Read below or watch the video above.

Dennis Collins:
Hello again everybody, and welcome back. We’re glad to see you again on Connect and Convert. We’re the Sales Accelerator podcast. We’re small business owners. Tune in every week to hear the very latest, the secrets behind growing sales faster than ever. Hi, Leah.

Leah Bumphrey:
Dennis, Hello. Good morning.

Dennis Collins:
Leah Bumphrey, I am glad you’re back. I always wonder if you’re going to show up. Like, “well, I’ve had enough of that guy.”

Leah Bumphrey:
Not even close, if only to tell you how much snow I’m shoveling these days.

Dennis Collins:
Snow, what is that?

Leah Bumphrey:
Three feet of snow. We’re being serious. Oh yeah, we don’t fool around here.

Dennis Collins:
Of snow. I’m sorry.

Leah Bumphrey:
It’s an insider secret. If you live in Western Canada or any of the northern states.

Dennis Collins:
I’m sorry, but maybe you love the snow. Are you one of those snow lovers?

Leah Bumphrey:
You know what? I don’t mind the snow. I don’t like the ice that goes along with it, and people do forget to drive even here just for a short period of time.

Dennis Collins:
I wish you well in your snow. I was looking out the window this morning and I didn’t see any snow here, so I’ll let you know when it snows here.

Leah Bumphrey:
That’s why we got to keep talking to each other.

Dennis Collins:
Okay, today, Leah, before we get started, we’ve got a great topic today, but I always like, and you do this so well, to remind our listeners and our viewers of a very special offer that Dennis and Leah would like to make just to you. Would you share that, please?

Leah Bumphrey:
I would love to. We’re all about insider secrets, but these are secrets we want to share with small business. These are not secrets we’re trying to keep. And in order to do that more fully and more specifically for your business, send an email LeahBumphrey@wizardofads.com or DennisCollins@wizardofads.com, and let us know when you have time. We’ll arrange a time so that we’re able to set up a 60 minute discovery call to either go deeper into a topic that you and I have talked about or a different topic where we might be able to help, and then we’ll see. There might be opportunities for us to work together beyond this podcast.

Dennis Collins:
There might be, and the only way to find out is to talk, and we don’t love to talk as much as we love to listen. So again, we talk here, we listen when we talk to you, so give us a chance. We’d love to talk.

Leah Bumphrey:
So what’s today? What are we talking about today, Dennis?

Dennis Collins:
Okay, Leah, everybody’s talking about this. This is the first time on this particular podcast we’ve ever talked about this. It won’t be the last, I’m sure. All right. Is AI coming to get your sales job?

Leah Bumphrey:
That’s a big one.

Dennis Collins:
I got to tell you, you know me, I dig into this stuff a little bit. I won’t bore you with the details, but I found out recently that about half the people who are currently in sales are afraid and believe that their jobs are at risk and that AI will replace them. How about that? Now you’ve been in the sales industry, I’ve been in it. What are your thoughts? Do you fear AI at this point?

Leah Bumphrey:
You know what? I don’t. I think it’s like anything. People are afraid of stuff they don’t know. I was on a sales floor this past week and I heard someone talking about how they’re able to use it to hone in on writing proposals that they’re very excited about. That’s not an area of strength for this particular person. So using it as a tool, they’re embracing it. They’re not afraid of it, but it’s one of those things that if you don’t know, maybe in some areas… What are your thoughts here? What are you thinking?

Dennis Collins:
I’ll tell you what, I have a dear friend who I’m trying to get to be a guest on this podcast, but he’s very shy, and he’s very microphone and camera shy. I’m working on him though. He is in the space. He is involved in designing AI solutions for large companies, big time, and he and I had a nice chat over a cup of coffee the other day. And you know what he told me, Leah? He said, there is no question in his mind that AI will take over sales. There’s no question in his mind.

Leah Bumphrey:
The actual sales portion of it.

