Execution. The word means two things: carrying out a task - and putting something to death. The sales profession built its entire identity around the first definition. Then it discovered it had achieved the second.
For a century, the salesperson's power came from knowing what the buyer didn't. Then buyers got access to everything - and the information asymmetry that justified the entire profession inverted overnight. The methodologies couldn't save it. BANT, SPIN Selling, Solution Selling, MEDDIC, the Challenger Sale - every framework was built for a world where sellers controlled the conversation. When that world disappeared, not one of them adapted.
Then AI arrived. Not as the solution - as the accelerant. Four billion dollars poured into tools that automate the exact behaviors buyers had already rejected. The industry's answer to a trust crisis was to scale the behaviors that destroyed trust in the first place.
The book closes with a manifesto structured around the mnemonic JUDGMENT - eight declarations for the professional who replaces the salesperson.
Each declaration begins with the corresponding letter and stands alone as a complete commitment. Together they spell the one word that separates the Buying Advisor from everything the market is leaving behind. The full Manifesto is in the book.
"The salesperson died by execution. The Buying Advisor lives by judgment. AI proved the difference."
Death by Execution is the first book to market from Kevin French, arriving in 2026. If you want to know the moment it's available - and get early access - send a note.