How are you building momentum for sales revenue AND customer success?
It is easier than you think for your methods and models to keep pace with AI's evolution (revolution) on both sides of the buying equation.
- Below we talk about HOW.
- Here is WHY...
The AI shift has begun. Both sellers and buyers are using it. Your customers now deploy sophisticated AI tools that evaluate your offerings before any human sees your pitch. It's time for less persuasion and more proof.
In the below 10-point Go-To-Market Growth Plan, every step Is an opportunity to synchronize your brand reputation across these proven methods and models - with an AI spin, of course.
• 10 priorities for realigning your team around customer success
• 55 revenue models to inspire and adapt
• Strategic integration of AI, Blockchain, and Co-ownership mechanisms
- Listen to a (surprisingly well-done) AI-produced podcast discussion about this article.
The threat isn't just competitors with better AI skills. It's your customer's AI tools that now screen you out before any human conversation begins.
Your customers now deploy AI to:
• Filter vendors before human review
• Research solutions matching their private info
• Verify claims against industry benchmarks
• Assess pricing, integration truths, long-term insights, culture, reputation, etc!
Now ... you are ready for YOUR TOP 10 TOPICS FOR GROWTH:
1) Your Capabilities?
List the functions that solve your target market's most significant problems and goals. Yes, you are making a promise, so include your Mission Statement (with industry-redefining infographics). Augment your internal capabilities and reassess cooperative and reciprocal Partnership models for previously unattainable growth.
NEW SALES TRUTH: Buyers' AI systems are already evaluating your capabilities against competitors without your knowledge, using internal data you'll never see. Your capabilities are being scored and ranked before a human ever reviews your materials.
ai! = Interrogate AI Chat Bots to discover and position your offers to market issues and trends. Focus on capabilities that demonstrate causal impact rather than just features or benefits.
2) Who REALLY Cares?
Obsess on re-clarifying your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Be brutally self-aware about your capabilities and compatibilities. Don't underestimate trust-building from an alignment of personality and culture. The right customers accumulate value with positive testimonials, their network of new prospects, etc. Qualify selfishly because the riches are in the niches.
ai! = Dig deep to identify patterns and segment your customers. Patterns are key to planning. Implement AI-powered personalization engines like Dynamic Yield or Optimizely to deliver tailored content and messages to different audience segments at each stage of their buying process.
ai! BONUS = Your Buyers have the SAME AI tools as you... no, actually BETTER ones. Their "buyer bots" are pre-screening vendors before any human interaction occurs. So they can prompt their way through your visionary solutions and sketchy spins. Talk to them and their partners! Make sure your strategy is realistic. Demonstrate performance with tests. Earn Trust through transparency!
3) Got Goals?
Define timing and results that match your budget and human resources for brand awareness, product, research, sales lead generation, opt-ins, meetings, deals, etc. Know where you can score KPIs: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV), conversion rates, churn, and specific sources of revenue growth. Remember to care enough to look beyond income metrics - including customer satisfaction, product adoption, usage paths of attribution, and actual outcomes.
NEW SALES TRUTH: Buyer-side AI is completely redefining what "qualified leads" even means. Many prospects you're pursuing may have already been disqualified by buyer AI without your knowledge, fundamentally changing your conversion metrics.
ai! = Discover trends to enable proactive decision-making with AI report generation tools such as DataRobot or Tableau's Explainable AI can automate reports, optimize campaigns, and personalize marketing efforts to more efficiently increase revenue by improving customer satisfaction. Implement AI-powered budget optimization platforms like Albert or Kenshoo to analyze past performance data and allocate budget to channels with the highest potential for ROI.
4) Deliver!
- For them to get: Results? Rewards? Better process? How are you delivering on their expectations? See a summary of our recent "AI Workshops for Sales Leaders."
- For you to do: Site content, emails, social posts and comments (like these LinkedIn tips), video sessions, promo/ads, events, ongoing follow-ups!
NEW SALES TRUTH: Buyers are using AI to validate your claims in real-time, instantly comparing your promises against actual client outcomes found across the web. The gap between what you promise and what you deliver is being quantified algorithmically.
ai! = Implement AI-driven personalization engines to customize content delivery. Use platforms like Personalize (AWS) or Dynamic Content (Mailchimp) to create personalized experiences for customers. Employ AI-powered content generation tools like Chat GPT and Copy.ai to automate content creation for your Paid, Owned, and Earned collateral.
