Confessions of a Seller Podcast
Confessions of a Seller is not another polished interview show. It’s raw, tactical, and unfiltered conversations with operators in the trenches — the people carrying quotas, leading revenue teams, and building companies under pressure.
Confessions of a Seller Podcast
Adapt to AI or Get Replaced
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Sales is changing faster than ever.
AI SDRs.
Intent data.
Automated workflows.
Infinite tools.
The old SDR playbook is dying. And the sellers who don’t adapt… will disappear.
This episode breaks down how AI is reshaping outbound, what the SDR role looks like now, and why modern sales is becoming a mix of psychology, systems, signals, and execution.
From AI frameworks, to tech stack chaos, to how tools like Jason are changing the GTM motion entirely — this is where sales is heading.
You’ll also learn the exact skills modern sellers need to survive, how intent data is changing prospecting, and why adaptability is becoming the most important sales skill in the market.
Because AI is not replacing sellers. It’s replacing sellers who refuse to evolve.
In this episode, you’ll learn
• How AI is changing the SDR role
• The evolution of outbound with AI
• How intent data is reshaping prospecting
• The frameworks modern sellers need to adopt
• How Jason AI SDR works and why it matters
• The new skills required to survive in sales
• How tech stack overload impacts execution
• Why adaptability is becoming the ultimate sales advantage
Thanks to the partners supporting Confessions of a Seller.
🔗 Jason AI SDR by Reply
They’ve built one of the strongest multichannel outbound platforms in the market — taking teams from research to meeting booked in one system, enabling modern Allbound execution.
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Jason homepage
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Connect
Alan Ruchtein https://linkedin.com/in/alanruchtein
The Modern Seller: https://alanruchtein.com
Kevin Meyer https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-meyer-2931b9b1/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/confessionsofaseller/
TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@alan.ruchtein
AI is going to replace you and most likely will replace us. And that's why we are going to talk today, and you are going to learn exactly what are the things that you need to know on how to use AI, how to learn and understand data and AI in order to not be replaced. And that's key. In this episode, another episode of Confessions of a Seller, we have Kevin here as well, my big friend. Thanks, mate. We are going to talk about interesting stuff. Before jumping into all the topics and all the things that we are going to share with the audience, I would like to say thanks to Reply. Reply is our best friend here and main partner. They are going with us along the full uh episodes and they are joining this crazy adventure. If you don't know or you never tested, uh you have all the information, details, description, links to the website directly in the comments. They are by far, I think, the best uh sales engagement tool, all in one AI solution from prospecting to closing, everything in there. Uh, we will dive deeper there. So yeah, now that we have that into consideration, uh, let's jump. Will AI replace us as a seller? Are we starting strong right now? Let's go directly into it.
SPEAKER_01Oh man, that that's it. What is your opinion?
SPEAKER_00Um you're starting this strong. We we didn't even give a kiss to each other. You cannot go that far. I'm German. It's straight in your face. Um, I do believe that that's happening already, to be honest. I mean, I'm seeing it with some clients' projects. In fact, a fun story. Uh, that's why I started saying that it's going to replace sellers, but it's going to replace us at some point. Because uh, fun story, and this will answer your question. I'm working with a client right now that they are hiring. I think that I we we talk about it, but basically they are using me, or they hired me to put our knowledge and all the information that they want the AI to use, that it's a tool that they are using right now to coach their team, their sales team. So in the future, they don't need me anymore. So basically, they have a tool that is an AI tool that will use my knowledge base, my learnings, my deepest understandings of the sales space in order for them to, at scale, train their whole sales force and sales team. So the answer is yes, but there is a nuance here. Uh, and I want to be bold again. Like it's happening the same as the industrial revolution when the machines were taking over, people and we say, hey, we will die. We will adapt. Exactly. We will adapt and everything is changing. The calculator uh change, we thought that, hey, with calculator, you are not going to think anymore. You don't need well, we are going to adapt. Same with the internet and technology. What I do believe, and this is what we are going to talk about right now, uh adapted to the confessionary of sales, that it's sellers from top to bottom and bottom up. We need to reallocate the forces, uh, uh efforts, sorry, resources and skills, new set of skills, in order to stop doing the repetitive, stupid tasks that we always do. That is, oh, let's jump into this website and research whatever. Let's let's be seller again. And let's be all-time like my dad, seller, yeah, having the right conversations, reading the room, uh, using your brain to understand data, and let the AI be like a colleague, a twin, uh, whatever, the the smartest guy in the in the room doing all the stuff for you.
SPEAKER_01You tackle a really interesting topic because every company out there, they want to scale, they want to grow, they want to increase their revenue, but they don't want to hire more people. You know, headcount, it's a it's a topic. It's a it's a hot a hot topic, right? How do we scale the company with not hiring more people?
SPEAKER_00It's crazy. Um there's a crisis there, I think. That is, we would call it the like the sales crisis, the seller crisis, the SDR crisis, the turnover crisis, uh you name it. And and we were doing some research beforehand. Uh I remember that we were going through some numbers. And man, if you want to share, but basically there is a huge percentage of people every year.
SPEAKER_01So imagine you you hire 10 SDRs and What's the percentage? Like what's the number? 30% usually leave the role in less than a year.
