#207 – Discussing the interplay of values and AI on The Selling Well Podcast w/ Mark Cox & Mike Sparling

Full episode transcript: 

​Please note that transcription is done by AI and may contain errors.

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George: Hi, everyone. George here, the editor of the Sales Transformation podcast. This week on the show, we've got a discussion that originally aired over on the Selling Well podcast hosted by Mark Cox.

Phil joined Mark together with Mike Sparling to discuss the evolution of the sales mindsets and how they, especially the new and improved intellectual authenticity mindset, can interact with salespeople using more and more AI in their work. If you want to listen to more episodes of the Selling Well podcast, you can find a link in the show notes.

In the meantime though, please enjoy the episode.

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Mark: Team, we've got an absolutely amazing show for you today because today's guest is Dr. Philip Squire, and Philip's the author of a fantastic book called Selling Transformed: Develop the Sales Values Which Deliver Competitive Advantage. Philip's also the CEO and the founder of Consalia, which is the UK's only sales business school with executive master's pathways in leading sales transformation and key account transformation.

Philip's work really kind of intersects with a bunch of things that really matter deeply to us: the professionalism of sales, the role of values and trust in B2B selling, and the idea that sales performance is not just about techniques or process, but actually how we show up. Originally, team, Philip's book talked about the sales values that buyers wanted to make sure that we made it to the top t- ten percent of salespeople in the winner's circle.

And when he originally wrote the book, those values were authenticity, client centricity, proactive creativity, impactful audacity. He actually had some research done recently in twenty twenty-five. It's in the show notes today, the state of sales mindsets and how do customers wanna be sold in twenty twenty-five.

So a great update to some of the work. And frankly, the original book, Selling Transformed, was kind of like an MBA in B2B sales. The research was so thorough. It was, like, the most interesting textbook you've ever written, but the reference points and the bibliography is something I continue to go back to.

In today's podcast, we actually talk about a lot of the themes in Selling Transformed and the updated research, including why is it values that matter more than process or techniques. A little bit about what are the values buyers don't want to see. And we've got an AI view to most of this because today we're joined by Mike Sparling, our AI thought leader who's been joining us for the last couple of podcasts here.

We really get into if something like authenticity is a value that buyers really want in their salespeople, how can we be authentic if we're leveraging AI in a significant way? There are a few excellent questions posed during the course of this interview and some great discussions amongst Philip and Mike, and we weigh in, I weigh in a little bit too.

And if you enjoy today's podcast as much as I did, please like and subscribe to the Selling Well podcast. Team, here's a great conversation with Dr. Philip Squire and Mike Sparling.

Mike: Hey, Philip, welcome back to the show. We're

Mark: so delighted to have you back on the Selling Well podcast.

Phil: It's, um, super exciting to be back with you, Mark.

I've admired, uh, what you've been doing over these years, and, uh, yeah, can't wait to get stuck into this particular episode as well.

Mark: Yeah. Us too, and team, we're, we're joined again for this series of episodes by our pal Mike Sparling. So, so we see Mike as our AI sherpa in many ways, a, a Canadian thought leader on AI.

Mike, great to have you in the podcast here again.

Mike: It's great to be here, and, and it's really exciting to, uh, meet a unicorn in Philip. I, or Philip, I go back to my days as a dean in, in a business academic setting, and the two hardest things to find were terminal degrees in sales and terminal degrees in accounting.

Okay. And so your PhD makes you a unicorn in my books.

Phil: I've never been described a unicorn before, Mike, but I'll ta- I'll take it as a compliment. Yeah. Absolutely. Uh, but thank you. No, I was, was also interested in your, your sort of academic journey as well, so I'm particularly looking forward to sort of getting to, uh, sort of understand your thinking a bit more on this episode.

So yeah, good to be here.

Mark: Wonderful. So, so back in the day, Mike, y- you know, when we started the podcast, it's, it's a few years back now. Um, Philip was one of our original guests. And one of the g- there were two reasons I knew I had to chase down Philip to get him as a podcast guest. One is his LinkedIn byline, which says, "Helping make sales the world's most sought after profession."

So as soon as I read the book and saw the byline, I thought, "Boy, I've gotta get Philip on the show." The second thing I absolutely loved about the book, page one of... And by the way, team, I'm speaking to Selling Transformed: Develop the Sales Values Which Devel- De- Deliver Competitive Advantage. This is one of the best sales books I have ever read.

