Happy Friday,
Back this week from Exit Five's Leadership Retreat and Wynter's Spryng, where I talked with ~60 marketing leaders.
The topic that kept coming up: how do we get our teams to actually adopt AI?
What I kept hearing as the current approach:
Veiled CEO threats
Passive-aggressive Slacks of AI hype posts
Shaming teams for "being behind"
This reminds me of the heyday of Challenger Sales. Where salespeople were told to be “challenging” and show prospects what they are currently doing is inefficient.
Challenger Sales was left in 2010s for a reason. People get put off by “you’re wrong”.
On the flip side, the teams seeing real AI adoption are using the same buyer-first best practices we use with prospects:
Solve a current problem instead of pitching as a net-new initiative
Automate the most painful parts of their job, not the parts they enjoy
Create an implementation plan vs. putting it on the individual
You wouldn’t shame your prospects into using your software. Let’s stop doing it to our employees.
– Natalie Marcotullio (Head of Growth + Product Marketing)