SPEAKER_00So basically it's a 30% turnover rate over a period of 12 to something months. So it's like free if you have 10 people hired, three people leave. And then you have from all the other seven, three or four that will not perform as you want. Exactly. The other ones will be regular, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So uh maybe you lose one of your post best performer because uh it's like in modern football, good players go to other people.
SPEAKER_00They jump exactly. They jump into the city.
SPEAKER_01But they go, but they they want to, you know, SDRs want to get promoted. It's a natural, natural move. How is this translated into costs and money? The cost of the salespeople or in general of labor costs labor costs is the highest cost in every organization. Yeah, correct. If you want to scale and reduce the costs, there is there are not many options. And uh, I think now there are actually options, but because you have the chance to kind of mimic or kind of copy your best salespeople.
SPEAKER_00Correct. How do you see because basically what we are seeing and what we are saying is companies, even in the in the tech space, yeah. I I feel it in my own skin. Like tech space every day, it's a higher quota, yeah. Uh, more demand of and pressure of you need to bring more revenue. Uh, not so much training and enablement. Yeah. Even fresh new graduates jumping into cold calling roles or cold emailing roles or prospecting roles without understanding anything about sales. And it's normal. We've been there. Yeah. It's painful, man, because there's no time. There's no time to learn, there's no process of you will get there. It's right now or you're off. Yeah, you need to deliver as fast as possible. So, with that um key component into consideration and the AI, the evolution of SDR and sellers right now. So, where do you see the companies are moving or going towards? How do you see this evolution of the role? What happens in the last five years for an SDR, for an AE, for a seller?
SPEAKER_01So we went through a different movement, right? There were companies hiring a lot of SDRs because they wanted to scale scale, they wanted to have a lot of meetings books, but then uh they were not performing as expected. Yeah. Um then they say, okay, maybe we need to reduce again the headcounts of SDRs. And even more post-COVID, right? With all the funding and tech booming. Exactly. And then I at one point then said, nah, if a salesperson is prospecting their own leads, the conversion rate is much higher because they know actually who they want to have a meeting with. So let's reduce the headcounts of the SDRs and let's make a full sales cycle. Um so then the uh account executive are getting burned out because they have to get it's a crazy cycle, vicious cycle, but it's never ending, right? It's tough, it's tough. You know, you need to be an extremely structured person to have your cold calling blocking, then you have to closing, then you have your admin stuff. And if you have to do that over a long period of time, it's normal that you burn out as an account executive. So at one point, SDRs, they we went back, they hired again STRs. I saw it in multiple companies I talked to. And then um, yeah, now we are in the in the moment where companies are testing again STRs and try to find out how we can scale the business without hiring again the high number of STRs.
SPEAKER_00Pouring money out there. Um, there are some stats and some interesting um in pieces of information here that is important for companies that are trying to adapt to this new era. Uh, five years ago was automation and systems, so to speak. Right now it's AI and everything about AI. So, what we are seeing is that top performing teams and top performers, individual contributors, are two to three times um more open and more actively using whatever the AI solution that might be out there for a sales, whatever activity we are defining and sales motion. And also, what we are seeing is that there is a huge decrease for these teams that are using AI on the percentage of hours and uh time that they spent in non-revenue activities. Yeah. Meaning, and we were talking about this, but basically, as a seller, you have to divide yourself into like different 10 roles, right? Like your manager telling you, fulfill the CRM, make sure that you are attending the internal meetings, the hands-off, the one-on-one, this and that. When are you selling? Because you're measuring me by revenue or by meetings booked. So introducing the topic here, and I would like to slowly dive in before getting into the AI topic and what are the solutions, strategies, and techniques that companies out there uh might need to know and hear from you and from me as well. What do you think will happen with the SDR role?
SPEAKER_01Personal opinion, I don't think it will be 100% replaced. So there will be always uh SDRs out there because it's just helpful, right? Okay. SDRs will be equipped with AI tools, which makes the life easier. And um, then really getting uh as much information out from the prospects to then re-qualify as good as possible to hand over to the account executive. I think this is still gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00Correct me if I'm wrong or putting your own words. It's not going to be replaced, but the skills and the mutation of the role will be adapted, needs to be adapted, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you will be like a kind of um a sales guy with live with an AI uh suit. Superpower. Superpower, which um you plug in the different AI uh engines and then you try to collect the relevant information at the end and book the meetings for your or the AI book the meetings and you go already. You qualified in the in the step where then the AE has the better uh opportunity. It has to have a higher closing rate.
SPEAKER_00Do you think that SDRs needs to, when they jump into an SDR role, classic SDR role or seller role at the at the beginning and top of the funnel? They need right now more sales per se skills, meaning negotiation, yeah, qualification, uh, how to talk, how to handle objections, not just prospecting and how to send emails that we will get there, more till the end of the funnel, like understanding how to actually sell. I think so.
SPEAKER_01I think so. Because they should be like a kind of mini AEs already. Okay. Because it's and mini AEs. Yeah, they should be like a uh because they should have already trained all the skills a future AE or as a future AES. I love it.
