Using AI in field sales without gutting the sales team | Lauren McCullough, Co-Founder & CEO, Tromml | Ep. 6

[00:00:00] Welcome to Data vs. Commerce, where we explore the messy middle between database and doorstep. I'm Matt Johnson. And I'm Floyd Blakey. Let's dig in. Okay, we're in different spots today. I feel like I'm hosting the five o'clock news because I'm about to throw to our reporter live on the scene. Matt, tell us where you are and what's going on.

[00:00:21] Matt Johnson What's up, guys? Yeah, I'm here in Chicago for the AI for Distributors event. This is a really cool gathering of the minds in the distribution industry. I love it because, you know, it's what I would say is the bleeding edge. A lot of experiments going on, a lot of technology being talked about, best practices.

[00:00:45] Matt Johnson Distributors from all over North America come here to learn about what their peers are doing. And, you know, we have a great message here at our booth. Matt Johnson We're talking about the importance of data as the prerequisite to making really any of these really amazing tools work. So that's my little plug. That's what we're here to talk about. And yeah, excited to get this show on the road.

[00:01:10] Matt Johnson Nice. Let's do a full debrief when you get back. I'm really excited to hear what's what's going on on the floor down there. But we've got something else to talk about today. And we have a guest joining us, which is really exciting. Matt Johnson We're going to talk about data, of course, and commerce, of course, but a little bit differently than we've been doing it in the past.

[00:01:29] Matt Johnson We've talked about how, you know, data helps us get to the buy button. But in some other industries, like automotive, that data has to survive heading out into the offline world where you've got field reps, where you've got relationships selling. Matt Johnson So we focus in the past on how getting your product data right can make ecommerce happen more smoothly. Matt Johnson I think this episode is a little more about how some organizations are using data to make in person commerce work better.

[00:01:56] Matt Johnson So I've got two special guests I'd love to introduce. Let's start with Sam. Sam is an internal expert with us at Pivotry. She knows everything about automotive. Sam, can you give us a little background before we get into it? Sam Rousseau So I don't know that I know everything about automotive. I know a lot about a lot of different things. I don't want to take that title. Sam Rousseau So I'm Sam Rousseau. Before I was doing demand gen and strategic alliances at Pivotry, I have spent 20 years in the automotive industry.

[00:02:25] Sam Rousseau So I am also the wearer of many hats as well as a big hat that is the internal industry head for automotive. Sam Rousseau So I've spent 20 years in the industry. I started out as an enthusiast, spent 10 years on the data side for two major retail companies. Sam Rousseau So I've spent 20 years in the space as well as an international oil data mapper. Sam Rousseau And then I sit on a couple of councils that kind of drive the industry so that you guys can find the parts you need.

[00:02:51] Sam Rousseau The joke I give is if you can't find the parts you need for your vehicle, it's probably my fault or I know who it is. Sam Rousseau Nice. And we're going to have you back sometime to talk about your very cool truck, which I've sat in and it was awesome. Sam Rousseau Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. So is Lauren. Sam Rousseau Yeah, I have many hours, many hours. Sam Rousseau And so is Lauren. Yeah. And so we have another special guest on the show today.

[00:03:15] Sam Rousseau Lauren is here to talk about how her organization is using digital data to help with in-person sales. Sam Rousseau So Lauren, how about you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do? Lauren Rousseau Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so I guess to bring in the strangers in the room. Sam Rousseau So that joke there was made. Sam and I spent, I guess, 10 by the books, 12 or so days together for, I don't know, many hours, many, many, many hours in a vehicle doing an off-road navigation event.

[00:03:44] Sam Rousseau We felt that we were really, I guess, Sam representative of the aftermarket industry, the right to repair car. Sam Rousseau So we both really take a lot of pride in carrying the flag for the aftermarket, but not what we're here to talk about today, though. Sam Rousseau I think that we could probably do a whole series of podcasts on that as Sam has. Sam Rousseau So yeah, my company Trommel. So we have been a vertically focused software company since the go. Sam Rousseau We started out being more on the analytics side, really helping to give people visibility into what products are actually making money.

[00:04:14] Sam Rousseau And this was really a big launch to our relationship and kind of kindredship, I guess, with Pivotry. Sam Rousseau But what we recognize is that particularly in this era where AI is changing the way we interact with humans, I think. Sam Rousseau So we see a lot of potential in commerce and we know that digital commerce is such a critical part and it's kind of the foundation, right? Sam Rousseau Like in distribution, right? Like it has to be there, right? Just like it had to be in the consumer side.

