March 31, 2026
Jared Auld
It Is Making the Best Ones Unstoppable
Artificial intelligence has officially entered the sales profession. The question isn't whether AI will impact your sales organization anymore. The question is: Will it hurt you or help you?
The Dichotomy
AI is simultaneously the best thing that could happen to your team and the worst thing.
For the salespeople who embrace it, automate their admin work, and focus on conversations? AI is making them unstoppable. They have twice as much time. Better data. Clearer pipeline visibility. Higher close rates.
For the salespeople who resist it, try to work around it, or use it as an excuse to do less? AI is exposing how little they were actually doing in the first place. And their job is in jeopardy.
The Gap Is Widening
The best salespeople have always been good at fundamental things:
- They prepare for calls
- They ask good questions
- They listen to the answers
- They follow up consistently
- They keep their CRM updated
- They understand their prospect's business
With AI handling the admin, these salespeople can do even more of what they're good at. And the gap between them and everyone else just got wider.
What's Changing
In the old world, a great rep closed 3-4 deals a month. An okay rep closed 1-2. An average rep closed maybe 0.5.
With AI, a great rep might close 5-6 deals a month. Because they have more time. They're not wasting 5-10 hours a week on CRM updates and email writing.
But an average rep might close... 0.5. Still. Because they're still not preparing well, asking good questions, or following up consistently. The AI didn't fix the fundamentals. It just exposed how bad they were.
The New Skills That Matter
With AI handling the admin work, the skills that matter are:
- Ability to have real conversations
- Ability to understand a prospect's business deeply
- Ability to ask questions that uncover real problems
- Ability to think creatively about solutions
- Ability to build relationships and trust
These are all things AI can't do. And the salespeople who are good at these things are about to become very valuable.
What This Means For Your Organization
If you have a sales team, you need to ask yourself:
Are we going to implement AI and make our best people unstoppable? Or are we going to ignore AI and watch our competitors make theirs unstoppable?
There's no middle ground. You either embrace the tech or you get left behind.
The Brutal Honesty
If you implement AI and it exposes that your team isn't very good, that's not the AI's fault. That's on you for not having visibility into your team before.
But now you have a choice: invest in coaching your people up, or replace them with people who can operate at a higher level.
The best organizations will do both. They'll invest in coaching their good people. And they'll move out the people who can't or won't improve.
The Upside
For the best salespeople, this is the best time to be in sales.
They're about to have tools that handle all the stuff they've always hated. Admin work. CRM updates. Proposal generation. Follow-up emails.
They're going to have more time. Better data. Clearer pipeline visibility. And because of all that, they're going to close more deals and make more money.
The gap between the top 10% and everyone else is about to get massive. And the top 10% are going to love it.
The Bottom Line
AI isn't coming to destroy sales. It's coming to bifurcate it. The best salespeople are about to become unstoppable. Everyone else is about to become obsolete.
At Qord, we're building the tools to make that happen for your best people. The question is: are you going to let them use it?