SPEAKER_00See, yeah, I remember like you need to develop the skills of your next role in your current role. Absolutely. But right now, it even more, like you need to jump into your role having new skills and better skills.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you have to understand the different AI tools which are around you to use them. Um, because there might be someone next to you who is not human but books more meetings. Yeah, that's happening. And it's already happening. That's happening with clients of mine. This is a way, of course, how companies are able to scale without hiring more headcounts. Yeah. Right? So um if you want to into that one.
SPEAKER_00What I think, and and there is a framework that I always try to um to follow or to guide myself, that is basically if we put into into with words, we have to describe what an SDR role is, like a role description, right? The common or the regular role is basically prospecting, right? Identifying potential prospects, trying to qualify them, understand if they are potentially interested at that time to get our services or solutions, and from there hand over that into someone that will close it. Yeah. Am I right? Absolutely. Okay, so all that process can be done automatically via the new technology. Yeah. So the framework that I'm seeing is what I call the AI leverage strategy or AI leverage framework. That is start from search optimization. That is basically the AI doing a huge amount of research at scale on your behalf in order to make sure connected to your knowledge base, connected to your ICP, your criteria of who are you selling, what are you selling to, et cetera. From their qualification or pre-objection handling, what I call, that is basically understanding what are the potential objections that a prospect can give me. So I answered them beforehand, then scoring that it's okay, based on some criteria of intent, trigger, timing, relevance, etc., etc. We can talk about. Yeah. I will say Kevin is top 10, Alan it's top eight, reach them out in different ways. Yeah. From their qualification meeting books. If that process can be done directly by AI, how the evolution of SDR should be should be understanding how to use it, use it, um, basically selling it, being at the end of it. How do you see this going through? If I'm right for sure, right? It's yeah, it's a good one. Assuming that I'm right. I I'm just thinking loud, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Imagine an SDR has three twins. Three twins. Top performers. Uh three twins. No, three twins. Yeah, three pair of twins, like six people. Yeah, six people who who's managing at the same time those uh six people running different outreach campaigns. I love it. You know, having their own army, and you compare your army against Army 1, Army 2, and Army 3. There are three SERs, and you have a team then of 18 people. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_00Is this even possible? I guess so. Okay, we will explain how. So basically, for everyone that is watching out there, so the the status quo right now says you get a funding or you are starting a new company, or you want to launch a new go-to-market motion, or you are hiring, just hire more. That will give you more manpower, more manpower, potentially it's more sales. That's not exactly that lineal right now. What we are seeing is with the labor cost going up and the quality of AI going up faster than ever before. Crazy. Instead of having 10 SDRs, have a one SDR with the skills of a more go-to-market seller. Go-to-market seller, I think it's a good, yeah, go-to-market. That's the name.
SPEAKER_01You can even call them go-to-market SDR, whatever. Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_00The name is irrelevant, but that's that's the skills that we are talking about. And using AI, so I want to introduce what we are seeing right now and what we tested together with different clients, projects, and even for ourselves. That is basically JSON. Yeah. So would you like to before jumping into this new scenario, a new a new chapter, what is JSON? What's Jason about?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so Jason is an II STR from Reply.io, and it does actually all the work what you just explained. From top to bottom. Exactly. It looks for uh different intent data of the ICP. They look at your website, they um comment on your competitors' LinkedIn posts. Yeah have there been any kind of um changes in happening? Did they move, for example, from one job to another? So it gives takes all the different aspects. Did they download a white paper from your website? Yeah. So all kind of triggers or signals or intent data, it gets this, put them together, rank it, score it, score it, gives you even more information. Is this person active on LinkedIn? All this kind of data, right? Scores it, then drafts a tailored message for this individual. After that, um enriches the data. Okay. So it looks like it sounds like surrealistic, right? Enriches the data, finds you the email address, um, is connected to your LinkedIn profile, uh, is connected to your email account, and then is able to start a multi-sequence approach from multi-touches, right? Um getting and uh, for example, sending an email to the prospect, engage it, engage with the prospect's LinkedIn post. Exactly. Have the whole process, what SDR would do. Exactly. This is the evolution basically of the role, right? Exactly.
SPEAKER_00In one line, you can run it on an autopilot. Absolutely. So basically, what we want to highlight here is that as an SDR, if you want to stay in your role, if you wanna scale the the ladder of the sales career, uh, there are solutions out there that will do and will replace you if you don't understand how they work. And basically what we are seeing, and these are the use cases that we are applying nowadays, that is basically JSON. As you were saying, first, besides the technicalities that are really easy for non-tech savvy people in terms of engineering, you jump into reply and JSON, and you can set up JSON basically by importing your website URL, it will automatically understand what you sell, how you sell it, who you sell it to, understand the market, understand the inputs, everything you need. From there will create, if I'm not wrong, based on our testing, more than 15 different angles of offering your solution. And the beauty about it is that exactly what you're mentioning. And here is the biggest shift and transformation from every sales company, I would say. That it's stop doing things manually. Yeah. Right now, the AI, it's not um just a solution for writing an email if when you jump into ChatGPT. It's with the human loop, yeah, understanding what's your tone, what's your pace, who you are targeting, why you're targeting right now, why relevance and timing is important, what's the intent data trigger signals that you were saying are important, from hiring to funding, yeah, to comments, to website visitors, to all of them at the same time. Yeah. And from there, crafting the campaigns, you know, all in one single tap. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Oh man. You don't have to have 50 different go to the Discroy. And then export, import, do that, waiting at duplicate here, there. It saves you so much time in not having all those tabs open. And luckily, also our um capacity of our laptops, which are the best, of course, um, is not is is running quite smooth.
