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AI won't save a broken sales process. You still need strong fundamentals.

In a world where every sales leader is looking at their problems and asking, "How can we AI this?," here's why it's crucial to have strong fundamentals.
August 28, 2026
Mark McWatters

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Everyone's asking "how do we AI this?"

With all the sizzle of AI, it’s incredibly easy to get wrapped up in the latest amazing AI use case. I do it, too. I love the potential of AI for our profession. 

Unfortunately, strong fundamentals are often being sacrificed at the AI altar. 

Fundamentals like: 

  • Defining your sales process and having accountability to it. 
  • Human outbound pipeline generation. 
  • Building credibility with a buyer. 
  • Development of people on your team.

If you layer AI on top of bad fundamentals, you only compound your problem. 

The fundamentals don’t have to be perfect pre-AI, but they need to exist, they need to be accountable, and they must be clearly understood. 

Imagine this: There's a new, big TAM opportunity for your business. If you capitalize on this new opportunity, your revenue will increase, your business multiples will grow, and margins will improve. 

For many companies right now, they are asking themselves how they can“AI this problem.” What kind of AI can we use to win this market share?

While AI is an important piece, you must first define the fundamentals to win that business. The better first questions are: 

  • What is our sales process to win?
  • How do we get our first meeting? 
  • What is our pitch and competitive advantage?
  • What is our path to least resistance?

And many, many more. 

AI can help you define these things, but until you have a clear idea on the fundamentals to win your business.

The sequence that actually works:

  1. Establish the fundamentals
  2. Build accountability to them
  3. Layer AI to accelerate and monitor

Now, good luck and go win!

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