Sales Strategy 🔍 The Trust Advantage: Why Expertise Wins in the Era of AI-Driven Sales

This is such an important topic, especially now that so much outreach is AI-assisted and buyers are using AI to evaluate us too. The data around the trust gap really resonates—expertise, consistent insight, and mid-journey guidance are exactly where human sellers can still stand out in an AI-driven world. ​@Francesca_Community Manager 

I agree, ​@Sinchu Raju. And your insights on how to leverage AI and human interaction for the perfect outreach are very helpful!

In this era of rapidly advancing AI tools, buyers can get any information they need about you and your competitors in a matter of seconds. Trust is becoming harder to build. So… How can you do it?

 

LinkedIn surveyed nearly 900 B2B buyers across several markets and discovered new ways you need to start selling in an AI-driven world in order to build and maintain trust.

 

The New Path to Purchase

 

 

Since AI is readily available and accessible to everyone, every outreach and message risk becoming indistinguishable. Buyers receive increasing numbers of messages that don’t feel personalized or genuine anymore. This results in increased skepticism and in a decrease in trust from buyers.

 

There are 3 fundamental shifts reshaping the B2B Sales: 

 

1️⃣ The AI Takeover: 94% of buyers use Ai in the purchase process to compare alternatives, check reviews, and analyze proposals. Your content is being analyzed by AI at every step of the process, and this means you must structure it for both algorithms and humans. (💡 Want to know more about how to sound genuine in your outreach? Check out the recording for our Roundtable Accelerate Sales with AI-Powered Insights in Sales Navigator, where ​@Sinchu Raju shared some practical tips on this)

2️⃣ The Human Advantage: while 57% of buyers like sellers’ input at the early stages of the buying process, 88% of them wants to have it in the middle stage, suggesting that we still rely on human insights that we trust when it’s time to make important decisions.

3️⃣ The Trust Imperative: 86% of buyers consider seller expertise the top trust driver. However, only 45% of them consider sellers trustworthy. This trust gap is where the biggest opportunity in modern B2B sales lies; whenever there are similar vendors on the market, recommendations from trusted peers are proven to be 3-4 times more effective than lower prices or better features. 

 

The New Sales Playbook

 

Check these 4 strategic shifts to be successful in the Era of AI-driven Sales:

 

 

The Trust Advantage: While buying cycles became longer, 74% of companies increased their budget for B2B products and services. AI won’t be slowing down, and your competitors are adapting: will you be able to adapt and be among the trusted few companies who thrive in it?

 

👉 Read ​@EleonoraGG’s recent article for the Community - Personal Branding and Targeting: How to create content that builds trust and use it in tandem with Sales Navigator to attract and engage the right clients.

 

This article was published on the LinkedIn Sales Blog. You can view the full version here. 

Great ​@Francesca_Community Manager 

Trust is the new gold 🎯

​@Francesca_Community Manager I have everyone and their mother trying to sell me software that uses AI and automation to send emails to prospects. They even offer to get me the emails. I’ve challenged plenty of them and when put to the test, there software failed. I know they were embarrassed. Most of the AI software being developed is for someone targeting large companies. My ideal clients are small business owners in B2B sales, even a solopreneur. 

Got it. Since you are replying to the content (posting a comment), the goal is to validate the author's post, add your expert "flavor" to it, and pivot to a thought that reinforces your authority.

Here is a high-impact response you can copy/paste directly into the comments section:

I appreciate that you wrote this article. This is the reality check B2B sales reps and small business owners need right now. 🤯

94% of buyers are using AI to vet us? That "AI Shield" is real. I’ve been working on closing the biggest deal ever (one I would have never approached at this stage of my business, but they got referred to me). Everything was going great until they sent me an email demanding a ton of info be added to the proposal I had sent them. I could tell they had likely used AI to create the response, but it was easy for me to walk around it, because the information they were requesting is not something I would provide until they put money in my pockets, so I suggested we have a follow up meeting.

Now back to your article.

I love the distinction you made about the "Human Advantage" kicking in during the middle stage (88%). Email automation is great for opening the door, but genuine human expertise is the only thing that keeps it open when decision fatigue sets in.

If you can't bridge that "Trust Gap" (45% is a scary low number!), no amount of AI personalization will save the deal.

Still working on this big deal and a follow up meeting is in the works. The best thing is they are local, so I can randomly walk in with some goodies or a gift hand delivered to punch it a human touch. 😃

A great article ​@Francesca_Community Manager, with yet more insights to how successful selling requires human connection. AI and Tech is useful for admin, data and background info, but not to takeover relationships. There are very useful statistics there aligning to how many organisations are now re-recruiting following letting people go in the hope AI would manage key responsibilities. Many thanks for posting it. Mike

Adorei. Gostei muito 

Sensacional. Numeros e graficos que me ajudam muito na tomada de decisão 

​@Damien-XocialGong I love that you can add in-person elements to your outreach! In ​@Luis Hernando’s words, “Trust is the new gold” - if you can bridge that gap, you’ll have more customers who’ll be ready to refer you, and every time it will be a little easier to prove the quality of your work. Best of luck with your big project! 🤞

Hi ​@Mike Carrighan, ​@Carol Pitarelli and ​@Alexandre Damiani, thanks for your feedback and I’m glad to hear this helps! I agree, the data is so useful here and it really shows not only how AI how the dynamics between sellers and buyers changed around it, but it clearly suggests how our strategy should adapt. 

​@Mike Carrighan, I agree with your point on recruiting - AI makes us more efficient with our work tasks, so that we can send more time on building trust, fostering human relationships, and making decisions!