Topic

trendwatch

A collection of 77 issues

Does Sales Offer an Eliza Effect?

TL;DR: No. Reign the AI content gen in. Who knew the world's first ever chatbot was from a mid-1960s MIT lab? Named after the fictional Eliza Doolittle, taught to drop her cockney accent to gain high society acceptance. The 'effect' relates to how, despite knowing

Reverse Transcription Fait Accompli

There is shock of seeing first-time your spontaneous remarks uttered in a random meeting later not only comprehensively appear on-screen, but then with horror amplified when taken as the indisputable thread of your thoughts on a matter. Compounded when realisation dawns such nascent or 'thinking aloud', but definitely

Teaching AI How To (Properly) Sell

Most of us have some element or other of AI in our selling routines by now. Even if it's from a starter pack of writing a particular piece of collateral or generating imagery, parsing info or scraping output. All well and good where it lets us, to drop

You Top-Down or Bottom-Up?

There's celebratory focus on a totemic book this year. It is the 250th anniversary for The Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith's formalised paean to enterprise, competition and free spirited innovation. As necessary now as it was most worthy then. A reminder that capitalism is not about

Your Sales AI Literacy

There's a journey of perhaps a majority. Marvel at the first wave of chat with an AI bot. Until about (so research of the time reported) half-dozen questions in, when you asked it about something of which you had unique, special knowledge. Which revealed the AI knew nothing.

Instant After Shots

It's the economy immediacy, stupid. Not quite a chad for our times? How are you using AI to help you sell? Did you reach the supposedly typical initial half-dozen chats with a bot then leave it be? Do you stay with the served up snippets when general searching?

Bypassing Uncanny Valley

Tempted to use AI when selling? Whether it be a bot creating glowing collateral to send a prospect or deploy some magical 'agent' that speaks with them on your behalf, and anywhere in between, surely by now you've used the new tech in some way. Yet

Is Great Flattening of Salesteams Incoming?

Know anything of BPR? Tom Peters (remember him?) was a huge proponent. Selling thousand-dollar-an-hour tickets to events triumphantly explaining how organisations needed serious hollowing out. Cut swathes of meaningless middle management and miraculously improve both your top- and bottom-line. Business Process Re-engineering became the vogue wrap-around term. I recall one

Logic Crumbles

If you work all day long in software you’ve no idea how …. Messy Illogical Emotional Subjective Complicated Contextual Vague Non standardized Most work is Most jobs are largely about persuasion, motivation, relationships, fear, ego. Your logic doesn’t help — Tom Goodwin (@tomfgoodwin) February 13, 2026 I bet you'

Your Sales Aura Can Beat AI

1982. The Human League album Dare became the first electronic pop worldwide smash. The London branch of the Musicians' Union were not happy. They began a campaign to ban the synthesiser. That LP's Producer Martin Rushent became a figurehead against such moves. In echoes of today, he