By John Barrows | March 21, 2026 | 5 min read
Problem solving in sales is more valuable right now than any pitch or closing framework. The reps who win in this AI era are the ones who identify a problem and build something that solves it. The tools to do that have never been more accessible.
I’m writing this from my uncle’s deck in Switzerland, staring at a view that looks like a screensaver. We’ve been on a European college tour with my daughter: Barcelona, Monaco, Amsterdam, and now here.
We visited one of the top-rated business schools in the world this week. Beautiful campus. Impressive reputation.
Then I asked my question.
The Question I Ask Every School
On every campus tour, I’ve been asking students and administrators the same thing: “How are you integrating AI into your curriculum and preparing students for a world that’s changing this fast?”
If they don’t have a real answer, we move on.
At this school, the student giving us the tour told me they’re allowed to use AI “for some things so they can try it out and see what it can do.” She was excited to share that they recently had a speaker come in to talk about a really cool new tool called Perplexity.
My brain turned off at that point and I just started enjoying the scenery.
Any business school that isn’t fully integrating AI into their curriculum is doing their students a massive disservice. I feel the same way about sales teams. If leadership is not actively teaching reps how to use AI to augment their skills, instead of chasing platforms that are just thinly veiled automation plays, they’re doing their teams and their business a disservice.
The Creator Opportunity
This is an incredible time for Creators.
Not artists. Not influencers. Creators in the original sense: people who identify a problem and build something that solves it.
The tools to do this have never been more accessible. You don’t need to code. You don’t need a technical background. You need curiosity and a problem worth solving.
Here’s the real-world example I built during this trip.
The College Evaluation App
My daughter is a sophomore in high school, so we’re early in the process. The problem: we’re visiting four schools across three countries in one week, and we’re not going to remember specific details when we start visiting again in a year.
My old-school instinct was to build a spreadsheet with a rating system.
Then I realized there was a better way.
I’ve been testing Replit, a platform that lets you build apps through natural language with no engineering background needed. This felt like the right problem to try it on.
Over a few hours across a few days of travel, I built a fully functional college evaluation app. It doesn’t just let us rate schools. It helped us develop a weighting system for what matters most to our family, suggested interview questions for campus tours, and helped my daughter research majors and job opportunities connected to each program.
Two iterations. A few conversations. A working app I can share with my family and revisit a year from now when we pick back up.
I built this for personal use so I can’t share the link, but I plan to release a public version down the road for other parents in the same situation.
That’s what I mean by this being a time for Creators.
Problem Solving in Sales: The Real Differentiator
The problem-solving instinct I applied to the college evaluation app is the same instinct that makes someone an exceptional sales professional.
Sales isn’t about convincing anyone of anything. It’s about helping people solve problems or achieve goals.
The rep who understands a customer’s problem well enough to build something, a framework, a process, a tool, a hypothesis, will always be more valuable than the one who runs a playbook.
I’ve written before about the idea of turning your sales org into a sales lab. Get your GTM team together on a weekly basis: SDRs, AEs, CS, SEs, Marketing. Pick a problem, break into teams, and run a Sales Hackathon. See who can figure out the best solution. Learn from each other. Evolve together.
With the tools available today, this is not a heavy lift. It’s a mindset shift.
Start With a Problem
If you want to get into creation mode, the process is simple:
- Identify a problem you face regularly in your sales process, in your research workflow, in your follow-up cadence, in your prep
- Ask AI how you might solve it
- Start iterating
You don’t have to build an app. The “creation” might be a custom prompt, a sequence framework, a pre-meeting research template, or a customer story structure. The point is you’re building toward a solution instead of waiting for one to appear.
The easiest way to become a better problem solver for your clients is to start solving problems for yourself.
Get creative. The tools are there. The opportunity is real.
It’s time to create.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does “vibe coding” mean for sales professionals?
Vibe coding refers to building functional apps or tools using natural language prompts and AI-assisted development platforms like Replit, with no traditional coding required. For sales professionals, it means you can now build custom tools for your workflow (research, prep, tracking, sequencing) without a technical background.
How can sales teams use a hackathon format to improve?
A sales hackathon brings together your entire GTM team: SDRs, AEs, CS, SEs, Marketing. Pick a specific problem, break into teams, and build a solution using available tools and AI. The goal isn’t a perfect product. It’s learning, collaboration, and building the problem-solving muscle across the team.
What is the connection between problem-solving and sales performance?
The best sales reps are fundamentally problem solvers. They understand what the buyer is facing well enough to identify the right solution, frame it correctly, and help the buyer visualize the outcome. Reps who lead with curiosity and problem-solving outperform reps who lead with product knowledge and pitch.
How do I get started building tools for my sales process?
Start with a specific friction point in your workflow, something that takes too long or is too inconsistent. Describe the problem to an AI tool and ask for options to solve it. Platforms like Replit let you build lightweight apps; Claude or ChatGPT can help you build prompts, frameworks, and workflows. The first build doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be useful.
John Barrows helps sales leaders decide whether to replace or rebuild their teams for the AI era. For 25+ years he has worked with the world’s most demanding sales organizations, including Salesforce, LinkedIn, Google, Amazon, and Okta, building the frameworks that became Filling the Funnel and Driving to Close. Today he advises CROs and VPs of Sales on AI readiness, team restructuring, and go-to-market strategy, drawing on exposure to every type of B2B sales organization over that span. John believes sales is a science, not a personality contest. His training focuses on the fundamentals that hold up regardless of what the market or the technology does next. He is the host of Make It Happen Mondays, author of I Want to Be in Sales When I Grow Up, and an LP at GTMfund.
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