5) Get Out! (But Recognize the Limitations)
Assess while selling - Don't wait. Reach out. Make calls. Get insights. Ask! Train and support your salespeople to: uncover customer needs, acknowledge competitive gaps, discover strategy ideas, find new prospects, retrieve hot product features, manage partner relationships, educate the market as your brand ambassador, … and close deals.
(That paragraph is an outline of what I love to do with my clients!)
HOWEVER - recognize that traditional outbound prospecting is becoming obsolete as buyer bots filter vendors before human interaction. Focus on becoming a "trusted challenger" who provides external market perspective that AI can't easily replicate.
ai! = Offer helpful custom ChatBots and virtual AI Agent assistants to reach out to potential customers, answer their queries, and provide personalized recommendations. Proactive engagement helps build trust and establishes your brand as attentive and responsive. But ALWAYS have your humans edit and curate!
TRY IT - Create your own ChatBot ($100/month) with a reliable platform like our friends at CustomGPT - use this below link and get a month free.
Link: https://customgpt.ai?fpr=davidcutler
Code: ONEMONTHFREE
6) Market wins "Product/Market Fit"
Customer goals and benefits should lead your Product Development. Ask users often ... because they will usually want a better User Experience (UX) for their buying process, and internal team requirements. Your confidence from this alignment will inspire your marcom promotion and momentum.
NEW SALES TRUTH: Buyer-side AI is creating sophisticated "fit scores" for your products based on specifications, user feedback, and competitive analysis—all without your input. Your product's compatibility with buyer needs is being evaluated by algorithms with more data than you have.
ai! = Implement AI-powered personalization engines like Dynamic Yield or Optimizely to deliver tailored content and messages to different audience segments. Poll customers using AI sentiment analysis for UX improvements that align with your product development and messaging.
7) Unique Value Propositions: From Differentiation to Proof
Develop accurate, clear, and intriguing (!) statements that differentiate your product benefits from competitors and distractions. Be emotionally logical (go for dramatically convincing!) on how your Strategic Sweet Spot is the best way to make their lives better.
Most importantly: Focus on causal proof rather than just differentiation. By 2028, B2B buyers will completely control vendor selection, and they demand clear evidence of business outcomes, not just persuasive messaging.
ai! = Set news notifications on competitors and customers. Get creative with AI-powered brand and sentiment monitoring tools like Brandwatch. Assess historical patterns for potential scenario planning options. Implement causal analytics tools that demonstrate the direct impact of your solutions on client outcomes.
8) Lead a Movement:
Position you and your company as a trusted thought leader by sharing insights on priority industry issues. Disclose to differentiate! Don't just broadcast, design your community engagement (using an efficient platform like Circle) for interactive participation, incentives, and growth.
Start small in a good old (new) Think Tank phone/Zoom session with a few, yet diverse, industry peers. This is wider than an Advisory Board. Expand by collaborating with industry experts and influencers. Challenge and incentivize them to discuss insights from trials and use cases that affect your market and reveal adjacent opportunities. See the end of this post for a bonus on leadership.
ai! = Use AI-powered content generation tools to design conversational participation. Test which formats maximize results. Discover the most valuable people by employing AI algorithms to identify ideal matches. Diversify participation with both people who align with your target market and are in adjacent roles.
9) Demand Demand
Marketing that drives intent, not just awareness, will deliver more relevant sales conversations across your direct and partner channels. All your content should match each stage of your buyer's journey (when was the last time you acknowledged your Flipping Funnel?)
NEW SALES TRUTH: Traditional demand generation is increasingly ineffective because buyer AI systematically filters out content it perceives as promotional rather than informational. Your marketing investment may be reaching algorithms instead of decision-makers, who only see content their AI deems valuable enough to surface.
ai! = Machine learning and AI analytics can combine seemingly disparate data and derive customer insights so interactions can more easily be designed to increase conversions and revenue. Focus on creating information-rich content that demonstrates causal impact rather than traditional marketing claims.