And when I prepared- Oh ... for today's episode, Philip, I was going back through it, and all of my highlights and my notes, I, I still like hard copy books- ... so it's got dog ears all over it. But page one, "What can you expect from Selling Transformed," the book? First bullet, "Considers the role selling has played in the context of world history, and suggests that its contribution to global economics and cultural development is both profound and unrecognized."

I'm sold. As soon as I read that bullet, I'm on the team. And, and so, so Philip, le- let's just do a quick, you know, um, summary or g- a touch on the book, just very, very briefly, because some of the original stats on the book are just so powerful. So, so you talk about some of this detailed research. And team, the book is, it's both a textbook and a fantastic read.

I've never come through that before. I've never seen this before. It's a great... It's a textbook you literally would learn, use to, you know, learn the profession- Mm ... of sales, but it's also incredibly interesting. But there's some alarming stats in there, to be sure. And some of the- Yeah ... research spoke to 80% of buyers, senior buyers, saying, you know, 30%, only 30% of salespeople adding value, and in some contexts, even less than that.

Phil: Correct.

Mark: So, so I know we've come back to some of these stats in the- Yeah ... updated report, but tell us a little bit about why we had to write this book and some of the challenges or issues we were seeing in professional sales back then, Philip.

Phil: Well, um, I, I suppose before the book was the doctorate, and so that's where the, you know, kind of research was started.

And yeah, it was, it was really by chance sort of interviewing a number of customers of our customers about how they wanted to be sold to, and, um, uh, sort of using, uh, the, the, these interviews, um, to help support a big, uh, European sales kickoff event. And one of the questions that we asked was, you know- Having told us what you like and dislike about salesmanship, what percentage of salespeople sell in a way that you want?

And I'll never forget the very first person I spoke to said, well, in his view, 95% of salespeople are a complete waste of time. And then and so I thought, okay, well, you know, so some people are b- are born to, you know, be slightly controversial. So I thought, well, I, I tell you what, it wasn't planned that I would keep this question in all the interviews, but the, the question was kept in, and the second person said less than 10% of salespeople sold in a way, um, that he would want.

And I, I think, uh, at this stage, it wasn't part of an academic research program, but it, it was the trigger that... It was a little spark that ignited what has become a sort of 20-year journey. I wasn't an academic before Mike, uh, but I found myself being drawn into the academic world, uh, through, um, a suggestion made by one of the professors I made, he met who'd said, "Why don't you turn this research into a doctorate?"

So- Mm-hmm ... yeah, I mean, that's where it started, and it's so interesting when you look back on life, isn't it, to look at how serendipity- Yeah ... uh, sometimes triggers events in a way that you wouldn't normally expect. Um, but Yeah.

Mark: W- well, it ends up triggering this research and the doctorate- Yeah ... and then the book.

Phil: Yeah.

Mark: And, you know, really in the book, um, you know, one of the most provocative ideas I think, or, or unique takes on it, is that sales success is really not a process problem or a technique problem, but it's a values problem. Yeah. W- what did you see or hear, and we'll get to the values, but what did you see or hear in those early days that convinced you the values w- you know, that was the area to focus on to elevate sales performance?

Phil: Yeah. I think you could, you could possibly sort of link that back to sort of what, uh, we refer to as lead and lag indicators. In the sense that, uh, when I... I, I remember halfway through the research, and this is having interviewed sort of 80, 90 people, um, from different roles, different parts of the world.

Um, and sort of coming together in, in London, uh, working with a professor at London Business School, um, at the time, and wanting to sort of draw conclusions, uh, as to the research findings. And we came up with a, you know, flip chart pages that absolutely failed in my view to push the story along. Because the sort of solutions to this 5, 10%, you know, problem that we mentioned earlier were, you know, you need to be good at listening, you need to have curiosity, you need to be professional in the way you present yourself, you need to have commercial acumen.

And I, you know, sort of knew from my own experience that, that companies spend billions of dollars in this kind of training. Yeah. So I wanted to say, "Well, okay, yeah. So if we're training people on the right sort of behavioral things, why aren't they doing it?" Because clearly there's a, a mishmash between what organizations are striving to, um, d- you know, train their people to do better.

It's not being experienced at the customer end. And that then is... So much of the training had been orientated around, um, sort of behavioral techniques- Yeah ... of selling. And processes and methodology of selling. And I sort of began to realize, and it was, uh, one particular professor who challenged me about what my values were from, from a sense of bias.