Dennis Collins:
The actual sales portion. Lemme tell you some of his thoughts. First of all, we all know that AI can process amazing amounts of data. Meaning, if you have customer data scattered here, there, everywhere, it can organize that and make some sense of it. AI is also expert at providing communications and follow-ups like email cadence, like responses, keeping track of who you talk to and when, like a CRM system, it can take your CRM system and enhance it. Are you ready for this one? He tells me that AI can predict customer behavior. Yes.

Leah Bumphrey:
I don’t know if I buy that.

Dennis Collins:
I don’t either, but I’m telling you what this guy said. He said it could predict customer behavior and purchasing patterns. Now, I challenged him a little bit on that, Leah, because I also said, nah, I don’t know about that. He said, once it is trained, it’s not intuitive. It has no intellect. It is simply taking the training that you give it and saying, here’s what my normal customer does, and put thousands of data points in there and then it can take all those data points and say, here’s what your most likely customer, here’s how your most preferred customer is likely to behave.

Leah Bumphrey:
Okay but I saw a Terminator. That’s a good one. The only one that counts. Skynet I do not believe is coming for sales jobs. I think it’s coming to enhance sales jobs. I think it has what you’re describing, the ability to get rid of the parts of it that I really don’t like doing, and I never like doing the detailed part of it. That’s not my biggest strength.

Dennis Collins:
Okay, lemme try this one on you. Did you know that in your very beautiful country of Canada, there has been an experiment recently by a giant retailer by the name of Walmart?

Leah Bumphrey:
I’ve heard of them.

Dennis Collins:
Guess what they’re doing up in Canada? They have debuted an AI tool to negotiate deals from their vendors. So you’re a vendor to Walmart and you’re in a maybe, what are those little carts? You get the cart when you go into Walmart to put your stuff in. They got to buy those carts from somebody, right?

Leah Bumphrey:
Okay. Yeah.

Dennis Collins:
So they go on, they get into a negotiation, and those negotiations for things like those carts are now done totally by AI. Human sellers like you or me, human sellers are talking with an AI bot. Guess what? Here’s the thing that surprised the hell out of me. First of all, the bot negotiators are getting 3% better deals than human negotiators.

Leah Bumphrey:
Oh my goodness.

Dennis Collins:
And even more when you ask the seller, the live human seller who’s dealing with the bot, who do you prefer? The human negotiator or the bot negotiator? Guess who they preferred?

Leah Bumphrey:
I’m going to go and say the bot based on the smile on your face.

Dennis Collins:
I set that up incorrectly. Yeah, I gave that one away.

Leah Bumphrey:
Yeah. The question is why? Is it just making it easier on them? Is it quicker? Can they do more?

Dennis Collins:
By the way, it’s not a few of the vendors, 75% of Walmart vendors prefer to deal with the bot. So what’s the deal with that? Why? Here’s what, again, this is still understudy and under research, and you know me, I’m constantly looking for the latest and the greatest, but here’s what I’ve pieced together so far. The bot doesn’t get distracted. The bot doesn’t have other emotional issues, and a budget is plugged in, a specification is plugged in, and the bot is a machine. It works towards fulfilling those goals. That’s why they complete negotiations. That’s another thing. They complete the negotiations much faster than humans.

Paul Boomer:
So, Dennis…

Dennis Collins:
Producer Paul!

Leah Bumphrey:
I knew I was waiting for Paul to jump in.

Dennis Collins:
I knew because this gentleman is one of the few people I know who is an expert at AI. Please chime in.

Paul Boomer:
I’ve been sitting here for awhile going, I agree with both of you in many different ways, and I’ll get into that for just a minute. But I have a question or I have an observation. You’re talking about B2B right now?

Dennis Collins:
That’s correct.

Paul Boomer:
What about B2C?

Dennis Collins:
I am not aware, sir, of any studies or any experiments that have even been done with that. Are you? Maybe you know some.

Paul Boomer:
Actually, I’m not. I have not looked into it in depth. Let’s restate that. I’ve seen some, but I haven’t gone into it in depth.

Dennis Collins:
So here’s another, let me say it this way. Sales is sales, okay. B2B, B2C. Sales is sales. So if it can work in B2B, why couldn’t it work in B2C?

