At the 2026 Sandler Partners National Summit, Drew Kenworthy, Vice President of Financial Operations & HR; Caleb Tucker, Senior Vice President; and Justin Noller, Sr. Director, Channel – New England & Canada, led The AI-Powered Advisor: Winning More Deals, Deepening Client Trust, showing Partners how they can use AI themselves to streamline their business and prepare for every client conversation.
Their guiding principle: don’t ask AI a question, give it a job. To get stronger results, they shared the ROPE method for building better prompts:
- Role: Tell AI who it should be, such as an enterprise technology sales strategist.
- Objective: Define the job, such as a pre-call brief for a meeting with a CIO.
- Parameters: Set the guardrails, from which sources to use to how long the response should be.
- Evaluate: Ask AI to flag unsupported claims and list the assumptions to check.
The team also showed how asking AI to separate verified facts from sales hypotheses can turn those hypotheses into discovery questions. The takeaway: AI can take on much of the preparation, but Partners are still the last mile. Reviewing, verifying, and adding their own voice to every output is what builds client trust and closes deals.
The Sandler Partners National Summit
The annual Sandler Partners National Summit is the largest independent technology community channel event held each year. It brings together Partners from across the US and Canada – influential leaders, and Providers – sharing information on solutions, selling approaches, and personal development. The atmosphere is always energetic, reinforcing the family “safe home” reputation Sandler Partners has developed over two decades. While other TSDs may focus on private equity plays, Sandler Partners continues to help solve problems that encourage trust, deeper long-term customer relationships, and ultimately success.