Sales got its first real taste of automation 10 years ago. Since then it has gone from innovation → competitive advantage → table stakes → abused → toxic. Here's how that happened (and how to avoid it): A company wants to boost results. Low outbound activity or reps failing to do programmatic, repetitive activities are seen as challenges. A progressive leader sees automation as an answer. An automation vendor is selected and implemented. Initial results (almost always) yield amazing results. Why? Because automation is good at harvesting low-hanging fruit. Because it's working, the leader thumps their chest and "scales it up." More processes are automated...ones that are critical. Results continue to go up (usually) but not as efficiently as before. It takes more accounts, more leads as low-hanging fruit disappears. Results start to dip bc automation isn't great at helping reps harvest fruit on the high branches of the tree -- where you gotta work to get the good stuff. Leader has overly invested time, money, and political capital into automation. So, they panic a bit and really crank up the automation. Why not? It used to work, right?! And automation is the future. But, they don't realize the automated systems are doing a different job now. Picking low-hanging apples while you stand on the ground is different than climbing high into trees to get the tastiest ones. Leader (or someone the leader blames) gets fired. New person/people come in and unwinds it all and put in their own version. Rinse and repeat bc no one has thought about where helpful automation ends and toxic automation begins. Imagine this cycle happening at 1000s of companies. What does it do to reps? leaders? the market? buyers? That's why over-automation has become a toxic condition. We all believe it, but many of us are scared to act on it. You should be more terrified of what the effect of toxic automation has on our sales environment -- global warming and scorched earth in GTM is a real thing, too. How do you avoid this? Know the cycle above. Avoid the pitfall. Experiment with what processes can be automated and which can't. You can dip a toe in without cannonballing into the pool to see if the water is nice or not.
Portugal?
The curse of the curlicues the tyranny of templates the abomination of automation :) :)
Love this take. 🔥 I came to the game a bit later but even in the last 4-5 years it's been wild to watch "efficiency" and "scale" be prioritized above common sense to an absurd degree, especially in sales.
"Automation isn't great at helping reps harvest fruit on the high branches of the tree -- where you gotta work to get the good stuff." YES Mark. Spot on, as usual. Thank you!!
Where are you in this pic and can I come next time?!
Automation is like a drug. Works great at the start but get dangerous as you overuse!
Mark Kosoglow have you found it difficult to "experiment" with sales teams. The best tests have a control and a test group. One stays the same while you automate the other. So imagine splitting your sales team into two groups, the ones who "get to keep using automation" and the ones who cannot use it any longer. So if you identify if the test is "successful" and the test group outperforms the control group, the control group complains that they were treated "unfairly." And some will outright say they they were specifically targeted to NOT go into the test group (for whatever reason they think HR will bite on). And vice versa. Have you experienced these challenges while testing and experimenting with your sales teams? If so, how have you solved the issue above (the real issue I've faced in the past)?
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3moA big reason that I see this happening is that in today's world it is MUCH easier to take a process, cadence, action etc. and stick it in an automation tool than it is to coach someone and make them better at what they do. In the 'old days', the main, maybe only way to improve sales productivity was to actually make people better. This is hard work and can't be hacked. It takes what it takes. Mass automation in sales created a new, easier way to increase productivity. As a result, there has been a tremendous atrophying of the muscles needed to actually coach and make people better. Additionally, there is a generation of leaders who don't know how to do this. In fairness to them, they learned leadership in an era where there was a much higher return on effort from automation than true performance coaching/improvement. The solution to this is a major investment in coaching capabilities from the CRO on down....and no, this isn't just about investing in a tool to do 1-1s. It is about actually helping people develop the critical thinking skills and interpersonal skills to elevate the performance of their teams.