SPEAKER_00What we are seeing right now, man, and this is something that I want to highlight to everyone, is that companies are basically overwhelmed about what are the new tools that we'll be launching five hours from now that will replace everything. Because every single tool and solution out there is saying that. It's like we are the new AI, the best in town solution, et cetera. Remember, it's not about the tool, it's about what the tool is giving you and how you execute and implement it, right?
SPEAKER_01And the first time I heard AI STR was like two, two and a half years ago. And I'm honest, it was not good. I wasted a lot of time putting my um effort into it, train it, make it run on it. I think it was just on LinkedIn, to be honest, but it was not what I was expecting, right? It was um I was not really happy. Of course, it got some some data points, but it was not what I was expecting. That's how fast the ball right now.
SPEAKER_00It's two years. That's two years. And this changed the way one role or many roles uh are needs to be reshaped. Yeah. So one thing that I'm always thinking about is every time that I'm in front of the computer by myself, chatting with GPT and so on, and that is my personal uh therapist.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I guess. Um what is the next move? What is the next skill? What are the next things that me as a consultant, as a coach, you as a seller, well, I'm selling as well. We need to know, we need to teach, we need to train, we need to implement it to companies.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00This is exactly what we are solving and what we are seeing when we implement JSON or a solution like JSON. How I put it always is think about having a top performer rep, or as many as you want, right? Internally, working 24-7, not being sad, not being angry, not being tired, not complaining like we've been sick, exactly, not complaining like we do as sellers, like because of the commissions, because of this, that should be a meeting booked qualified or not, SQL, MQL, whatever, right? So, and on top of that, there is a beautiful thing that I like that I that it's giving the SDRs the power of I I I I never saw something like this, that it's the conversion rate from reaching out to reply rate to meeting booked with a qualified lead. Yeah, it's at least between three to four times bigger or higher if you implement this strategy. The strategy is basically this. And the only way that I was able to do it is was with Jason because of the following. Imagine that you have a list of dream accounts. As an enterprise seller, you have your 100, 200, 500 dream accounts, right? So you embed those accounts into uh Jason and you say, Hey, you know what? I want you to follow them, like being the personal stalker. And what I want you to do is to check if there is any milestone in the company in real life, real time, meaning new funding, new hiring, new open roles, uh, new leadership changes, new market expansions, whatever it is about training and so on. As well, intent within LinkedIn, if they are doing something within a competitor of yours, another creator, if they are talking about something, and this is where the magic happens. So listen and bear with me. If they are talking or saying or discussing about the topic that you can offer, you can even jump into LinkedIn and say to Jason, Hey, I like Kevin that is my competitor. So you grab Kevin's URL, you put it there into JSON, and you say, always track the last three, five, ten posts. Yeah. And scan the people there. Yeah. And then based on my ICP criteria, look at this. This is fucking it's it's insane. So basically, scan this criteria on top of everything that I just mentioned. Bring the people from those comments and then qualify them. And just gave me or give me the ones that are at least qualified at 80% or 70% or the amount of percentage that you want that you based on the how narrow you want to go. From there, create the campaign. That's sick. That's sick. From there, create 15 or 10 or 7 campaigns with different angles, and only reach out to them if conditional logic, something happens. And you can say here, for example, if the score of they being active on LinkedIn, it's more than one per day, three times per day, whatever. So and the granularity or the specificity that we can get with JSON, it's it's it's from another level.
SPEAKER_01You missed one point, right?
SPEAKER_00Tracking data, inbox, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01You know, want to know which of the campaign performs the best, where you should put more effort into it. And um you have everything in a simple, easy dashboard where you can see reply rate, open rate, how uh did they click on certain uh certain documents you were were providing. Um you get a message from LinkedIn from one person, you get another message from uh uh your email, everything comes in the in a one uni box, and you don't need to go handled by my friends. Yeah, handled by Jason and then you can make rules. Say, Jason, if someone answers, say they're interested, go to my calendar and book me. And book a meeting for me.
SPEAKER_00That's crazy.
SPEAKER_01It's the next level. Like Jason books your meeting, sees your availability in your calendar, and suggests the prospect uh potential dates uh if it's not possible. Yeah, you wake up and you have them directly in your case. Or if you say, no, no, no, you want to take over from there, you can do it by yourself, right?
