Maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones. Maybe your product, your market fit, your customers all jive together in such a way that in the next year or so, you won’t need to rethink your Go-To-Market playbook at all.

To you, great. You can stop reading now.

I’d say there's probably a much better chance that relatively soon, you’ll look at your Google Analytics, or Clari, or Hubspot, or SFDC, and the trend lines that were once going up, won’t be any longer.

And shocked, maybe even stupefied… you’re going to ask, “What gives?”

Well. What gives? New buyer expectations, that’s what.

As entrepreneurs, marketers, and revenue leaders, we’re often challenged to rethink the ways we interact with our potential buyers.

Your product can be (and probably is) fantastic, but if it doesn’t meet your customers where they’re at in their buying journey (awareness, education, etc…) sadly, a mediocre product that better aligns with where they’re at will win out in the end.

In the past, the market has traditionally offered us three courses of action, which I call the Three CTAs. But before we jump into what those three are, I need to address a few fundamental truths about selling first.

The Fundamental Truth of Selling in the 21st Century

No one ever enjoys being sold to.

It’s critical to understand that buyers’ deep, unwavering hatred for salesyness doesn't equate to an unwillingness to buy. People have problems they care about — and they will fall over themselves to exchange resources for solutions.

This is an important reframing: Consumers aren't averse to discovering ways to solve their problems; they don’t want to be manipulated or inconvenienced.

When buyers think either of those things are happening — say, when the 4th cold email of the day comes in with a busted merge tag, or a salesperson says something that doesn’t quite line up with info on their company’s website — their Marketing Defense Systems go on high alert.

And, frankly, it’s about to get even more difficult to get past these defenses.

Why?

Because A.I.

Wait, aren’t you an A.I. founder? What are you doing besmirching the good name of A.I.?

Well, I’m not exactly doing that.

I’m saying that sellers are already using A.I. to over-saturate traditional selling channels. And people are noticing. Satisfaction in Google results is plummeting. Cold email isn’t just cold-meaning-unsolicited. It’s cold-meaning-dead.

With A.I.’s virtually free, virtually instant generation of human-seeming content in their hands, careless salespeople and marketers will no doubt find new and exciting ways to betray customers and customers will learn, in this ever-evolving arms race (e.g., there are only going to be so many deepfaked Loom videos that work before people catch on).

For that reason, I think it’s clear: it’s only going to get harder to sell.

And the shift is going to happen quickly.

Our role, in addressing and hoping to lower buyer Marketing Defense Systems will not just be selling, in an A.I.-dominated future — we’ve got to sell, reassure, educate, and put trust at the forefront of everything.

A.I. will make white hat marketing cool again. And I can't wait.

The right path

Now, it's about slowly chipping away at those Marketing Defense Systems.

We must give freely, while demonstrating value without causing discomfort or suspicion. And as sharky black-hat marketers continue to foment distrust, A.I. has only made this seller-buyer relationship even more fraught, even more tenuous.

Having acknowledged all these (relatively obvious) truths, we find ourselves at a strategic crossroads, where now… we think A.I. can actually help. And it isn't instantly obvious.

Choosing the right Call To Action (CTA) to influence the first customer interaction is imperative. It’s like a date with your customer. You are about to ask them to do something for you for the first time. Your success here determines the success of pretty much everything else.

So let's revisit the idea above in light of the “Three CTAs” — and let me make my case as to what A.I. can do to help more than hurt.

Here are the three:

1. The 'Buy Now' Approach:

The quintessential call-to-action… ideal when simplicity, affordability, or buyer's motivation align. It can falter when your offering demands a deeper understanding or appears complex for a swift commitment. This path works for a lot of eCommerce. (You probably don’t feel the need to talk to Sales to buy a “ Rosé All Day” tank top)

2. The 'Try for Free' Method:

Also known as Product-Led Growth (PLG), this works when you nail onboarding and balance feature-access perfectly. But striking this balance can be tricky, and transitioning from a free offering to a paid plan is often so challenging that it leads to full company-wide implosions. (More than a few companies are still pulling their hair out over this one).

3. The 'Book a Demo' Route:

Effective when you can secure a meeting promptly, and your representative is both competent and persuasive. However, this approach requires time investment, the outcomes can be variable, and not all prospects find sales people running their sales process appealing.

This said: Buyer preferences have shifted.

Self-service models are on the rise, 'free trial' businesses are struggling, and the traditional sales demo is losing its charm. The 'Buy Now', 'Try for Free', and 'Book a Demo' CTAs each have their strengths and weaknesses, but none offer a complete solution.

The Fourth CTA is A.I.-led

A new path, a fourth CTA — something that is easy, consistent — offers clear value.

As we said, buyers want the most convenient, legitimate solution to their problems. Using A.I. can provide them with the information they need quickly.

Modern customers who seek convenience, authenticity, and reliability allow them to learn that you and your product are legit — on their own time. The result is an experience that is a bot instructed to develop real relationships and create trust.

Oh and while we’re at it. It’s not enough to install a chatbot on your site and call it a day.

Your A.I. should turn bad customers away

If they aren’t a right fit, send customers packing (or, better put: to where they need to go). It’s my belief that this way, everybody wins.

Buyers learn and explore your offering in their own time, transforming the process from a sales pitch into an engaging conversation. You, on the other side, don’t need to exhaust yourself with selling.

With the right AI, you can eliminate the need for an early-stage sales team. This is a cost-effective alternative that provides a consistent brand-lead experience. Customers get what they want, and you get what you want.

Ultimately, there needs to be a major philosophical shift in sales. Selling is not a task imposed on the buyer but an interactive, self-paced exploration of the solution they seek.

This transformation expands our understanding of what selling can be, creating room for more authentic, empowering, and enriching buyer experiences.

We need to embrace this change, this evolution in technology.

We all know that A.I. is set to cause a major disruption.

I think this means it’s a fantastic opportunity to undo some of the worst parts of selling, and rebuild something better. It’s time to adapt to our new tools — time to bring trust back to the forefront of all of our interactions.