AI Can’t Replace Skill, Process Still Closes | SOS Ep. 387

I make the case that process, systems, and frameworks beat personality and “vibes” in outside sales, and AI only helps when the fundamentals are already in place. I share real examples from my own coaching journey and the bad cold outreach I see every week, then lay out how to do recon, ask better questions, and recover when deals slip. 

• treating your sales territory like a business with a clear process 
• using the house analogy to build in the right order 
• leveraging AI as a tool without outsourcing your skill 
• learning through failure and iterating fast as you grow 
• why walk-in pitches and info dumps get blocked 
• opening with questions and discovery instead of “me, me, me” 
• doing recon and gap analysis before a cold call 
• rehearsing your plan so you do not rely on vibes 
• avoiding hard sells and qualifying for fit 
• building leverage with tech, network, referrals, and content 

Link is in the description down below. 
Share this episode with a friend who desperately needs. 
You can reach out to me, Mike@survivingoutsides.com, or you can go to my LinkedIn page and DM me. 

Transcript

Welcome And Show Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The Surviving and Outside Sales podcast, hosted by Mike O'Kelly, presented by Sales Builder Academy. The goal is to survive in and promise all phases of outside sales, whether you're getting in, dominating, or getting out. Surviving Outside Sales.

Build The Foundation Before AI

Failing Forward In Coaching

The Outside Sales Pitch Problem

Do Recon Then Ask Questions

Blueprint To Sales Builder OS

Don’t Rush Deals, Learn To Recover

Coaching Offers And Real-World Ops

Scale With Tech, Network, Content

Reach Out And Final Thanks

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Welcome to the Surviving Outside Sales Podcast. I'm your host, Mike O'Kelly. Hey, this might sound like a broken record, but we're going to talk about process. We're going to talk about systems. We're going to talk about frameworks. So these are never going to, these are never going to not work. Okay. And the reason why is it's just, it's the exact same as I've used this analogy, building a house. Okay. You have to build your sales territory as if it were a business. And you build it as if it were a house. There has never, ever, ever in the history of the world been a house that started with building the roof first. You have to build the foundation, then you have to frame it out. Then you can start putting the roof on. There's a process in order for things to work. AI is fantastic. I absolutely love AI. I've told you that you should definitely be using AI in your. You should definitely be using AI in your business. You should definitely be using AI in your life, but it is not going to substitute skill. It is not going to substitute for your ability. You still have to work on your craft. You still have to develop your skills. You also need to build out your process. You need to have a process in place. You've got to have systems and you have to have frameworks. That's the boring of sales. Boring wins the day. Every top sales professional has processes, systems, and frameworks that they use for everything. The maybe 1% of people that are successful in sales might shoot from the hip or they vibe or they use their personality. For 99% of people, you do it the very boring way. Some of the top sales professionals that I know throughout my career are the most unassuming, quiet, introverted type people who ran unbelievable processes, systems, and frameworks. These are the things that the top sales professionals do and sometimes may not even know that they're doing it because they've learned it over the years. And you can do that. If you're in sales for 15 years, just by being in sales for 15 years, you probably have picked up a couple things and you're running an unbelievable onboarding process, an unbelievable sales process, an unbelievable retention process that you're not even aware that that's actually what you're doing. But for most sales professionals, you have to build it out. You have to build it out. You have to structure it for your business. You have to practice it so that it just becomes a part of you. There are so many things that I do still on a daily basis that I don't even think about. It's second nature, it's part of the DNA of who I am as a sales professional and as a business owner. I don't think about it. It's just part of who I am. And I've meticulously spent hundreds of thousands of hours over my career building out these processes, systems, frameworks, having my grand ideas, creating my goals, focusing on what I want to achieve. How do I want to show up to the clients? Have I been successful 100% of the time? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. In fact, I have failed in a lot of aspects, especially, especially in the coaching world. You know, at the beginning, I fell, I fell flat on my face. I remember the first client I had, his name was Diego. It was 2021. Or was it 22? Maybe it was 22. And I had nothing set up. He reached out to me. I'd done the podcast and he reached out to me. And I hadn't didn't have my website ready to go. I didn't have my online portal for courses. And he did a meeting with me and said, I want to hire you. What's your cost? At that moment, I really hadn't even thought about it. I hadn't thought about what I was going to charge. And we started working together. And then I got my next client, I got my next client, and I got my next client, and I started to figure things out. I then hired, you know, people who were smarter than me who've been doing this. They helped me. I started building my skill. I started growing. I started doing this and that. And that's the process that it takes. You have to go through the development of everything. AI is a tool, just like a CRM is a tool. Now, I think they're in different levels, but AI is a tool. If you don't know what you don't know, it's going to be very difficult, even with AI, even with the best prompts in the world, to develop that skill. Can it be done? Possibly. But you're still going to have to have the requisite