SPEAKER_00It's it's the level of personalization that you want, it's up to you. The thing what we are seeing, and let's jump into some statistics and some numbers. When we implement solutions like this, like, okay, this will be performed on my behalf, there's always some concerns, risks, or feelings of, you know what, this will mess it up or will screw my operations. Yeah. So I always try to work with the client saying, okay, what's your baseline? And why your baseline is like this, right? Like how you operate right now, what's your current process and what your current process already looks like right now? Okay, cool. So from this starting point, if we don't do anything, what are the things that could happen and what are the things that are not happening because of that? From there, we implement the three-layer, and I think that we mentioned this, like the three layer of AI. You are not so comfortable with the AI doing everything, Jason doing everything for you, no worries. But if you have clients or potential clients, better said, that they are expressing somehow some interest alongside whatever the intent or trigger that might be, and you have your sellers either sleeping in a different territory or full of stuff doing on holidays, or on holidays, or sick, or whatever, under the water. Why not having an AI that understands what you sell, who do you sell it, and how you sell it to handling that for you? And then on top of that, you can start adding layers like okay, qualify, book for me, and then score it based on that. For every AE out there, we know how hard it is.
SPEAKER_01You go for holidays.
SPEAKER_00Oh man, for salespeople, holidays are you go for holidays.
SPEAKER_01And you come back and your calendar is empty, maybe no moot meetings booked. Oh, you know, and if like commissions like this. Yeah, yeah, you know, next next paycheck, zero. And I'm like, oh, if I would have had someone who could have filled up my calendar, yeah, when I'm back, I jump right into those meetings and you just yeah, you you set the criteria once, and this is this is going to work, and it will recommend.
SPEAKER_00So moving into a a different thing, again, some numbers. Yeah. What we are seeing is that conversion rates increase between 30 to 40 percent uh when we are implementing JSON or AI solutions that will do a repetitive task at scale, yeah, right?
SPEAKER_01Um since 2022, I think adoption of AI increased from year to year, I think by 100%. Yeah. It doubled every year.
SPEAKER_00Doubled every year. It's crazy. It's crazy. So this is happening. Yeah. So it's it's there are hard facts that are saying to us and to every seller out there and to every sales team. And that's I think that this is the biggest confession. I think that we need to add uh like a section on this uh podcast that is like the confession section, one confession, uh like killer confession per episode, but the topic for another time. Uh I think that the biggest thing here is that stats say, hey, either you stay uh updated with the information with AI and how to use it, or you will be left behind. Yeah. Right? So now that we understand how JSON works, why JSON is important, how JSON is improving and and changing some uh workflows and impacting positively into conversions and pipelines, I would like to jump into another topic that is related to this. Tell me. Again, AI evolution and so on. If I have to ask you like open thoughts about what are the one, two, three skills, skills, not personality traits. We always talk about this, and and they are difficult to uh differentiate them. Uh the skills that these new sellers need to adopt or adapt to survive in an environment like 2026 with all these AI FOMO and craziness going on. The first things that comes to mind, you as a seller as well. What do you think? Yeah, creativity? Why? Let me let me ask you that. Let me let me tease you there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. AI is not there yet to have like some creative approaches, I would say. Okay. All right. So last year, I was thinking, okay, what I have like my top 10 accounts. I want to get in. What can I do? I said, like, why am I not going back old fashioned and I write a handwritten letter to my one of those prospects, seal it with wax, you know? The wax logo is the logo from my company. That's beautiful, man. I love those approaches. Have that delivered to them on their table.
SPEAKER_00Directly on their desk. Yeah, on their desk. Pattern interruption. So basically. It's like creativity. Yeah. Being different, being you need to have these ideas.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Right? It's something which which AI is something AI can't do.
SPEAKER_00Unless you ask, or yeah, but but but I I know what you're meaning.
SPEAKER_01So this is something where you need to think outside of the box because it's of course it can be dangerous as well, because of course you can send out um hyper-personalized emails. But I think if you there's still a lot of people out there who really want to have this human interaction, right? It's a topic we talk a lot about AI, but I think the human interaction needs to become again more and more important. Yeah. Right. Because if you are then in the selling point, um people need to trust you to be able to buy from you.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, man. And and and there is one thing now that you mentioned buying process or human interaction and all of this. I think that it's Gardner, if I'm not wrong, uh, when we were checking the stats, Gardner says that between 60 to 75% of the buying process and the decision process, it's been done even before having a conversation with human.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Right? So this is crazy. This was completely different like three years ago. Yeah. Right? So everyone needed and wanted to have a conversation with the seller. Yeah. Right now, you already made your decision even before jumping into an analysis, right? With them. It's a little bit contradictory what I just said because Exactly, because the human interaction is important, but that doesn't mean that we don't do our research. And that's how AI and human needs to be connected. It's the same.
SPEAKER_01Like I want to buy a new project at home for my house, watch nice movies in the evening, right? I analyze the whole internet. I look for all the information, all the reviews. I go to uh Gemini, uh ChetGP asks which is the best projector currently on the market, and then I go to MediaMarkt. I go to MediaMarkt or even Amazon or Amazon, whatever, whatever. If I go to MediaMarkt, then I say, Yeah, yeah, I want a projector, which one would you recommend? And I said, like, yeah, this one is good. I said, Oh well, I was actually looking at that one. Exactly. Uh and he just wanted the validation. Exactly. But in a more complex sales cycles, yeah. I think they're it's really, really important to have this the listening skills because it's another skill. I think it's definitely needed. We you need to develop more and more. So going back to the skills you mentioned creativity. Then listening.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Active listening. Active listening? You have to be a therapist. Yeah. Even more nowadays, right?
