If your sales team is drowning in admin work and you keep hearing about AI agents but have no idea where to actually begin, this episode is for you. Sales enablement veteran Donna McCurley joins Skip Balch to break down why most companies jump straight into complex AI workflows and end up with systems that hallucinate, break, and get abandoned - and what to do instead.
Donna has spent over 20 years building dynamic sales enablement programs, taught AI agent-building at Microsoft, and now helps sales organizations cut through the noise by starting simple and building trust one agent at a time.In this episode, they get into the real difference between on-demand and autonomous agents, why your CRM data is probably not ready for what you think you want, how to actually calculate the ROI of bringing AI into your sales process, and what the sales org of 2026 looks like when humans and AI work side by side.If you're a CRO, sales leader, or enablement professional trying to figure out where AI fits without blowing up your team's trust or your budget, this is a conversation you need to hear.
Key takeaways:
Start with on-demand agents before you touch autonomous workflows. Build one, test it, make sure it works, then connect them. Skipping this step is why most AI implementations fail.
AI is best deployed on non-revenue-producing tasks first. Research, follow-up emails, client onboarding questionnaires - these are where you win time back fast and build team buy-in.You don't need perfect data to get started. Think of it like kindergarten - you find out what you have, identify the gaps, and build a roadmap from there.
Benchmark everything before you build. Donna won't deploy an agent without first measuring what the current process costs in time and headcount. That's how you prove ROI.Sellers need to trust the agent before it touches the CRM. Rushing integration before your team believes in the tool is one of the fastest ways to kill adoption.
A proof of concept should always be paid. If a prospect won't invest in a POC, they're not serious about moving forward.The future sales team is human plus AI, not one replacing the other. The role is evolving, not disappearing - think of it as the next layer, like when computers first landed on every desk.Find a consultant who enables, not just delivers. The goal should be teaching your team how to build and maintain agents, not outsourcing it and losing the knowledge when the engagement ends.
Follow Donna McCurley on LinkedIn and reach out to explore how she works with sales organizations to build AI agents the right way:
linkedin.com/in/donnamccurley
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:52 Why static sales enablement fails sellers
3:29 How Donna started her AI consulting business
6:40 What is an AI agent?
10:06 The data compliance problem in sales
12:13 Why on-demand agents come before autonomous workflows
14:33 What to do when you don't have SOPs
16:02 Workstream 2: building agents and enabling the team
16:40 Real client example: the event onboarding agent
19:45 Using agent data to spot opportunity risk
23:08 CRM integration and the trust-first approach
24:15 How prospects are thinking about AI right now
30:30 AI as authorship at scale
33:01 How to quantify ROI from AI time savings
36:10 Why Donna charges for proof of concepts
37:21 Why she wins: compound interest over speed
44:18 Workstream 3: autonomous agents
46:13 The future of the sales role
48:05 Will AI reduce headcount?
49:12 Earning trust before everything else
56:26 Closing advice
We hope you enjoyed this episode of SalesHandicapper!
– Skip and the SalesHandicapper Podcast team :)
Connect with me: LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/skipbalch/
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SalesHandicapper is a podcast for B2B tech founders and sales leaders building and scaling their sales engines. Hosted by Skip Balch, a sales strategist with over 45 years of experience in B2B sales and product development, each episode explores the real challenges of creating repeatable, scalable sales processes. Skip brings a diagnostic approach to sales, helping leaders distinguish between people problems, process problems, and ICP problems.
Whether you're a founder systematising what's working, a VP of Sales managing inconsistent team performance, or a sales leader navigating the shift from early stage to scale, SalesHandicapper delivers practical frameworks and honest insights to help you build your winning edge.