reading the description

When I worked at Circuit City, my first role was sorting CDs and DVDs (yes, physical media) and selling whatever peripherals people came in for, usually phones, printers, accessories.

Our training wasn’t to learn each of the phones and the printers and all their features and specs. We got a basic one-hour training on what makes them different. Like, the frequency of the phone would tell you how clear the signal would be or how far you could get away, and the printers would have things like inkjet versus LaserJet.

When a customer came in and asked about a particular device, you didn’t have to actually know anything about that specific device. You just read the card, knew what the bullet points meant, and then told a story to the customer.

(Glances at card, sees it has 5Ghz signal)

“So this phone uses 5GHz technology, which is going to mean you’re going to have a higher-quality signal, but it’s not going to penetrate walls as much. So do you have a one- or two-story home?”

Based on the answer, I'd recommend that they either get one on each floor or they stick to the 2.4GHz, which is a lower quality signal but better at penetrating walls.

To the customers, you looked like an expert on every individual product—even though I never knew anything about any of them. I just knew the pieces that made them work.

But then I moved to the high-end, and for TVs, it was less about the specs and more about the customer—more about their need, their experience. The types of questions you’d ask weren’t on the card, weren’t related to the technology. You still used the 10% of the sale for specs, versus understanding the customer and having a clear package for them specifically.

I think something similar is happening in AI and selling.

For mid-market products or transactional sales, you can just serve up bullet points for the rep. The rep is trained enough. They seem intelligent enough. There’s something about the message being delivered by a person—instead of by a Q card—that makes the experience feel more relevant.

But above that line, for strategic projects, I think we’re going to a similar divide. Reading the card is not sufficient. It’s about the relationship. It’s about understanding the customer. It’s about their needs.

We’ll see.

Note: This is rough. I think the idea is more about how AI context windows work (AI knows a bit about everything, but more effective with specific context e.g. a cue card)