Kevin "KD" Dorsey recently shared something that caught my attention: "Sales has a mastery problem, and we are proactively replacing ourselves." He followed it with a blunt observation: too many people got into sales for "the money" and "the lifestyle," and not enough got into it for the craft.

That framing hits because it explains a pattern many teams feel but struggle to name: performance is getting squeezed from both sides. Buyers are more informed, competition is louder, and tools are making it easier to generate output without improving judgment. As KD put it, "We've lost the obsession." And when obsession fades, mastery follows.

In this post, I want to expand on KD’s rallying cry and turn it into a practical playbook: what mastery looks like in modern sales, why practice and inspection are non-negotiable, and how to use AI to sharpen the craft instead of outsourcing it.

Sales is the only "high-paid" job that tries to wing it

KD’s comparison is painfully accurate:

"Surgeons practice before they operate. Athletes practice before they play. Musicians practice before they perform. But sellers? We 'practice' on live prospects."

Most sales orgs treat skill development like a perk instead of a requirement. We celebrate "natural" sellers, reward activity, and promote leaders based on individual results rather than teaching ability. Then we act surprised when forecast accuracy is weak, discovery is shallow, and win rates depend on a few heroes.

The hard truth is that many teams are not underperforming because they lack tools. They are underperforming because they lack reps in the right areas:

Discovery that creates insight, not just gathers info
Objection handling that diagnoses root causes, not just rebuttals
Negotiation that protects value, not just closes discomfort
Storytelling that changes how a buyer sees their problem

If those aren’t being practiced intentionally, they’re being learned accidentally. And the classroom is the buyer call.

"You can't practice" is the most expensive lie in sales

KD called out the familiar excuse:

"You can't practice a sales call because every conversation is different."

The analogy to sports is perfect. You cannot practice the exact game you will play, but you can absolutely practice:

Opening the conversation with authority
Asking layered questions that uncover impact
Summarizing and confirming in a buyer-friendly way
Handling predictable objections (price, timing, status quo, internal buy-in)
Advancing to a clear next step with mutual commitment

Variation is not a reason to avoid practice. It is the reason practice matters.

What "practice" should actually mean

When people hear role-play, they often imagine awkward scripts and fake enthusiasm. Real practice looks more like a flight simulator:

Short, focused scenarios (5-10 minutes)
One skill at a time (for example, setting an agenda, probing impact, or handling "send me information")
Immediate feedback on observable behaviors
Repetition until it becomes natural

A simple structure that works:

Set the scenario (industry, buyer role, stage, stakes)
Define the skill (one objective, not ten)
Run the rep (record it if possible)
Score the rep (did they do the thing, yes or no)
Run it again (apply the feedback immediately)

If you do this consistently, sellers stop "hoping" calls go well and start expecting them to.

Leaders: practice is useless without inspection

KD didn’t just target sellers. He said, "Leaders don't inspect enough." That matters because culture follows what gets reviewed, not what gets announced.

Inspection is not micromanagement. Inspection is how you make invisible skills visible.

What to inspect (without becoming the call police)

A practical inspection system focuses on leading indicators of skill, not just lagging indicators like closed-won.

Call quality: talk-to-listen ratio, agenda clarity, question depth
Deal health: next steps are mutual, champion identified, risk named
Message consistency: value tied to outcomes, not features
Pipeline integrity: no "maybe" deals hiding as forecast

Here is the key: pick a small set of standards and enforce them weekly. If the team knows what "good" looks like, coaching becomes faster, fairer, and less emotional.

The AI trap: when the tool becomes the craft

KD’s biggest concern is the future-facing one:

"If we rely on AI to tell us what to say, how to say it, and when to say it... We're not using a tool. We're replacing ourselves."

This is the heart of it. AI can increase output, but output is not mastery. If a seller cannot:

Think through a buyer’s incentives
Ask the right follow-up question in the moment
Recognize when a deal is drifting
Tell a credible story from experience

Then the seller is vulnerable. Because if the company can get the same words from a tool, what is the seller uniquely providing?

Use AI to sharpen judgment, not outsource it

The healthiest approach is to use AI like a coach and editor, not a puppet master. For example:

Before calls: ask AI to propose 10 discovery questions, then you select 3 and rewrite them in your voice
After calls: have AI summarize, then you validate the summary against the recording and add what it missed
Objections: ask for 5 possible root causes, then you choose the most likely based on context
Storytelling: use AI to tighten structure, but the story must come from real wins, losses, and lessons

If AI outputs become your default language, you will start sounding like everyone else. Mastery requires distinctive thinking.

The four habits of sellers who will thrive (and how to build them)

KD laid out a roadmap for the next five years: read obsessively, practice relentlessly, study patterns, master storytelling. Let’s make each one actionable.

1) Read obsessively

Reading is not about motivation. It is about mental models.

Read sales books, but also psychology, negotiation, and decision-making
Keep a swipe file of phrases that clarify value and risk
Turn one insight per week into a behavior to test on calls

2) Practice relentlessly

Set a cadence that is impossible to ignore:

2 role-plays per week per rep (10 minutes each)
1 call review per week with a scorecard
1 objection drill per week (price, competitor, internal buy-in)

3) Study patterns

Top sellers do not just work hard. They learn faster.

Track why deals advance and why they stall
Identify the "moment" where control was lost (weak agenda, no impact, no mutual plan)
Share patterns in team meetings so learning scales beyond individuals

4) Master storytelling

Buyers do not remember your product tour. They remember what your story helped them see.

A simple sales story structure:

Context: who the customer was
Problem: what they were struggling with
Impact: what it cost them
Shift: what changed in their thinking
Result: measurable outcome

Real stories beat generic pitches every time. And as KD warned, "real stories, not AI-generated fluff."

A 30-day reset back to mastery

If you want to act on KD’s rallying cry, try this 30-day plan:

Week 1: create a call scorecard (5-7 behaviors) and review two calls per rep
Week 2: run two role-play sessions focused only on discovery depth
Week 3: drill the top three objections using root-cause questions
Week 4: build a team story library (10 short stories tied to outcomes)

Use AI during the month, but only as an accelerator for analysis and preparation, not as a substitute for skill.

The point KD is really making

KD closed with: "Get back to the craft. Get back to practice. Get back to mastery. The money follows the skill."

I agree, and I would add one more: the security follows the skill too. In an AI-saturated market, the safest sellers are the ones who can think, adapt, and lead conversations that create clarity.

Mastery is not a vibe. It is a system.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by Kevin "KD" Dorsey, CRO at finally - Founder of Sales Leadership Accelerator - The #1 Sales Leadership Community & Coaching Program to Transform your Team and Build $100M+ Revenue Orgs - Black Hat Aficionado - #TFOMSL. View the original LinkedIn post →