AI Intel from B2B Sales Execs

You. So what I'd love to share with you is the research that we discovered. Well, basically what we. From our conversations with sales executives, we discovered that there's just so many questions about what's working, what's not working and how to approach it. So that's how we came to creating this survey. So it's actually 30 questions that we designed and they range from which AI is giving you the greatest lift. What are you doing for AI training? What are you doing about your AI budget? Do you have one? What are your AI policies to hiring practices? Are you using it as part of hiring or are you making it a requirement that someone has those skill sets when you hire a seller or a sales manager? And also are you measuring the results? So we're grateful that we partnered with both the Vector Institute and some of you may not know what the Vector Institute is. The Vector Institute is you probably have heard of Geoffrey Hinton if you've been around AI for any length of time. Geoffrey Hinton is the Nobel Laureate for AI last year in October and he is a co founder of the Vector Institute. Then of course we partnered for the launch with Selling Power in order to be able to increase the distribution of the survey that we sent out. And so I'll be sharing with you the report, but I thought I'd walk through in this timeframe. I can't walk through all of the questions, but I'll walk you through some of them. And I think as I do, it'll help you gain some insight that might be helpful. And then I will be offering you the whole report which is 27 pages. I'm a little bit of a data geek because I want to make sure that we're looking at it for all different angles and purposes and interpretations depending on what your business is and the size of your team. So in terms of the size of the teams, we do have small businesses, what's the majority? But we did also have medium sized to enterprise businesses. And the neat part is it's a ratio of of 1 to 4 so that we have of 4. One of them would be a medium to enterprise. So we have full range depending on the size of your team included in these results. So the first question we asked was what AI is your team currently using? And I'll walk you through it so that you can see which ones performed at the top. And probably no surprise for most is ChatGPT came out on top, then Claude, then Copilot, then Gemini, then Perplexity and Zoom Info. What was interesting for us to Notice is that generative AI came out on top, not, not the sales specific AI. And then here's a summary of, of the other AI that did come in place, but their dimension was smaller. All right, and thought you might find that interesting. Then the next question which you're probably thinking already that we asked was which AI has resulted in the greatest lift in sales for your team in the last 12 months? And we chose the last 12 months. We could have asked the last three months, but we chose 12 months. So we got some variety. But part of it is we recognized we didn't want to do overall because AI is changing so much. We are finding in our company that we are, you know, we're reading and studying every day on it. Everybody on the team has a certain percentage of their day that is to be spent on learning about AI. And then we meet once a week to share those ideas of what we're discovering. And we're finding that from one week to the next, and sometimes from one day to the next, things are changing so quickly. So we found that the AI that was giving the greatest lift, surprise, surprise, is ChatGPT, then Claude, then Copilot, then ZoomInfo. There are others that turned up and they're here in that small box on the bottom right. And interesting to note now when you see the training information which I'm going to show you in a moment, you're going to notice how this connects because again we have generative AI turning up at the top of the and more general types versus the more sales specific types. Then we have the question that we asked, has your team received AI training? And interesting to note is 50 yes and 50% no. And we found consistent throughout our survey that there seemed to be this split where we have almost two speeds, as we're calling it, a two speed sales team, is that some are getting training, some are not. And a lot of the training we found was not specific specific inside the organization, it was external sources and a lot of it was not within by training institutions, but instead was individual learning with influencers, YouTube, that kind of thing. And so there wasn't a consistency around the training, interestingly enough. Then we asked what type of AI training has your team received? Now this is where you'll see the relationship to what they chose is what they are using and what gave the greatest lift. So generative AI for writing prompt engineering prospecting, you'll see the numbers go down pretty dramatically. Call summary follow up communication, account research, data analysis and time management. So here we are. No surprise that we Were seeing the generative AI for writing turn up in the top because that's where they've gotten most of their training from. We found that an interesting bit. And then what type of AI training or would you like your team to get in the next 12 months? Hmm. I mean, part of why we asked this question was so that we could see, okay, this is where we've been, where are we going to with the training? What is it that you want your team to get? Because this tells us also a little bit about the voids that they're perceiving in what they've gotten so far. 70% in prospecting and then account research, follow up communication, prompt engineering, data analysis, generative AI for writing. And notice this one's gone down significantly. Time management, that one's gone up significantly. And then call summary. All right, now next question. Is your AI philosophy about supporting your salespeople or replacing them? Because one of the things that we sometimes hear in organizations when we're doing our training is that the team is concerned that they're going to be replaced in the future. And the results are that 75% of the sales executives said it's about supporting their sales team is what the AI is about. And just to clarify, the majority of the people who took the survey were C level and sales VP. I think 9 out of 10 fit into that category. So isn't this interesting that 75% was about supporting them. And then we asked a few other questions to get to see where their mind is at. So to support in short term but plan to replace them long term is 12.5%. And then they're undecided either way, which is a 5% and then undecided but leaning towards support. And then only 2.5% are planning to replace their sales team. I thought that was pretty significant. And I think in some ways, as we looked at the rest of the research in the survey, is that this is such an important piece to communicate with your team if you're sitting in that group that it's in the 75% about supporting your sales team. How important is that to communicate with your team so that they're not too concerned about what's ahead for them. Okay. Because we know that when a group is feeling stressed, they tend