AI in B2B Sales: Unpacking Gartner's Vision and the Winding Road Ahead

A Response to the Future of B2B Sales: Adopting AI and Evolving Strategies:

The recent Gartner report on the future of B2B sales highlights significant trends and transformations, emphasizing the rise of AI and digital channels. While some of these insights are valuable, others are not new, and there are areas where the report's enthusiasm for change obscures practical realities with a fog of fear! Gartner’s “Future of Sales” lurches all over the place, so let’s dive in…

1. Slow(er) Adoption and Adaptation to AI in Sales

Despite the transformative potential of AI, the report's assertion that sales organizations will swiftly transition to data-driven, hyper automated environments is overly optimistic. Back on planet Earth, human beings are notoriously slow to adopt and adapt. This will be (is) true of both buyers and sellers. We still depend on carrots and sticks to encourage change in behaviors, refusing to recognize the influence of friction. When will your AI buy from my AI with “no” human interaction at all? We don’t know when, and without that knowledge, we must carry on adapting and adopting the best we can, but we know that day is coming.

2. Buyer Centricity is Not a New Concept

The report emphasizes a shift from seller-centric to buyer-centric strategies, as though this is a novel approach. However, the idea of buyer centricity has been a topic of discussion for years in the sales and marketing communities. And it’s rarely made its way from discussion to anything much more tangible. The importance of focusing on the needs and behaviors of buyers is well established, it’s just not well practiced. The tools and technologies available to help here continue to expand and improve, and herein lies a problem – there are so many boasting transformative results it’s become hard to trust what new vendors are saying while distinguishing one solution from another. Ultimately, the challenge lies much deeper – do companies really think the way to success is through happy customers or happy shareholders, and are the two always connected? Finding this balance proves elusive.

3. The Impact of COVID-19 on B2B Buying Behavior

The report mentions that "B2B buying behavior has grown more unpredictable due to COVID-19 and market volatility," but fails to provide specific insights into how COVID-19 has altered buyer behavior. Blaming the pandemic for unpredictability without detailing the exact changes is unhelpful. Of course, Gartner needs to be vague so as to perpetuate the myth that we all need them, all the time, to explain all this complicated stuff to us mere mortal graduates of State schools!

4. Evolution of Seller Involvement in the B2B Buying Process

The assertion that "B2B customers radically discount the perceived value of sellers" is an overgeneralization and suggests a future with less seller involvement. The world is already moving this way, but it’s an evolution, not a revolution. AI and digital tools should (and will) be leveraged to make sellers more valuable to buyers. AI makes sellers more efficient. It’s the mental equivalent of the exoskeleton in various science fiction movies like Elysium and Edge of Tomorrow. Sellers are/will be able to simply do more and do it better. As digital natives become decision-makers, the role of the seller will continue to change. It may even disappear, but it won't disappear tomorrow.

5. Leadership in Sales: Enabling Buyers

The report's most important point is that "CSOs must become leaders of selling, rather than leaders of sellers." This is a crucial point, but it misses a deeper insight: the ultimate goal is to enable buying, not necessarily selling. The role of sales leaders should evolve to focus on how they can make it easier for customers to buy from their organizations. This involves not just leading a team of sellers or managing selling processes but creating an environment where the buyer's journey is as differentiated, smooth, and supported as possible. The perspective has to be that it's a buyer's journey, NOT a sales process.

Conclusion

“Experts” like Gartner love to spread the FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt). It’s how they get you (us) to feel like we need their expertise to guide us through the “Uncertainty” of that FUD, and therefore how they make a lucrative living. Some of what Gartner says is a compelling vision of the future of B2B sales (although they’re understandably vague). Even though the speed of change has picked up, and will continue with the advent of popular AI, we’re still some time from AIs selling to and buying from one another, but there is wisdom here:

• Thinking about enabling “selling” rather than “sellers” is a valuable distinction. But don’t get carried away. You’ll need to AI-enable your sellers first – equip them with those “mental exoskeletons.”

• A thought here is about the definitions you use. For example, selling isn’t about selling, it’s about enabling buying, enabling people to “buy” from you. Good sellers intuitively understand this, by the way, and always have.

• On the journey to human-free transactions, Gartner is really saying that we should leverage AI to increase the value that sellers bring to the process. From an inward-looking perspective, AI enables your team to simply do more, faster. And we know what that means!
  

"Times they are are changing" and "may you live in interesting times" and all that jazz. Times are always changing and have you ever met anyone who hasn't lived in interesting times? It's always going to be different this time! But maybe, this time...it is.