Transitioning into AI Sales
While many engineers, architects, and technical professionals have wholeheartedly adopted AI and are looking to transition their careers into this field, there are many others without an engineering degree, or whose technical skills have become outdated due to years of non-technical work. This includes individuals in sales, marketing, finance, HR, legal, and other domains.
In this article, I intend to cover AI career paths for someone in sales—those who have sold everything from pencils to airplanes—and are now looking to transition their career to selling AI products, services, or even developing their own.
AI Salesperson: Understanding the Basics
Let's break down the term "AI Salesperson" into its two components: AI and Sales.
What is AI?
I am sure most of you know what AI is but to set the stage, here is the picture outlining AI, Machine Learning(ML), and Deep Learning(DL).
what is AI, ML, DL, Gen AI
If you want to understand more details about AI fundamentals, don't hesitate to go through some of the wildly popular AI courses which explain it in depth. [shameless plug: I have created a video-based course on AI/ML fundamentals which requires no technical background, look at this Udemy course (rating: 4.7/5 with over 1,400 students) and, of course, I can offer it at the discounted price of one cup of coffee, or even for free, if you promise to treat me to a cup of Chai.]
What is Sales?
For those who do not come from a sales background, here’s a quick primer on sales.
(copy/pasted from chatGPT) Sales is the process of helping customers find solutions to their needs or problems by offering products or services. Think of it as a bridge that connects the right product or service to the right customer.
While the definition of "sales" from chatGPT is succinct, let me break it down for you to explain what it takes to be a successful Salesperson:
Understanding customer needs:
Product knowledge
Building relationship
Presenting solutions
Handling objections
Closing the sale
Follow up(s)
Why Become an AI Salesperson?
As of this writing, there are over 90,000 jobs in the United States on LinkedIn that require AI skills, with over 15,000 of these in AI sales (sales, business development, GTM, etc.). Salaries range from $60K at the entry level to $342K for VP level positions.
Side bar for those who are not in sales: One of the best-kept secrets of a salesperson's total compensation is their commission. In many companies, the base salary might be lower, but if they sell more, they earn more commissions, which can be 2x to 3x the base salary. With AI in high demand, quota attainment is achievable and often exceeded.
If money isn't your motivation then how about dynamic nature of the field? The field of AI has advanced in last 18-months so much that what someone knew back in 2022 is considered history! Though the rate of change has slowed down a bit in last six months, we are seeing advancement almost every month. What does it mean for AI salesperson? This means AI salespeople need to constantly update their knowledge and understand their offerings anew.
If you don't like change, you are in the wrong business. No disrespect, but perhaps selling outdoor furniture might be a better fit.
Responsibilities of an AI Salesperson
As a salesperson you my have worked in an organizations which may be involved in B2B (business-to-business) or B2C (business-to-consumer). When it comes to selling AI products and services, 99% of the time you are involved in B2B sales. Based on the product/service categories, sales cycle ranges from few days to few weeks to few months and even years!
What should an AI salesperson do differently compared to selling non-AI products and services?
Understanding AI Products and Services
Why? There is a plethora of AI products and service categories. Apart from handful of companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon, no one is building full-stack AI solutions. So there is highly likelihood that the company who you represent is selling a very niche product or service within the entire AI category.
For example, let's say OpenAI - whose core product is chatGPT (API services). If you are a salesperson of OpenAI (they are also hiring), you are not going to sell your customers services like AI hardware (NVIDIA, AMD, etc.), AI platform (SageMaker, Vertex, etc.), or AI applications (Grammerly, Japser, etc.). To become a salesperson for OpenAI, you must - must - understand how their API services work, what advantages it provides over other categories first before even considering competition - e.g. why they should not use AI hardware or AI platform or AI applications and use chatGPT API services.
Here is a very high level abstract view of AI stack to help you understand the nuances.
AI stack
Essential Skills for AI Sales Success
"The most important skill in sales is the ability to listen." — Tom Hopkins
For most companies, CEOs are the most successful salesperson, particularly in a startup, as usually they are the first person who conceived the product/service offering, so they know the offering well and most likely would have onboarded the very first customer. The second best person at selling their offering is the product people - as they live and breath their product. So how can you become a successful salesperson?
Those who are successful salesperson has acquired numerous skills during their career span and those are very useful but to help understand someone who is new to sales, and particularly AI sales, let me highlight core skills:
Understanding AI : While this is not about any product or services, understanding full stack AI is the utmost requirement in today's world. AI is not solving technology problem, it's solving a specific business problem. So I am not talking about knowing from engineering point of view but you must understand what business problems they can solve with the AI hardware vs. training AI models vs. using AI API services vs. build AI applications vs. buy AI applications. Without this, you will not be able to sell your products or services - they may get sell on it's own but you won't have that satisfaction.
Understanding your products and services: Once you know full stack AI, you must understand where your offering fit within that stack. This will give you an idea where your offering doesn't fit - it's very important to know what you can not sell, right? That brings us to the next point.
Identifying customers requirements: It requires a very important skill to identify your customer's requirements: Listening. Going back to the OpenAI salesperson example, you are selling only one thing, albeit it's one of the best on the planet: API services. As a salesperson if your customer is asking you to create their own private version of chatGPT (e.g. training a private model using their own data), that's not something OpenAI sells. This will help you with identifying what customer wants. Can you still sell them OpenAI API services? Let's see it in the next point.
Demonstrating the solution: No matter what your role is in the sales org - account executive, inside sales, biz dev, sales engineer, or even VP - you must know how to demonstrate your product/service offering. Seeing is believing. Coming back to that customer who is asking you to create their own private version of chatGPT, if you are able to demonstrate that by using OpenAI API services, you can create RAG based solutions which will be similar to training a private model (I know, it's not apple to apple comparison and this is only for the sake of an example). Depend on the customer and the data sensitivity, there are chances that customer maybe OK using RAG approach and you were successful in selling them OpenAI API services - does that mean customer doesn't know what they want? Yes, believe me, there are so many customers I have encountered who doesn't know the art of possible with AI - except public demos of various products. Here is your opportunity to show them art of possible.
Building relationships: It goes without saying but most of the sales have happened because of relationship. To build that relationship, you need to earn the trust of your customer. To earn the trust, you need to be honest and communicate it effectively of what your offerings can do and what it can not do. Enterprise sales are not one-time sales, they will become your repeat customer. Remember the AI product what you are selling today may become obsolete in six months and you need to go back to the same customers to sell your new offerings. If you can not earn their trust and build that relationships, good luck getting that new business.
There are other skills you will need like how to handle objections, how to work internally within your company to create a win-win deal strategy and eventually how to close the deal. There are many sales books and training out there which highlights those aspects so I won't go into the details.
Conclusion
Transitioning to AI sales requires a blend of understanding AI technologies and mastering sales skills. By focusing on customer needs, product knowledge, and relationship building, you can successfully navigate this dynamic field and drive substantial business growth