Selling AI

Hey, Scott from The Sales Mastermind here. Today’s edition only takes 2 minutes.

The amount of investment and budget flowing into AI is mind-boggling. And from a sales perspective, nothing has changed.

Storytime

In 2025, I have supported businesses selling AI as a:

• Direct offering (an AI agent automatically identifying and mitigating shadow AI use)
• Sundry offering (an AI automation agency), and
• Combination (a startup implementing AI in multinational financial corporations)

Although each business has a slightly different model, its sales process is roughly the same.

They’re all trying to:

• Identify a pain that their ideal customers have
• Ensure the pain is worth solving for their customer, and
• Position themselves as the best vendor to solve that pain.

Which is sales.

It doesn’t matter if you’re selling cars, refrigerators, AI, or marketing services - you’re selling to people who have problems they’re willing to pay to solve.

Going one step further, most customers don’t want to buy AI; they don’t want to buy anything at all. They simply want their problem solved.

Benefits of Selling AI

Don’t get me wrong, selling AI has benefits. And they occur at the beginning and end of the sales process.

Beginning

Lead generation for a product that can claim AI status is currently easier. This means sellers can get in the room to sell and are given more time for questions or explanations.

But it is a double-edged sword.

Unless you’re in it every day, no one really understands AI at the practical level.

When sellers struggle to articulate their AI value proposition with concrete stories and analogies, first meetings can end with positive vibes, but no deal to progress.

Lesson for Non-AI sellers: Human nature draws buyers towards “New and Novel”. Find a way to use that in your lead generation. Some ideas:

• Product Launches - or relaunches
• Recent case studies - ideally from peers or competitors
• Recent practical research for their industry

End

After sellers have supported their buyers in building a business case with absolute clarity on solving the pain, the last step is formal budget approvals and procurement sign-off.

Currently, approval is easier for AI projects because they can better answer the question “Why do we have to buy anything?” compared to other internal initiatives.

Lesson for Non-AI sellers: Budget committees and procurement are still asking the same questions. Your buyers need great answers, with documentation, for the same three questions:

• Why do we have to buy anything?
• Why do we have to buy now?
• Why do we have to buy from them?

Ultimately, if you’re selling AI or not, sales is still sales. Buyers still have pains to solve, and your product can either solve them or it can’t.

**Quick note - For the next few weeks, I am away on my honeymoon. Instead of sending nothing, I have modernised a few articles I wrote before this newsletter was created. I hope you enjoy them**

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