The Hidden Costs of Efficiency

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Product : HG Insights.

Feeling that AI FOMO? You’re not alone. That’s why HG Insights created The Next Generation of Sales AI report — to calm the FOMO and help you bring AI to your GTM teams. It includes a breakdown of the Sales AI landscape, adoption of GenAI and Sales software across buyer groups. Plus, an analysis of the top 75 trending sales AI tools. HG Insights has been writing market reports for years as the pioneer of tech adoption and market insights and is trusted by GTM leaders at the likes of Snowflake Five9 and Google Cloud to improve GTM efficiency. We’ve shared this or received it from many GTM leaders as an excellent gauge on where to start or further AI adoption for your sales team. Read the free and ungated report.

The Hidden Costs of Efficiency: How to Counteract AI’s Impact on Sales Skills

AI and automation tools promise efficiency, but they also come with unintended consequences. Every automation — whether it’s cold calling, note-taking, or follow-ups — outsources tasks that build critical skills. These “skill byproducts” are essential to long-term success. Leaders need to rethink how to balance technology adoption with the need to cultivate the human skills that drive high performance in sales. Let’s get into it.

The skill byproduct framework

Every activity comes with a skill that’s acquired as a byproduct of performing it repeatedly. When that activity is automated, the associated skill atrophies or is never developed in the first place.

Examples of skill byproducts:

• Cold calling: Builds grit, resilience, and quick thinking under pressure.

• Manual follow-ups: Develops deep listening, connection-making, and empathetic communication.

• Note-taking during meetings: Sharpens the ability to synthesize information and identify patterns.

Automation isn’t new — it’s been changing how we work for decades.

• Google Maps replaced navigation skills.

• Dating apps reduced the need for in-person approaches.

• Wikipedia diminished the memorization of historical facts.

The rise of AI is only accelerating this trend.

“Back in the day, most jobs made us physically strong. Now, we have to hit the gym. The same is true for cognitive skills in sales—we need to deliberately build them.”

– Peter Kazanjy (Co-Founder of Atrium)

A playbook for preserving skills

With activities being automated, a deliberate strategy is needed to ensure your team doesn’t lose essential skills while adopting AI. This is a 4-step framework for doing so:

1. Map skills to activities

Identify the key sales skills that automation may erode and the activities that build them:

• Grit and resilience: Cold calls, rejection handling.

• Deep listening and synthesis: Writing follow-ups manually or reviewing call recordings.

• Pattern recognition: Manually analyzing buyer behavior or segmenting customer needs.

2. Introduce “Skill Gyms”

Like a gym for physical fitness, create opportunities to practice these critical skills deliberately:

• Role-playing simulations: Use AI-powered tools to practice cold calls and discovery calls in a controlled environment. Reps can get hundreds of “at-bats” before going live with prospects.

• Manual onboarding exercises: Require new hires to take meeting notes, draft follow-ups, or conduct outreach manually before transitioning to automation.

• Reflection exercises: After every call, have reps summarize the conversation and identify key takeaways without relying solely on AI-generated notes.

3. Maintain accountability loops

Automation can lead to complacency if not paired with accountability. Use performance metrics to ensure skills are being actively developed:

• Track manual outreach activity for new hires and periodically for tenured reps.

• Measure discovery call depth and identify gaps in how questions connect to buyer needs.

• Review manual deal notes to ensure synthesis skills are intact.

4. Balance automation with human growth

Use AI to enhance efficiency but ensure it complements human skills rather than replacing them. For example, instead of automating meeting follow-ups entirely, use AI to provide a draft and require reps to refine it with their own observations and context.

TL;DR: Preserve skills, don’t replace them

1. Identify skills automation might erode and map them to activities.

2. Create deliberate “gyms” for practicing these skills — role-playing, manual exercises, and reflection.

3. Hold reps accountable for maintaining these skills through metrics and performance reviews.

4. Leverage AI as a tool to support efficiency while reinforcing skill-building.

Automation isn’t going anywhere, but the teams that combine technology with deliberate skill-building will outperform those that rely on AI alone.

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More for your eardrums

The GTM Podcast – subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

GTM 121: Listening to Your Customers Without Obeying with Crunchbase’s CRO Neal Patel

Nealesh Patel is the CRO at Crunchbase, a leading platform for private company intelligence. With over 25 years of experience in the tech industry, Neal has a proven track record of executing progressive growth strategies, landing innovative partnerships, developing revenue streams, and building winning teams. As the leader of Crunchbase’s go-to-market functions (Strategic Partnerships, Sales, BD, Marketing, Customer Success/Experience, Revenue Operations), as well as the de facto general manager of its data licensing business, Neal has a cross-functional and holistic understanding of how to provide value to customers, generate revenue, and accelerate growth. Under his leadership, Crunchbase has more than 4X’d its unique users, increased its annual recurring revenue by over 75x, and secured partnerships with large brands like S&P, LinkedIn, NVIDIA, Monday.com, Perplexity, G2, Factset, Amazon, and Snowflake. Neal is also an active board member, advisor, and investor in several high-growth startups, where he leverages his expertise and network to help them scale and succeed.

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 Startups to watch

Writer – announced a $200M Series C at a $1.9B valuation. Writer CEO May Habib says the new cash, which brings the total amount raised to $326 million, will be used for product development and cementing the company’s leadership in the enterprise generative AI category.

Pocus – launched their AI Strategy tool to the general public. This is a tool available as a Google Chrome extension that helps reps prioritize, research and take action in any favoite engagement tools.

Hottest GTM jobs of the week

1. Customer Success Manager at Spekit (Denver, CO

2. Customer Lifecycle Marketing Manager at Closinglock (Austin, TX)

3. Enterprise Account Executive at SecurityPal (NYC)

4. Senior GTM Recruiting Manager at Vanta (Remote – US)

5. People Business Partner at Owner (Remote – US/CAN)

See more top GTM jobs on the GTMfund Job Board.

GTM industry events

Upcoming go-to-market events you won’t want to miss:

• Spryng by Wynter: March 24-26, 2025 (Austin, TX)

• Pavilion CMO Summit: April 17, 2025 (Atlanta, GA)

• SaaStr Annual: September 10-12 (San Francisco, CA)

• Pavilion GTM Summit: October 14-16, 2025 (Austin, TX)

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This newsletter was entirely written and edited by Scott Barker and Sophie Buonassisi (not AI!).

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