How can B2B executives, especially those in sales, use artificial intelligence (AI) effectively — but without using it as a crutch? This was the top question answered by Roderick Jefferson as he kicked off B2B Marketing Exchange West in Scottsdale this week.
Jefferson, an author with more than 20 years of sales enablement leadership experience, explained during his keynote titled, “Leveraging AI: The Building Blocks of Productivity & Increased Revenue,” that combining AI capabilities with human insight leads to optimal results.
“AI will give you content, but you still need the human touch for context,” said Jefferson to a packed ballroom. “We may get to that point, but right now, we’re still a requirement to be a part of that circle.”
2025 Recalibration
Although it is still early days in B2B’s “AI Revolution,“ Jefferson believes that sales teams have the opportunity to recalibrate their interactions across all internal and external channels. Using AI, they can break down silos and foster collaboration across revenue-focused teams. As a result, they can work towards a unified revenue strategy that create a seamless experience throughout the buyer’s journey and optimizes sales results.
“I want sales to stop selling and I want to find a balance where they start helping,“ said Jefferson. “I want them to start having conversations, not giving presentations…This is where IQ plus EQ plus AI comes into play.”
5 Ways to Capitalize on AI
Jefferson cited five ways AI can drive sales efficiency and productivity:
- Streamlined lead scoring
- Automated task management
- Real-time analytics
- Personalized sales coaching
- Efficient sales processes
However, to truly scale AI across their organization, team members and leaders need to use it daily. Only then will there be urgency to test, learn and optimize new processes across teams and workflows. “Are you adaptive enough around AI to actually go out and teach this?“ Jefferson asked the audience. “What’s important to my leader is imperative to me — if I see you do it, I’m going to follow through; if I don’t, I have no reason to even look at doing things differently and utilizing AI.”
The Amazon-best-selling author of Sales Enablement 3.0: The Blueprint to Sales Enablement Excellence added that AI is part of sales’ continuous journey to optimize for a buyer that is nonlinear and dynamic. AI helps sales and marketing stay agile and refine their efforts in real time. They can deploy it to track and analyze buyer signals and intent across all touch points. Marketing can use AI to automate the delivery of targeted nurture campaigns that adapt based on sales engagement, creating a continuous loop of testing, learning and innovating.
Turning Data into a Competitive Advantage
AI tools can analyze customer preferences and behaviors to help both sales and marketing deliver hyper-personalized content, according to Jefferson. He urged attendees to use AI to map content to different stages of the buyer’s journey and continuously refine content using AI-generated feedback loops from both sales interactions and marketing campaigns.
“We’re using AI to create decisions,“ he said. “It goes back to that single word of data — it’s about the analyzation, it’s about the trends, it’s about the analytics. But it’s not enough to say I’ve got this report … this is where the EQ piece comes in.”
Sharing AI-driven data insights will help create a unified 360-degree view of the customer journey across sales and marketing channels. Teams can create real-time dashboards that help them understand buying signals, lead quality and customer behavior. AI should be used for better decision-making on lead prioritization, nurturing and conversion strategies.
“Make sure that you don’t just have the data but know how to use it,“ Jefferson said. “Everything comes back to feedback metrics and revenue-focused metrics.”
Stay tuned for more updates from B2BMX West this week on Demand Gen Report.