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Bram Lagrou: Here's something that would've sounded like science fiction. Before your next sales meeting, AI can research your prospect for you. It can summarize their annual report. It can scan their LinkedIn posts. It can tell you what their competitors are doing. It can write your prospecting email.
It can draft your proposal. It can summarize the meeting afterwards and write the follow-up, all in a matter of minutes.
Now, here's the problem.
Your competitor's AI can do exactly the same thing. So if every salesperson has the same research, the same polished emails, and the same well-written proposals, what's left to choose between? Today, I wanna answer that question. What can AI do for your commercial team? And more importantly, what can't it sell?
I'm Bram Lagrou, and this is The [00:01:00] Commercial Leader.
Before we go any further, I wanna be clear about one thing. This is not an anti-AI episode. In fact, I use AI every day in my business for research, for preparation, for drafting, for video editing. It saves me hours every week. And in our communication mastery work with clients, we openly use AI to augment preparation, making deals and converting them.
And I'd encourage every commercial leader listening to make sure their team is using it well.
If your salespeople are still spending half a day researching a prospect by hand, that's time they're not spending with clients. AI can give them that time back. So this episode isn't about whether to use AI. That question has already been answered. It's about something else.
As AI takes over more of the sales process, which human skills become more valuable? And [00:02:00] are you investing in them? Are you building them strategically? Because I think that many commercial leaders are buying the tools and missing the point.
Let's start with what AI does really well, and it does a lot well.
Research. AI can pull together background on a company, an industry, or a stakeholder in minutes.
Second is preparation. It can help you anticipate questions, objections, and concerns before a meeting.
Next is first drafts, like emails, proposals, case studies, and summaries.
Next, admin, meeting notes, CRM updates, and follow-up reminders.
All of that is real value, and notice what those tasks have in common. They're about information, gathering it, organizing it, polishing it, presenting it. For a long time, information was a big part of what a salesperson brought to the [00:03:00] table.
You knew the product, you knew the market, you knew things the client didn't, and that advantage is disappearing.
Today, your client often arrives at the first meeting already informed. They've researched your company with AI. They've compared you with your competitors. They may have asked an AI tool to summarize the pros and cons of each option, and they might even know your typical pricing.
So if your salesperson's main value is carrying information, that value is shrinking and fast.
But here's what I see in the commercial teams we work with. Even when the client has all of the information they need, deals still stall. Decisions still get delayed. Clients still say, "We need more time," when they have every fact in front of them.
So why is that? Because information was never the whole story. [00:04:00]
If you listened to this show before, you'll know a model I come back to often, which is called the "Brain Elevator". Think of your client's brain as a building with three floors. You have to go up in order. You can't skip a floor.
Floor one is the crocodile brain. It's all about safety. Is this person a threat? is this decision risky for me?
Floor two then is the limbic system. This is where trust, rapport, and connection are built. Do I like this person? Do I trust them?
Floor three then is the neocortex. It's where the logical evaluation occurs. This is where people compare options, where they weigh the numbers, where they make the logical decision.
Now here's the thing about AI. It's brilliant at level three.
It's superb at logic, information, and analysis. It can build a beautiful business case. It can compare options in seconds. But most [00:05:00] deals aren't stuck on floor three. They're stuck on floor one or two. The client doesn't feel safe, or they don't fully trust the people in front of them.
An AI can't take your client up those first two floors for you. That is still a human job.
Here's another way to think about it.
There are two kinds of yes in every major sale. The first one is a logical yes. "This makes sense. The numbers work. It stacks up. The solution fits us."
The second one then is the gut yes. "I trust these people. I feel confident about this. I'm willing to put my name and reputation on the line for it."
A client needs both before they sign, and so AI is making the logical yes cheaper than ever. Every competitor can now produce a sound, well-argued, professionally written case. So the logical yes is no longer what [00:06:00] sets you apart.
It's the gut yes that is becoming scarce, and whatever is scarce becomes valuable. That's where your competitive advantage lives right now.
Let me tell you a story about the gut yes. A while ago, I worked with a partner of one of the Big Four firms. She was based interstate, and she led a team that looked after a portfolio of significant clients. Her team lost one of them, a major client, and the hardest part is that they didn't really know why.
