FROM MEASURING ACTIVITY TO MEASURING MUSCLE MEMORY The initial crop of AI tools has stayed with the role of tracking and audit- ing. You’ve likely been pitched one of many sales coaching solutions that solve for precisely hammering into sellers what (and how) they should say something. This only perpetuates the tracking and auditing mindset. Sports offers a better approach:
Star athletes aren’t made by coach- ing alone; otherwise, we’d all be athletes. They become elite by doing their repetitions. Repetitions offer a far more empowering framework that puts the person at the center rather than relegating them to a passive ob- ject. “I am coached” makes me the passive object, while “I do my reps” puts me at the center of my growth. Science backs repetitions. In Hidden Potential, Adam Grant writes, “Put yourself in the ring before you feel ready. You don’t need to get comfortable before you can practice your skills – your comfort grows as you practice your skills.” In Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, James Clear describes a photography class where one group was graded on the quantity of photos taken while another was graded on producing a single perfect image. Surprisingly, the quantity group produced better work – not because they aimed for perfection, but because repetitions led to rapid
SELLING TIP
Create Objections and Close One way to prevent a prospect’s objections is by creat- ing your own. If you introduce ridiculous terms of the sale – terms you can easily eliminate – you often can get the client to agree on a purchase. Let’s see how it works. Ridiculous terms can be anything from a crazy time schedule (“If I put in your application today, I can get it approved in three or four months”) to outlandish demands (“It’s company policy for me to get 20 refer-
improvement. The experiment underscores a simple truth: Consistent repetition builds skill faster than waiting to get something exactly right. A focus on repetitions reinforces and measures sellers’ active engage- ment, insights, and muscle memory for the next move. Muscle memory metrics provide a leading indicator to actual results, and they are far more relevant to match the right oppor- tunity to the right seller at the right time to fast-track wins.
CONVERTING TRIBAL KNOW-HOW TO COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE AI also offers a powerful opportu- nity to move from “command and control” to “crowdsource and curate” at an unlimited scale. Sometimes the best pitch is in someone’s head – and hearing it from peers makes it far more credible and relatable for other sellers. This is evidenced by YouTube, as 86% of U.S. viewers say they often use YouTube to learn new things. Harnessing AI can move sellers from short-lived perfection toward continu- ous mobilization. They can learn from themselves, from each other, with AI feedback that can provide a safe space (I have never had ChatGPT get short with me), and with the mentor- ship of managers and experts when it makes sense. Prompting sellers to view content – as well as do repeti- tions and share insights – can reframe
the challenge from driving compli- ance and adoption of tools to driving virality. With AI, tribal know-how becomes readily accessible collective intelligence.
START SMALL AND START FAST TO GET RESULTS Managing this shift is managing change. To get started: Do your repetitions. Start small and start fast. Champion this new model of seller engagement and elevate early power users as your evangelists. Establish a 90-day success framework to as- sess ease of use, field adoption, and speed of iteration to ensure the plat- form stays fresh and relevant. Don’t solve for scale up front – test the platform in action for seller engage- ment and, of course, business results. Then scale from there. We’ve seen a life sciences company sustain over 90% user engagement with repetitions, leading to acceler- ated time to market for a new drug launch – from three months to one week. A hyperscaler runs over 100 sales plays a year, with 90% ramp with- in four weeks. An enterprise software company now assigns opportunities directly to partner sellers, based on visibility to seller-level repetitions. AI equips us to put sellers at the center and fast-track results.
Bhakti Vithalani is the founder and CEO of BigSpring, an AI-powered go-to-market mobilization platform.
rals from each of our clients”). Naturally the client will object. Now you can say, “You mean I don’t get your order unless I can have your appli- cation approved immediately?’ or, “Are you saying that I won’t get your account unless I agree to accept only three names?” (or however many he indignantly tells you he can provide). In essence, the client has said that, if you agree to his
(reasonable) terms, he’ll buy. So go ahead, agree to be reasonable, and close. Rather than wait for the client to come up with an objection you can’t eliminate, hand him one that you can.
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SELLING POWER JULY/AUGUST 2025 | 41 © 2025 SELLING POWER
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