As businesses rush to prove AI competency to investors, common career entry points like sales development representative (SDR) and business development representative (BDR) roles are on the chopping block. Meanwhile, the value of more experienced roles like account executives or customer success representatives is soaring. Jon Studham is heads of sales at inbound-focused GTM AI platform Spara, which helps companies introduce AI agents into sales. While passionate about what AI can do, Studham is by no means oblivious to change. In a conversation with Revenue Brew, Studham spoke about how AI could affect the sales talent pipeline. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. If the early advantage of AI was volume, which you say is now oversaturating outreach, what is AI better used for in sales? If you had a chat on your site that was smart and intelligent, that could qualify people, educate the curious and disqualify those that you don’t want to talk to, that’s where we sit. I sit at your extreme top of funnel, where I can sit behind an 800 number. I’m trained like your best SE, your best support person, and your best salesperson all in one. So no matter how they come in, I can triage them to me. That gets rid of your receptionist. That gets rid of your low-level inbound SDRs that are 20 years old that don’t know anything about the true technology or how to actually handle a sales call or an objection, talk about price, talk about a competitor. I can put all of that inside a prompt and take them out very, very quickly. Keep reading our conversation about the future of sales talent.—BS |