The Impact of AI on Sales with James Underhill

James Underhill is the Senior Director of Sales Operations and
Strategy at MongoDB. He started his career as a pre-sales
engineer at Videology and later spent two years at Twitter as a
Revenue Operations Analyst. Since joining MongoDB, James has been
promoted four times and now leads the Sales Innovation team.


In this episode, John McMahon and John Kaplan are joined by James
Underhill to discuss the potential impact of AI on sales. They
explore how AI can enhance sales productivity by automating
time-consuming tasks and providing valuable insights. James
breaks down the different stages of the sales process and
explains how AI can be leveraged to improve territory management,
discovery, preparation, coaching and forecasting. He emphasizes
the importance of combining AI with human skills and highlights
the need for curiosity, critical thinking, and a customer-centric
approach in sales. The conversation also touches on the potential
changes in the buying experience as AI becomes more prevalent in
sales.


HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT

[00:04:42] Importance of combining IQ and EQ in leveraging AI
tools
[00:08:11] The role of human elements and trust in the sales
process
[00:11:15] Traditional territory management problem and the use
of AI in contextualizing data
[00:12:42] AI can assist with knowledge procurement and
enablement for new reps
[00:14:58] AI can aid in equitable territory management and hold
managers accountable
[00:21:00] AI can automate the process of gathering foundational
information, but reps still need curiosity and hunger to progress
in the sales cycle
[00:22:21] AI will expose bottom reps and decrease ramp
time
[00:25:01] AI enables instant coaching and on-demand
knowledge
[00:34:08] AI can help transfer knowledge and boost productivity
in sales
[00:46:09] Warm introductions becoming more meaningful in sales


ADDITIONAL RESOURCES


Learn more about aligning customer-facing teams to improve
execution: https://forc.mx/48o1jyP


Connect and learn more about James
Underhill.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-underhill-ba22313b/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/mongodbinc/


HIGHLIGHT QUOTES


[00:54:42] "Are they planning a merger with another company and
they're going to go bonkers? Are they launching a new product?
Like it's hard to predict that. And so that's where the human
element is really important."
[00:55:08] "And now I'm taking that information and then I can
have, I can use an assistant of sorts or a tool to help me
understand how that translates into what you're going to pay over
time. But it's not going to tell me, Hey, James, they're going to
bill this over this time period. That's unlikely."