Hi, I’m Chad, your newsletter host this month and VP of Sales here at People.ai. I want to talk about a topic I am very passionate about: selling with thought leadership. 

And no, I don’t mean posting on LinkedIn three times a week. When thinking about thought leadership in sales, I mean establishing your company–and your team– as experts in your space. I am constantly telling my team to be AI business advisors. I want my sellers to help guide our customers on their AI journey and be consultative during the sales process.

That is easier said than done. Let me walk you through how I think about up-leveling and empowering my sales organization to be trusted thought leaders. I’ll also share examples of what we are doing at People.ai.

Define your space

Start by defining your organization's unique perspective in your space. What is the intersection between your product or service, and your customer's pains and interests?  Work across your executive team and marketing on messaging to understand this.

Here are some examples of People.ai’s thought leadership topics:

• AI FOMU and FOMO: Since we’ve been in the AI space for 8 years, we are leading enterprise GTM teams in their journey to overcome FOMO (fear of missing out) and FOMU (fear of messing up).
• Building a solid data foundation: We have a strong perspective on what good data looks like and why it’s critical for success with AI.
• AI maturity: Led by our CEO and Founder, Oleg Rogynskyy, we created a framework for understanding maturity across the AI Journey, called the GTM AI Maturity Curve.

Enablement is key

You’ve nailed your messaging. You have a strong perspective. Now you have to enable and empower your sellers to become experts.

Here is how we enable our sales org on thought leadership:

• First-line leaders are your true enablement team. They are the ones who drive consistent communication on the company’s messaging to their teams. 
• Weekly communication: AI is accelerating change across nearly every industry. I have our executives share trends they are seeing and hearing in conversations with other business leaders in weekly meetings. Smaller cohorts of our sales team connect to discuss what they are hearing from clients and in the market.
• Support with innovative content: Here are some examples of what we’ve built to support and reinforce our key messages:some text
  • AI Maturity Assessment: An interactive assessment tool that prospects and customers can take with us or on their own to understand where their organization lands on the AI Maturity Curve.
  • AI Maturity Workshops: These help customers and prospects explore what each level of AI maturity means and demonstrate real use cases of how GTM teams can use AI.
  • Customer events: We are often asked to speak about AI at customer RKOs, AI Days, and onsite events. Jump at these opportunities! This is a great sign that you are being viewed as a thought leader.

Personalize and prescribe

Your team should be able to go into customer conversions with a confident perspective. If you’ve done the steps above well, your sellers can now listen deeply to their customers and personalize and prescribe a realistic path forward. 

A couple of final thoughts:

• Executive teams want to hear a perspective. You need to convey confidence and passion. But a perspective isn’t enough, you need to have a recommendation (preferably backed by data).
• Don’t be afraid to disagree. You understand your platform and unique position better than anyone else because you are living it day in and day out. Be confident in your perspective and respectfully challenge old assumptions.
• Make it REAL. Personalize your conversation so it’s relevant to your customer’s business and prescribe a solution for their specific challenges. 

What are your company’s innovative ideas and unique perspectives? Use those to inspire your customers and prospects to think differently.

Be bold. Sell smart.

Chad O'Connor
Vice President of Sales | People.ai
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