The Sales Lesson Behind "We've Always Done It That Way"
When I was out selling, my favorite phrase to hear from a prospect was, "but we've always done it that way." Every time somebody said it to me, I knew I had a sale. Because their eyes would light up the moment they saw something they hadn't seen before, and that phrase was really just a person standing at the edge of change, waiting for someone to show them what was on the other side.
That's one of the real challenges in this industry, and it hasn't changed in the nearly fifty years I've been in it. People can't picture the end solution until you show it to them. AI has the same problem today that document management had in 1978. It's not that people are against progress. It's that they can't see it yet. Our job, whether you're in sales, in an association, or running a company, is to provide that vision. Show people what the solution could look like and what it could do for them. Do that well, and the rest of the work gets a lot easier, because the people you're working with stop being customers and start being allies who want to get to the same place you do.
What Actually Stays the Same as Technology Keeps Changing
I've been asked whether there are principles that hold up no matter what the technology of the moment happens to be. I think there are, and the industry has proven it over and over. We've changed our terminology plenty of times over the years, sometimes just to make something sound a little sexier than it actually was. But underneath the labels, the core problems and the core solutions haven't moved nearly as much as the vocabulary has.
Why Listening Is a Skill Our Industry Keeps Losing
The one I probably talk about too much is listening. As an industry, I think we lose that skill more than we'd like to admit. We hear people, but we don't actually listen to them. We're too busy telling them what we think they need to know. But when you really listen, you stop pitching and you start solving. That's true in sales, it's true in politics, it's true pretty much everywhere people deal with people.
The Power of Silence in a Sales Conversation
Along with that, I've always taught that silence is one of the most underrated tools you have. When you ask a question and get half an answer, resist the urge to fill the quiet. Sit with it. People don't like silence, and more often than not, if you just wait, they'll give you the rest of the answer on their own.
What AIIM's Real Job Is in a Fast-Changing Industry
You don't have to be an expert in everything. I'll be the first to tell you I'm not, even after a career built around this technology. What you do need is to understand the impact of what's changing and help the people around you adapt to it. That, to me, is the real service an organization like AIIM provides. Not being the smartest person on every new technology, but helping people through the change, making them more capable and more confident in their own organizations as the ground keeps shifting under them.
The technology will keep changing, probably faster than any of us are fully comfortable with. But focus on the solution, listen more than you talk, and don't solution jump just because something new walked in the door. Those things were true thirty years ago, and I don't see them going anywhere.
This blog post is based on an original AIIM OnAir podcast. When recording podcasts, AIIM uses AI-enabled transcription in Zoom. We then use that transcription as part of a prompt with Claude Pro, Anthropic’s AI assistant. AIIM staff (aka humans) then edit the output from Claude for accuracy, completeness, and tone. In this way, we use AI to increase the accessibility of our podcast and extend the value of great content.
