The Hidden Costs of Efficiency: How to Counteract AI's Impact on Sales Skills

Read on: My website

Read time: 2 Minutes

AI and automation tools are here to make things easier for us. They are here to streamline more effective ways of learning, getting tasks done, whether it’s cold-calling, follow-ups, proposal writing, lead generation, the list goes on.

It’s easy to chase efficiency. Every automation pushes you away from remembering the critical skills that make you successful at your job.

That’s the hidden cost leaders need to address. The more we automate, the less we practice the skills that actually close deals when things get messy.

Was this newsletter forwarded to you?

We need to find a healthy balance between technology and the ability to drive human performance across your organization. Whether that is in sales, operations, marketing, or another area.

Over-reliance on technology can have you crashing and burning. Let’s make sure you are not avoiding them.

Let’s dance.

First Touch - Share Something Useful

Performing an activity again and again helps you develop a skill.

When that skill is automated, you eliminate the associated skill starts to deteriorate, and you lose your quickness, your depth of knowledge, and your ability to pivot on a dime when you need to.

Here are a few examples:

• Cold Calls

  • You're automating cold calls to save time, but you're also eliminating the grit and resilience that comes from hearing "no" fifty times a day.

• Follow-ups

  • You're using AI to write your follow-ups, but you're losing the deep listening skills that help you truly connect with prospects.

• Meeting Notes

  • You're letting software take your meeting notes, but you're no longer developing the ability to synthesize information and spot patterns that separate great salespeople from average ones.

By the way, this isn’t new:

• Our mobile phones - We can’t remember any phone numbers anymore outside of maybe 3 or 4 (prove me wrong…I dare you)

• Waze eliminated the need for remembering directions

• Passive photo taking. We take photos everywhere and are not living in the moment, forgetting about all those events

What Can You Do About This

You need to start treating skill development like you treat your tech stack, as a strategic investment that requires deliberate planning and consistent execution.

The first thing you need to do is map your skills to your activities. Take a hard look at every automated process in your sales organization and ask yourself what human capability you might be sacrificing.

Cold calling develops grit and quick thinking under pressure. Manual follow-ups build empathy and the ability to read between the lines. Taking your own notes during meetings sharpens your ability to synthesize complex information and identify patterns that matter.

How to Address It

Make sure that the manual tasks are very much part of your overall sales engagement plan. Here are a few ideas on how you can utilize it

• Make your new hires write follow-ups and take notes manually before they ever touch your automation tools.

• After every important call, require your team to summarize the conversation and identify key insights without relying on AI-generated summaries.

• Build accountability loops into your system. Track manual outreach activity for your new hires and periodically for your experienced reps.

• Measure the depth and quality of your discovery calls to make sure your team is asking the right questions and making the right connections.

• Review handwritten notes and manual follow-ups to ensure your team's synthesis and communication skills remain sharp.

The key is finding the right balance between automation and human development.

Use AI to handle the mechanical parts of your process, but make sure your team is still doing enough manual work to maintain and build the skills that really matter.

Let automation create the first draft, but require your people to add their own insights and observations. Use technology to free up time, then invest that time in training, coaching, and skill development.

How Improving Your Position in This Can Help You Win

When you get this balance right, you create something your competitors can't replicate with technology alone: a sales team that can adapt, connect, and perform under any circumstances.

Your team can develop the kind of deep listening skills that help them understand what prospects really need, not just what they say they need. 

They build the pattern recognition abilities that help them spot opportunities and risks that others miss. They develop the resilience and quick thinking that allows them to handle objections and navigate complex conversations without falling back on scripts or automation.

Most importantly, they become the kind of trusted advisor that buyers actually want to work with.

In a world where everyone is getting more automated and less human, the companies that invest in genuine human capability will stand out dramatically.

Action Item

Pick one automated process in your sales organization and identify the human skill it might be eroding.

Break down where it is working as an automation, but where human engagement and skill can help (whether internally or externally) you improve.

What the Internet Taught Me This Week

From new tools, recent trends, and market updates, here is what has been on my mind.

1. The Senate Just Put Clean Energy for AI in the Crosshairs. Check it out here

2. Google’s Data Center Energy Usage has doubled in just 4 years. Check it out here

3. There are no new ideas on AI, only new datasets. Check it out here

The efficiency trap is real, and it's more dangerous than most leaders realize.

Every shortcut you take with automation comes with a hidden cost in human capability.

Every skill you allow to atrophy creates a vulnerability in your organization. Every time you choose pure efficiency over deliberate skill development, you make your team more dependent on technology and less capable of handling the situations that really matter.

The solution isn't to abandon automation. It's to be strategic about how you implement it.

Use technology to handle the routine tasks, but make sure your team is still getting enough manual practice to maintain and develop the human skills that drive real performance.

Maybe you can’t do it at scale, but it sure is quality over quantity.

See you next week.

Whenever you're ready, here are 4 ways I can help you:

1. Unlocking Hidden Potential - Reconnecting with Past Clients for Explosive Growth - Check out my free eBook on how you can find hidden gems in your past clients and help you crush your sales goals.

2. Build your Sales CRM - Download our free Sales eBook on How Your Sales Team Can Maximize Your CRM Tool. Whether it’s Hubspot, Salesforce, or another CRM tool, make sure you leverage it to your advantage.

3. Awesome Sales Resources - Transform your sales engagement and capabilities across Social Selling, CRM, Lead Generation, Enablement, and more.

4. Cribworks Advisor Program - Want more than just resources? Reach out to me and see if our Advisor Program can help you grow your business.