September 26, 2026 | Read online
I was in two very different rooms this week.
On Thursday, I was at Bryant University with my friend Dr. Stefanie Boyer, teaching a class of sales students who have grown up with AI in their pocket. The other room was a team of senior reps selling into manufacturing, people with years of relationships in their territories, and a few of them had never even tried AI.
I taught both groups the same fundamentals and showed both of them how to use AI on top of those fundamentals, but the reason each room needed it was the complete opposite.
The students are growing up with AI as an answer engine. Ask a question, get an answer, move on. What worries me is that a lot of them don't understand the “why” behind the answer they're getting, so they're outsourcing their thinking to it, and I think that's dangerous.
The research backs that up. Researchers at the MIT Media Lab put EEG caps on 54 students and had them write essays over four months, one group using ChatGPT, one using a search engine, and one using nothing but their own brain. The ChatGPT group showed the weakest brain connectivity of the three, and 83% of them couldn't quote from the essay they had written.
(MIT Media Lab study, 83% stat via the British Journal of General Practice)
It shows up at work too. A Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon survey of 319 knowledge workers found that the more people trusted AI to handle a task, the less critical thinking they did on it. (Microsoft Research)
To highlight this danger to the student, and relate it to sales, I used the example of having AI write an email to a VP of Sales using M&A as a trigger event. Two things could happen with this approach, and neither is good if you’re not careful.
AI is going to write a fantastic email that sounds great to someone who’s never gone through a merger and acquisition. For most reps, they’re probably going to copy/paste/send it because it's a better email than they could ever write.
The problem is when it hits the inbox of someone like me who has gone through an acquisition as the VP of Sales. If you'd sent me that email at the time my little $10M company was getting acquired by Staples, a $20B org at the time, it would have landed like a fart in church. I wasn't thinking about a smooth transition or my integration strategy. I was thinking about whether I was about to get fired and what was going to happen to my team.
The worst outcome is if the email actually worked. Say it got me interested enough to get on the phone with you, and then it became obvious you had no idea what someone in my seat goes through during an acquisition. You'd lose all credibility on that call, and you wouldn't get it back.
The same tool that wrote that email could have saved you if you'd been curious enough to ask it better questions first. Something like:
- What happens to a VP of Sales at a $10 million company that gets acquired by a $20 billion organization?
- What are the phases and stages of an acquisition, and what matters most at each one?
- What would that VP's priorities be during each stage, and what would they be worried about?
You can learn a TON from those questions without ever living through an acquisition yourself. Enough to get into a real conversation with somebody like me and ask questions that prove you get it, which puts you ahead of almost every other sales professional out there.
You can't beat experience. What you can do is be curious and learn faster, and with more context, than my generation ever could. I told those students curiosity is the superpower of the future, and I believe that now more than ever.
Walking out of that classroom and into a room full of veterans reminded me why I like being a Gen Xer.
I've always felt like Gen X was the last generation that had to “figure it out” without technology. We went through the grind. I remember what it was like to look somebody in the eye, shake their hand, and have a deal and a relationship that held up because of it. I know what that's worth, and I also know how much more valuable those relationships can be with the tech we have today.
That lets me relate to both rooms. With the students, I'm the guy bringing the old-school stuff, like why relationships matter and why the give-a-shit factor still wins deals. With the senior reps, I'm the guy showing them what the tech can do.
And the senior reps needed the opposite lesson. They have all the context in the world. What some of them didn't have was a reason to start.
So I tried to show them that their experience is exactly what makes AI a superpower. Once you learn to use it the right way, you can automate all the research that should be happening before every conversation, automate the prep, and use it as a strategic partner to come up with ideas you wouldn't have gotten to on your own.
Their experience also means they can question it. When AI makes something up (and it will), they catch it. When it gives them a generic take, they know enough to push back and ask for a different angle. The students can't do that yet, and the veterans can do it on day one.
If those reps get in and start using it, they're going to do things they've never imagined and bring more value to their clients than they ever have.
Both rooms got the same foundation for different reasons, which is exactly how we built Filling the Funnel and Driving to Close. Fundamentals first, with AI layered on in the right order, so reps learn the skill and the tool together. If your team has both of these rooms inside it (most do), take a look at our team training programs here.
I ended both sessions the same way I end every training, with 10-60-30.
It started years ago during a Q&A. My client logo slide was still up on the screen, and one of the reps raised a hand and said, "John, all those clients on your logo slide are our competitors. If you're training all of us on the same stuff, how are we supposed to differentiate?"
My answer was 10-60-30.
- 10% of you in this room are going to take what I tell you and execute at the highest level, because that's the type of people you are.
- 60% of you are going to do something different because it's easy and it makes sense.
- 30% of you ain't going to do shit different.
The question was never how many people I train. The question is which group you want to be in, and that’s your choice, not mine.
AI has changed how I think about those numbers. I believe the bottom 30% is already irrelevant, and the top 10% will always be the top 10%, with or without AI.
The group I worry about is the bottom half of the 60, the B players who want to get by and do their job. AI can already do the average version of that job, which means they're irrelevant too, and they don't know it yet. AI doesn't replace great salespeople, it exposes the gap between average and great.
The people I focus on are the top half of that 60, the ones who want to get better and are willing to put in the work. That's who was in both of those rooms this week, whether they're still in school or decades into their career.
A few days ago, I watched a reel from Gary Vaynerchuk where he talked about something he calls 15-80-5. He wants his team to involve him in the first 15% so he can ideate and bring his strategy and intuition. Then he lets them completely own the next 80%, and he comes back in for the last 5% to "put a cherry on top."
Then he said it's freaking him out that AI is playing out the same way, "being good at the upfront prompt, letting shit roll, and then editing." He called it the greatest system of his career.
That's exactly how I use AI for content and pretty much everything else, and it flips my 10-60-30 over into a 30-60-10. My numbers are a little heavier up front than his, because the more context I put in, the better the middle comes out.
- The first 30% is my brain dumping into AI.
- The next 60% is AI taking my thoughts and putting them into an organized flow.
- The last 10% is me tweaking and finalizing it before it goes out.
This newsletter is a perfect example. It started as a long, messy brain dump about my week, with two trainings, a Gen X tangent, 10-60-30, and a Gary Vee reel, and I wasn't sure they even belonged on the same page. AI did the 60% and found the thread. The last 10% was me making sure it sounds like me and says what I actually believe.
That last 10% is another thing I picked up from Gary a while back. Let AI do the heavy lifting, but before anything goes out to a customer, “be the last mile.”
And that's where the two rooms come back together. The students can get AI to the 60% all day long, but the last 10% is judgment, and judgment comes from context. The veterans have the best last 10% in the business, and some of them haven't started the first 30%.
If you're early in your career, get curious enough that you earn the right to own that last 10%. If you've been doing this for decades, start your first 30% this week, because your last 10% is worth a lot more than you think.
#MakeItHappen
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