Listen to the engineer speak driving the AI industry and you understand why adoption is slow.

When you listen, you learn what the customer wants. Most engineers are so excited, for good reason, they spiel about features without asking the person what they actually want.

We share a framework and tools below to help simplify this for tech startups, and anyone offering a product or service.

This podcast show how to reverse complex talk and make tech inviting by listening, drawn from deep experience in AI B2B Tech Sales - from my guest Jonathan Khorsandi of DIWY.eu, and my own work with tech companies.

What does an angry tech asking Steve Jobs a harsh question in 1997 teach the AI industry now? The promise lies not in the technology, but in the people who use it...."And one of the things I've always found is that you've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to try to sell it." Steve Jobs

Jonathan loves working with tech startups:

I’m hooked on innovation, startups, ridiculous ideas and people eager to change the world.As a tech founder I’ve been able to build, consult with and coach companies the last 26+ years which put me at the edge of change and trends before they became “a thing”My latest endeavor, Diwy - Do it With You, builds $1,000,000+ sales pipeline within 6 months for promising innovative B2B tech companies.

We use common sense, AI, Automation and rock solid targeting that goes beyond accessing databases that everyone else has access to.

In B2B tech sales, a common scenario  plays out way too often: brilliant engineers and product developers, bursting with excitement about their latest creation, facing a polite but unengaged audience during product demos.

The result? Ghosted like a bad date, leaving the tech team wondering what went wrong. So they look for more features, instead of listening to the customer.

This is the engineer's dilemma, at the heart of why many excellent tech products struggle to gain traction in the market against lesser competition.

Jonathan helps tech companies worldwide bridge this gap between product excellence and sales success. In Episode 54 we'll explore Jonathan's insights and the AI tools that can help transform your tech talk into sales success.

The Engineer's Dilemma: When Passion Becomes a Pitfall

"What I'm learning here with tech companies in Europe and in the US and even in Asia, the companies I've been working with, because they're so brilliant in engineering and technology and product development, it blows my mind how they think through that.

It means they speak their language really well, but they don't really speak sales that well." - Jonathan Khorsandi

The problem isn't with the product or its features. It's with the process around sales.

Engineers and tech founders often showcase every exciting feature they've built, overwhelming potential customers with technical details they may not understand or care about.

Jonathan explains the typical scenario:

"And so when they get an appointment, they get so excited.

Oh my God, they get excited. And for good reasons. They work really hard. And then they get the meeting and they're like, 'Look, can I just show you all the stuff that we built?

Because it's so damn exciting, right?' And they go in and they do demo and they pop up on the and the people sitting there politely. 'Yeah, yeah. No nice, nice colors.

That looks good.' And then and then they ghost them like a bad date."

The key to overcoming this dilemma? Listen to the customer first, then tailor your presentation to their specific needs.

 AI DISC Profiling: Your Customer Whisperer

One of the powerful tools in Jonathan's arsenal is AI-powered DISC profiling.

This technology acts like a secret decoder ring for customer communication, helping sales teams understand their prospects' communication styles and decision-making processes before they even get on a call.

Go to LinkedIn, find a possible customer, and before you reach out the AI shows you their communication style, how they handle conversations, and suggests good ways to start the conversation based on the person’s style.

Jonathan shares his experience with a tool called HumanLinker.com:

"Before I get on sales calls with people I really don't know, it's called HumanLinker.com, but they have a plugin on Chrome that analyzes their LinkedIn profile, and it gives you their DISC profile. I

t tells you what their DISC profile is and how they make decisions, what stresses them out, what makes them feel heard."

This information allows sales teams to tailor their approach to each customer. For example:

- For altruistic, consensus-seeking customers: Focus on how the product will benefit the team.

- For detail-oriented engineering types: Discuss the process in depth.

- For high-driving, results-oriented individuals: Get straight to the point and focus on concrete outcomes.

By speaking the customer's language, you transform your sales approach from a tech lecture to a problem-solving conversation.

He also uses Ubiquity, an AI tool allowing him to record one video and personalize it to more people, inserting their name and website into a video he can send out hundreds of times.

“I looked at your website, but it's like, one minute, but now I can tell this tool, like, there's Declan and there's 500 other people where I'm doing the same message, but when they see the video, my lips are moving.

Hey, Declan. Hey, Bill. Hey, Samantha. Hey, Jonathan. Whatever. And then I put in the websites that I'm looking at, and then it looks like I just did that video specifically for that person.”

The Great Chatbot Letdown (And Why AI Agents are the Real MVPs)

While many companies have experimented with chatbots for customer support and sales, Jonathan's experiences suggest that the real potential lies in AI assistants or agents.

 "I think that's the evolution of what you call chatbot. I think it's going to be AI assisted conversations, and you may not even need a screen anymore. You just going to need like a voice thing going back and forth."

These AI agents can offer more nuanced, context-aware interactions than traditional chatbots. For example, Jonathan mentions a startup in Paris developing voice-based role-playing for salespeople:

"You pick up the phone, you call a number, or you press the app and then if you are a salesperson applying for a job and the hiring manager says, 'Okay, interact with this bot and overcome objections, let me see how you do.'"

This technology allows sales teams to practice and refine their pitches before getting on real calls with customers.

Here’s a super simple example from Pitchmonster.io I recorded, there are many in this space because it saves so much time learning to overcome objections:

AI Sales Role Playing: Practice Makes Perfect Pitches

Building on the concept of AI-assisted role-playing, Jonathan emphasizes the importance of practice in sales success.

Tools like Gong.io are revolutionizing how sales teams prepare and improve their performance.

"Gong is really good for like listening in on your sales calls and and coaching you on how you can do things differently and better.

Like the ratio between asking questions and being silent and taking notes and intonations and all that. It rates you on your efficiency."

These AI-powered practice tools offer several advantages:

1. They allow salespeople to refine their pitches without the pressure of a live audience.

2. They provide data-driven feedback based on successful calls in similar industries.

3. They save time and resources by reducing the need for human-to-human role-playing sessions.

In the above sales role playing tool called Pitchmonster.io, this demonstrate a quick role-play scenario:

> SalesAvatar: "Explain me your product and pricing."

>Declan: "I set up affiliate programs for people at a $2,500 a month retainer, plus a percentage of commission."

> SalesAvatar: "I love your product and see a clear value. However, I don't think we can allocate budget for this."

> Declan: "You've not even looked at what I'm presenting here, because the budget is based on performance, not on just a consulting gig."

> SalesAvatar: "Okay, send me more info over the email."

This brief exchange showcases how AI role-playing can help salespeople practice handling objections and steering conversations in the right direction.

The Demo That Sells: Jonathan's Tech Sales Framework

At the heart of Jonathan's approach is a structured framework for conducting effective sales demos.

This framework is designed to appeal to the engineer's love of processes and flowcharts while steering them away from overwhelming customers with technical details.

"So I think what works really well with engineers. Types of founders, based on the ones I work with, is that you give them a process, a flowchart. They get, they see. There they go. 'Okay, that's the flowchart. This is how to do a discovery. Call this is how I do a demo. This this is the things I showcase.'"

Key elements of Jonathan's framework include:

1. Thorough Discovery: Before the demo, conduct a discovery call to understand the custom