SPEAKER_01So if they tell you their concerns and really active listening, asking the right questions, um, can that be done by AI? Yeah, yeah. At some point, yeah. I think it could be. Would someone like to speak to an I on on such a level, you know? Not yet, at least. We will we will discover in a couple of years or months. When I want to buy something and I discuss something with you, I want to read your face. I want to see Nonverbal. I want to see how you how you react to the questions I have, right? To build this relationship. Would you be able to build relationships with AI?
SPEAKER_00No, because they don't have emotions and relationships are built on emotions. 100%. So, one question here. Let me assume the third one, the third skill. I think that it's understanding psychology or how the brain works. How our brain works, how we operate, how we think about, how we even when we say something, how we say it, it's more important than what we say and what we don't say is more important than what we say and how we say it. That is the non-verbal communication as well.
SPEAKER_01Coming back to the STR, AI, STR topic, I think or the technology behind it works perfectly if you can hide behind a desk, like or behind a computer. Or I don't know how to say it, but it's as long as you're able to hide behind someone and someone doesn't really know that you're an AI, then good, um it's okay at some point. Even if you hide behind a phone, and we know that there are tools which are pretty good code caller, it's it's AI. But as long as someone doesn't see you in front and wants to interact with you, all those jobs could be done easily by AI, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_00That's why, well, this is exactly what we were talking about, Jason, right? Like with simple actions and a couple of hours invested into explaining and giving all the resources of what we do and how we do it, and who do we sell it and so on, then the AI will start suggesting, performing, scoring, prospecting, creating campaigns. Yeah, that's that's Jason.
SPEAKER_01I have one success story. I I can even mention the company. Why not? Go ahead. Uh Jason booked a meeting with Lufthansa. Okay. So was one of my target again. One of the biggest airpl airlines in the world. So it was like someone um responsible for the social media protection. Okay. That they have, for example, fake customer service. You go to people if they have a problem with, for example, the tickets or want to reschedule their tickets, they go to Facebook and look for customer service. Instead of reaching to the website or to comment someone. They call people and say, Yeah, yeah, no problem. We can't that they have done fake accounts on on social media. Fake accounts. Yeah, I got some examples. I put it as well into the outreach, send it out, trigger some person who uh would be the right uh responsible of this topic. Exactly. Yeah. And then bam, multi-chat-touch approach, LinkedIn, email, and then they answered. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00It was just for relevancy, timing, and everything done by AI automatically. I mean, you were the brain behind it. Of course. And then, hey, Jason, help me put this into uh prospecting methodology that could be applied to as many prospects as you want.
SPEAKER_01I had a tailored uh strategy for one specific topic at the right time, it triggered the interest. Yeah. So that's crazy.
SPEAKER_00That's crazy. So making a quick summary and first offering something that we agreed on. Yeah. That is, would you like to offer it? I would like to offer it as well as you can.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I can I can offer it. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00I think I mean we're talking a lot of things here, but it's not easy to go from theory to practice. And that's why we want to offer something.
SPEAKER_01So we were discussing with Alan actually that we're telling a lot of stories here. We we want to put this actually in practice. So for anyone out there who's interested to have a one-hour session with us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. The time that is needed in order to help them implement this AI thing.
SPEAKER_01If you want to have that implemented, put a comment under the YouTube channel, and then we randomly pick the pick one. Exactly. And uh we help you to implement it. Yeah, to implement JSON, to test it, to see if it's the right thing for you.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. I mean, I would love uh, like I remember like three or four or five years ago, even right now, having someone saying, Hey, I did all these 100 mistakes already. Yeah, uh, I went through all of them. This is what you have to do, this is what you don't have to do. Uh, because again, I I know that sometimes when we already have the experience and we already test it out, it looks easy from this side of this screen.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh like, hey, test Jason, uh, do it this way, it will do everything for you. It's not that easy as well. Uh the the technology, it's so powerful. Yeah, there are so many things that you can achieve with Jason that sometimes it's overwhelming in terms of where do I start, and that's why we are offering this to help everyone.
SPEAKER_01Of course, people might think, yeah, but you know, it's reply is it's their main sponsor. But no, it's really um if you test the ones. We are we are putting our words because we tested. I mean, so we would not uh have sponsors from products which we would not believe.
SPEAKER_00And I'm and I'm telling you something. This is everything that I say to every brand that approaches, yeah. Um, not even for confessions of a seller, but for any other partnership event and so on. And the first thing that I say is sorry, but I will be selfish in a way that the only thing that I will either share, communicate, promote, if you want, at some point that I don't like that word because it's I mean, promoting sounds like scam at some point. Yeah. It's something that I use it, that I already tested, that I believe that the audience will have uh like a helpful um and it will be useful. And that's why, basically. And it's amazing uh because we can test so many tools, right? We love it. We love it. Uh we're doing the the hard work for you guys. So so again, yeah, uh reach out to Kevin, send us an email with uh Jason, uh subject line, something we will pick you in and we will um help you implement. Perfect. Should we should we quickly summarize a little bit? Yeah, please go ahead because we went from we went from let me put all the table, all the topics over and you make like a timeline here. Yeah, like the TLDR evolution and the problems and challenges that companies are going through within scale, revenue, cost of labor, yeah, uh, and how is that impacting uh basically profitability and growth? How the sales role needs to be adapted and the evolution of SDRs, um, AEs, the skills, the soft, the hard ones, and so on. And from there, how AI is shifting basically and shaping this. And how Jason could you know help exactly? So in these pillars, how can you connect these challenges being solved in this way and the transformational aspect that you can talk about?
