Speciality sales and Industry has not only been about volume. It’s about judgement, timing, trust, and consequence. As AI accelerates what’s possible, it also exposes what can’t be automated without cost.
The real question for speciality & industry sales teams isn’t whether to use AI — it’s where AI sharpens judgement and where it dulls it.
Let’s look at the four pillars we focus on here at Nu-Insight and in particular our speciality Sales training, and the impact of using automation. Does it help or hinder. We offer a few scenarios to consider.
- Prospecting & Preparation
Specialised Sales Teams
A technically strong commercial team leaned heavily on AI-generated prospect lists and email templates to increase outreach volume. Activity went up, responses didn’t.
Nu-Insight worked with them to step back and reframe preparation: using AI to map decision-making units and buying dynamics, then deliberately slowing down to design a human, hypothesis-led approach to each account. The difference wasn’t better data—it was better thinking before contact.
Awareness created: More prospects doesn’t mean better prospecting.
Where AI helps:
AI can surface market signals, track buying behaviour, map accounts, summarise technical data, and reduce hours of desk research to minutes. Used well, it frees sales professionals to think, not scramble.
Where AI hinders:
When prospecting becomes data-led but insight-light. Over-reliance on AI lists and templates risks shallow targeting and a loss of curiosity. Preparation becomes “information gathering” rather than strategic intent.
Think about it! Are we using AI to deepen our thinking — or to avoid it?
- Customer Engagement
A specialty chemical distributor introduced AI tools to support customer engagement across key accounts. Before meetings, AI helped summarise past orders, application data, regulatory changes, and even suggested questions based on similar customer profiles. Post-meeting, it drafted follow-ups and highlighted sentiment shifts in the conversation.
On paper, engagement became slicker. Meetings were well structured. Follow-ups were fast. But something subtle was missing.
In one customer conversation, the account manager followed an AI-suggested questioning flow almost perfectly. The questions were logical, well phrased, and technically sound. Yet the customer later fed back that the conversation felt efficient rather than engaged. They were answered but not truly heard. That moment created the awareness.
We worked with the team to use AI as a sense-check, not a script. Preparation still involved AI insights, but the meeting intent shifted to listening for what wasn’t being said hesitations around reformulation risk, internal pressures from procurement, and timing sensitivities that no algorithm could surface. We helped them enriched their contact sport of sales.
The quality of engagement improved not because AI got smarter, but because the salesperson became more present.
The learning:
AI can sharpen questions. Only humans build trust.
Where AI helps:
AI can support meeting preparation, personalise follow-ups, analyse sentiment, and suggest better questions. It can even coach language patterns post-meeting.
Where AI hinders:
Customers don’t buy authenticity from an algorithm. When engagement scripts sound “optimised” rather than human, trust erodes. Speciality customers sense when conversations are convenient rather than considered.
Think about it! Would your customer say they felt understood or processed?
- Negotiation
Specialities Sales Team (Chemical Distribution)
A speciality sales team entered a renewal negotiation armed with AI-driven scenario modelling. Margin sensitivity, historic pricing bands, volume forecasts, and walk-away points were clear. The account manager felt confident—calm, structured, well prepared.
The negotiation stalled.
AI had correctly flagged commercial risk, but it hadn’t picked up the emotional undertow in the room. The customer wasn’t pushing price purely for margin reasons; they were under internal pressure from procurement to demonstrate “wins” before a leadership review. What showed up as resistance was anxiety.
The turning point came when the salesperson stepped away from the dashboard logic and named what they were sensing in the conversation. That human intervention softened the tone, reopened dialogue, and reframed the negotiation from price defence to shared problem-solving.
Leadership Development Division (SME Context)
In an SME leadership development division, AI was used to model contract options for a multi-year programme—scope trade-offs, pricing tiers, delivery risks, and resource load. The proposal was commercially sound and optimised for margin protection.
The negotiation became tense.
The client felt the conversation had shifted from partnership to positioning. AI had suggested a firm boundary, but it didn’t account for relationship history, power dynamics between founders, or the unspoken need for reassurance during a period of organisational change.
Once the lead facilitator paused, acknowledged the client’s concerns, and reframed the discussion around shared outcomes rather than contract mechanics, the negotiation reset. The final agreement looked different from the AI recommendation—but it lasted.
Awareness created: Not every risk is commercial; some are relational.
Where AI helps:
Scenario modelling, margin sensitivity, historical deal analysis, and risk profiling all strengthen commercial confidence. AI can help salespeople walk into negotiations informed, calm, and structured.
Where AI hinders:
Negotiation is emotional before it is logical. AI struggles with power dynamics, cultural nuance, ego states, and relationship memory. Over-confidence in AI recommendations can flatten judgement and escalate conflict.
Think about it! Who is leading the negotiation your judgement & instincts, or your dashboard?
- Follow-Through
Follow-Through in Practice — Haulage & Distribution
A regional haulage and distribution business invested in AI-enabled CRM tools to improve follow-through with key customers. Actions from review meetings were automatically logged, reminders scheduled, summaries sent, and progress tracked.
On the surface, execution improved. Fewer actions were missed. Response times shortened and dashboards looked healthy.
Yet one long-standing customer quietly raised a concern.
They weren’t frustrated by missed actions—those were largely happening. What they felt was a loss of ownership. Updates arrived on time, but they felt automated. Check-ins felt procedural. When priorities shifted on the customer side due to seasonal pressure, the system still pushed the original actions forward without acknowledgement of the change.
The awareness landed when the account leads realised follow-through had become task-complete, not trust-complete.
We helped the team reframe follow-through as a relationship behaviour, not a system output. AI continued to manage reminders and momentum, but responsibility for context, judgement, and tone stayed firmly with the individual. A short personal call replaced one automated update. A delayed action was proactively explained rather than system flagged.
The difference was subtle—but felt.
The learning:
AI protects consistency. People protect credibility.
Where AI helps:
CRM hygiene, reminders, action tracking, summarisation, and momentum management — AI shines here. It reduces slippage and protects credibility.
Where AI hinders:
Follow-through is not just process — it’s reliability and intent. When systems chase tasks, but people stop owning outcomes, customers feel the gap.
Think about it! Are we managing actions — or reinforcing & building trust?
The Nu-Insight View
AI doesn’t replace speciality sales or leadership development capability. No matter the industry landscape. Your AI amplifies whatever already exists — clarity or confusion, discipline or drift, confidence or avoidance.
The future of speciality sales and human connectivity within industry belongs to teams who can:
- Think commercially with AI
- Lead conversations without hiding behind it
- Negotiate with data and emotional intelligence
- Follow through with systems and personal accountability
Because in speciality sales and all aspects of customer interactions, trust is still earned in moments — not generated by machines.
Alison Taylor & Tienie Loubser
Co Founders
Nu-Insight Limited