Leah Bumphrey:
I just think that there’s some of the nuances that it wouldn’t be able to catch…

Dennis Collins:
What couldn’t it catch? AI is smarter than all of us combined.

Paul Boomer:
No, not necessarily.

Leah Bumphrey:
No. I disagree.

Paul Boomer:
Yeah, no, it isn’t smarter than us because we are providing the information to it. We are feeding the beast. We are doing it. Humans are doing it. It has a better memory, and being able to see chaotic systems be put together and understanding that, yes, it is better at that. Absolutely. And that’s where its advantage comes in, is the ability to take that memory and go, okay, how can I apply this to this situation?

Leah Bumphrey:
I mean, there’s intangibles. Think about hiring. If you left it to AI and you gave, this is what you’re after, this is what you need. This is some of the intangibles about a sales person’s personality that just might work in this setting or in that, or you move them to selling this particular media from there. I don’t know that AI has that degree of sophistication to figure it out. I’m not saying that people do either.

Dennis Collins:
Yeah, I was just going to ask you that. I know a lot of people who can’t do that.

Leah Bumphrey:
But I’d rather get mad at me for doing it than have to throw my computer away.

Paul Boomer:
You’ve almost done that five times since.

Leah Bumphrey:
Oh, it’s happened a few times.

Paul Boomer:
So the reason why I don’t think it will replace B2C, I can see it more in B2B, is because the fact that you’re dealing with a whole different set of generations. The set of knowledge seekers, that set of backgrounds when you’re dealing with B2C, because you’re talking people who may be 70 year olds versus people who are 30 year olds and their comfort with technology, or comfort with dealing with humans or using computers to buy, let’s say, an HVAC system.

When you’re dealing with B2B, they’re in their position to find a solution as quick and as cheap as possible with as much value as possible. That is the goal. B2C does require, I believe, that nuance of human connection. Now, bots can certainly pretend to have that connection. They’re very good at that, fortunately and unfortunately.

But there’s still that need for, I believe, of human connection. Without human connection, we as a species, I believe we die. That is our need. And if sales, which is a transfer of confidence, a transfer of energy through money, if that is handled by computers, all that energy is lost. So we’re not talking about just technology right here. We’re talking about a whole ‘nother level, I believe, and I don’t think it can replace that.

Leah Bumphrey:
And I think it would change business because think about it. If I’m trying to sell something to one of you guys and all of a sudden, yes, we negotiated price and delivery and this is what you need, and we have this, but as we’re having a conversation, all of a sudden it keys on me. You know what? You also need something completely different outside the realm of what I currently have to offer. I can offer you that.

And that’s where that transference of energy comes in. It’s all, have you considered this? Have you thought about this? You know what? There’s this other program that we might be able to involve you guys in. And yeah, okay, we’ve got this done. I don’t think AI can sit down and because that changes businesses, we’re not just selling widgets here. We’re selling possibilities. That’s what a true salesperson is.

Dennis Collins:
So you guys already know this, that an AI can generate a role play with a live salesperson. It can act as a customer. Be realistic in its responses, meaning it has to listen. It has to be listening to the flow of the conversation and adapting to the twists and turns of the salesperson. If it can do that, which I know it can do, that is just one closer step to having it do the real sales process.

Paul Boomer:
I don’t disagree with that. You’re absolutely right. In regards to the ability to adapt and to change based off of what’s going on around what information you’re feeding it, again, that’s the key. What information you are feeding it. So let’s say I’m purchasing something, I’ll just stick with the HVAC system.

Can it figure out, and I believe it will be able to, as Leah said, Hey, have you thought about X, Y, and Z? But it’s only going to know that based off of previous conversations that it has had. So you’re looking at a timeline of some AI can do it very, can be put in that role very well in a very short amount of time because a human engineer put that information and that dataset into the system where a, what’s called a rag, which is basically learning through process. It will require a much longer time period to learn, Hey, I should ask this question based off of previous conversations because I haven’t had those conversations yet.