SPEAKER_01So to make it pretty simple, right? Companies want to scale without adding additional headcounts. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Or putting more money out there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, putting more money out there. Yeah. Scale with uh AI STRs. That's the only way to leverage because there you can hire multiple ones for much, I don't like the word cheap, but uh it's cheaper.
SPEAKER_00It's it's it's more affordable with the I like the way cost more cost effective. Sorry, you're polite. I like it. So in a much more cost your enterprise.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. You know, in a cost-effective way to then of course have have it as well in a must much more relevant, like the CEO from Habsford said. Don't send emails if it's not relevant. So don't do outreach if it's not relevant. Yeah. If you call someone and say, hey, we have this uh amazing offer currently available for you.
SPEAKER_00Um why and why now? Yeah. So there is one framework. I love frameworks. You know, I mean, people will put me like Alan the framework, guys. I think that they will put like your face in a framework. We can't put it up like on top of this, but there is something that I call the timing uh plus relevance framework or a leverage AI framework. Man, I am making these frameworks up or add existing, you know? This one is mine. Okay. There are some others. I will tell you one more right now after this one, that it's more about the sales uh skills that we were talking about. But basically, the timing times relevance messaging uh framework is first of all, you need to understand why you are sending a potential outreach or doing outreach on a campaign right now, scoring that potential outreach in terms of why timing is important right now, and then the relevance of the message. And there is one clear rule if timing, the score is zero, it goes from one to five. Okay. Being five, timing is perfect right now because of the triggers, intents, and signals. And being zero, timing is not perfect. There's nothing that will allow me to send a message. If timing is zero, no matter how strength the strength of the message or how powerful the message is, you don't have to send that. Yeah. If timing is five and the message is powerful, then for sure it's a it's a yes go. It's a for sure. Can you give me a clear example? So for example, and this goes back to other episodes that we talk about it. I don't want to be uh like rain, well, let's reinforce it. I don't want to be like, yeah. So basically what happens here is that you have intent triggers, signals, JSON can tackle all of them at the same time, as well as scoring your leads, finding the right data, and so on and so forth. Going straight to the point, imagine that you have a prospect that is hiring specific roles. Those roles are basically to do something that you offer, meaning, for example, sellers, and you are offering a solution for sellers, like uh like a JSON solution, right? So you have one signal or one trigger in this case, then you have a signal that is they are talking in the comments from a LinkedIn competitor, right? Uh, that is the ones that you uploaded into JSON and it's tracking that information. And on top of that, you notice that they just got a funding round. Got it. So the system, what will what we'll do is, hey, this is what we are understanding. Why right now is the right moment. Hiring is right now. Hiring is right now, funding is right now, and on top of that, they are actively talking about the topic online, even more if they downloaded a white paper, an ebook, or resources or bus, a visitor, and so on. So timing is from zero to five, maybe a four, a five. From there, Jason or not JSON, depending on how you have it structure, you jump into messaging, right? And from there you start your campaign. So that's my my framework, basically. I think that I had another one. Yeah. I have another one, but it's more about the skills. So you mentioned three skills, yeah, right? The first one being creative, like thinking outside of the box and being different from everyone else, like pattern interrupt. As a seller as well, the second one was active listening. And I think that this is key every time. Like talk, uh, listen ratio should be crazy different, and you should listen much more as than you talk. The third one, uh, don't recall right now what we mentioned. We didn't mention anything. Uh, we didn't mention anything. You just had two ideas. Exactly. But right now, what I'm thinking based on this framework is that the third one should be uh how you talk, how you elaborate frameworks of conversations, how you frame your approach, the way you say things and how you say it. Yeah. And we were saying about the third skill, like is reading the the environment and the non-verbal stuff and so on. Reading the reading the room. Reading the room. Right? Yeah. So there is a strategy for sellers, and this is something that it's not mine, that is called elicitation. This framework and this strategy works in this way. The strategy means if you are jumping into a conversation with someone, and I give you the task, Kevin, you need to get from me. Imagine you are in a discovery call, and you need to identify how much I'm being paid as a seller. Yeah. And you need to identify that and discover that without asking not even one question. How would you do that? That's basically the elicitation framework. And it's crazy. Think about this and listen to me. Imagine that I want to do that, and I know that you are a seller working in the tech space, I will make three examples super fast. The first one is you're a seller in the tech space, junior is the SDR, you just started in uh Spain, for example, and we know that average goes from 18k to 25k. Yeah. Crazy, but that's topic for another uh case. But I want exactly your number. So what I would say instead of asking. Asking, hey, how much money do you make? What do you what do I expect? You will answer if I ask you directly and you don't know me. Not your business. Exactly. Exactly. Automatically it will be a no. Yeah. So the elicitation says make a statement that it will be so difficult for the other people not to correct you that they will give you the truth. And this is the example. Kevin, congrats, man, on joining as an SDR into this company. It's crazy. The