to go to the emotional centers of their brain, which doesn't allow them to think as effectively as when they're not emotionally stressed, where they're using that executive center. So we do have the business of business AI Sales executive report. That is for you to have and we offer it to you as a means of helping you with your decision making. We hope that it will allow you to make decisions that are really important going forward and you will find tons of data within it to help you along on the journey. But I'm going to share some of the a few highlights, six from the report that I think you will find helpful. All right, so one is to start measuring the impact and the results from AI. One of the things that came clear to us in the study was that people, the sales teams, were not measuring the impact or the actual increase in sales that they were experiencing. Why is this important? Yes, it's important to measure things because that's what we know goes forward. But as a sales executive, if you're looking forward and you're planning for the future and you're trying to sell in an investment in AI to help your team sell better and more effectively, you need those numbers to be able to share with the leadership in order to get that funding that you're looking for. And then two is to develop clear guidelines for AI governance. What we mean by that, we developed what we call our AI manifesto and we turned it into something that the meaning behind it is significant, but we wrote it in a way that it wasn't full of garbly gook, legal garbly gook, etc. That it becomes the guiding document for the team as to what they're to do with or not do, or if they're not sure who to talk to, just to give them guidelines about where there can be problems, because we know there can be potential and we've heard it in the news of different corporations that have had problems where someone did not have certain guidelines with regards to what to do and not to do, all right, with their AI, then number three is leverage AI for coaching and real time mentoring. One of the things that became clear to us as we were looking at the results throughout the survey was that AI right now is being used at the top of the funnel, but it's not used as a means to help improve the performance of the team. And so with that in mind, by using AI to help you in that direction will make a big difference. For example, if you're, you know, part of it is knowing what are the strengths or weaknesses of your team or opportunities for your team for growth and development. And in that, choose your AI accordingly. Okay. And in doing so, like for example, if you've through, through coaching etc. Discovered that your team or individuals on your team need help with, let's say asking better questions and spending more time listening. Then you may want to use an AI that, let's say a call summary AI that actually gives you percentages so that they can actually work towards those goals. And if you're wondering which AI can do that, fathom has that ability to do that for call summary. And then number four is standardize AI training for your team. The challenge that many leaders shared as we glean through the research, is that some people are getting training because they're pursuing it themselves and it's becoming an individual pursuit and it's been done with external influencers and watching YouTube, that kind of thing. So it's individual initiation versus what is your organization doing to discover what the skills and knowledge gaps are around AI and how are you making sure within your department, that or division that they're getting the appropriate training to fill those gaps, to bring up everybody in their depth of knowledge, et cetera. Otherwise you're going to have this two speed kind of piece. And some people, because they're using AI to support them, are going to be doing better and the others are going to be lagging behind. And then you've got this unusual dynamic. And then select the AI that best improves sales behaviors. So again, this goes back to point number three is that surround sales coaching, et cetera. Think about what specific sales behaviors you want to improve and then choose the AI accordingly. And I'm going to share in a moment a couple of things that we've noticed as the biggest mistakes. We've noticed that there's two happening out there and then finally position AI as a human enabler. Let the team know if you are one of those ones that fits in that 75% that believe that AI is to support, not replace. Be sure that you make that very well known so that the team can relax and perform better in that regard. Here is your access to be able to with the QR code to be able to access the report. And there's two simple questions and one of them you can just put one word and that's it, which would be great. And my hope is that you'll be able to use this to help you get better usage out of AI that you can look at your budgeting and what. Because here's the thing, most people do not have a line item for in their AI budget. In their, in their budget they do not have an AI line item which we found interesting. We'll show this to you again in a moment. So the two biggest mistakes that we're actually seeing is One is this shiny object syndrome. They see an AI, they think, oh, isn't that cool? And they start to use it, but they haven't integrated it into their full strategy and haven't. They're using the AI because they think it's cool. They're not using it because it works for their team. And then the other that we are seeing, too, is sometimes they're choosing the AI because they think it will give them great numbers over the client experience. And we have a bias. Client experience comes first. All right? And so let me share an example of what that looks like. So we have a client. They hired somebody. They have multiple brands, and they hired a new sales executive. And in the role, this executive decided that they wanted to test out voice AI because they thought it was cool. So it's one of those shiny object syndromes. But at the same time, the reason why this individual wanted to use it was because they were looking at the number possibility versus a client experience. They used the voice AI as a case study, a pilot project for actually three months. And at the end of the three months, here's what their results were. And so the concern that the leadership had was that what did it do to their reputation in the industry? That was the concern. All right? So to me, work on that strategy. What does that look like? And there's several things that we found helpful. Helpful as we look at ours and as we're having conversations with others is select AI that aligns with your sales process. So, you know, lay out your sales process, which AI will fit. Okay? Also, that strengthens the sales behaviors that you want to improve. And also, this final one is so important, and it builds trust, all right? Because in this world that we're in and where we're going, trust is going to become a key factor as we go forward. And for those of you who would love to get the report, here is the actual QR code to help you get that specific report so that you can read. Good sleeping for you to read.