Dennis Collins:
But they’re having thousands of conversations every minute, aren’t they?

Paul Boomer:
Oh, yeah. I’ve actually seen, just yesterday, I was looking at an article talking about how one company used AI, only AI to book calls for a consultation, and it increased their close rate by 52%. And yeah, it’s incredible. So I’m not saying it’s not going to replace. I’m saying…

Leah Bumphrey:
That it’s getting rid of the parts that are not fun for someone who’s a true salesperson. I would love to know that these are qualified people that I can talk to that have an interest in this or this, and be able to have the conversation. And if AI can provide that to me, that’s kind of the equivalent of a human call desk.

Paul Boomer:
It’s instead of an 80-20 rule, I think it’s a 90-10 rule. 10% will be done by humans. 90% of the 10% will be that energy. The 90% will be done by AI. I have no question about that.

Dennis Collins:
Interesting. So you think it’s like a 90-10 ratio, Paul?

Paul Boomer:
I think so.

Dennis Collins:
Interesting.

Paul Boomer:
Yeah. It’s because, as Leah said, it’s those things that people struggle with, that computers, as you said, don’t have emotions to tie down.

Leah Bumphrey:
I think of AI as being this huge fortress of data and information and being able to quickly, if you ever talk to someone that can do the math in their heads, and there’s some math I can do in my head, and you always feel really kind of good about it. AI doesn’t feel good about it. It just doesn’t.

Dennis Collins:
I can do math. One plus one.

Leah Bumphrey:
One of my favorite stories, and it’s from the states and over a hundred years ago, before there were streetcars in the big cities, and I’m thinking it was New York, Boston, Philly, and Chicago. I could have those wrong, but they were having meetings. And meetings before the turn of the last century on what are we going to do with all the poop in the streets? Too many horses, we’re growing too fast. There’s too much poop. We can’t hire enough people. And they were having conferences and they spent thousands. And in those days, that’s a lot of  dollars figuring out what to do with it when all of a sudden there were street cars, and so we didn’t need that many problem solve. It changed.

Now, that doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t have been talking about it, but they were able to react to the fact that this changed. AI would still, without human input, would still be going, oh, we’ve got to figure out this horse problem. No, we don’t because the horses are gone. And until someone told him that, and I say him because AI’s got to be a guy.

Dennis Collins:
Really?

Leah Bumphrey:
Oh, for sure.

Dennis Collins:
That’s interesting to hear from you, Leah.

Paul Boomer:
Hold on. I wouldn’t go that direction for just a minute. Hear me out. Because here’s the thing about women… Now that can be very dangerous… Now I’m going down that road…

Dennis Collins:
Oh boy.

Paul Boomer:
They are much more adapt at using their brain than men are. That’s biologically true. They have more synapses going between left and right brain.

Leah Bumphrey:
We’re sending you flowers. Your wife has trained you so well.

Paul Boomer:
Actually, this is because of our other Wizard partner, Michel Miller Nelson. Women are much more adapt at transferring data in their head much faster than men. So why would it not be a woman?

Dennis Collins:
I don’t apply any sex to that AI. I don’t. I have no clue. But this is great discussion. But let me jump in one more time for another point that I’d like you guys to reflect on. I want to shout out to Jeb Blount. As you know, he is one of my go-to sales gurus. This guy is the first that I know of to write a comprehensive book on the AI edge in sales as well. He should be. He is one of the thought leaders in sales. I would like to give a quote from his future vision of what he thinks is going to happen, blending sales and AI together. He tells a story. I will not tell you the whole story. I got one snippet here that I’d like to share with you. I’d love your reaction. The character in this story is Amanda.

