This article comes from JB Daguené’s insightful talk at our Boston 2024 Sales Enablement Summit. Check out his full presentation and our wealth of OnDemand resources.

What if I told you that most sales teams today are drowning in automation but starving for real customer connection?

I’ve been in sales for a long time. My journey started at Trustpilot, where I was the fourth salesperson on the team. We grew from 50 to 5,000 customers in just two years, and I personally closed 600 deals. Back then, I didn’t fully understand why I was performing so well—until I realized that my approach was deeply customer-centric. I wasn’t just selling; I was learning.

But the sales landscape has changed dramatically since then. Automation, AI, and data-driven sales tactics have flooded the market. And while these innovations were meant to help, they’ve often made things worse. 

That’s why we need a new approach—one that leverages AI as an enabler, not just an automation tool. In this article, I’ll walk you through the evolution of B2B sales, why traditional tactics are failing, and how AI co-pilots can empower sales teams to be more effective, personalized, and truly customer-centric.

Let’s dive in.

Why traditional sales teams are struggling

Sales today looks nothing like it did 15 or 20 years ago. When I started, sales reps were the gatekeepers of information. Prospects actually needed us to access insights about products and solutions. Even if they were annoyed by a cold call, they still had to listen.

But that’s no longer the case. Buyers have access to limitless information online. Content marketing, social media, and self-serve product research have flipped the script. Buyers no longer need sales reps to get the information they need, so the traditional cold outreach model has become less effective.

Add to that the explosion of automation—emails, LinkedIn messages, outbound sequences—and it’s no surprise that prospects are tuning out. What once worked (high-volume outreach with little personalization) is now just adding to the noise.

The problem isn’t just that sales reps have lost control of information. It’s that many teams have over-automated to the point of becoming robotic. Here’s what’s happening:

  • Sales reps are trained by other sales reps instead of learning from actual customers.
  • The “spray and pray” approach—mass emails and generic sequences—leads to negative CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost).
  • Teams have too many tools and not enough insight, focusing on process over personalization.
  • Sales enablement has fewer resources than ever, but the same quotas to hit.

Salespeople are now more focused on tools than on customers. Ask a rep about their job, and they’ll talk about their CRM and automation stack—not about the actual pain points of their prospects. We’ve lost the art of selling by understanding.