Now, most of us know what happens usually next. The team is disappointed. Someone writes it up as a loss. Maybe there's a short internal review, and then everybody moves on to the next opportunity. She didn't. Instead of accepting defeat, she saw it as an opportunity. She asked the client for a meeting, and when she sat down with them, she did two [00:07:00] things.
First, she apologized sincerely for letting the client down. Second, she asked him to tell her what had actually happened. What exactly had made him move their business elsewhere. And then she listened. It became a genuinely heartfelt conversation, not a sales pitch, not a defense of her team, not an attempt to win the work back.
Just one person trying to truly understand another.
And here's what happened. The client changed their mind. They came back.
The decision had already been made. The business had already gone, and one honest conversation brought it back. No tool could've ever done that.
AI could've helped her prepare for that meeting. It could've pulled together the account history. It could've helped her think through what might have gone wrong. But AI couldn't sit across the [00:08:00] table and apologize like it meant it. It couldn't hear the frustration behind the client's words. It couldn't make the client feel understood or respected. That's emotional intelligence, and it's what earned back the client's trust and their business Most of us would've written the client off.
She went back and she won the gut yes a second time.
There's another reason buyers still choose people, and it's one we don't talk about enough. When a client recommends a major decision inside their own organization, they're putting their reputation on the line. If it goes sideways, they'll be asked who they trusted and why. So they want a person whose name is on it, someone they can call. Someone who will be accountable if something goes wrong.
Some of you will remember a story I told [00:09:00] on this show a while back. About a year ago, one of the Big Four delivered a report to the Australian government. It turned out that some of the references in that report didn't exist. They'd been generated or fabricated by AI, and nobody had checked them properly. The firm ended up refunding part of its fee.
Now, the lesson wasn't that AI is bad. The lesson was that someone has to stand behind the work. Clients know this, and when they choose a supplier, they're not just buying an output. They're buying a person, a team, a brand who will take responsibility and ownership for it.
AI can produce the work. It can't take the accountability.
There's a third problem with relying too heavily on AI. Everything starts to sound the same. Think about your own inbox. How many emails have you received lately that are perfectly written, perfectly polite, and [00:10:00] completely forgettable? When everybody uses the same tools, polish stops being a differentiator. It becomes the baseline.
So what cuts through right now? Something specific. an insight about a client's business that only someone who really listened could offer. Something personal, a phone call instead of an email, a short, honest voice message.
And sometimes, something old-fashioned. I still send handwritten cards to senior leaders today. In a world full of AI-polished messages, a handwritten note stands out more than ever. The more automated the world becomes, the more a genuinely human touch is noticed and appreciated.
So let's get specific. What are the tools AI can't do for your team?
There's at least five that I can come up with. First is reading the room in real time. Noticing the CFO [00:11:00] went quiet when you mentioned the timeline. Seeing the operations manager cross their arms when you talked about change. Picking up the hesitation behind the polite, "That sounds interesting".
Second is adapting to each person as you go. In our signature program, Communication Mastery, we use DISC to understand how different people like to communicate and make decisions. Your D wants the bottom line and fast. Your I wants the vision clearly painted. Your S wants reassurance. Your C wants the evidence.
A great salesperson reads which style they're dealing with and adjusts their pace, their priority, and their language in real time. They do it live in the room between humans.
Third, having the difficult conversation. Telling a client something they don't wanna hear. Pushing back [00:12:00] respectfully in a DISC-friendly way when their brief won't get them the result they want. Raising a concern about scope, budget, or fit before it becomes a problem.
Fourth is building trust over time. Remembering what matters to a client, following through on what you said you'd do. Showing up consistently year after year.
And fifth is earning their gut yes. Helping each person on the buying committee feel safe enough and confident enough to say yes.
AI can help you prepare for every one of those, but it cannot do them for you.
So here's a simple rule I'd suggest for your team. Use AI to prepare, not to perform.
Before the meeting, let AI do the heavy lifting. Research the company, summarize the stakeholders, anticipate objections, even think through how each person's communication style might shape their concerns.
In the meeting, it's you, [00:13:00] fully present, listening, reading the room, and adapting, not reciting something AI wrote for you.
