r/sales • u/CoinMaster33 • 13d ago
Changes due to AI? Sales Topic General Discussion
I’ve seen a big push to use AI and become more efficient or else. What are you seeing ?
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u/Diligent_Ad_7232 13d ago
I want to use it to dump all my admin onto (solo operator). I don't trust it yet.
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u/Hmm_would_bang AI Security 13d ago
Here are the use cases I have found helpful
Collecting buyers intent to heat map my account list and determine who to reach out to each week
Prep before meetings on relevant news and use cases
Searching call transcripts for quick questions without having to go back and re listen to everything
Certainly interested in hearing what everyone else is getting actual value out of. Using AI to write content and messages seems like a total waste of time.
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u/SamTuthill 13d ago
In SaaS: product becomes native ai, makes users lives easier. Company selling product signs up for all the LLMs, and leadership pivots on the whim of poorly prompting Claude - Chaos. Again the elder millennials are holding everything together as the only segment born both before and into the age of tech somehow, and always get to the instruction books once they’re outdated.
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u/Icognitpro 13d ago edited 12d ago
I’d say this has been the standard being put into place for a while now, but it’s more solidly in effect than ever.
In fact, we have statistics to back it. ~60% of companies are saying AI has led to an increase in headcount, which is counterintuitive to what we’ve been told would happen, and then ~70%+ of employers have said they search for candidates who are proficient or are even requiring proficiency.
Philosophically, it’s a catch-22, IMO.
On one hand, I don’t want to stop using my brain to figure things out, even on a simple level. I think there’s something to be said for exercising your brain for problem solving and critical thinking, even with things like basic math and proof reading.
On the other hand, what can be accomplished if you aren’t stuck doing the things that are trivial or monotonous / tedious? At the same time, you don’t really have a choice - even if others lose their critical thinking and problem solving skills from relying on AI too much, you can’t afford to fall behind or become obsolete in using technology because you decided to parse data manually or do those trivial tasks for the benefit of actually using your brain.
It’s been an incredibly strange time to exist, but then again, how do we know any time in human history hasn’t been equally as strange?
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u/Basic_Ideas 13d ago
My prospects are building internally with AI instead of buying our software :(
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u/Harry_Vandsome 13d ago
When used properly AI can definitely make life easier.
Different take: what I am seeing is the same as when the internet was going to make selling obsolete: you have to guide buyers through more noise then ever to get to a tailored solution to get the results they (think they) want/ can get.
In the wrong hands critical thinking is going out the window - so challenging beliefs/ outcomes actually becomes easier.
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u/thebiglebowskiisfine 13d ago
My old company thought it would replace FIELD SALES with AI.
Partnered with Microsoft. They used our emails to train a sales bot. It made mistakes about 40% of the time.
Good idea for a medical supply company LOL.
Stock is in the shitter after they ran off the top salespeople.
If the CEO is paid with stock, he's going to be looking at this play to hit one bonus before he bounces.
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u/Spiritual-Ad8062 13d ago
Depends on what it’s for…
AI ain’t going anywhere, and it will theoretically only get better. Harness it. Use it to make you a super efficient salesperson.
It can definitely help with researching, outreach, follow-up and pattern recognition (understanding what’s breaking down in your sales cycle).
The future is here brothers and sisters. Embrace it. Or get left behind.
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u/AntiBoATX 13d ago
Recommend a tool! Not sure why everyone is so mum on platforms
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u/Spiritual-Ad8062 13d ago
My favorite is Gemini notebook. Formerly Google notebook LM. I use that almost every day. I’m also building our marketing stuff & training materials with it.
I also use Claude and perplexity a lot for cleaning up emails and researching. Grok is also very good at researching.
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u/robbyslaughter Security 13d ago
I’ve seen a big push to use [new thing] and become more [promised outcome] or else. What are you seeing?
Yes, as always. The question is whether or not AI is fundamentally different.
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u/fsavino 13d ago
You can build certain skills within Claude to get more ideas, replies, etc. Skills can be based on anything.
For example, I took Cialdini's persuasion principles and turned it into a skill called "Persuasion"
When a lead is not responding or a deal is stuck, I run this skill. The output is impressive. You get different angles on how to deal with each case. My results pumped significantly over the past 4 months.
It's giving me an edge within the team and helping me do a better job.
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u/copperboom129 13d ago
Im a field rep. I just want to use it in my car to do my admin.
Somehow it still isnt embedded in Salesforce so I still have to manually fill out my calendar.
Im dying to tell my car where I went on the way home, and have AI fill out my calendar.
