by Art Waskey | May 28, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
I am becoming increasingly aware of the importance of using digital tools, especially in the context of sales. The distributorship I was part of for 34 years was an early adopter of digital technology. We used Salesforce, which in the mid-2000s was somewhat clunky and primarily served as a telemarketing tool. While it was effective for collecting information, it was not very useful for outside sales. Today, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools are a game changer, and the younger generation is embracing them.
The give back
A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can generate solutions and provide information. The data it outputs often exceeds the initial input. Advanced CRM solutions offer predictive capabilities, valuable insights, and seamless integration with your ERP, e-commerce platform, business intelligence tools, data warehouse, and other product information management software.
Implementing CRMs
When implementing your CRM tools, start at the top. Get your top-level executive leaders on board first. Then, engage your younger sales team in the process. Once your best salesperson is on board and producing results, the rest of the sales team will fall in line. Complete the implementation with continuous encouragement and support.
It’s certainly challenging to encourage older sales team members to adopt digital tools. Customer Relationship Management systems signify a significant shift from their established, successful sales strategies. While it’s beneficial to have experienced team members teach younger colleagues their sales skills, don’t anticipate a quick transition to digitalization.
Intelligence and automation
CRM use in distribution is growing. The technology is evolving to meet the changing demands of that industry. CRM systems provide intelligence and automation that enable distribution sales teams to be more efficient. Also, companies can deliver personalized customer experiences, increase sales efficiency, make more calls, and produce greater revenues using CRM.
Get started
CRM tools are a game changer, and the younger generation is embracing them. Start your buy-in before your existing sales strategies render your organization obsolete. Even small distributors can afford CRM tools today. In conclusion, equip your sales team with the best CRM technology that enables you to compete in today’s digital marketplace.
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by Art Waskey | May 21, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
It’s a new day in sales
Artificial Intelligence tools are transforming processes. By analyzing data and automating processes, AI can significantly enhance your revenue stream.
More efficient sales processes
Here are two examples of how AI is making the sales process more efficient and effective.
- Upselling and Cross-Selling Strategies. AI helps sales reps make better recommendations. Before visiting an existing client or prospect, AI software can check your enhanced CRM to ensure reps know their client’s history. Also, this allows a representative to engage in a conversation with insight into their client’s buying patterns. They can recommend appropriate products and capitalize on upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
- Automate your follow up. Most sales reps make follow up calls at the end of the day. The content in these call reports is often based on the rep’s memory and can lack pertinent information. The more manual your follow up process, the more likely it is that key details slip through the cracks.
With the help of AI, follow-up tasks can be automated. Between sales calls, a sales representative can use an AI assistant to quickly summarize recent account activity. Moreover, they can record a call report and research the goals for their next visit. The AI can also prepare a quote with optimal pricing as an attachment and send a follow-up email to the client, confirming the next appointment.
How to start
If you are not currently engaged in AI, where should you get started? Brook Hamilton of Hamilton AI Strategy Advisors (“AI News and Gurus: The Show for Intelligent Distributors, “Distribution Strategy Group, suggests distributors should focus on these three areas:
- Customer conversion closing rates
- Optimized customer pricing
- Inventory management
Advance your business
Lastly, let AI help your sales team focus on customer conversions, optimized pricing, and inventory management. Watch your business grow.
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by Art Waskey | May 15, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Focus on your core business
Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools are particularly effective for your core business. Companies have a lot of information on existing customers, and AI can crunch that data for you. According to a McKinsey report, 80 percent of the value creation achieved by successful growth companies comes from their core business—namely, generating new revenue from existing customers.
Selling to existing customers
Todd Daubenberger, CRO at White Cup, says selling to existing customers costs less than finding new ones. AI-powered platforms help by giving teams smart suggestions based on order history. With the right tools, companies can boost revenue by 10% to 30%. (“Eight Upselling and Cross-Selling Strategies That Drive Sales Growth,” distributionstrategy.com)
How AI strengthens your core
A sales rep’s job involves juggling multiple tasks. A recent report by the Distribution Strategy Group explained how AI is providing data that helps reps keep all the balls in the air.
The Distribution Strategy Group reported: “Distributors are catching on. Recent research shows that 78% of survey distributors plan to use data and analytics to guide their decision-making and sales strategies. Many are also leaning into CRMs and AI-powered tools to help their reps work smarter, not harder. In seconds, AI can surface a long-time customer whose orders are slipping, signaling a churn risk. It can also reveal a high-potential prospect that’s gone quiet and needs a follow-up or a growing account with untapped opportunities in new product categories.”
Work smarter
Growing your core business is essential to success. Lastly, make sure you have the AI tools to allow your sales team to work smarter, not harder.
