Throughout most of recorded history buying and selling has been part of daily life. Whether it’s agricultural products or the latest software, selling is a communication process whereby one side works to fulfill the needs of a second party via their product or service.
The ability of the sales person to properly communicate why a prospect should buy or sell is the reason their role exists. Once an account relationship is in place in many cases less human interaction maybe required (or desired) and automating the ordering process probably makes sense, except for new products or up-selling opportunities requiring human sales interaction.
AI sales tools can augment the sales process both today and in the near future in so many time saving ways (if the right technology is applied and accepted by the workforce). Let’s take the example of Mary who works for Johnson technology services. She averages 3 to 4 onsite appointments per day and spends 70% of her time on the road (40% driving due to traffic) meeting with new prospects. She has been in sales five years, very driven, hard worker and has daily sales habits engrained into her day to ensure she max’s quota.
Typical Sales Day with a Sales AI:
Mary wakes to the alarm and heads to the shower. Over breakfast she opens her sales App to get a plan in place before she heads to the office. However, her AI augmented sales App has already planned her day for her! It has provided her with a prioritized list of whom to contact probability of sale, last meeting notes, emails from prospects / clients and a card with a win-back sales opportunity to follow up.
It also shows her which appointments are scheduled for the day and how she is progressing on her monthly quota. She then see’s a note from her AI coach following up on her cold calling help question from yesterday. Without Mary doing anything she already knows what to do today and how to nail that cold call issue thanks to her sales AI!
Jumping ahead a couple hours, Mary has completed her second meeting of the day ready for her next appointment. Mary’s car connects with her cellphone, automatically opening up her CRM App.
“Hi Mary, you’re next appointment is scheduled for 1pm at Mario’s restaurant. You’re directions are ready for execution. How can I help you?”
Mary says – “Sentia, please initiate directions for my 1pm at Mario’s. Next, take a note for Browdy Manufacturing. Met with Mila to review their next year’s business strategy in order to see how we could best serve Mila and Browdy. They are looking to expand operations into Denver and San Francisco. She is on a tight time line and we don’t have competition yet. They would like to get a bid for those two locations by Friday. End Note.”
Mary – “Sentia- please setup a follow up call with Mila at Browdy for Thursday at 2pm. Send Mila a copy of our White Paper on “Expanding your Footprint. Then prepare a sales proposal for me based on previous successful sales proposals made to Browdy in New York and Philadelphia. Then schedule a reminder for me to review the proposal tonight and complete the proposal by Thursday for Friday delivery.”
Mary – “Sentia please read the last meeting notes for my 1pm appointment today.”
Sentia – “Bill from Thompson Inc. wants an explanation of how our software integrates with their ERP API and what fee’s might be needed for constructing an API?”
Mary – “Sentia is there an upsell or additional sales opportunities I should explore during this meeting?”
Sentia – “Based on previous sales proposals to similar sized clients you should also recommend a data cleanse to ensure we’re using clean data for the project kick off.”
Mary – “Sentia – add that to the proposal and send the PowerPoint sales decks on data cleanse to me.
Sentia – “May I help you with anything else?”
Mary – “How am I progressing towards my monthly quota?”
Sentia – “You have a 92% success probability based on 14 KPI’s associated with sales to date and your account history.”
Mary – “Sentia- I can’t remember which sports team Bill Marlow follows? Please look that up and tell me the latest scores?”
Sentia – “Bill is a Houston Astros fans and they won game 5 of the World Series yesterday with a walk off home run by Jose Altuve. His son also had a birthday yesterday.”
Mary – “Sentia – start driving directions for my 1pm, then Close App.” I’m ready to roll!
Sound farfetched or a sales persons AI dream?
In reality all of these things can be done today but you have to plug and play a number of different software products to get there. Here are some of the key features Mary’s Sales AI provided her:
Planned her sales day
Told her who to contact today & why
Surfaced only prospect and account emails
Reported on her monthly sales progress
Pattern recognition – found up-sell opportunities based on account activity data
Voice Recognition
This AI software isn’t far away, in fact much of it can be done right now.
Of those features which one do you think most sales people would want in their new software tool or next generation CRM?
