#9 - This Week in Sales with Will Barron and Victor Antonio

On this week in sales we'll be looking at: - If insurance salespeople are now obsolete - Why selling practice might make perfect - If you should get paid daily rather than monthly And much more! This Week In Sales hosts: Victor Antonio – Youtube.com/user/salesinfluence Will Barron – Salesman.org/Youtube Topics: Your car insurance salesman is now an AI bot connected to blockchain Malta-based virtual assistant firm Vaiot has integrated IBM's Watson Assistant with the Cosmos blockchain to sell car insurance. The new platform features an end-to-end sales process that does not require human assistance to complete the car insurance contracts. The mobile app interacts with customers via voice or text, initially asking a series of questions to identify and suggest insurance options. https://cointelegraph.com/news/your-c... X.ai X.ai the leading meeting scheduling tool for individuals and teams, today announced a major update to their AI scheduling technology that lets their users request a meeting over email or Slack in any language. https://salestechstar.com/sales-marke... MindTickle raises $100 million Helps large and small businesses through it's sales readiness platform has raised $100 million in venture funding. https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/15/sal... Prospify Discover the proposal software that gives control and insight into the most important stage of your sales process. From design to sign-off, get the confidence and consistency to dominate your deals. https://www.proposify.com/ Hold the Emoji and Other Tips for Successful Email Negotiations According to 2019 research (that was recently published) by IACCM, a global contract management association, about 75 percent of contract negotiations are completely virtual. https://knowledge.insead.edu/blog/ins... Perfect Practice Makes Perfect UPtick enables reps to practice the real-life customer interactions they face. Like playing a video game, reps work their way through challenging scenarios and receive consistent, expert feedback from UPtick's virtual coach. https://www.sciolytix.com/products/up... Surprising Changes Ahead For B2B Sellers (Forrester) Mary Shea, principal analyst at Forrester – "I'm calling 2020 the year that B2B, sales, marketing and buying has changed forever." AI and automation put sellers on a path to fulfil their consultative destiny – Shea believes that technology will increasingly take mundane tasks off of salespeople and give them better insights to be more consultative advisors. B2B sellers become experts at creating and engaging with video – "Historically, you would look for a salesperson who is a great communicator, a great problem solver, someone who can overcome objections and kick open that door and close that deal. B2B sales leaders activate more employees on behalf of commercial goals "The lone-wolf seller is facing extinction," proclaims Shea. "As buy-side teams increase in size, expectations and expertise, we also need the selling teams to increase so that you have breadth and depth to meet the needs of a range of different buy-side stakeholders who may have different and competing agendas." Sales tech consolidation accelerates as buyers demand end-to-end solutions – "Our research shows that about 41% of B2B organizations have reduced the size of their sales organization as a result of COVID economic hardships." This cost pressure is impacting the tech tools sales forces use as well. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnelle... Getting paid every day PayPal is one of the first major companies to pay its workers as soon as it's earned rather than having to wait every two weeks. The move came after looking at the compensation and spending habits of its lowest-paid workers, many of whom were living paycheck-to-paycheck and relying on expensive borrowing (the company also boosted salaries after the research, says Bloomberg). By Alexander Besant, Editor at LinkedIn News https://www.linkedin.com/feed/news/ge... TV shows mentioned: - The Crown - Raised By Wolves