Mike, you would probably resonate with this a little from your academic work. But I realized that I was looking at the data through a lens that was so influenced by what I had, had been taught. I, I wasn't opening up my mind for new ways of thinking, and the new ways of thinking were sort of related very much to, uh, sort of understanding how you do think, and this links to values.

And once I started to play around with this concept, I realized that values were like the operating system of human beings and, um, and that our behaviors and competencies and skills and what we end up doing is because of them. Mm. Um, but no one had really defined what were the values that customers really looked for from salespeople, and what were the values that they often saw that they didn't like.

So that's, once I got onto that, that trajectory, it became, um, relatively quick to define what would be the core values that would lead to, in customers' views, success, and what would lead to, uh, a negative performance. So that, that was... I d- I don't know. I feel as though I might be repeating what I said before, Mark, but, uh, you know, for me, that was, that was a pivotal moment in terms of Yeah, sort of what, what got me to where we are today and this values-based approach to selling, which I know is close to your heart as well.

Mark: W- well, you know, I'm, I'm glad we're, we're summarizing some of this, um-

Phil: Yeah ...

Mark: Philip, because, you know, the forgetting curve is alive and well. And I, I think we recorded that original podcast four or five years ago.

Phil: Right.

Mark: And so, so, you know, uh, and 100 episodes ago for us. So, um, you know, as your, your most recent research points to though, you know, that concept still resonates.

And we're gonna talk- Mm-hmm ... about the 2025 research.

Phil: Yes.

Mark: But, but, um, you know, obviously the work was spot on and so important. And, and where I always found it interesting, you know, when we've talked about helping sales organizations, and, and Mike and I have spoken about this before, I love this thought of culture.

Yes. And say, "You know, I'm gonna hire for culture." And the only way to create culture, you know, is define how do we do things around here, is to lead to values. So how do we define- Yeah ... the values that are gonna create the culture? I, I loved this thought of saying, what are the mindsets or values that the client most wants to see in a salesperson?

By the way, let's call out the ones they don't. Yeah. And you, you list... I'll, I'll list them both quickly. Team, just, just for your edification, those who haven't had a chance to pick up Selling Transformed, chapter four, when you lead through the history of sales training and coaching, and then get to the values that matter, it's one of the best, most concise summaries of all of the training methodologies, going back to the start with Dr.

Neil Rackham and SPIN Selling. That was kind of the first really major one, if you get past Dale Carnegie and all of these kinds of things.

Phil: Yeah.

Mark: Such a great academic review of it, and I'm such a nerd for all of this stuff. I just love it. Oh, great. I, I didn't see in the funnel in there, but we'll give you a pass

because- ... that technology, we weren't, we weren't a global powerhouse yet. So I understand why we might have been, um, we might have been absent from that method. That, that summary- Next

Mike: release ...

Mark: next release. Yeah, yeah. The, the next release of the book. So, so maybe let's touch on, 'cause, 'cause everybody listening is gonna say, "Well, if, you know, if I haven't read the book, what are the mindsets?"

The positive values or mindsets, authenticity, client centricity, proactive creativity, love it, and then my favorite was always tactful audacity. I, I get half of that right most of the time. I'll leave it up to you to decide which half I don't get. But tactful audacity as being these mindsets. Um, maybe let's just touch on briefly before we talk about the updated view.

Phil: Mm-hmm.

Mark: But originally, how, how did we land on these four, Philip? And, you know, why wasn't it six? And then maybe did one or two of them surprise you most when they made the list?

Phil: I think that, um, I mean, we went through so many, uh, sort of a- analysis of conversations and then started to group what buyers were looking for in both positive and negative, and we began to cluster them in different, under different heading.

And, um, and so yeah, authenticity and trust and integrity, you know, these words surfaced very quickly. You, you know, I, I, I would say, uh, client centricity is a kind of no-brainer. You know, obviously customers are looking for sellers to be totally client-centric. Um, I think what we found i, i... What we, what...

Began to realize is th- th- those two values are the baseline for building trust. But it doesn't put you into what we call the winner's circle, and the winner's circle has rarer and more exceptional, uh, mindsets and values, and these were the proactive creativity. I think salespeople are very often very good at being reactive creatively.

So a customer goes with a problem, they're very good at coming up with a sort of- Yes ... reactive solution set. But proactive creativity was a very important nuance that we wanted to surface that are- Mm ... rarer in a, uh, but important for exceptional salesmanship. But the tactful audacity is, is really having the emotional intelligence to push an idea hard if you really believed it to be correct, um, but at the same time respecting, you know, the, um, the person that you are, you know, pushing your idea, if you like, or, or suggesting that they should do something differently to what they've asked you to do.