Amanda put on her headset, and Cleo, her AI assistant kicked into gear. Cleo listened intently during virtual calls, analyzing tone, sentiment and keywords to provide real time coaching and suggestions for handling any objections or situations. Cleo analyzed the client’s vocal cues, emotional cues, behavioral signals, and gave Amanda real time coaching so that she could change her tone, her speed, her inflection to align with the client’s communication style. Amanda was amazed how quickly Cleo could pick up a client’s preferred communication style, allowing her to quickly shift her style to theirs. Cleo had a knack for identifying exactly which prospects Amanda should reach out to each day, provided her a schedule every day of her most likely successful prospects. Amanda smiled when a client accepted her meeting invite, knowing that Cleo had already prepared a total dossier on the challenges and potential pain points of that client. Actually in Amanda’s world, AI helped her become a better human. Is that creepy or is that real? What do you think?

Paul Boomer:
I’m going to jump right in, Leah.

Leah Bumphrey:
Thank you.

Paul Boomer:
That’s exactly what Leah said. It’s that 90% of things that humans struggle with that’s going to make that 10% so much better. And honestly, Jeb, I’m sorry my friend. I like your stuff, but it’s already happening.

Dennis Collins:
So it’s not the future, it’s the present.

Paul Boomer:
It’s not the future. It’s already here.

Dennis Collins:
Everything that he said in that piece is already happening?

Paul Boomer:
Yes, absolutely. I’ve seen it myself. It obviously is continuing to improve, but as with augmented, with teaching AI, it’s getting better and better by the second.

Dennis Collins:
If that’s the case, who would ever reject having an AI assistant? And yet so few people have it.

Leah Bumphrey:
Here’s a true story. I was gifted an AI assistant by one of our partners, and I had so much pushback in Zoom meetings when this little Leah is transcribing. I eliminated it. I take my own notes.

Dennis Collins:
What do you mean by pushback?

Leah Bumphrey:
Pushback. I mean, there were some meetings where there were more AI transcript takers than people were sending it. So there’s me and there’s that, and then there’s, so you’d have five transcript takers, and you’d have three people, and they’re sending AI to give a synopsis. And I was be completely transparent. I’ve rarely looked at this transcript because I have my own notes. And as soon as I started seeing how people were reacting to what’s with all of this, should I get this? And then people were getting it just because other people did.

Dennis Collins:
Now that’s out. They can see that on your screen. They know that the thing is active. This Cleo that I just described from Jeb would be invisible to the client. It’s working in the background.

Leah Bumphrey:
And that’s positive. That can be very positive.

Paul Boomer:
So my wife is in information technology security. Anytime I say AI, she freaks, I don’t even have to say the word or the initials, because there is absolutely some security challenges that go along with AI and privacy concerns, and there is no doubt about that. I mean, there are some laws where you cannot record somebody else unless you have their permission to two person state. Some are one person state.

Leah Bumphrey:
Depends on the jurisdiction. Yep.

Paul Boomer:
Yeah, exactly. We’re in that time period, and now I’m going to get a little bit on my soapbox here. We’re in the time period of a shift, as Leah said, with horse carriages and vehicles and such, and ice vehicles. Both of you have read the book Pendulum and the swing between Me and We. Right now, as we’re listening to this, probably 2025, we are still about seven years to the zenith of the We Swing, which means for the next seven years, it’s going to be hell.

But what the fourth turning is, which is what we’re in, it is a complete reset on society. There’s going to be a lot of changes, and I believe AI is a major shift in everything, in policy, in economics, in just the way we live. AI is a big thing, but along with that comes privacy concerns. It’s another shift that we are, as humans, going to have to consider and realize. So there are so many things that are changing right now that are going to have a long-term effect. AI is one of them, no doubt.

Dennis Collins:
So Paul, I opened my computer the other day, and the first thing that came up on my screen was this huge ad screaming at me with bright red headlines. It’s time to fight AI with AI.

Paul Boomer:
Wow.

Dennis Collins:
I didn’t even realize there was a battle, but somebody is trying to convince me that I need to buy something to enter this fight. Quote: Our solutions are your ultimate defense in an AI first world. Kind of sounds similar to what you were talking about. AI accelerates your attackers, outsmart them with our precision AI product.

Paul Boomer:
Wow.

Dennis Collins:
I mean, what do you guys think of that?

