Sales experts react to the internet's worst B2B sales advice

Executive overview

Two B2B sales veterans — Mark Roberge and Jaco van der Kooij — face off in a live reaction format, pressing green or red on viral sales takes. The exercise exposes how much popular sales wisdom is oversimplified, dangerously half-true, or just plain wrong. Their debate covers AI's role, the value of methodology, closing tactics, training versus experience, and emerging prospecting channels. Both agree that B2B sales is heading into its most disruptive period yet, driven by AI adoption that most practitioners have barely begun to grasp.

The real danger is not bad advice in isolation — it is sellers applying single-sentence rules to inherently contextual, human-driven work.

Sales methodologies and process

• Both experts reject the claim that methodologies don't work — one presses red immediately
• Discovery, champion development, and qualification are themselves methodology, even when sellers don't label them that way
• Natural-born closers exist but are too rare to build a scalable business around
• A rep who executes a repeatable process consistently beats an occasional gifted performer at scale

"Always be closing" — right idea, wrong application

• One expert defends ABC as a training tool: two days of full-contact closing practice can transform a rep
• The other argues 80% of sellers already rush to close and ABC reinforces that flaw
• The real cost of leading with closing as a north star is abandoning consultative selling, deep discovery, and proper qualification
• Both agree reps must ask for the order — the debate is about when and how it frames the rest of the sale

Training vs. real sales experience

• Both agree reps need real face time — classroom training alone cannot replicate live-call pressure
• Sports and military analogies cut both ways: elite teams train far more than they compete, but sales rarely affords that luxury
• In practice, sales is 99% game time, meaning most learning happens on live calls whether reps are ready or not
• The implication: organisations must embed learning into the selling motion itself, not treat them as separate activities

AI and the future of B2B sales

• 70% of current sales activity — admin, follow-up, meeting scheduling — is replaceable by AI
• Freeing that capacity lets human sellers focus on the part AI cannot easily replicate: genuine human connection
• AI can also outperform humans on trust-building signals like mirroring dialect, tone, and mannerism at scale
• One expert compares the current AI moment to the early internet, when the full potential was unimaginable
• B2B sales is the function most likely to see the greatest disruption in the next two to three years

Video and outbound prospecting

• One expert backs video prospecting via YouTube because it reaches audiences at scale with guaranteed delivery to followers
• The other pushes back: prospecting is a seconds-count game and video adds too much friction compared to lower-barrier channels
• Cold email is not dead — friction, deliverability, and timing matter more than the channel itself
• Tech sector remains the highest-compensation sales career path due to equity upside and growth-stage opportunities
• One expert counters that the highest-stakes sales role is in human outcomes — healthcare, cancer treatment — where the seller's involvement carries real-world consequences