Um, there's, uh, the tactful audacity, you know, is my favorite as well, Mark. But, um, it's, it's hard to do. It's important to do at, you know, different stages of the sales cycle is, you know, people say, "When do you use these values and mindsets?" Well, it's really important at the very beginning. You know, sometimes just getting meetings with people requires- Mm-hmm

you to be tactfully audacious and proactively creative. When you have qualification, it's more about client centricity, solution development, proactive creativity. Negotiation, of course, tactful audacity again, you know? Yeah. So, you know, you've got these, this interplay of the mindsets. I th- I think, I think what we've realized was that you can't have one without the other.

You can't be tactfully aud... You know, have bucket loads of tactful audacity and proactive creativity without having the authenticity and client centricity because clients need to trust you. And so I think what we've begun to realize through the analytics of the sales mindset survey that, that we've got thousands now of surveys that people have done

Mark: Yeah

Phil: is that less than 10% of salespeople score what we would call, uh, say in the winner's circle across all four. Mm. Some, some may be right up there on three out of four, yeah, but not all four. Mm-hmm. And I don't know, uh, Mike, what you think about what I've just shared, but, uh, with you on, on that topic. But anyway, um-

Mark: Well, I think it's a good question, Philip, because, you know, Mike's a chief operating officer- Yeah

chief technology officer. In addition to that, that time- Yeah ... in academia, he's run large organizations and large groups. Y- you know, Mike, from your perspective, I guess two questions. Would the percentage of effective salespeople calling on you over the last, you know, 15 or 20 years, does that resonate in terms of, you know, the 10% or the 30%?

And, and are those the values that you're looking for, authenticity, client centricity, proactive creativity, and tactful audacity? Do those resonate with the folks that you're trying to partner with or work with?

Mike: Yeah, I mean, th- that's a, a really great lead in, Philip, and, and a great couple of questions, Mark.

Um, I've probably spent a vast amount of my career carefully building a never-ending maze of sandbags and other things to prevent salespeople from getting too close to me. Um-

Phil: Cool.

Mike: But- But, but part of it is to really look for those mindsets that you're calling out, and, and in particular, I think you're very accurate that, that a lot of people pursue selling without fully understanding why or, or the direction that they're headed in.

And, and parts of what I really loved about your background as I was researching it was the sort of notion that, that your mission statement is to make selling the world's most sought after profession. And-

Mark: Love it ...

Mike: I hear that in Mark. Um, I've often said- Yeah ... that, that people that I've met through Mark or, or in other cases, um, professionally trained sales leaders or salespeople truly understand that critical intersection between the value the firm creates and the needs that the client has.

And, and it's a little bit of a rough way to describe it as the tip of the spear, but I, I do use that analogy and, and I'll go back to really say that my transition from being a computer science undergraduate- Yeah ... to being a business leader driven by technology, I credit it to people like Mark and, and some of the other- Of course

sales leaders who I've had the pleasure of working with and learning from. Because taking an understanding of what we could do as a firm and aligning it to what we wanna do in order to please customers, that, that's a big shift for a lot of people. And so I think your mindsets really resonate, as do your percentages of who gets it well and who doesn't, and how important that is to moving to a buying point.

And, and I'd probably say just, just one more piece is that to me, I think the, the proactive creativity is one that really resonates as an AI practitioner. Because if I decouple those two words and say, "What does proactive mean?" Proactive means, and, and credit to Mark, he and I have been talking a lot about the importance of signal reading in the professional sales space, and that being able to subtly recognize the signals that are emitted by all parties in a conversation, a negotiation, uh, an exchange, that signal detection, I think to me, is what proactive means.

If I can recognize the signals, that's gonna trigger something within me. And then creativity, from an AI standpoint, I'm not in the camp that says AI can be creative, but I think AI can synthesize across a broader set of inputs and produce rapidly broader results that we can then, as the human in the loop, finesse and, and improve to the offering that we make.

And so- Figuring out the novel responses is the creative side. Identifying and detecting the signals is the proactive side. And as a partnership, we can really do a lot with AI or technology-

Phil: Mm.

Mark: Mm ...

Mike: to further that piece forward and deliver proactive creativity to buyers-

Phil: Yeah ...