[00:04:40] Sam Rousseau But what we recognize is there's still a lot of industries, especially in these more industrial categories where that relationship side of the selling is still really critical. Sam Rousseau And I think that a lot of times when we work with folks, they recognize that they're not just selling parts, they're selling relationships or selling trust. Sam Rousseau Sam Rousseau And I think that's a lot of not getting an order fulfilled, not getting the right part, right? Sam Rousseau Which is where it plays into both sides is quite critical. Sam Rousseau And we still need to have a human involvement in that.

[00:05:08] Sam Rousseau Part of that might be psychological. Part of that makes business sense. Sam Rousseau And so the idea is if you have 50, 500 field reps out in the field, very, very expensive line of your business, if you're just treating them as flyer dropper offers, this is probably not a really effective way to do commerce, right? Sam Rousseau We want to move that to digital friends, we want to move that to product data, to e-commerce experiences.

[00:05:28] Sam Rousseau But when you're going in to build these relationships, to advocate, to solve problems, what you're doing is you're transitioning your sales force from traditional sales to really market intelligence, to concierge, to problem solvers. Sam Rousseau And this is really what we support in this industry. Sam Rousseau And so what we focus on is giving managers visibility to what's actually happening in the field.

[00:05:47] Sam Rousseau And we do this by combining both the structured data, right, on the sales performance side with the unstructured data, meeting notes, call transcripts, and then giving them visibility into what needs their attention. Sam Rousseau If they want to run a new play, did that play work? Sam Rousseau A key part of this is we also make it very, very easy to capture this intelligence for folks.

[00:06:06] Sam Rousseau And so we do have a mobile app component of our software that allows reps to simply talk into an app, record their notes, we record their follow ups, we streamline all that activity to make sure that information is getting in, right? Sam Rousseau Solving that human to data disconnect. Sam Rousseau But really for us, what we recognize is it is about getting that visibility into the field, building those agentic tools to make sure that the economic value of your sales reps is as high as possible.

[00:06:32] Sam Rousseau I'm really excited to learn more about the how, but the why of it makes total sense. Sam Rousseau You know, especially when I think about the distribution business, so many reps are sophisticated order takers might be one way to say it.

[00:06:56] Sam Rousseau With product background, product, you know, manufacturer background and expertise, but they don't typically get to the point where they are strategically applying that knowledge and cycling it back into the business. Sam Rousseau Which I think that's where we're going right like I think that's a huge, that's a huge advantage in informing marketing commerce data.

[00:07:24] Sam Rousseau Yeah, so is that kind of where you're going? Sam Rousseau Exactly. Sam Rousseau Exactly. Sam Rousseau So what we recognize is if you want to build, you know, everyone says they want to have an AI strategy, right, is we want to incorporate AI through our business. Sam Rousseau Well, we all know that means a lot of things, right? Sam Rousseau You definitely might know what that means, right, being at this conference right now. Sam Rousseau But a key part of what we recognize is that when we were doing the analytics side, we didn't have a story behind what was happening.

[00:07:50] Sam Rousseau And that story was often dying in a spiral bound notebook to never be captured, to never be leveraged and to never measure ROI. Sam Rousseau And if you want to build a modern organization, particularly one that, you know, since we are kind of in this, we've moved from large language models into, you know, agents and automation and agentic tools. Sam Rousseau If you do not have your humans and data connected, you can't do that, right? Sam Rousseau Because you don't actually understand the context behind the business, right?

[00:08:19] Sam Rousseau That's why a lot of workflow based tools on the operations side and sales operations side has just failed. Sam Rousseau Because I mean, we talked to folks that have, you know, 100 people answering the phones all day, and they have no idea. Sam Rousseau We were just on a conversation yesterday, we're starting to work with a very large global manufacturer. Sam Rousseau And they have no idea what is in their conversations that people are having every day. Sam Rousseau And this is millions of dollars of their workforce, like millions and millions of dollars, right? Sam Rousseau Yeah.

[00:08:45] Sam Rousseau And if you don't actually know, if you're people just picking up calls, dropping off flyers, and you're not able to leverage that, you're not actually leveraging that workforce. Sam Rousseau And what I think for me, the way again, I'm kind of alluded to this a second ago, what we believe is that, you know, for us to really use AI as a tool to maximize the value of your humans, right, to make sure again, that when they're talking to that customer, because I was at a conference recently, an aftermarket conference that said, you know, the number of human touch points we are going to have are going to go down, therefore, the quality has to go up. Sam Rousseau Well, how does the quality go up?