other day I read an article that says that in Spain, all new hires are uh being paid at 30% by law more than the ones that uh jumped into last year. And that's around 28 to 35k. Amazing. Automatically, yeah, because of the human psychology, as you want to correct me, you will say, Wait, what? 30 per 30k? 30% extra? Where do you read? Where did you read that? There's no way we are making 22. Yeah. That's how powerful is the elicitation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, there is one more example, if you allow me. Yeah, no, go ahead. And if you think it's interesting for you, it's for the audience, it's amazing. That it's imagine that happens the same uh within uh uh Uber driver. And the this is from by the CIA. It's uh it's a guy called uh Chase Hughes. Yeah, and I have like this psychology book, and what I'm a nerd about this. So basically it says like, hey, you want to understand how happy these drivers are in their role. You cannot jump into an Uber driver and say, hey, tell me about how happy you are in your role. Yeah. What what they would say, hey, not your problem, right? Not your business. Exactly. So what do we say here? It's like we just say, hey, congrats. I read an article, or I noticed that the satisfaction for all Uber drivers is 97% in their current role. Uh so congrats for for doing it, and and yeah, that's amazing. And they will turn around and say, What? Satisfaction in doing in driving 12 hours a day sometimes uh in a chaotic city or whatever with the risk and so on involved. So the elicitation will say something super exaggerated with a clear statement that will make the other guy give you the truth in order to correct you. Yeah and on top of that, you can follow up. It's like, hey, oh, I didn't know about that. No, we are not we are not that happy we have this risk and so on. And if you want more information, do it again. Like, hey, ah, that's crazy because my my uncle is doing uh Uber Uber, and he told me crazy stories about what happened about the inside the car. But you're not asking about the stories they happened or they had. So it's like, yes, that's crazy. The other day, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah, good. So again, uh, I think that was a little bit extended for the audience.
SPEAKER_01No, no, really interesting. I think um all this tactical advice is right, it's it's something everyone can put themselves into it and then try it out in their environment, right? In their motion, in their safe motion. It's about discovery, about skills, about how we talk. That's what I was saying. So I think a lot of topics we still have to play, Alan. Oh, I want to play. So um for for our audience, we have here our game. So it's we have your questions written, first of all, different categories. Yeah. And then one question, and you have to answer yes or no. Okay. And why? All right, okay, perfect. Um, category compensation, team or individual bonuses.
SPEAKER_00Individual bonuses, 100%. Um, the reason why is because uh individual bonuses or bonuses specifically, and mainly for sellers or customer-facing people drives behavior. Yeah, and money drives behavior. And when you have team bonuses, most likely you will have, if you have more than three or four people, ones that work more, ones that they won't work as hard, and that will create a rotten environment. So answering 100% individual, merit, and yeah, let's move forward. My time, my turn. Okay, oh, nice. So category AI and go to market. Tool overload is killing sales performance. 100%.
SPEAKER_01If there are too many tools the salesperson needs to analyze or to use, like we said, we have a salesperson, I think, actually actively just sales 25% of the time. The admin work increases, yeah, and for that reason it kills productivity. Yeah, so basically they are doing more things that are not sales. Exactly. Okay. Um, AI and go to market. Should AI usage affect commission and KPIs?
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's a good one, man. Yeah. That's not happening right now. Yeah. But I guess my answer would be yes at any given point, and then it will be no again because that will become the status quo. Yeah. So basically, right now we are talking about how to use JSON, how to use tools, how to use AI. People think AI is write me an email in GPT. Yeah. In three years from now, we will have this conversation a little bit older. What we still do is wise. Exactly. And wiser, confessions of a seller 3.0, and we will say, hey, commissions are based on closing or whatever, the topic at the time. Yeah. And everyone will be using solutions. Yeah. Uh there will be, to conclude, two types of companies and people in the future. The ones using AI and all the rest.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Last one. Last one. Okay. Roles and structure. Would you hire for attitude or would you hire for track record? Attitude.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Why? Simple example. Um, I hired one guy, young, great attitude, like hungry. Hungry. You saw his in his eyes like money. Shark. You wanted to earn money, you know? And uh then you have someone coming from another company, yeah, like track record, having like multiple good logos on their profile, which doesn't always mean that they're a good performer. Maybe they get burned already. Okay. So maybe um maybe they are not really hungry anymore. Yeah. So definitely attitude. Yeah. Basically, I agree 100%.
SPEAKER_00All right. So, man, we've been talking, I guess, for an hour or more uh so far. Um, in order to conclude, again, thank you for everyone if you're still listening and watching us till this point. Amazing. Um, we are talking about AI sales tactics, tricks, um, how this is evolving, uh, sharing our experiences as well. If you didn't do it until this point, why are you waiting? Hit that subscribe button, hit that bell so you don't miss. We have a lot of new things coming in, people that will be joining us. Um, as Kevin mentioned, so whatever the camera it is, as Kevin mentioned, hey, uh reach out to us so we can help you within JSON implementation, AI reply. Thanks, reply, for being a partner uh and for making our lives easier. Thanks for that. This is Confessions of a Seller. Another episode, Dunelin. Yeah, and see you in the next one. Cool topics will be happening here, so don't miss it. Stay tuned. Stay tuned.