Mike: factual for what we intend to achieve, tuned to the signals being sent, and resulting in those outcomes.

And I think that's the path in... And I'd be curious your thoughts, the path to raising those percentages much higher. It's the people- Yeah ... who understand in our current world, how do I synthesize this artificial piece with my core strengths and bring the how and the what and the why together to lead that tip of the spear further into the organization?

Yeah.

Phil: I think what's, what's interesting, Mike, this is quite personal. I think that if you go back to the beginning of last year when I would say, you know, the great sort of AI wave hit everyone, and I felt, I felt it was a kind of dystopian moment in a way. You know, you, you had so much was the promise of AI and, you know, the seismic changes that we could expect as a consequence of this incredible technology that was about to sort of take over the world, that, you know, it, there were moments, uh, well, I felt, sort of moments, what is the, what is the point of being human?

Mm. If you like. And, uh, and I, a- a- and it's, uh, it's, it, it's been interesting and, uh, if, if I could, um, you know, sort of perhaps relate this also to where, where I am now, which is in a much, uh... And I su- I suspect I'm similar to many people because we've all gone through something like, you know, we know that something's gonna hit us that we don't know much about, yeah, but we don't quite know how it's gonna change the world, but, um, we'll, we'll figure it out, and we're probably in a lot better position now.

But what, what happened last year, I think, has had quite a profound effect on, uh, how we have started to look at the sales mindsets again, which has in part been triggered by AI.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Phil: And, um, it, it's often a, it's sometimes a word that a customer says that triggers a train of thought that you haven't thought of before.

And we recently, uh, conducted a similar exercise research across the world, um, asking similar questions to that I did 15 years ago for the doctorate. And, uh, buyers were using the word intellectual dishonesty- Ah ... as something that they don't like, and a completely different buyer used the word intellectual honesty.

And I, I can, I can honesty say that- ... in all the interviews that I did 15 years ago, the word intellectual just did not surface. So that in itself is interesting, connecting the word intellectual to salesmanship. I think that's quite- ... that's quite something. But this, this idea of intellectual dishonesty And intellectual honesty, um, sort of got me thinking about, um, about the values of mindsets.

And, and because of our academic focus, uh, one of the skills I think we teach people who come on our master's programs is about critical reflection and- Mm-hmm ... and, you know, uh, sort of how you think. And so I was... And we knew that this was one of the, the transformative components of our programs, and it- I sort of had that in the back of my mind, looking at this word intellectual, and then connecting it to authenticity.

And I think the nuance is, is subtle but huge actually. I mean, um, in that we've now added the word intellectual to authenticity. So authenticity is the, uh, you know, integrity and, you know, the moral compass that you would have as you, as you, uh, sort of reflect on yourself. But intellectual is a, a quality of thinking that customers are saying that they really appreciate in salespeople- Yeah

in, in the way that they solve problems. And I've broken down the word intellectual into three components. Um, one is, uh, sort of the, uh, one component is integrating sources of data and infor- the ability to integrate sources of data, uh, synthesizing information, if you like. Um, the other is instinct. Hmm. Um, it's sort of having an instinct about something.

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Phil: Um, and the other is imagination. Ah. The word imagination, because I... It's interesting what you were saying earlier about artificial intelligence and creativity. And, uh, and, uh, so I'm beginning to define intel- the intellectual part of authenticity into those three dimensions. Um, and if you look at...

And then the other neat thing, and, and this definitely is not a marketing A gimmick. But if you have, um, if you have two sides, two pages of a book, and you have some wet ink, and on one, one page you've got AI, which is what we... And then you close the book, on the other side you have IA. Mm-hmm. And to me, the, the, the, the secret, uh, moving to the future is, is combining intellectual authenticity with the way you use artificial intelligence.

Hmm. 'Cause customers- Yeah ... are expecting you to have both. Yeah?

Mike: Yeah.

Phil: So this is, this is where the, the nuances come, uh, but I think it's been triggered, um, Mike, these words intellectual have been triggered by AI because, you know, knowledge is all pervasive now. There should be no excuse- Mm-hmm ... for salespeople not doing the research, you know, not producing effective account plans, you know, using, you know- Yeah

perhaps AI technology to do it. You need it, but you need that, that magic something which is not AI, which is the human component. Yes,

Mike: the human element.

Phil: The human element. And I, I've def- sort of defined that as intellectual authenticity- Yeah ... as being a key, a key attribute. I

Mark: like that.