[00:09:14] Sam Rousseau When a customer goes in, you build rapport very quickly, right? Sam Rousseau You understand what's happened in their business, you understand the context of that relationship, you make sure that follow up actually happens, you recognize if they're having quality issues, and so are 20 other people that we don't wait until the end of the quarter for this to get surface. Sam Rousseau If we want to run a play like a strategy, right? Sam Rousseau We hope, you know, everyone thinks every sales manager, like, let me write a post it note, right, and like, go back and try to measure this. And then the analysts are like, good luck, we have a seven month queue to do any new reporting.

[00:09:42] Sam Rousseau And I can guarantee Salesforce isn't going to solve this for them. And so it's about building I mean, the kind of industry lingo that we hear is a system of action, right, the system of action on top of your system of records, because when people know the next best action, not only do you have an optimized workforce and a data driven management team, but you also start to see the shift in the type of people that work with you, right?

[00:10:06] Sam Rousseau You know, Jerry, who worked at the parts counter for 40 years. Like, how do you capture Jerry's knowledge? How do you make sure that the 18 year old kid that was just selling an iPhone actually gets tapped and onboarded very quickly, right? Sam Rousseau How do you make sure that you're optimizing all this time? And I think what a lot of people are going to start to recognize is that if you want to have top tier hires, you also have to have top tier technology, because you're not going to get the sharpest brightest folks coming in and working on a green screen.

[00:10:33] Sam Rousseau It's just not going to happen. And so it's actually like, I think a dire issue for these organizations to start to leverage these, you know, these next best action systems, because the benefits like it's not just save people time. Sam Rousseau It's not just give manager visibility, it's actually changing the fabric of the organization to a modern day distributor.

[00:10:53] Sam Rousseau Yeah. And I think on top of that is like one of the things like you have yours where it's like we have to up the quality of the conversation is I don't want AI doing everything that like I wanted to do everything that helps me prepare for the conversation, not actually have the conversation. Sam Rousseau And I think that a lot of data is very disparate depending on who you talk to. A lot of what I speak to is there's vast levels of digital maturity in the automotive industry and the automotive industry honestly needs a rebrand, because it's a giant technology industry.

[00:11:23] Sam Rousseau Genman Parts Company has said publicly that they are not they don't sell parts, they are a technology company. And that is because either sticking our feet in the ground and not leveraging technology, and then there's green screen and then you're wondering why you're not getting the young talent or they come and they go and they leave.

[00:11:40] Sam Rousseau Or you have these massive retailers who are doing microservices and cloud and AI and all these different things. And somewhere in there, Lauren and I have to kind of balance between the two and talk to the conversation based on who we're talking to.

[00:11:54] Sam Rousseau Because if I talk to someone who's really skeptical about AI and is scared or thinks that it's going to take their job about let's leverage Claude to take all these notes. And basically, it sounds like you're going to replace all my salespeople when that's not the case. What we're trying to do is give them the thought in the knowledge that they've had at their fingertips. If I'm getting on a meeting, Matt and Floyd know this. If I'm getting on a meeting, I've been five minutes have a history of every conversation I've had with that person to where they

[00:12:24] So prepared to them. And I do that because I have so much going on and I can't remember. But at the same time, it's like a secret sauce because I know everything that's going on. Leverage AI so much to prep me for my conversations, not to replace me. Sam's preparation is legendary. And I've kind of seen what that looks like under the hood. But I'm curious, Lauren, what does it look like for a sales rep at a company that you work with?

[00:12:52] I understand the general idea. We're using data to help us with our human interactions, especially since there are fewer of those that need to be higher quality. But can you walk me through kind of the exact workflow? What is a rep getting and doing on a Monday to make those interactions go well? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So we, depending on the organization, work with the manager or the rep to help to define the priorities for that week and how that wants to be controlled.

[00:13:16] And so, you know, this is where AI becomes really powerful in slicing and dicing data. So we know what the cadence of accounts they want to visit based on the purchase volume. Are they slipping? Is it seasonal? Right. So we can have AI do all this optimization to say, okay, I have time for 15 visits on Monday. Like, who do I go visit? So we highlight those accounts. We optimize the routes for them.

[00:13:38] And then when they pull into the driveway of that repair shop right in our industry, we give them a very human digestible briefing of what they need to talk to. And we can make these, this is again, the power of prompting, right? The power of having an intelligence layer behind it is that we can actually set these up for people so we can say, hey, if this is a municipality, this is how we want to talk to them. If this is a municipality that hasn't purchased this category, this is how we want to talk to them. Right.

