The old sales motion asked : what’s your software budget for this category?

The new motion asks customers three questions :

  • What’s your software budget?
  • What’s your total labor budget?
  • What do you want that ratio to be in three years?

That third question shifts a software sale into a strategic planning conversation, the same conversation every board is having right now.

Department Labor Software Ratio Today Ratio in 3 Years?
Sales $150K/AE1 $15K/AE2 10:1 8:1
Support 65% of budget3 17% of budget4 4:1 1:1
Engineering $180K/eng5 $7-20K/eng6 9-25:1 5:1

The higher the ratio today, the larger the opportunity. Sales runs 10:1. Support runs 4:1. Engineering runs as high as 25:1. If AI collapses the labor side, the software budget isn’t the ceiling. It’s the floor.

Not all departments will compress equally. The Anthropic Economic Index shows computer & math occupations at 36% AI task coverage, office & admin at 34%, while construction & transportation sit below 15%. Customer service reps show 70% coverage. Higher task coverage suggests more room for compression.

This reframe implies a two-step sales process : land on the software budget, then expand into the labor budget. The initial sale justifies itself against existing software spend. The expansion sale captures the labor savings AI creates.

Challenge the buyer’s perspective on budget. Not : can I have a slice of your software spend? But : what do you want that ratio to be in three years?

  1. RepVue Sales Salary Guide 2026 — median AE OTE $140K-$190K ↩︎

  2. Attivo Partners Software Spend Benchmarks — $12K-$18K software spend per employee ↩︎

  3. TSIA via LiveChatAI — labor represents 60-70% of total support costs ↩︎

  4. MatrixFlows Support Cost Benchmarks 2025 — software/tools account for 15-20% of support budgets ↩︎

  5. Levels.fyi Software Engineer Salary — median $191K including base, stock, bonus ↩︎

  6. Larridin Developer Productivity Benchmarks 2026 — AI tools $200-$600/month; traditional tools vary widely ↩︎