Several years back, researchers analyzed 103 million hands of online poker and, to their surprise, discovered that the best hand wins only 12% of the time. Turns out, the best player wins 88% of the time, no matter what cards they’re dealt.
Sales organizations have been in a frenzy to adopt AI. But just like those poker players, your success doesn’t depend on having the best technology. Your sales organization needs the best players – sellers who are highly skilled at reading the situation and guiding buyers through complex decisions.
In other words, human sellers remain the decisive factor in winning complex deals despite AI’s promise to automate everything from prospecting to pricing.
And there is science to back this up.
Let’s dive into what the evidence says about winning in this environment.
Do Buyers Really Benefit from AI?
Despite unprecedented access to AI-powered research and evaluation tools, today’s B2B buyers are struggling more than ever to make confident decisions.
Research we conducted with Leff Bonney and Florida State University’s Sales Institute reveals a fascinating paradox: The more information and automation your buyers have access to, the less confident they become in their decisions.
This is due to what behavioral scientists call Escalation of Commitment. Buyers conduct a lot of self-directed research, they get locked into their assumptions, and they resist changing course — even when better options emerge.
Two underlying psychological forces make Escalation of Commitment particularly challenging for sales today:
- Sunk Cost Fallacy – Having invested heavily in research before engaging sellers, buyers resist abandoning their initial conclusions.
- Cognitive Dissonance – They actively dismiss information that challenges their technology-guided assumptions.
While AI excels at facilitating transactions, it increases buyers’ need for skilled human sellers who can challenge their assumptions and guide complex decisions. In fact, accordingto our data, better human selling experiences could have led to different outcomes in 53% of lost deals.
So what does that better human sales experience look like?
Eight Predictive Buyer Experiences That Drive Wins
What exactly makes human sellers so effective? Through our analysis of 120,000+ won and lost deals, we identified eight distinct sales competencies that determine your success.
These aren’t opinions or best practices – they’re scientifically validated predictors of wins and losses, according to feedback from hundreds of thousands of real buyers.
- Align solutions to needs – Identify and understand the buyer’s needs and develop the best solution fit.
- Make a case for change – Create a compelling vision of the future for the buyer and provide convincing reasons to change.
- Demonstrate clear differentiation – Showcase the unique advantages of your solution compared to both the buyer’s status quo and your competition.
- Articulate meaningful value – Connect your solution’s capabilities with the buyer’s priorities to demonstrate value.
- Help justify decisions – Build a business case that convinces stakeholders and adds urgency to the decision.
- Negotiate creatively – Effectively manage pricing questions and negotiation conversations.
- Deliver compelling communications – Deliver engaging, memorable, and persuasive presentations with key stakeholders.
- Resolve concerns responsively – Understand and resolve any concerns or issues raised during evaluation.
These eight competencies are crucial. Executing them effectively requires a deep understanding of buyer psychology.
Take align solutions to needs, for example.
The Science Behind Modern Discovery
Our behavioral research study with Bonney shows that traditional discovery approaches (where sellers treat discovery as a brief checkpoint before launching into their solution pitch) achieve problem alignment only 45.5% of the time. Buyers and sellers don’t agree on the problem to be solved more than half the time.
In contrast, when sellers take what we call a “problem-minded” approach that effectively addresses Escalation of Commitment, solution alignment jumps to 68%. It’s the most effective approach by far, but it’s used only about 13% of the time.
The research shows three critical dimensions that determine your effectiveness when aligning your solution to buyers’ needs:
- Context – Understanding the full scope of the buyer’s situation
- Clarity – Helping buyers achieve true problem clarity
- Correctness – Ensuring accuracy in problem definition and solution alignment
Sellers who master all three dimensions while managing Escalation of Commitment see win rates increase dramatically.
Those who focus only on context, however, consistently lose deals they could have won.
Considering all the evidence and the current reality of sales, what does the seller of the future look like?
The Seller of the Future: An Evidence-Backed Framework
Here are the three essential elements that will separate high performers from everyone else:
1. Science-Backed Skills Training
Intuitive approaches to selling don’t work anymore. Your sellers need training grounded in behavioral science, specifically cognitive psychology, behavioral economics and neuroscience.
Through microsimulations at key moments in your buyer’s journey, you can now validate and develop critical selling skills with unprecedented precision.
2. Psychometrically Validated Precision Skills Intelligence
Sellers don’t accurately identify the reasons for lost deals 50 to 70% of the time. Self-assessments and manager evaluations rarely match what buyers say about their experience during the sales process.
Through a combination of scientifically validated skills assessments and AI-powered sales simulations,
organizations can now objectively measure each seller’s abilities and precisely identify which specific competencies they need to develop.
3. Buyer Evidence-Based Competency Framework
When you align development efforts directly with what buyers tell you influences their decisions, your teams focus on capabilities that actually make an impact.
Organizations implementing this framework to collect buyer feedback and coach sellers see win rates increase by up to 40%.
Leading Teams Through Complex Sales Dynamics
Complex, multi-stakeholder deals are where human skills become vital. The evidence shows that these opportunities never present simple, isolated problems. Instead, your teams must navigate interconnected challenges that span departments, geographies, and reporting lines.
This is precisely where AI falls short and skilled sellers shine. To win in these environments, sales leaders must develop four distinctly human capabilities in their teams:
- Active listening skills to uncover unstated needs and opportunities
- Strategic questioning abilities to reveal broader organizational implications
- Diplomatic negotiation techniques to align competing stakeholder interests
- Consensus-building tactics to bridge organizational levels
When your teams master these capabilities, they consistently outperform in both winning new business and expanding existing accounts. More importantly, they build the kind of deep relationships with buyers that technology alone can’t replicate.
The Path Forward
AI won’t replace your team, but it will shine a bright light on just how crucial their human skills really are. Your competitive advantage lies not in having the best technology, but in mastering the art of human connection while using AI to handle routine tasks.
To capture this advantage, focus on three priorities:
- Get surgical about skill gaps with precision diagnostics.
- Focus on buyer-validated competencies for training.
- Build flexible frameworks that adapt to different buying scenarios.
Just like those poker players who win 88% of the time without the best hand, your success doesn’t depend on having perfect cards. Instead, train and enable sellers who can read situations, build trust and guide complex decisions toward successful outcomes.
That’s a game that humans are still winning — and will continue to win — in the AI era.
