to various motivational speakers, coaches, and leaders who have used it to inspire and guide their teams. It’s a powerful reminder to stay grounded and proactive in the face of challenges.

This is something I feel strongly embedded in my personality and competing in Karate is a great way to test this. During this event, there are so many things you don’t control that it is key to focus on the things you control. The things you don’t control during a karate competition are the crowd making a lot of noise, the judges around you, and the stressful situation. However, you control your breath, your concentration and your movements.

In the context of AI, “control the controllable means that you need to focus on better understanding the fundamentals of AI and how to talk to the machine, or, in other words, do the right prompts for the large language model (LLM). I will further explore this in the book.

In the next post, I will explore more the Implementation of AI in your Sales Strategy.

Resource

The possibilities are endless, and I’m excited to be at the forefront of this revolution, helping businesses navigate this new landscape through my consulting practice and upcoming book. I’m excited to share more insights and open up conversations for potential collaborations. Feel free to reach out and book a slot on my calendar to discuss further. At MD Consulting, we specialize in helping organizations build strong consumer and partner-centric strategies. Our expertise in aligning leadership actions with company values ensures that businesses can achieve their goals while maintaining authenticity and trust. Learn more about how we can support your organization at MD Consulting. More Details on MD Consulting here: https://davidmerzel.com/ 

You will find below the deck covering this topic.

For further reading on AI in sales strategies, I recommend the following resources:

1. “AI for Sales” by Victor Antonio
2. Harvard Business Review’s “How AI Is Changing Sales”
3. McKinsey & Company’s “The AI-powered Enterprise”
4. “Sales 3.0: The New Contact Sport” by Anneke Seley and Brent Holloway
5. “Artificial Intelligence in Practice” by Bernard Marr

Engaging with You

As part of this journey, I also want to engage with you, my readers, by sharing portions of the book. Your feedback, comments, and suggestions will be invaluable in shaping the final product. I believe in the power of co-creation and would love to incorporate any specific concepts or ideas you might have. Of course, I will give full credit to any contributions that make it into the book. I will make sure nothing confidential will be published in the book.

Join the Conversation

If you have any suggestions or would like to discuss specific concepts, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn thru personal messaging. I’m always happy to have a conversation and explore new ideas. Together, we can create something truly special. For collaboration or project discussions, you can also schedule a conversation in my calendar below or connect with me via email at david.merzel@hotmail.com. I look forward to further discussions!

About MD Consulting

At MD Consulting, we specialize in helping organizations build strong consumer and partner-centric strategies. Our expertise in aligning leadership actions with company values ensures that businesses can achieve their goals while maintaining authenticity and trust. Learn more about how we can support your organization at MD Consulting. More Details on MD Consulting here:  https://davidmerzel.com/