[00:14:03] And by giving them those briefings that not only align with historical conversations, which includes the relationship side, right? It also includes that, hey, if you want to get Jerry to answer some questions, start talking about his grandkids and you might spend five minutes talking about it. But, you know, like that has changed the conversation. Right. Because you want to have the reps that people are happy to see walk in the door. Not like, oh man, this guy, I'm busy. Like they're just because what we hear from the repair shops is like, I'm so tired of people interrupting my day to just drop off a flyer.

[00:14:32] They never follow through. Right. So like we want to actually have these people show up, providing value, building strong relationships, again, building that trust element by giving them those very specific talking points. And by aligning, again, manager priorities with historical conversations with sales data, we can provide that really brief, like what are those three, four things you need to talk about? And then unlocking easy conversation capture because they don't have Zoom recordings in. Right. You're out in the field, you're having these conversations.

[00:15:00] So what our reps do is they get back in the car. They're able to talk and just like you're leaving a voice memo to that recorder. And like I mentioned earlier, right, we're able to take that, give that visibility into managers, whether that be at a DC, like, you know, an actual distribution center. Or this is at like maybe it's at the retail or the I'm sorry, the store level. Right. The store manager needs to know what's happening in their jurisdiction because we know there's multiple stakeholders here and we're going to give them that visibility so they can see what's happening with these reps.

[00:15:28] Reassign priorities and continue to build the system. And what we've really noticed is so powerful about this is utility on day one and day 100 drastically different because in a CRM, you put an information, you pull out a report, put an information, pull out a report. When you're building an operating system like this, it continues to get smarter over time because you're constantly executing more intelligently. And we know the workflows of our industry. We know the culture of our industry.

[00:15:56] We know the brands, the categories, the parts. And so that's really what we're able to unlock with the rep really being the thumb on the pulse of the industry and then allowing those managers to be those orchestrators of strategy.

[00:16:07] And I think on top of that, Lauren, just to like advocate for the reps is what Lauren specifically is doing, but also what we're all doing is giving visibility to leadership of these large manufacturers and distributors that aren't their biggest asset is that relationship human aspect of the guys that are on the guys and girls that are on the ground because they know this business inside and out. They may not be sitting in the boardroom, but they are your most vital asset that AI can't replicate.

[00:16:32] So what we're doing and what we're trying to do is take what that knowledge that they know, those conversations they're having and that trust they built to have an honest conversation between the end consumer. And that's when you can really start to extract patterns across thousands of conversations, whether it's at one endpoint or across multiple.

[00:16:51] So like imagine you are an executive leader within a distributor and you see all these conversations that your field reps are having across and all of a sudden you start seeing everybody's complaining about shipping delays. So then you're like, what do you mean they're complaining about shipping delays? Because nobody's going to report to an executive leader that shippings are delayed, right? Because that doesn't look great.

[00:17:11] But all of a sudden you're hearing from the field that it is or that consumers are confused by a product category or a product launch isn't landing the way that leadership just expected it to land. And so on top of Lauren's thing is it's giving access to these large retailers, distributors, manufacturers. And it's not the goldmine isn't the dashboard. The goldmine is the conversations that never make it to strategy because they're staying in people's heads or in people's notebooks. So it's not trying and I want to advocate for this.

[00:17:40] It's like not trying to replace those guys because they can't be replaced. The relationships I build with this industry, the relationships Lauren has built with this industry, it can't be replaced with an AI automated email or AI anything because these guys aren't going to trust any of that. Matt knows a lot of us are just a lot of people I talk to are just blue collar hard workers. Yep. American through and through. And like they they are going to trust a conversation and a handshake before they trust an AI bot that's read that's recommended some part.

[00:18:08] You want to tank your company as a distributor and traditional kill your sales team. That's a real good way to kill your company. I'm not even joking. Right. Like if you start to think and it was funny, like I was even had to get a new phone this week and I was in my phone store having this conversation with them, you know, and like you're talking about how one store was like had an AI that you come interact with and it services you. And then I had this, you know, 65, 70 year old guy come in who just needed help literally turning his phone back on. Right. And I was like, you want to kill your company.

[00:18:38] Try to automate everything. Because at the end of the day, like you having a human that people can get a hold of is how you tell your customers you care. And if you want to show your customers you don't care, force them to talk to an AI all day. And I don't think that this is going to go away really. But like bring it back around is enabling the salespeople through AI and technology and data to have better customer service and sell more products.