10) Internal / External Success
Listen to your people. Insist on employee and user feedback loops with training for the discovery of issues and opportunities to support, incentivize, share, and expand by focusing on exceptional customer experiences. Tell YOUR CUSTOMER'S STORY (not just yours).
ai! = Get creative with AI-powered brand monitoring tools like Brandwatch or Talkwalker to track brand mentions and sentiment across social media. By automating analysis, you can more efficiently expand your knowledge, fostering a reputation for continuous improvement. AI-powered tools can help gather feedback from employees and users, identify areas for improvement, and enhance customer experiences.
Why? ...
Because proud loyal customers and employees will share testimonials ... And advocates will evangelize when you Lead a Movement (#8).
Assess, create, and deliver customer value by optimizing engagement, driving demand, and growing business between more relevant people (and Robot Engines) across new ecosystems and economies.
SALES SURVIVING THE AI REVOLUTION: THE STRATEGIC PIVOT
The most significant shift ahead is the move from persuasion to proof. Here are some transition paths:
- Become a "Trusted Challenger"
- Provide external perspective that AI can't easily replicate
- Focus on causal impact (proving your solution directly causes positive outcomes)
- Build trust through transparency rather than persuasion
- Transition to High-Value Strategic Roles
- Revenue Enablement Specialist: Focus on increasing deal size across teams
- AI Sales Integration Specialist: Help implement and optimize AI sales tools
- Customer Success Architect: Concentrate on post-sale metrics and value
- Cross-Functional Revenue Team Leader: Bridge traditional silos
- Develop Data & AI Expertise
- Sales Data Analytics Expert: Help companies become insight-driven
- AI Prompt Engineering: Master directing AI tools for strategic sales insights
- Buyer-Side AI Navigation: Help companies be recognized by buyer AI
The future belongs to professionals who prove their value, earn trust through AI-driven transparency, and structure their relationships around direct impact for customer success.
Your options and opportunities are getting better every day.
BONUSFor inspiration, here are 55 Business Model OptionsFrom Traditional to Transformative:
Core Traditional Models
- Sell Product/Service E-Com Store
- Outbound Human Sales (now with Causal Proof Focus)
- Inbound "Demand Gen" w/ Intent
- White Labeling and OEM
- Brand Licensing
- Lead Generation Fees
- Affiliate Marketing Programs
- Reseller Partner Management
Value-Based Approaches
- Pay-Per-Result Guarantees
- Usage-Based Billing
- Pay-What-You-Want Models
- Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)
- Revenue-Share & Referrals
Content & Experience Monetization
- Freemium Content Upselling
- Live Content Ticket Sales
- On-Demand Payment Levels
- Course Curriculum and Training
- User Content Incentives
- Sponsored Promotions
- Interactive Content and Ads
- Member Subscriptions for Access
- Experience-Based Revenue
- Subscription Boxes
Community & Network Models
- Marketplaces and App Stores
- Social Network (P2P) Selling
- Gamify Participate to Earn (P2E)
- Community/Partner Management
- Meme / Movement Crowdfunding
- Donations and Cause Marketing
- Crowdsourced Innovation
- Circular Economy Models
- Aggregator & VAR Models
- Partner Management Services (Lots more here)
AI-Enhanced Business Models
- Custom Research (including AI Prompts)
- AI-as-a-Service (AIaaS)
- AI Content Ownership RevShare
- AI Agent Design for Proof-Based Selling
- Causal Impact Demonstration
- AI-Driven Transparency Services
- Buyer-Side AI Navigation
- Trusted Challenger Positioning
- Cross-Functional Revenue Integration
- IP Licensing & AI Agent Navigation
Data-Driven Models
- Data Monetization
- RegTech & Compliance Services
- Greenwashing Audits & Alternatives
- Bounty Programs
- Virtual & Metaverse Events
- Micro Pay for JIT Solutions
Web3 Innovations
- Tokenomics and Digital Assets
- Fractional Ownership
- Decentralized - DeFi, DeSci, etc...
55. Superpower Your Assets with Programmable Blockchain "Tagging"
Transform any asset or interaction into dynamic utilities: buy • sell • share • earn • trade • grant • reward • redeem • refer • authorize • unlock • admit • track • distribute • license • co-earn!
Web3 services are getting easier to deploy every day with the unique customer engagement functions of the new breed of content management platforms...
Let's talk about which ones you should try.
Our discussion about your specific options starts with the above Flywheel... where everyone at your company is revolving towards your Customer's Success.
