Try this on when thinking about AI sales productivity software: Define the space as those automating internal and external activity. External - virtual SDRs, schedulers, chatbots. Anything effectively used by customers in place of interacting with sellers. Internal - Forecasting, activity tracking, account planning. Anything used by the seller in place of interacting with internal people and systems. External might make sense if you have a low ADS, high volume business where you need to get your cost of sales down at scale, and customers want a fast, consistent experience. Internal might make sense on more complex enterprise motions where you want to get your sellers back out to customers. What are the risks in crossing them up? Make sure external tools don't de-personalize your customer experience in enterprise, and make sure internal tools don't over-engineer governance if you have low variance in productivity. I'm not sure how this idea will hold up, but it occurred to me while looking at the crowded landscape of tools in the space. Not everything will be worth it for everyone, and we all need spend discipline.
Jason Ambrose’s Post
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Today I engaged with a customer service chatbot that clearly had Gen AI behind it. The sentences were complete, too well structured and grammatically correct to be human. In short, it was obvious because the dialog was too much better than what the normal experience is! The kicker is that I was disappointed because I knew I wasn't going to get what I needed. No matter what I wrote, I knew I was going to get bounced to call the shop - which is what happened. Did AI make the experience better for me?
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I was shown this landscape today and thought: This is the open air market of "AI" that customers are wading through. It's important to respect how much noise and how many vendors are shouting at them, and the analogy is helpful to think about how you get that first moment of attention, where you should place your stall, and how you grab attention from customers that really are going to buy your goods. It's no use shouting "lunch" to the passing vegetarian when you're selling chicken kabob ...
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"However, the difference between C and A+ output is still the human touch." And there will be a power curve in attention given to A+ content vs C content as our content channels get flooded with C grade AI content. We all know how we tune out to posts or outbound with the same hooks as the last 10. Productivity gains diminish or even become irrelevant if your audience pays little or no attention.
AI is now impossible to ignore. You’ve heard the buzz, and—surprise—we’re here to add to it. Read our blog to explore how we're thinking about Al tools, and how we’re being pushed to redefine our definition of creativity. https://lnkd.in/ej7vW6hY
Fiction Tribe
fictiontribe.com
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“Write with confidence. In confidence.” A tagline I just saw for Grammarly, which got my attention. Well done by their team! Write with confidence - reminds me of their strength and value to me. Easy to absorb, and primes me for something new. In confidence - two words and I understand clearly their positioning and differentiation. They’re not going to use my data to train models, sell ads, or any other shenanigans. Props Grammarly !
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Why do we believe innovation comes only in the products we sell, as opposed to how we sell? When did innovation become a technical term? Much of enterprise software selling and marketing is unchanged in 15 years or more. Will it just continue, or will we see innovation in how we do it? I know what I believe, but I'm curious why people believe otherwise.
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This post will trigger many reactions, I'm sure. What is clear is that: - Economics have fundamentally changed on GTM efficiency. - How customers buy, and how you support them in their journey, has fundamentally changed as well. - Winners will figure out the right combination of resources and expectations to support their customers. I am in the camp that the classic SDR/BDR role works in a rapidly narrowing set of circumstances but also that the role needs to be redefined.
Last week, I meet with 20 of the greatest GTM minds on the planet. CROs, VPs of Sales, CMOs, CCOs, trainers, talking heads. 90% agreed that the SDR role is basically dead. Why? 1. It's been used incorrectly. It's pretty much been proven that an AE without and SDR is just as productive as one with an SDR. Funny. AEs will find their way to their quota given limited resources. The constraint was thought to be time, but many AEs did not invest more in their deals bc they were spending less time prospecting. They ended up doing side hustles, making courses, working out, etc. Works for the person, not for the company paying them (and the SDR). 2. The economics are off in most cases. Having a $100k SDR, $200k AE, $125k SE, $130k CSM, and a $110k Onboarder team up on sub-$10k ACV deals is comical. The CAC payback period is too long for the current churn and contraction rates. In general, it's a bloated structure that caters to AEs who don't want to prospect or move with their customers into post-sales. My first sales job I was a one-man wrecking crew. I prospected, closed, onboarded, success-ed, renewed, and supported every account I signed. It was hard work, but I did it. 3. It's a vestige of the ZIRP/Grow-at-all-costs era. When cash is easy and money is flowing, there are certain investments which help you grow faster, even though they do not help you economically. Growth isn't king, cash is. Luxuries go away in lean times, and many people consider SDRs to be luxuries. 4. They aren't staying with their employer. The idea was hire a young sales professional. Teach them some basic sales skills. Give 'em an email account and a phone and have them ease into sales by doing one of the most basic parts of it - prospecting. Then, as you needed to hire AEs, you could promote the SDRs you'd invested in...kinda like the farm system in Major League Baseball. But, most SDRs leave before 14 months, so the talent pipeline has a major leak in it and all your effort benefits another company who hires them as an AE first. 5. Results are tanking. Many SDR teams are doing significantly less than they used to. The math doesn't work when you aren't booking tons of meetings. It makes more sense in true enterprise (10k+ employees) when the value of a deal is huge, but in SMB and MM, the results are so low that many companies would barely notice. These are the ideas of famous GTM people. People who spend all day thinking about this stuff and implementing it in their companies or their customers. If SDR leaders want to change this line of thinking, y'all better start evolving and finding a way to make $1 invested in SDRs turn into $5 of ARR.
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Paying respects for the passing of a legend. Thinking Fast and Slow had a substantial impact on my fundamental understanding of how people think and work, and many others.
Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate who upended economics, dies at 90
washingtonpost.com
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Soon you will have prospects conducting their awareness and consideration all in ChatGPT and competitors. - Asking for a solution - Learning all of the major vendors - Asking for differences, strengths - Taking guidance on which is the best fit for the prospect - Asking purchasing-related questions - pricing, best partners, whether to run an RFP Consider all the ways we try to influence this part of the journey, and now how all of that is behind the GPT. Marketing and sales functions internally, firms like Gartner and G2 externally. Seems to me like the game will become "SEO for AI", similar to when search changed the game on discovery in the 90s (for those of us old enough to remember). And I suspect "soon" is sooner than we all think. Maybe even yesterday.
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This is the post you need to sit with today if you work in the US.
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