After the meeting, let AI help again. Draft a summary, update the CRM, prepare the follow-up, but then make it yours. Add the specific detail only you noticed. Make sure it sounds like a person wrote it because a person did.
AI before, human during, AI and human after. That's the balance, and it's exactly how we work in Communication Mastery.
Let me walk you through an example. It's not a real client, but you'll recognize the situation. Imagine a sales director. Let's call her Sarah. She's preparing for a meeting with a manufacturing company. They're considering a major investment in her firm's services. Three people will be in the room. The managing director, the finance director, and the operations manager.
The night before, Sarah [00:14:00] uses AI to prepare. In 20 minutes or so, she has a summary of the company's recent results, their main competitors, a few industry challenges they're likely facing, and a list of questions each of the three stakeholders might ask her. That's excellent preparation. A few years ago, it would've taken her most of the day.
Then she walks into the meeting. The managing director is warm and direct. He wants to know what results Sarah can deliver and how quickly. Sarah gives him the headline first, three options, a clear return. He leans forward.
The finance director says very little. She makes notes. When Sarah mentions the investment, she looks down at her papers. Sarah notices, so she says, "I suspect you'll want to see the detail behind these numbers. I'll send you the full model after today, and I'm happy to walk you through the details separately." The finance director looks up [00:15:00] and nods. Something relaxes.
The operations manager has his arms crossed for most of the meeting. Near the end, he asks a quiet question about what this will mean for this team during implementation. Sarah could give him a quick answer and then just move on. Instead, she stops. She asks him what worries him most. He tells her. A previous project disrupted the whole team for six months, and he's still dealing with the fallout.
That one conversation changes the meeting.
Now think about what happened exactly here. AI helped Sarah prepare, gave her the facts, the context, and the likely questions. But AI didn't notice the finance director looking down. AI didn't see the crossed arms. AI didn't decide to stop, ask a question, and really listen.
And AI didn't earn the operations manager's trust. [00:16:00] Sarah did.
Here's now the part that matters most. When the company makes its decision, the operations manager will have a say. He might not be the one who signs. He's not technically speaking the decision maker, but he could easily be the one who quietly stops it altogether.
Sarah didn't win him over with a better proposal.
She won him over by noticing him. That's what AI can't sell.
Now, if you lead a commercial team, here's the uncomfortable question: Where is your investment going? Many organizations are spending heavily on AI tools for their sales teams right now, and that's sensible.
But very few are investing at the same level in the human skills those tools cannot replace.
So you end up with a team that's brilliantly informed, beautifully prepared, and still struggling to win the deals that matter because the bottleneck has moved.
It used [00:17:00] to be information. Now it's connection, trust, and influence, and this changes how you lead as a commercial leader. It changes who you hire. Product knowledge can be looked up in seconds. The ability to read people and build trust can't. So when you interview for commercial roles, test for those skills.
It changes how you coach as well. In your pipeline reviews, don't just ask, "What does the client need?"
Ask "who's in the room. How does each of them decide? And who haven't we won over yet?" It also changes what you measure. If you only track activity, AI will make your numbers look fantastic. More emails, more proposals, more touch points, but activity was never the point.
The teams that will win over the next few years won't be the ones with the most fancy AI tools. Everyone will have those. They'll be the ones [00:18:00] who use AI to free up time and then use that time to get better at the human side of selling.
So here's what I would love you to do this week. Take a sheet of paper, write down every step in your sales process, from the first piece of research all the way through to signing and onboarding. Next to each step, write one of two things: AI can do this, or only a human can do this.
Then look at where your team actually spends its time. If they're spending most of their hours on the first list, you've found your opportunity. Hand those tasks to AI and move your people's time towards the second list. Towards clients, towards conversations, towards the work that actually earns the gut yes.
And then ask yourself one more question. Are we training our people for the second list, or are we just hoping that they'll figure it out?
That's exactly the work we do with [00:19:00] commercial teams through Communication Mastery, our proprietary signature program. Helping your people read each stakeholder, adapt in the moment, and build the kind of trust no tool can manufacture. If you'd like to explore what that could look like for your team specifically, book a free discovery call.
The link's somewhere in the show notes.
AI can sell information, yes, but it can't sell trust. That part is still up to you and your team.
See you next time. My name is Bram.