skill. You have to build your knowledge base. You can't rely on technology for your knowledge. Because when push comes to shove, I'm telling you, if you are in front of somebody and you don't 100% know what you're talking about, experienced business professionals, i.e., the people that you're trying to sell to, because most outside salespeople, you're selling to someone who's older than you, who's been in business for multiple decades, and the bullshit reader is pretty high. The BS, you can see it a mile away. I don't hold reps that try to sell me things. I don't hold them to a higher standard, but they have to be honest with where they are. They have to be honest. They can't try to sound more intelligent than they are. They can't try to dodge any tough questions. And they have to come across the exact same way. Again, with a process. I still to this day, I get pitched, I own a retail wellness business that's open seven days a week. And we still have eight to ten people walk in the building every week trying to sell us something. And none of them, none of them that have walked in the building made it past the person at the front desk. And they all did the exact same thing. Hey, I'm so-and-so with so-and-so, and we do X. I wanted to talk to the person who's in charge handling this. Oh, they're not available. What's their name? What's their information? Oh, we can't give that out. Okay, well, I'm gonna leave some information here. If you could please give it to that person. Great, have a nice day. Like, I have cameras in my studio. I have security cameras in my studio, and so I will go back and I will watch the video of the interaction between the outside sales reps, and it is always the same. And for privacy purposes, I'm not gonna put them online, I'm not gonna blast them, I'm not gonna expose who they are, but it is I'm shocked. I'm utterly shocked in 2026 that outside sales professionals are still showing up in this fashion. It's the same. I'm with, you know, my name is X, I'm with X, I do X, and here's some information. I would like to speak to the decision maker. That brings zero value. You've asked no questions of the business, zero discovery. You're just a delivery person. Hey, I'm delivering the marketing piece. That's what you're saying. I'm delivering the marketing piece. I provide no value, and it doesn't matter if I'm here or Susie is going to come in next week and she's gonna do the exact same thing that I'm doing right now. That's how you're showing up. It also pains me. What I want to do is I want to reach out to them and say, hey, you really need some help. I can help you. But then the problem is then I'm getting on the phone and I'm kind of rewarding them for and allowing them to pitch. And I don't know, I've gone back and forth. And especially, I will tell you this. There was a device rep who came in with a from a company that I know extremely well, with a device that I know extremely well. And somehow the kid got my information. He got my cell phone, and he sent me a cell phone, he sent me a text, and the text was absolutely horrendous. It started off, hey Mike, my name's so-and-so, and I work for this company, and we have this. You're probably not aware about our industry and what we do, but we do X. First of all, you assumed a great opener, and and again, cold text messaging when I don't even know who you are. Cold text messaging very rarely works. Very rarely works. Okay. It's like it just it's it's like catching lightning in a bottle. But a better opener would have been like, hey, I'm with, you know, hey Mike, stop by your studio today. I have something I think can really help your clients. Are you familiar with X? Just ask a question. If I don't respond, you're in the exact same position you are that when you info dumped me. And it was all you, you, you, you, you. You're in the exact same spot. But hey, it might engage me in a conversation. But again, if this guy also did some, also did some research, he might have known just looking at my background. Oh, this guy might probably might. Hey, I saw that you, because the guy had my name. Okay. He had my name. What he did not do was go to LinkedIn and look at my background. That's what I would have done. And trust me, that's what I do. I am a detective like nobody's business. I try to find out every single person in the building. I try to find out every single person where they went to school, who they know, who they're connected with. I use Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, AI. I am searching for any bit of information that I have for any single person that I speak with. I'm trying to reach out to. I'm trying to be as prepared as possible before I show up. And then I start crafting my messages. Then I start crafting. Okay, what's what what do I think is the what do I think is the crack or the wedge that I can get in there? Where is their gap? I'm analyzing where is their gap? I'm doing the recon and where is their gap? Those are two separate things. Okay, recon, gap analysis. I'm doing those two things are the most important thing before I even show up, and then I'm rehearsing. I'm practicing exactly what I'm gonna say, and I walk through it. I guarantee you, and if you're listening right now and you're honest with yourself, I guarantee you that at least 80% of you do not have a rehearsed plan before you walk into a cold call. It's all vibes, it's all vibes. So before you do that, before you just show up and you wing it, just realize how you do one thing is how you do everything. All right, I lost my train of thought. My dog and my daughters just walked in, walked into the room. So they wanted to talk to daddy. I don't remember where I was talking. I think I was talking somewhere about being prepared for showing up to a cold call. So, yeah, this is live. I'm recording this stuff, and you know, my kiddos walk in when I am recording. I can't stop it. So I think I was talking about showing up and how AI is a fantastic tool that you're using it, but you still have to have the right process. Okay. That's a process for everything you do. Then you have to have a system, okay? And you build out a framework that you stay within. Okay. That's the