During a "normal" non-Summa' work week, I spend 20-25 hours in traffic commuting from the NH Beach to the Boston office or to Tufts. It is what it is in America's worst city for traffic and accidents. In the world of "Things That You Don't Need to Know", Boston drivers are 244% more likely to get into a collision than the national average. This year for me has been especially "interesting" with 24,000 miles added on already through July plus a major repair caused by my losing argument with a concrete post in the Tufts parking lot.
This week, however, in a hunkered-down Vermont retreat of disciplined reading and writing, my total mileage has been 2.5 miles with only one trip to the general store in my village of 729 residents in the river valley where 7 generations of my family have lived. Time to read. Time to think. Time to plan. And, of course, to take a few early morning sales calls here and there.
Some of the reading on the NH beach has been cover-to-cover once every summa', while in the tiny gazebo up in the Vermont woodlot, the contemplation and writing might be only a chapter or two.
This week I've been thinking about how the fundamentals of Sun Tzu would adapt to the art and science of sales in a world infused with AI.
I'm going to change the language of my friend, Sun Tzu, this morning simply because "deception" is not the best word given its immediate connotation of lying or twisting the truth. Success in working seamlessly with prospects and customers today is not about deception as practiced by old-school salesguy Joey Bagadonuts, whose best sales skill other than bringing the doughnuts was offering one-time-only/sign-today discounts.
Let's use the word, "positioning" instead, which is about revealing information strategically and providing your solution as the only inevitable choice.
In sales management today, this level of positioning translates to maintaining informational superiority through AI tools. We need to be using data analytics and especially total fluency in the use of our CRMs to understand our prospects better than they understand themselves. We need to know their pain points, their decision-making processes, and the changes in their competitive landscape before they do.
We can apply Sun Tzu rule by using AI to identify the warmest leads and create such compelling, personalized value propositions that our specific personas essentially sell themselves. Today, we can leverage predictive analytics to approach prospects and especially existing customers at the exact moment they're most receptive. When salespeople present solutions that feel perfectly timed and tailored, resistance dissolves naturally rather than requiring aggressive tactics. Reaching this Zen level of selling value rather than selling things or services puts the salesperson on an equal level with their counterpart, which is the highest essence of true partnership and working as a trusted advisor.
In my normal, non-Vermont life, speed and the criticality of time are fundamentals in how I work, and to enable that more and more I depend on AI tools in everything I do. Here on retreat in Vermont, I don't wear a watch, iPhones are most often unplugged or looked at only when they alarm to a few specific callers, and I often mistake what day it is. In another week, when I drop back into my Boston-NH-Tufts world, speed becomes not the essence of war, but the essence of life, and it's impossible for me to do that without AI.
In "The New Art & Science of Sales", AI becomes an absolute fundamental of how one wins. In 2025's highly competitive landscape with a tremendous amount of continuing uncertainty, whoever responds fastest with the most relevant solution wins. Our experience this year is that deals are not being lost to competitors, they are being lost to "Do Nothing" or "Not Now". All the more reason for personalized solutions based on creating customer value.
Hopefully, on this Friday morning, as you think ahead to what looks like a spectacular weather weekend, these simple principles of adapting Sun Tzu's wisdom written 17 centuries ago of winning on the battlefield to your own 2025 quota achievements will make an impact to think differently about how you sell. What we absolutely do know is that in order to be relevant and consistently winning in today's world of sales, we must adapt to how our prospects and customers want to be sold, and not to how we want to sell them.
Have a great selling day this Friday! Enjoy the weekend!!!
Our free how-to ebooks for general ideas:
"Writing the Winning Sales Plan"
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"Writing the Winning Marketing Plan"
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Connect with me any time at jack@derbymanagement.com and let's discuss.