Mike: Yeah. That, that was really something that I, I latched onto your November 25 research- Oh

the recently published work. Oh, thank

Phil: you.

Mike: Yes. The- Yeah ... piece that you transition from authenticity through what I would call human in the loop, you, you refer to it- Yeah ... as the person- Yeah ... and then into the intellectual authenticity and the importance of that. And, and you could almost take... That's a much more eloquent way that you framed in that research of saying nobody wants more AI slop, right?

Like, one of these, these sort of- Yeah. Correct ... words we hear right now about the endless wave of clearly generated, never edited- Right ... fed through the weak prompt, and then posted on LinkedIn or, or social media- Yeah ... or released in a statement. To try and appear intelligent without understanding the connection between appearance and, and actual value creation.

So I love that research and, and I, I wrote intellectual authenticity down in my journal- Oh ... and double underlined it as something to really pay careful attention to because you are- Yeah ... so on mark with that transition from individual authenticity through aided human in the loop to create, uh, that outcome that we're seeking- Yes

in, in the intellectual authenticity space. So hats off and kudos on that.

Mark: Well- It, it seems like such an interesting one, guys, because, um, the research also says that authenticity is one of the most important values, but lowest scoring values for salespeople.

Phil: It is, Mark. Yeah. This, and, and this leads on to another question, doesn't it, which is, uh, it's around complacency.

Mark: Ah.

Phil: And are, are people relying too much on AI, you know, to write the repor- proposals, do the research, you know? And they, they, and, and this is what buyers are kind of alluding to when they talk about intellectual dishonesty, you know? Yes. Because they can tell, they can sense when something isn't original and authentic.

Mm-hmm. So my, my worry is that standards of sales professionalism will diminish-

Mark: Ah ...

Phil: because of AI, because I think this might be slightly controversial as well. I think salespeople- ... are inherently lazy.

Mark: Okay, now we have our clickbait.

Phil: And, and, and then we you know, and, and people want to take shortcuts, and- Yeah

there's too much pressure on sort of producing results for that quality time that you need to be able to look at what the data tells you, which, which you absolutely need. So- What a

Mark: concept ...

Phil: AI can free up the time, but you'd need to replace it with this instinct and, um, you know, imagination and some of these other things that play in.

Mm-hmm. So this is my concern. So maybe in a year or two we could come back to the research and say, "Am I right or wrong?" I hope I'm wrong, but this is my fear.

Mark: So, so w- folks, you know, I think, um, first of all, just to baseline team, the research we're talking about, the state of sales mindsets, how do customers wanna be sold in 2025, with Dr.

Philip Squire and Eddie Guevara. So we'll have the link to that research, which is kind of an update to Selling Transformed. Some of the, the, um- Yeah ... uh, research in Selling Transformed. Th- this, I don't think, I don't think there's any fault in terms of calling all of us lazy. Okay. So if we go back to, uh, you know, Daniel Kahneman's work and Thinking Fast and Slow and evolution- Yeah, yeah.

Phil: Yeah ...

Mark: as human beings, we're, we're actually, we evolve to try and take the path of least resistance and burn as- Yeah ... little energy as possible. I, I think a lot of these things in terms of shortcuts or not doing the research, I do think it comes down to the environment you're in and the expectations of sales management and leadership and coaching.

Phil: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: Be- because, you know, this afternoon when I go to the gym, I'm not with my trainer. I g- I'm gonna have my coffee, I'm gonna be jacked up, I'm gonna do the best I can. There's no question, though, when I'm with my trainer on Friday I will perform better because someone's watching me. I, and I've, I've gone through this so many times where I think, "Do I have to pay this person?

Why am I paying this person? Why don't I-" Yeah, yeah. You perform better when there's a couple of sets of eyes watching. Yeah. So, so this is where I think a conversation like this is so important for a sales leader.

Phil: Yeah.

Mark: You know, the, is the sales leader ensuring that maybe we're working far less- Yeah ... but we're far better on the deals that we're working.

And, and so that we put that time and attention and care be- because, um, I think we'll all take the shortcuts if, if they're given to us, 'cause we feel pretty overwhelmed, I think, at times as professional salespeople.

Phil: Yeah. Yeah. That's so, yeah, that's so true.

Mark: So, so where does this take us? Let's keep going, if you don't mind, gang, just down this path of, of, of AI.