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by Art Waskey | May 7, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Traditional sales techniques can be improved with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). According to a recent article in Forbes (“Why Sales Reps Spend So Little Time Selling by Ken Krogue, Forbes), conventional reps spend 35% of their time selling and 65% on everything else.
The traditional sales process
The traditional sales process for distributors involves juggling many tasks and coordinating lots of customer information. As a past VP of Sales, I remember my frustration with seeing outside sales reps in their offices until mid-morning. Why were they not out engaging with customers? The representatives shared that they were working to develop the best plan of attack. They were working on whom to call, what to suggest to existing customers, and which accounts needed the most attention. The actual selling time was being lost. Monthly prospecting target results were weak. Also, I received call reports listing a day of six to eight prospective calls, with, maybe at best, two qualified leads. The success with productive calls to existing accounts was not much better.
To improve the situation, I invested significant time training representatives on preparing for customer visits. I instructed them to review old call reports and actively gather data from business intelligence, other departments, and various online sources. I also encouraged them to analyze sales history and examine credit spreadsheets.
AI to the rescue
All this effort and research on the part of reps, while important, is incredibly time-consuming, and results are often incomplete. AI can change this scenario by automating tasks and streamlining the traditional sales process. Machine learning is constantly analyzing the data behind sales transactions. It enables reps to see priorities faster. AI automates repetitive and tedious tasks like sorting through endless data, and allows reps to focus on what they do best — selling.
Improving the process
As you can see, AI doesn’t replace sales reps, it assists them. Finally, it automates numerous tasks in the traditional sales process, enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of sales strategies.
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by Art Waskey | Apr 29, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Attention, all sales executives. Digital Transformation (DX) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are here. It took a long time for the collection of technologies and applications referred to as DX (laptops, emails, texting, smartphones, social media technologies, etc.) to move from a conversation to a coordinated business reality. Also, take note that the adoption of artificial intelligence and its benefits is moving much faster. The good news is that artificial intelligence applications are affordable, even to smaller companies.
Outside sales is hard work
Outside sales is daunting work. Reps must be focused and able to close business fast to outperform the competition.
A rep’s job is a juggling act. He needs to chase leads, satisfy existing clients, follow up on backorders, correct pricing errors, handle objections, and keep competitors at bay. Inefficiencies within current systems can cause reps to spend too much time with the wrong prospects. Moreover, the correct information on existing customers’ objectives may also be lacking or hard to come by. This puts pressure on representatives and undermines their confidence in identifying next steps and surpassing the competition.
AI streamlines processes
New AI tools are available to make selling more strategically efficient. AI allows sales representatives to enhance various processes, such as lead generation, pricing, and follow-up, making it an exciting time to be in outside sales. According to McKinsey & Company, AI has “opened up 20% more sales team capacity” (“How Top Performers Outpace Peers in Sales Productivity,” July 6, 2023: mckinsey.com).
Adopting AI
In conclusion, be sure to provide your sales team with the appropriate artificial intelligence technologies to open up your sales capacity. AI tools are critical to beating your competition, especially the larger companies that have lots of AI tech powering their sales force. Lastly, you must adopt AI tools now. They will streamline the selling process and help you grow your business.
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by Art Waskey | Apr 9, 2025 | Art of Sales Weekly, Featured
Personnel issues, if left unaddressed, can create chaos and derail business operations. Remember, when working with others, there are no absolutes. You need to organize principles and solutions to meet needs.
Here are four ways to organize solutions.
- Delegate responsibility – In his ground-breaking book, The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker points out the mark of a successful leader is his ability to “use all the available strengths: the strength of associates, the strength of supervisors, and one’s strength.” Delegating responsibility is an opportunity to develop team members by challenging them to grow their skills.
- Maintain a proper balance – To achieve workplace balance, it’s important to cultivate self-awareness and understand your needs and limits. Balance involves moving past doing the things we know we can do and moving toward new levels. When I consider balance, the acronym SMART comes to mind: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This framework helps me create clear and effective goals.
- Make planning a team effort – In Sharpening the Focus of the Church, Gene Getz urges us to “take an approach to problem-solving and decision-making that takes into consideration the attitudes and feelings of all those who are directly involved.” Before enacting a plan, communicate your idea to the people responsible for its implementation. You may find the need to make revisions. You want to be sure all those involved with a plan’s implementation are motivated. Make it a team effort.
- Solve problems creatively – Don’t allow yourself to get locked into administrative methods and routines. Circumstances vary with each problem and solution. Be creative, expect alternative options, and solicit suggestions.
Still in the people business
No matter how digitized our lives are becoming with technology, we are still in the people business. Keep the implementation of your personnel strategies as simple as possible. Delegate responsibilities fairly, maintain workforce balance, make planning a team effort, and by all means, be creative!
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