Thinking out loud.
Notes on AI, sales and the channel, from someone who sells for a living. Written for founders building something, and for the people who hire sellers.
The buyer already asked the AI.
Two in three B2B buyers would rather skip the sales rep. That doesn't make the rep pointless. It changes the job.
Read the post- The distributor is learning to talk to agentsIngram Micro has opened Xvantage up to the AI tools partners already use. I work there, so I'm biased, but I've been reading every update like a fan.
- AI agents don't know your partners. Yet.If agents start doing the buying, founders who sell through the channel need products a machine can read and a partner can repeat.
- The scanner is the first promptEveryone wants AI in their stores. It only works if the shop floor captures good data first, and that's the sales conversation most people skip.
- Why we built AttechyA small studio, five apps and one rule: only build what we'd use every day ourselves.
- Your real competitor is 'not now'Most deals I've seen stall aren't lost to a rival. They're lost to doing nothing. With AI noise everywhere, that's getting more common, not less.
- Hiring a seller this year? Ask these five questionsMost interviews still test whether someone can sell. Fewer test whether they can sell alongside AI. Five questions I'd want to be asked.
- The self-checkout that asks nicelyA UK supermarket is putting AI cameras on its self-checkouts. What caught my eye wasn't the technology. It was how it talks to shoppers.
- When the agent is the buyerGartner expects AI agents to be involved in most B2B purchases within a few years. What that could look like, and what still needs a human.
- What one-line painting taught me about emailsI paint figures in a single continuous line. It turns out to be the best writing lesson I've ever had.
- Women in sales, by the numbersWomen hold a big share of sales jobs and a much smaller share of sales leadership. A look at the gap, and what I'd tell any woman starting out in tech sales.
- 98% of us edit the robotNearly every seller rewrites what AI drafts for them. That isn't a failure of the tools. It's the most important part of the job.
- Distribution is the job nobody explainsMost of the tech you use reached you through a chain of companies you've never heard of. What distributors and resellers actually do, from someone in the middle of it.
- I read everything about AI SDRs so you don't have toA well-known founder replaced most of his sales team with AI agents. What he reported, what he warned about, and what I think it means for the rest of us.
- 15,000 feet and the cold callI've jumped out of a plane and I'd do it again. Some mornings, ringing a stranger still takes more nerve. Why, and what helps.
- Same pitch, three countriesI've sold in Sri Lanka, Australia and England. The product was never the hard part. How people say yes, no and maybe is.
- Four thousand accounts and one meWhen you look after more customers than you could ever call, the real skill isn't selling. It's deciding who gets your attention today.
- I got into sales by accidentFive years in marketing, a move to Sydney, and suddenly I was the one carrying a number. What I brought with me, and what I had to unlearn.
Read something you disagree with?
Good. Tell me. The best conversations I've had started with someone saying "I don't think that's right".