Steffen Baermann · 35 years of sales and sales leadership · Books and talks on AI in sales
Sales · Customers · AI
AI is the next evolutionary leap in sales.
Sales leaders know: sales always follows when something changes for the customer. And that is exactly what is happening right now with AI.
Your customers are already using AI.
How is your sales organisation prepared for that?
The evolution of the sales role
The Knower.
He knows what the customer does not know. Tools: product presentation, AIDA, push. Pressured by: the internet.
The Advisor and Orchestrator.
He clarifies the need and organises the decision. Tools: SPIN, Solution Selling, Challenger, MEDDIC. Pressured by: the customer's AI.
The next form in the AI era.
He guides the customer through the risks of their decision. Tools: test, reference, pilot, guarantee, acceptance criterion, roadmap.
None of these methods is obsolete because of this. Only their starting point moves.
What is happening with the customer
The internet gave the customer access to information. AI gives them processing capacity. 94% of B2B buyers use AI in the buying process.
Forrester, Buyers' Journey Survey 2025
More on thisWhat is shifting in sales
Leads are redistributed and conversations start deeper. Your CRM increasingly shows the process of your sales team, but not the buying journey of the customer.
More on thisWhere the salesperson creates value now
The salesperson becomes a tester, a translator and a risk reducer. The customer's AI can assess risks. Only the provider can share responsibility for them.
More on thisWhat leadership does now
Count first, then act. Ask the AI the way your customer asks, and bring marketing to the table with findings. In this development, jobs disappear too.
More on thisWho drives the thought
Steffen Baermann.
My path in sales runs from Henkel, Jacobs and Hakle via Dell to Cisco. Today I write books, stand on stage and teach Sales Management. And I sit down with managing directors and sales leaders when they want a second opinion that does not have to sell anything. AI is not the first chapter, just one that is newly added.
35+ years
Sales, leadership & management
Cisco · Dell
International management and sales experience
Author
Books on AI, customers and sales
Lecturer
Sales Management, Executive Education and AI
4.77
out of 5 – rating of the last Sales Management course (autumn 2025)
3 approaches
Talk
30 minutes. You tell me what has changed for your customers since they started using AI. I tell you what I see – even when it is uncomfortable. Confidential. No pitch. No deck.
To the conversation