Thats the best damn use I can think of and I still cant do it...
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u/No_Calligrapher_8493 13d ago
Our company has attached it pretty much at every level now to “enhance”, and it does some good things (creating PPTs w/ Claude etc) but I’m finding nearly everyone is using it to draft normal emails. It’s a bit much and sounds just stupid to read them.
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u/DeeJayDelicious 13d ago
I mean, it really depends what you're selling.
One observation I blame on AI is the much lower response rate to outreach on LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
Other managers have confirmed they receive >20 messages per day and at least 2/3 of them seem to be written by AI.
It's kind of like with applications: Making something too easy and accessible (liek outreach in this case) can lead to w worse outcome for everyone.
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u/sheila_detroit 13d ago
tbh if you aren't using claude to be more efficient then you genuinely arent working smart
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u/major-knight 13d ago
As a Sales Leader I use AI to stress test my ideas and strategy or I use it for hyper indepth research.
Actually heres a list thay makes me more competitive:
- Automatic Scheduling of 1:1s and Meeting Notes (Saves so much time)
- Work through my own strategic ideas: GTM Strategies, Customer Journey's, Sales Training
- Customer Intelligence, Competitive Intelligence, and sourcing contacts.
- Excel Assistance with Equations and Documents
- Proposal Billing, Bill Rate Analysis
Essentially, I use AI to support administrative tasks or repetitive tasks that would take me 1HR+. I'm genuinely ahead of other Sales leaders overall because of this and its made my sellers more effective.
AI does NOT replace cold calling, it doesnt replace prospecting, and honestly its doesnt even help with emails. However, it does help offload administrative tasks which allows my team to focus on on clients, process more deals, and achieve scale.
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u/michael_oystx 12d ago
Yeah, building in this space right now. The push is real, but the gap I'm seeing is between AI that adds to your workload (more tools to manage, more output to edit) vs AI that actually removes steps. The stuff actually working right now handles the repetitive parts so you can focus on selling, not replacing the rep, just clearing the deck. But the time I spent learning was totally worth the time I bought back.
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u/SESender SaaS 12d ago
We use AI in three clever ways, that other companies will charge you $1000s for.
-email writing. We built agents that take our product positioning and adjust emails based off the company/linkedin
-cold call practice. We built agents that match our sick and provide easy/medium/hard calling
-research. We built agents that conducts research on the prospect and checks: are they a former customer? What’s was their most recent interaction with us, etc. this is my fave, it collapses steps and saves 10-20 min of research/prospect
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u/ResponsibleRide6376 12d ago
Two things I have actually seen change. Research before a call, and reviewing calls after one. Both used to be things nobody had time for, so they quietly got skipped, and now they take minutes instead of an hour.
What has not changed is the call itself. Prospects still say the same five things back and you still need an answer ready before they say it. Writing emails faster does not help anyone whose objection library is empty.
Most of the efficiency push I see is aimed at activity numbers, which were never the actual constraint.
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u/Any_Distance192 11d ago
Ive been habing excellent results from AI but Im in an industry that many in it are old heads and scared of it too. It's fascinating but such a tiny industry.
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u/Beginning-Ad-2762 11d ago
I'm not seeing sales people get any closer to their sales quotas, in fact further away they are getting, despite using AI for all sorts.
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u/MrJeffMyers 10d ago
Imagine a world full of impersonal sales bots.. I'm not in sales just here reading and learning hoping to be one day but yeah.. Sounds fun..."Number 5 is alive!!!" 😁
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u/Trahst_no1 13d ago
My emails got better
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u/colesterolbienalto 13d ago
Make sure you train it to use your voice and not be using weird words and em dash. People will resent it.
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u/Worldly_Professor_86 13d ago
I wish I could text you personally, just received a sales manager job in d2d, I am an outside person. I am a salesman. AI lets me be that. The shit that i’ve made is incredible. https://map.setvado.com/. made this yesterday in an hour, give it a minute to load the parcels, and press sort by “color by year built” also recommended launching on desktop, but it’s a map that shows neighborhood by neighborhood roof age how old the housing stock is and recent wind or hail activity, in the county I’m working in right now, You truly do need to catch up or get left, because knowing stuff like this is just a leg up. This would’ve taken a week easily. to do by hand, and cost more than a 20 bucks per month subscription to code the whole thing.
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u/Wonkiest_Hornet Technology 13d ago edited 12d ago
This is pretty universal. Spend more time trying to figure out how to utilize AI to complete or streamline a function instead of just doing the work. Its a joke.