The.

It's 27 pages of all the data. I mean, we. We've summarized it as best we can so that you can see and make choices that might be helpful to you. And thank you very much.

That was amazing, Perry. Thank you so much for doing all that research. It's. I know how complex that is and how difficult it is to get people to respond. I want to reflect on two things. One is the. The training. It is so important to have a. A program where you actually check whether people understood and practice what you taught them.

Yeah.

I have one example from a company where the AI training was. Was not checked, so. And people made mistakes in the safety switches that they built in and they accidentally released information, bonus information about sales compensation to everybody in the company. Apoplectic. Oops. Yeah. The other one is to sort of create a. A goal for the company and say we grow at three levels. The first level is, you know, you delegate AI to an agent or to an assistant. Second one is you augment your capacity by having a. An AI tool that helps revenue operation. But then there's a third level, which is mastery, which is integration. And my prediction is that last year was the year of ChatGPT, this year is Agentic AI, and maybe next year it's integration automation. Because we need to become more orchestra leaders.

Yes.

And integrate and also recreate. I think that what a lot of people don't understand is that something like tool like ChatGPT is not just you ask a question, you get a response and that's the end of it. That's just the beginning. People need to understand that if you take information from ChatGPT and use the same prompt in Claude and use the same prompt in Perplexity, you get three different answers.

Oh, yeah. Yes, Very different.

So you need to sculpt and you're like a sculptor, shaping the ideas and shaping the information before you release it. So it really needs art and science to leverage AI to your advantage.

Totally, totally agree. Yeah.