Here’s a remarkable true story about an amazing sales win. It came back to me when I read How is Artificial Intelligence Transforming Sales? on the sellingpower.com blog.
Back in the 1980s, a $50 million account (a lot of money back then) was up for grabs. The CEO of one vendor booked a ticket on the same cross country flight as the prospect. As the plane boarded, he handed the prospect a pitch deck and took a nearby seat.
You know what happened next. Seats were traded; the leaders spoke. By the time the plane landed, it was just a matter of details and formalities until the deal was closed.
AI can give every single one of your reps the power of that vendor’s CEO.
Decide which leads to focus on. The CEO obviously didn’t go to this effort for every high value prospect that came along. He had good reason to believe he could close this prospect. Today’s developing AI tools can analyze your existing customers’ profiles and identify targets worthy of the most resources.
Find out who’s in charge and how to reach them. The CEO had industry publications and contacts. You have social media, official websites, search engines, and other sources. AI can dig through this and come back with amazingly accurate – sets of contact information.
Reach out to the customer in the customer’s voice. The language in the pitch deck, the conversation on the plane—the CEO knew who he was talking to. New AI tools can do the same. They can analyze a person’s online information, build a personality profile, and then recommend the words and tone of voice they’re most likely to respond to.
Take the grunt work out of scheduling: “How about Tuesday at 4? Can’t do that? Okay, how about Monday at 3?” The CEO and his contact had assistants to take care of those details. Your sales team can have intelligent agents.
Focus salespeople on selling and closing deals, chasing down leads: It took a long time for this opportunity to emerge. That’s why the CEO used a lot of resources to keep unqualified prospects engaged. Today, AI-based sales assistants can engage potential customers in natural, two-way conversations, for as often and as-long-as necessary. Always persistent. always polite.
Get down the details: The prospect and CEO exchanged a lot of information on that flight. There were lots of details and formalities to work out. When they parted ways, the CEO telephoned his office and laid out every detail from that conversation. AI can make entering data into your CRM as simple as that phone call. The company that offers that AI is Rollio.
Click here for a free demonstration. It’s another way that AI can free your sales team to drive more revenue.
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