So Philip, um, actually, prior to that maybe, we'll just jump back to the research, the 2025 research. Was there anything else, you know, that came out of the update of the research that surprised you? I, I wasn't surprised to see that the sa- the core sales values haven't changed. You know, the ones that you originally- Yeah

identified. Yeah. For the most, you know, they are still the core sales values that, that are out in the marketplace. But what would be one or two of the insights when you went back to this that maybe surprised you a little bit?

Phil: Um, okay. So there, I, I think there are two things. One is that when we did the research 15 years ago, um, 80% of the respondents said that less than 10% of people sold them in, sold to them in a way that they really wanted.

This time round, um, the figure was 30%. So that's an improvement. So I feel-

Mark: Yay ...

Phil: great.

Mark: Something's working.

Phil: Something's working. So I felt, I felt that was a really positive message because I, I must admit, I'd, I'd always felt when we'd spoke about the 10%, is that it was a rather negative message to convey.

Mm-hmm. And I, I was slightly concerned that our marketing team, um, uh- ... had sort of talked about it too much. Um, because it's, you know, it's much better to be positive than negative generally. Um, so that was, that was, uh, something, um, that, um, surfaced. Um, th- the other thing that surfaced I think we've tou- we've touched upon already is this nuance of authenticity, uh, to intellectual authenticity- Hmm.

Mark: Right ...

Phil: which I think is, is, is pretty profound. Um, and there's a third one is, I've just tried to remind myself, um- Sorry to put you on the spot ... what it was. So this is, uh- There's a- A third nuance that, uh, that came about, I'll have to come back to it, Mark, but, uh-

Mike: Well, maybe I, maybe I can help you because there, there was one that really stood out to me, which was the notion of clients demanding greater transparency around data sources and reasoning.

Yeah. And, and I think that point leapt out and said, um- Yeah ... much like what we say to up-and-coming staff or if you're using AI- Yeah ... effectively, what you either notice the subtle changes that happen towards the tail end of 2024, something Mark and I have, have sometimes referred to as the November threshold or, or such.

But if you look at the current AIs, and part of what gives me- Yeah ... confidence that these will become much more helpful tools going forward, showing your homework is really crucial. You know, the- Yeah ... whether it's an employee who says, "I've arrived at this conclusion," and, and you spend time coaching them to say, you know, the most important things are explain how you understood the problem, what you considered as the solutions, and why you've chosen one solution as the result.

That's more valuable than what's the solution that you have in hand. Yeah. And I think that show your homework, in particular around how salespeople behave, how they provide and produce content, how the AIs work. One of my favorite parts of the modern AI is you see the little drop-downs that start appearing that say show calculation, show- Yeah

logic s- Yeah ... reasoning. And we open those up and you see, oh, okay, this is how the model is going about determining how to take Mark's book and produce a summary for me, or, you know- Yeah ... search the web for these results, or reason through what this stack of numbers is really telling me about customer demand.

Phil: Yeah.

Mike: Seeing the homework is so crucial, and I thought that kind of point you made around transparency of source and reasoning was a really crucial element as well.

Phil: Yeah. Yeah. It's... Yes, it, it was. And I, I, do you think, Mike, and I've thought about... I've, I've remembered what the third point, I'll come back to that later, but, um, do you...

I mean, what concerns do you have, Mike, about AI? Um, because I, I know we're talking about this in a sales context, but you, y- you must, you must have some sort of-

Mark: Great question. ...

Phil: major concerns- Yeah. Yeah ... about AI, as well as the, you see the positives. And I th- I think- Yeah ... you've explained both. So Mike, I'd be interested to hear your point of view on that.

Mark: Me too.

Mike: Yeah, sure. Um, and, and since you opened the door earlier to being controversial, I'll, I'll, uh- ... follow you through that door and say the, the piece I think is most concerning... So I'll just declare my, my biases upfront. I'm not a doomer. Um, I don't think- Okay ... the world's gonna end. I think employment will continue, and I think humanity has a future.

Um, there are many things that can derail us. AI is just one of those things. Um, but I do think that, that the real biggest risk is that we, and continuing the theme we were on, we, we become intellectually lazy. Um- Right ... that we stop understanding- Why or what, and we really just concentrate on how fast we can produce outcome, throw it out there and, and let it go.

And time management will become more crucial. Um, depth of reasoning and understanding the social aspects that we're sharing here, pushing at ideas, but being equally willing to learn something new. Um, you know, to take and challenge base assumption based on the input that someone else has provided. And I think if we fall into the echo chamber of stupidity and let AI take over from us, then we're gonna get the reward, quote, unquote, "that we deserve."

