Our topic for this month deals with an issue very much on the minds of businesses currently: artificial intelligence. The topic is “The Danger of Making People Into Robots with AI.” With minutely detailed instruction evolved by AI and religiously followed by employees, they are no longer required to think for themselves.
A vital question to ask, when it comes to AI, is, “Does AI solve the issue of 80/20 in sales?”
The 80/20 Rule
There’s a rule or law, also known as the Pareto Principle, that states that 80 percent of effects come from 20 percent of the causes. In sales, this rule is modified to state that 80 percent of sales are made by 20 percent of salespeople, which has been observed and written about considerably over the last century.
Companies focus nearly exclusively on the top 20 percent of salespeople, leaving the remaining 80 percent to chance success or turnover. They simply throw up their hands and give up, deciding “that’s the way it is” for that remaining 80 percent.
Or, the company has the idea of attempting to take that top 20 percent and put their actions into scripts, which are then fed to the remaining 80 percent. The 80 percent are forced to follow the scripts in the hope that they will solve the lack of sales skills, which they never do.
Solving 80/20 With AI?
So, will AI solve the 80/20 problem?
Once more, we come back to the company attempting to solve 80/20 by feeding sales solutions to the remaining 80 percent of salespeople—only now, these solutions are generated by artificial intelligence. Businesses hope that if particular micro-steps are provided to salespeople, which they’re forced to follow, they’ll rise to the top 20 percent.
And we’re right back to scripting. Only now, the scripts are generated by AI, based on actions the top 20 percent of salespeople are taking. And as we’ve seen all too often, scripting is never a successful way to sales success.
The Widening Gap
This is yet another route of using AI to turn salespeople into robots. Instead of being properly trained, sales reps become dependent on the scripts being provided to them. Unfortunately, the AI generated scripts become “responsible” for sales success—or lack of it.
If you take a good, hard look at this method, you’ll see that going this way widens the gap between the top 20 percent and the remaining 80 percent.
The top 20 percent are being completely responsible for their sales and solving their own problems, and are consistently more successful as a result. The remaining 80 percent are taking no responsibility for their sales, counting on the AI-generated scripts to solve any issues, and becoming less and less successful in the process.
Thus, you can see that artificial intelligence is in no way a solution for the perennial 80/20 issue. AI is undoubtedly with us and is here to stay, but utilizing it this way will get us nowhere.
P.S. If you read our book CLOSING is NOT your PROBLEM! you’ll find that there is indeed a solution to the 80/20 rule that raises up and stabilizes a great many more salespeople on a team.
To learn more, sign up at SELLability.com.
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