Three Ways to Redesign Enablement with the Power of Purposeful AI

Written by Sarah Cheatle, Richardson Sales Performance

To win, sellers need skill development that moves at the pace of change today.

The market won't wait for sellers to catch up. Buyers' needs change, and decision-making teams constantly move in unexpected directions. Therefore, one-time training is no longer enough.

Sellers need in-the-moment coaching combined with ongoing personalized reinforcement. This results in a more practical learning experience that delivers the specific skills each seller needs in the flow of work exactly when they need them.

Taking this approach means that sustainment strategies must change.

The question is how. Research provides some answers. A global survey from McKinsey analyzed data from 1,200 sales professionals and discovered that fast-growing companies are 80% more likely than their slower-growing peers to drive commercial results from sales training—primarily by embedding skill development into daily selling activities and sustaining it over time.

Here, we share the three ways AI can help execute that approach.

01. Deliver Personalized Feedback to the Individual Seller

AI can analyze a seller's performance with CRM data and conversational intelligence tools. With this information, AI can generate contextualized feedback pertinent to the seller's performance and sales pursuits. As a result, sellers can adjust their method in the moment and see results where they matter most, in front of the customer.

Selling organizations need this new approach now more than ever. Research from Gartner shows that the average sales coach allocates only 9% of their time to develop their team members' skills. The same study shows that 42% of managers lack confidence in their ability to improve their direct reports' skills.

02. Isolate Winning Behaviors with Peer-Based Pattern Recognition

With AI-powered conversational intelligence tools, sales organizations can now identify the behavioral patterns that differentiate the strongest performers from their peers. With this approach, sales leaders can replicate what works and then benefit from a more effective and faster way to scale winning behaviors.

In this setting, AI leads to a "network effect," in which the system becomes more useful as more people engage with it. As AI records more sellers' capabilities – where they're strong and lacking – leaders can more clearly see the broad directional cues that inform their long-term strategy. The result is a leadership style focused on outcomes rather than activities.

03. Apply real-time reinforcement to Live Selling

Sales leaders can use AI to refocus sellers on the core selling skills that matter at the point of the pursuit where they're most applicable. Doing so helps sellers become more expedient in uncovering the customer's pain, identifying those with buying power, articulating the solution's value, aligning decision-makers on a buying vision, and driving consensus among stakeholders.

The speed of AI means that the technology can refocus sellers on the specific objective that's most important given the stage of the pursuit.

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Sales enablement just found its next gear.

The shift to AI-powered enablement is not just tactical—it's transformative. Sales leaders now have an opportunity and a responsibility to empower their teams to compete in a setting that's more complex and dynamic than ever.