[00:19:06] And that is through digital commerce, digital catalog, whatever you want to talk to it is data and commerce and AI. You know, one of the things I've been thinking about a lot lately, and this really, you know, hits on the concept of the next generation of field sales and sales teams. Right. We have such a turnover issue in industrial and automotive.

[00:19:32] And I think that when you think about what are you going to do to replace those people, historically, distributors have relied on finding other reps who have deep category product information knowledge. Right. Is the kind of stuff that is can be commoditized.

[00:19:51] That is the kind of stuff that when we're applying good data, you know, in sales history and all of that to get that into a rep's hands. Now you can really hire not for necessarily industry knowledge. You can bring young people into the industry who are just emotionally intelligent, who just can connect with other human beings.

[00:20:18] And I think that is the real that's the promise that we're all waiting for from AI is how can I let human beings be the best at what they do, which is connecting and using AI for the rest. We don't they don't need to remember everything about every part and category. They just need to be good people. Yeah. And have it at their fingertips. Right. And that's where the organizations can support them to have these questions, those answers.

[00:20:44] Again, the follow up, the execution side of it, I think is such a critical part because the thing is that there's I think we're going to have this like reckoning of like what makes us human. You know, what makes what makes this. And I was talking to an investor of ours who was saying, you know, I don't like, you know, basically the software engineering problem. Right. Like software engineers. That's what five years ago we want everyone to go to school for. He's like, I want my kids to go to school for sales because that is going to be the last replaced industry. Right.

[00:21:09] Is that because the way the human's ability to if we teach them correctly, right, if we continue to cultivate those skills to recognize those nuance, to build that connection, stuff like that. It's just it's not replaceable. And I don't know that it ever will be. And I don't think it should be. But certainly, again, the value of those human interactions just has to be optimized. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:31] I think we're going to see more applications of AI in that area and making people, you know, freeing people up and giving them the tools to be more human. I don't think we have artificial emotional intelligence yet. I'm not sure anyone's trying to develop that. I think we're probably all safe here. So if human interactions are going to be, you know, rarer, they're higher stakes in high trust industries where, you know, sending someone to an AI is going to tank your business.

[00:21:59] What would you say to a commerce leader in an industry like that who might be wondering, like, where do I point AI at my business, if at all? And where should I keep it out? Yeah. I mean, I think to me, it's what Sam and I are saying. Optimize your front line. Like we kind of call we kind of use front line is those customer service folks, right? Those people meeting out and doing the real work, right? Which is in many of our organizations, you know, two thirds the workforce sometimes, right? Because I would include delivery drivers in that, right?

[00:22:27] For the part side is how do you optimize again, the people that are already there. And I think that's really where your answer is because there's so much opportunity for waste reduction. There's so much opportunity for, you know, even, even sometimes it's just, like I said, better supporting them. Like how do you better coach those folks? And most of the time, the people, I would say actually not most of the time, like vast majority of the time, the people that get in this industry, the last thing they want to be doing is administrative work and data entry. Right?

[00:22:57] They took on this role because they're good at this. Right? And so, yeah. Yeah. Like they don't want to, like, please don't make them put stuff into a spreadsheet that no one's ever going to look at. If you want to drive them crazy, like have them take notes that no one ever reads. Let them focus on being contributors. Let them focus on those skills. And not only I do, what we see is not only you do, again, you optimize their time, you give them better guidance because people like to feel confident in their work.

[00:23:25] And if you're helping people prepare for meetings, they're becoming more confident in their work. And you're also, like, reducing burnout. Right? There's just, there's these long tail of benefits. Right? Recruiting smarter, more tech savvy people. Making sure that, you know, the knowledge gap between the 65 year old retiring and the new kid, like, is shortened. Like, it is just, it is so much value to be gained by just simply reducing some of those friction points of getting information in and out of systems.

[00:23:53] Because, you know, we've had software that's done a really good job for a long time of recording information and doing basically nothing with it. We have to start activating it. Amazing. Thank you so much, Lauren. This has been super illuminating. I think a lot of people want to know, like, can I use AI without replacing humans? I think you've given us a good example of how you do that. Thank you, Sam. And thank you, Matt. I know that you're very busy. You're on the floor.

[00:24:19] You're doing human interactions all day long, and I can't wait to hear about those on another episode. Hopefully I can record some good intel and put it into action. We'll see. Love to hear it. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Data vs. Commerce. New episodes drop weekly. So if you're responsible for any part of how products get from a database to a doorstep, subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.