July 2024 Edition | The Innovative Seller Newsletter

Expectations to stay at the forefront of technology are high. It drives our modern world, even in sales, where we have to balance cutting-edge technology with human interaction.

The cutting-edge right now is generative AI.

It’s time to stop seeing it as a futuristic concept and start leveraging it as a new normal.

Our world, professional and personal, will reach a point where refusing to use or be proficient in using generative AI tools like ChatGPT would be like refusing to use Google.

And this future is right around the corner.

To help change the perspective and conversation in AI for Sales, we put together a checklist for implementing it in the day-to-day and DNA of sales.

It doesn’t matter if you're new to sales or a 20-year vet, on the frontlines, or in management or leadership. You should ask yourself before each task, can I offload part of this? Can ChatGPT start me at step 3 instead of 0?

I could certainly add 30 other individual tasks to this checklist of how ChatGPT could help, but where I see most people struggling is recalibrating the way they think and the way they work to naturally incorporate generative AI - to want to spend less time researching, doing repetitive tasks, and refocusing hours of their time in a week on what truly matters.

For sellers, what truly matters is building relationships and closing deals, but 75% of their time is spent on non-selling tasks.

If you don’t know where to start with generative AI, here you go. I’m giving it to you.

We’ve also been hard at work creating an AI Maturity Assessment for revenue organizations, which will help you put this checklist into practice. If you’re interested, get on the list now and be the first to get it. We evaluate seven core areas to provide you with insights into where to incorporate and leverage AI in your organization.

10-Point Checklist for Implementing Generative AI in Sales

1. Understanding Generative AI for Sales

Generative AI is a subset of AI focused on creating content. It uses algorithms to produce text, images, videos, and other media based on input data. Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are prime examples, generating human-like text and images from prompts.

The easiest way to think about this is AI analyzes and automates while GenAI creates something new.

2. Assessing Your Sales Process

The goal isn’t to integrate AI into your sales process – the goal is to fix a problem.

For example: 

You’re struggling to hit your new business goals in outbound. Personalization and connection with buyers are areas of improvement for your team in the next quarter. However, you need to balance personalized outreach with volume, and you don’t have the budget to add headcount. The problem you need to fix is personalization at scale.

Using Generative AI to reduce your reps’ research and writing time by 50% or more allows them to refocus that time on reaching out to more prospects. 

Creating a library of prompts or GPTs trained on your data will ensure all reps have the tools they need to speed up research.

3. Selecting the Right Tools

There are several generative AI tools to suit your goals, but if you’re looking for one that does it all, ChatGPT is still at the top and the most versatile.

It’s the most popular for a reason. With its newest multimodal model, GPT-4o (the “o” stands for omni), it can browse the web, analyze images, create charts, translate languages, understand audio, and even write code.

Other competitors to consider are Claude and Gemini. Perplexity is also pretty powerful at research but doesn’t have the prompting capabilities of the other three.

4. Integration with Existing Systems

When you think about integrating generative AI like ChatGPT into existing systems, you’re integrating it into your HOW to improve efficiencies. HOW you onboard, HOW you do research, HOW you prepare sales pitches, etc.

The three ingredients to build a scalable AI process that adapts are:

1. It must be documented.

2. It must be repeatable. 

3. It must have the right people involved to execute and update practices.

5. Training and Onboarding

Use generative AI to create customized onboarding checklists and training programs. This can reduce the time new hires spend in training and accelerate their productivity. When it comes to onboarding, generative AI can cut ramp time in two ways: knowledge-building and skill-building.

6. Creating AI-Powered Sales Content

Content, messaging, and connection are vital throughout the entire sales process in the form of emails, follow-ups, call scripts, video scripts, pitch decks, and LinkedIn content. 

If you want to replicate the speed and expertise of your top-performing sales reps across the team(s), use generative AI to speed up content generation, optimize messaging, and A/B test your strategies and content to continue performing at your best.

7. Enhancing Prospecting and Lead Generation

There are three ways generative AI can enhance sales prospecting and lead generation: lead qualification, targeted outreach, and follow-up strategies. 

ChatGPT can help identify the right leads to prospect based on the parameters you give it. For example, it can enrich lead data with more specific pain points, industry trends, and specifics on what prospects sell. Regarding crafting targeted outreach, ChatGPT can tailor messaging to different personas and industries at a speed and scale that reps can’t. The same goes for follow-up and re-engagement messages.

Access the GPTs for SDRs and AEs for help with Prospecting and Lead Generation. 

8. Improving Deal Closing Techniques

The power of generative AI for sales extends throughout the sales funnel. Three areas where it can enhance your sales techniques later in the process are complex deal navigation, objection handling, and sales pitch creation.

It can take reps years to learn the nuances of power dynamics within organizations, competing personalities, and departments with competing priorities. ChatGPT can help less seasoned sellers navigate complex deals effectively.

9. Strengthening Customer Relationships

ChatGPT empowers sales teams to give customers the attention they deserve, fostering stronger customer relationships and driving revenue growth.

Reps can quickly become familiar with customers and their businesses, receive help drafting relevant recommendations, and manage all aspects of a successful QBR to ensure it is tailored to the client’s needs and priorities.

10. Measuring and Optimizing Performance

With the release of GPT-4o and many other generative AI technologies upping their game, advanced data analysis, interactive tables, and charts are now possible.

For sales, this can assist managers and sales reps in identifying trends and pulling together insights from data such as win/loss analysis, rep performance, and sales call feedback.

For a comprehensive overview with examples, read the full article.