Leah Bumphrey:
AI has got to be a tool. And if it becomes an AI versus AI, nobody’s learning. I have no problem with spell check checking my spelling. But have you ever read something where you know that AI wrote it for someone because they said, write me a essay on why it’s better to live in a snowy climate than in Orlando. You can have AI write that.

Dennis Collins:
Every day, all day, many iterations.

Leah Bumphrey:
They will base some of it on our conversations, Dennis, but it’s about it being a tool. For example, and I’ll use this as this will blow you guys away. If we had AI monitoring our podcast, it would’ve pulled the plug on us about 10 minutes ago on this conversation.

Dennis Collins:
You think so?

Leah Bumphrey:
Yes, and we would’ve lost some of the nuances, some of the little bits that Paul threw in there, the casual smile of Dennis, Leah getting outside of her screen. All of these things. We don’t want that to happen.

Paul Boomer:
You’re right, Leah.

Leah Bumphrey:
So instead, I’m going to say we now have to answer a question of one of our non AI users.

Paul Boomer:
Is it an AI question?

Leah Bumphrey:
It can’t be. This is a question about sales training budgets. Dennis, I am going to pass this to you because you have worked with sales training and with budgeting for years. You had how many different sales teams that you brought to incredible success. What do you use to base your sales training budget? Is it sales? Is it people? Is it where you’re planning to go? That is not an AI generated question. That’s real life. What do you spend?

Dennis Collins:
AI would give you an answer if you plugged it in there.

Leah Bumphrey:
And it would not have what we need, which is that little garlic flavor.

Dennis Collins:
Let me first say, it depends on where you are in your progress as an organization. If you’re a beginning organization starting off, you need to put tremendously larger amounts of resources into training. If you’re a mature organization, you have to put particularly less resources. You don’t need to spend the kind of money you might need to spend as a startup when you’re trying to get everything organized.

But as a rule, we had a budget and it was based on a percentage of sales. So if whatever our sales happened to be, if they were $40 million and our percentage was 2 or 3 or 4 percent or whatever, that’s what we spent. And I got news for you. A lot of people who run businesses, that’s when trouble happens. That’s the first line to go. The training budget, we can do without that. No, you can’t. Sorry. I’ve got many bodies laying on the side of the road that said, oh, we’ll just cut the training budget. The other budget that they cut is the marketing budget. Oh, we’ve done enough marketing, so let’s cut marketing and training and put another half million dollars to the bottom line.

Leah Bumphrey:
I will say that there’s some great tools out there, and this podcast is an example of a tool that it doesn’t cost anything to use that will go into some of those specific things that people need to learn. And you’re getting experience of, I’ve been in sales over 30 years, Dennis, at least 20. And not to mention, Paul.

Paul Boomer:
I thought it was 120 what? 127 years. 153.

Leah Bumphrey:
We don’t like to brag, Dennis.

Dennis Collins:
Well, I’m embalmed. I’m well preserved.

Leah Bumphrey:
But if you’re looking for no charge and free resources, I’ve seen some out there and I know some people, and they hang the label of sales trainer and the poor guy’s not even shaving yet. Sorry, they’re getting this from a book and trying to teach you. So we are thrilled that people are using our podcast the way we intend. There is information out there, and it helps with that training budget.

Dennis Collins:
I think we better stop here today because there’s a lot more we can say, and I’d like to save this for another episode. What do you guys think? We’ve just touched the surface here. I think one of the next questions is, small business owner, what is it that you should be using AI for? If you’re not currently using AI, number one, you should be. And if you want suggestions on how best to use it, not just in sales, but in other aspects, let’s have a podcast on that. I think we could do that. What do you guys think?

Leah Bumphrey:
Love it.

Paul Boomer:
Leah saw my reaction. Mwahaha. Let’s go. Let’s do, let’s do it.

Leah Bumphrey:
If we had one of those little transponders, it would have to note that we had the Dr. Evil laugh from Paul. All right, guys. I’m off to shovel snow.

Dennis Collins:
That’s enough fun for one day. That’s it for this episode of Connect and Convert. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll see you next time.

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