key. You have to have those built out. It's just like building a house. You don't just wing it, you don't just vibe building a house. You have a blueprint. Talked about the original, the original course was sales builder blueprint way back when. That was the first iteration of the sales builder course was sales builder blueprint, building your blueprint for a house. That was updated. Sales builder accelerator. The next iteration is sales builder OS. I'm building out right now. That's the sales builder operating system. So full from A to Z. Included in that is the Sales Builder Recon, as I mentioned before. It's going to be a tool, probably available in Q4. It's going to be an online tool that is going to be basically you can put everything into everything you've got into this app, and it's going to give you all the recon you can for any prospect. Then gap analysis. It's going to do that as well. It's going to show you where your product or service falls within your industry. That is going to be part of the Sales Builder Pro CRM that I'm building. The CRM that actually works for outside sales professionals. Not whatever your company is using right now, because that's not built for you. That's not built for the outside sales world. Salesforce, Viva, Monday, HubSpot, they're all built for inside sales teams. That's what they're built for. Inside sales and marketing teams. I have Go High Level as my CRM for my ads, my email automation, et cetera. And I don't like it. It's just what I'm using right now until I build out something myself using AI. So AI is the tool. You still have to build out your business. You still have to build it out as if it is a house. Starting with the foundation, you're building the frame, you put on the roof, you start putting on the exterior, interior, start adding the appliances, the flooring, paint, electrical, plumbing, what have you, TVs on the wall. There's a process, and you can't rush it. And there's a certain order in which things have to happen. If you try to rush things, it's going to fall apart. And I'm sure probably right now you're thinking of deals that you thought were going to work, but you rushed them a little bit. You pushed a little too hard. It happens. Then what you have to do is you have to go back, you have to analyze it and say, was this a client that was going to come on anyway? Or was did I do everything right or did I do something wrong? Did I push a little too hard? That's where the analytics come in. And that's where the experience of 25 years in sales and business helps me because I very quickly can say, you know what? I messed up here. And here's the deal. I'm going to tell you right now, nobody's perfect. If anybody's telling you they're perfect and they never miss deals, they're full of it. The key is being able to recover them. That's where the experience level comes in. I don't close every deal. You're never going to close every deal. So if anybody's telling you they're closing 100%, no, they're full of it. They're lying. Flat out, they're lying. Nobody is closing 100%. It is the ability to recover. That is also a skill. But there's also a process for that. You know, if you miss a client, you miss a miss an opportunity. Okay, what happens now? Do they just float off into the ether? So if you're listening right now, it's all about processes, systems, frameworks. It's all about leveraging AI to help you in that. And then it's developing your personal skill, your ability within everything that you've just built. All right. If you need help and you want to learn how to build those, that's where I can come in. I can coach you on that. I can have a conversation and steer you in the right direction if you don't feel like coaching is in your best interest. And I'll tell you what, I don't necessarily, I'm at a point right now where I don't need to work with everybody. I don't want to work with everybody. There are some people that I can't help. You know, a couple weeks ago, I was talking to an executive who wanted to get some coaching. And I just flat out told her, I don't think I can help you for what you're doing. I just think it's out of the scope of which I have passion for, and it's out of the scope with which I think I can really make actionable change. So I actually reached out to a colleague of mine that I thought would align with her a lot better. And what I'm saying is what she was looking for was more on the marketing side. I know marketing, but what she was trying to do was a national marketing brand. One of her sales reps listens to the podcast and said, Hey, reach out to this guy. We chatted and I realized she needs something that I don't have a passion for, and I don't have the technical competence requisite for what she was asking. So I referred her on to one of my friends who is perfect in this. One of my friends, all she does is national and really global marketing. That's her expertise. So I said, hey, this is not a good fit. I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna, I wanna, I wanna rope in or bring in one of my friends who is perfect for this. So I sent it over. The same can be said for you and your business. You don't have to get every single person, and not every single person should be a client of yours. I don't believe in the hard sells, I don't believe in the hard presses. I believe that if everything is done right, if you've got the right process in place, you have the system to deliver, and you have the framework to allow for the flexibility of what is happening in the scenario because nothing is going to go according to your plan. You can have this perfect plan when you get into the sales call, and your prospect's gonna start talking about puppy dogs and beach homes and try to get you off the rails. And not try, I mean, they're going to get you off the rails. They're not gonna try. It's not like they're trying to undermine you, it's just that's what happens. You know, they sit down, they try to, you know, chat with you real quick, and all of a sudden you're talking about a new puppy dog they're about to pick up, or hey, I just rented a beach house and I'm really excited. Have you ever been to the beach and all of a sudden you're 