When you lead sales for professional services firms, you can’t settle for salespeople presenting the same insights that any of their peers would. After all, what you’re selling is differentiated knowledge and experience, communicating the value of an entire firm of trained lawyers, accountants or consultants. As PwC’s recently appointed Sales Director EMEA Alex Liddle well knows, that’s a big responsibility – and it represents a big shift in the role of sales in his industry.

“In professional services, you find a lot of big marketing teams and business development teams, but not that many sales teams,” he explains. “Partners trained to be a lawyer, an accountant or a consultant, and they see that as the benefit to the client. Some have an unfair "Wolf of Wall Street" image of sales in contrast. For me sales is about explaining a need to a client that they didn’t know they had and then solving that for them. I think we’ll see a dynamic where we move to the salesperson talking to the client to identify the needs and bringing the entire firm with them, allowing the rest of the partnership to deliver on that promise.”

Watch Alex’s appearance in On the Road and you’ll be instantly struck with his passion for using technology, and particularly AI, in helping the sales profession to communicate the complex value that firms have to offer. However, he’s equally clear that AI can’t do the selling for you. It’s down to intelligent, curious-minded people to make use of the opportunity it creates.

“If everyone just follows what AI gives them, there will be no competitive advantage,” he says. “You can choose to use it in a way that augments what you do and delivers value, or you can use it to do things in a shallow, non-competitive way. Competitive advantage really comes from what you put into it: your angle, your twist. Technology helps when it enables you to focus on your uniqueness and your differentiators.”