The second in a series of three articles to help you plan for SKO by NVSI Founder and CEO, Walter Santiago
A while back, I was asked a question that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. It was this: “If the customer already knows what we sell, what exactly am I supposed to be doing on this call?” It’s a fair question. I think it’s the question a lot of sellers are quietly sitting with right now, even if they haven’t said it out loud. I wrote last time about how buyers are showing up to discovery calls already armed with AI-generated research. If you missed that one, the short version is: The days of the seller being the primary source of information are ending. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It does, however, mean the job has to change. It’s time for the new seller value proposition.
Is AI Closing the Control Gap?
Here’s how I’ve come to think about it. For a long time, sellers controlled information to create value. They held the keys to product details, pricing, and case studies customers couldn’t easily find themselves. AI has closed a lot of that gap. What it hasn’t closed, and I’d argue structurally can’t close, is judgment.
Let me give you a concrete example. An AI tool can tell a customer which vendors other companies in their industry chose. It cannot tell them which of those companies quietly regretted the choice eighteen months later. Nor does it show which implementation team is stretched too thin this quarter. It doesn’t show that the champion they’re building trust with is on thin ice internally. That’s not a knowledge gap AI will close with a better model next year. That information doesn’t live anywhere AI can reach it. It lives in relationships and pattern recognition built over years of doing this work.
I’ve always believed in the outcome-based questioning discipline we’ve trained sales teams on for years. That follows the idea that good questions do more work than good pitches. The discipline hasn’t changed. It’s the target. Instead of using those questions to build a picture from scratch, I think the best sellers are now using them to pressure-test a picture the customer already built themselves, usually with an AI’s help.
Sellers Needed (in the Room)
I’d put it this way: AI can get a deal most of the way there. But I’ve never seen a deal close itself on “mostly there.” The last stretch, the part that requires someone who actually understands this specific customer in this specific moment, still needs a person in the room.
If you’re building out your 2027 sales kickoff content, this is the shift I’d make sure your team hears loud and clear. This is the foundation of the new seller value proposition. Next time, I’ll get into the practical side. I’ll discuss the tools I think are actually worth a seller’s time beyond the AI assistant most of us already have.