10 minutes into the sales call and you've done nothing to move the ball down the field? You've done nothing to get closer to providing a solution for your client. That happens all the time. Understanding how to wrangle in your prospects is a skill. I I succumbed to it early in my career. I just kept going with it because I thought I was building a bond, I was building a connection, I was building a bridge. I wasn't. It was just idle chit chat, and nobody buys with somebody with idle chit chat. So if you are looking for help, I offer a free consultation. I've had 12 or 13 free consultations this month. I absolutely love to do it. I've had several people come on as clients, and I have several other people who are thinking about coming on as clients. I don't hard close them. If they have seen the value that I can help with and they're excited to get started, great. I know that I have done my job and I've built my process and I've built my system in place in order to allow that to happen. And just so you know, I don't think I'm not 100% there. I've mentioned this on other podcasts. I've gone through some massive changes in my business and in my life. I've had to change platforms three different times in the last six months, which has been a massive, massive disruption. It's been a disruption in my emails, it's been a disruption in my newsletter, it's been disruption in my connections, my, you know, what's amazing is one little button that's not clicked can disrupt everything on the workflow. Like clients sign up for clients sign up for a program, and one little button is not clicked properly, and it's the the cascading and the chain reaction of things not being delivered in a timely fashion. Then I get an email. Hey, Mike, I'm still looking for my login, and it's embarrassing to me, and I apologize. So just so you know, like everybody struggles with certain things, but every day I want you to think about your process. I want you to think about your system. And do you have the right frameworks in place? If not, I might be able to help. At least I will steer you in the right direction. But I am taking on new clients for the month of June. I am taking on clients of all different types of engagement levels. If you are interested or you know somebody that needs to get their processes, systems, and frameworks in place, structured so they can build their territory from the ground up. Have them set up a share my information, please, and have them get a call with me. Link is in the description down below. And share this episode with a friend who desperately needs. Because AI is great. And I'll be talking more about AI. I mean, actually, I talk about AI now probably on every episode. I was just looking at the titles and the summaries, and I absolutely love AI. I'm a big tech guy. I'm one of those hybrids, tech nerd, but also sales, sales pro. There's very there's not many people out there that are obsessed. I'm obsessed with tech. I started a tech company with a couple partners about a decade ago. I'm obsessed with tech. I really believe that it will help amplify and make it easier to be in more places than more places than one. And that's what you really need to do to scale. You have to be in multiple places at the same time. You have to have multiple prospects talking about you, thinking about you simultaneously. You can't just have one-on-one conversations anymore. It just can't happen. That's that's 15, 20 years ago in sales. You have to leverage the network you have, you have to leverage technology, you have to leverage AI, you have to leverage your referrals and get other people selling for you, technology selling for you. I had a I had a client who signed up with me because of a YouTube video that I posted two years ago. Think about that. How many of you are showing up on LinkedIn? And I'm gonna raise my hand. I am not doing a great job showing up in LinkedIn right now. My daughters are getting older, and this whole changing over to my new platform has been a very tedious one because I'm bringing over my new platform, I'm bringing on multiple clients simultaneously, I'm a one-man, one-man band. Just to let you know that not everybody's got everything all the time figured out 100% of the time. But I will tell you that the skill and the ability and the time that I put into this and my passion is that I figure it out and I figured out pretty quickly. So if you are needing assistance, please reach out. Do not wait. Every quarter that goes by and you say, I'll figure it out next quarter, you're losing out on tens of thousands of dollars of opportunity and probably hundreds of thousands of future, hundreds of thousands of dollars of future opportunity as well. And we don't want that. My goal is to help every single person live out the life of their dreams through sales, just like I have. That's my goal. And I want to work with passionate people who are passionate about what they do and the impact that they can change the lives of their prospects and their buyers. So you can reach out to me, Mike, at survivingoutsides.com, or you can go to my LinkedIn page and DM me. That is still the best way to reach out to me. And that's still the way that 99% of people reach out to me is on LinkedIn. Connect with me, send me a message. Hey, I listen to podcasts. I'd love to have a chat with you about where I am and where I'd like to go. And we can go from there. As always, I really do appreciate everybody who's listening. Each month we keep breaking records for downloads, and I'm I'm just I'm at awe. I'm in awe of how many people, you know, across the world are listening from the United States, Australia, Asia, Russia, Germany, Canada, Mexico. I am absolutely you know humbled and honored that people would spend part of their day in the car, at the gym, wherever it is, listening to me share my experiences in the outside sales world. I really do appreciate it. And as I mentioned before, if you want to take yourself to the next level, reach out to me. I'd love to chat with you and see how I might be able to help, and sales builder might be able to help you build the business of your dreams. Till next time, this has been Surviving Outside Sales. Cheers.