But if you use AI as a tool to enable your improvement, great things can happen. And, and on the last podcast that we recorded, I, I brought forward the idea of, you know, I think a real skill that everybody needs to develop is engaging, thinking, and challenging. By using commute time or using 15 minutes when you're otherwise busy but not intellectually occupied to have a conversation about any topic you want with any AI that is handy, but forcing yourself to go through three, four, five layers down and throwing a curve ball in, like saying, "Okay, that's great we arrived at this point.

Now tell me the exact opposite perspective on where we are and explain why that is what it is or why you chose not to present that information to me thus far." And so using the tools not as an outcome creator, but as a thought process challenger, and then using the time that's available to improve on that.

And I think if we don't fall into the trap, you know, sometimes I'll call it the how trap, if we don't fall into the how trap where we just let the machine do faster and faster outcomes without focusing on the why and what, why am I doing this and what is the result I'm anticipating- Hmm ... then we're gonna get our just rewards, whether that's from the staff around us, the people we work for, or the tools that we use.

You know, bad things happen if you don't pay attention, but good things can happen if you use tools effectively like a beautiful piece of furniture a craftsman make.

Mark: Wow. So, so we will... We've got two sources of clickbait. People are lazy and humanity will continue So if those, if those two things don't actually drive some viewership of this podcast, I don't know what will.

What, guys, what a... First of all, what a wonderful conversation. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I, I, I really think this is the kind of conversation that should be taking place in some capacity at most Q2 sales kickoffs globally right now. If you're a sales leader and you're not at least engaged in this conversation, y- you're probably gonna fall behind a little bit.

And I, I, I really, I always pick up a nice tip, Philip, from chatting with Mike here, also yourself, but this idea of driving home and commuting and having- Mm ... a conversation with AI to, and then asking for the- Yeah ... opposite point of view, love that.

Phil: Brilliant.

Mark: Yeah. I just love that. That's a really good one.

Yeah. G- guys, we could talk about this for hours. At some point in time we'll do that in person over a poi- a pint, but we do need to wrap for today. So first of all, I'd just like to say thank you, thank you, thank you to both of you for joining today. Um, team, number one, what you are gonna be doing is picking up and reading, cover to cover, Selling Transformed: Develop the Sales Values Which Deliver Competitive Advantage by Dr Philip Squire.

You're also gonna see the link to the updated report we referenced today called The State of Sales Mindsets: How Do Customers Want to Be Sold in 2025? Just a great summary and review. Philip, can you tell us a little bit about Consalia and a little bit about how clients or listeners today might learn more about you and what you're doing?

Phil: Well, of course, we have the website, which is, um, www.consalia.com. Um, we also have our own sales transformation podcast series, of, of which, Mark, you've been a guest as well.

Mark: I sure have. A pleasure.

Phil: On, on, on that. But, uh, we're very easy to, uh, to find. Um, the website is probably a good starting point, and of course, I welcome anyone wanting to reach out with me on LinkedIn and, uh, contacting me via, via that platform as well.

Mark: Wonderful. Thank you, Philip, and again, team. Links will be in the meeting notes from today. Mike, how do people connect with you and learn more about your work?

Mike: Uh, I think, uh, I'll just say the same thing. LinkedIn is the best place. That's, uh, where I'm existing from a professional standpoint, and I'm happy to connect in any topic, any way, with anyone interested in the space that I, uh, have thoughts around.

And, and Philip, I'll just say real pleasure, uh, spending time with you now- My pleasure ... and, and researching your work leading in, and, and keep being a unicorn, my friend.

Phil: Thank you. Thank you, Mike. It's been great, uh, having you on, on, on, on the conversation here as well, so.

Mark: Sure has.

Phil: Yeah. Been brilliant. Yeah.

Thank you, Mark.

Mark: Guys, thank you both for j- for joining today. And team, thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please like and subscribe to the Selling Well podcast, because when you do that, that actually enables us to get amazing guests like Dr. Philip Squire and Mike Sparling. If you think there's ways we can improve this podcast, we're all ears.

So you can send your feedback, and we love constructive criticism. Send it to me, markcox@inthefunnel.com. That's my personal email. And anytime somebody gives us an idea or a thought, we, I respond personally to each and every suggestion we get. And by the way, the way we run the podcast these days came from great suggestions for you.

So thank you for doing that. We'll look forward to seeing everybody next time on the Selling Well podcast.