AI is all the rage. And here at Bounti, we know that there is a lot of excitement about AI in sales enablement – the potential of this evolving technology to radically improve how selling happens.
In this blog, we wanted to take a look at what the current landscape of sales enablement looks like (contrasted with increasingly antiquated practices) especially given the way Gen AI is already radically transforming what the day-to-day looks like for sales teams. It’s helpful to have a software ally like Bounti to seamlessly harness the power and possibility opened up to your sales team’s strategies by the latest in Gen AI.
The Evolution of Sales Enablement with AI
Where We Were
The traditional sales process, characterized by manual research and email writing, is fast receding in the rearview mirror. Soon, the days of salespeople researching on Google, writing emails as best they can, hitting send, and crossing their fingers – these days will be long gone- for a few reasons.
Often, salespeople have to hit quotas. In fact, in our recent survey, we found that 1 in 3 salespeople find such quotas to be a major source of stress.
These quotas could be related to activity or revenue. With an activity quota, it’s just about “spray and pray”. Do enough research to send enough mass emails. Hit send and hope for the best. With a revenue quota, it’s about actually closing deals. This requires attention and care, which is in tension with the activity quota. These opposing goals often cause pressure for SDRs – sometimes, within the same team, staff have different kinds of quotas – and reduce overall efficiency.
The model of manually researched email creation, and hurried attempts to close, under the pressure of quotas – persisted for a long time. But it’s now antiquated. It simply involves too much work, too much guesswork, and too much pressure.
Where We Are
Right now, what we are witnessing in the world of sales is a massive shift towards a modern approach that embraces the power of technology. Let’s look at the start of the sales process: identifying which potential customers are worth chasing, and how we can best understand and fix the problems they are facing with our product.
As any seller knows, this process – prospecting – is a huge part of the sales process. A recent Gartner study found that prospecting takes an average of 15% of seller time. In this same Gartner report, it was discovered that a whole 6-10 hours of the burden of prospecting could be removed every week with the deployment of autonomous synthetic sales development reps (SDRs). (Spoiler: we think it’s even more than this!)
Deep research must be completed to have a nuanced understanding of the buyer’s pain points to ensure the most helpful and specific outreach email is sent. Gen AI has proven to be incredibly effective in the crucial, foundational step of researching potential customers and building out a buyer persona.
Hand in hand with this deep research, salespeople must pique the interest of a potential customer with a creative, hyper-personalized email. The prospect may very much need the solution a salesperson carries, but no one likes a spammy-looking email. Creative custom emails that appeal to the potential customer and tie their solution to the salesperson’s business can help yield far higher open rates than generic email blasts, with at least 10x returns. The creation of such an email takes the most valuable resource of all – time! A Gen AI-powered sales enabling tool takes the research completed in the early stages of the prospecting process and generates an inventive, well-written email in mere seconds versus the painstaking time and effort it would take SDRs to develop a decent one.
For two reasons, assuming the prospect wants to learn more and have a conversation, teams can now feel more confident in sealing the deal. The third important sales-enabling tool is the security that can be felt in using a Gen AI-created personalized playbook. This is an invaluable tool to have to solidify a budding relationship into a long-lasting one of trust and understanding.
The efficiency and detailed nature of these sales-enabling materials is incredible. Their real magic lies in how they give humans more workhours back to invest in what they do best: being human.
The Feedback Loop Between AI and Sellers
When AI is deployed as a teammate, sellers hand off lots of the “grunt work”, and focus on two skills as defined by Gartner: mentalizing and collaborating with tech teammates.
- Mentalizing: These are human-centric skills such as active listening, perspective-taking, empathy, and cognitive decoding. An SDR focused on mentalizing skills can provide better value affirmation (encouraging confidence in a decision to purchase), creating a scenario where buyers are 30% more likely to complete a high-quality deal.
- Collaboration with Tech Teammates: The second skill SDRs can focus on is effectively collaborating with AI. As well as handling routine tasks, these tools can provide immediate feedback to refine their sales pitches and follow-up messages to clients. They can become a partner that helps every seller improve every day.
In short, the one-two punch of a temporally freed sales rep and successfully implemented Gen AI is crucial for businesses to maintain a competitive edge, as it allows for rapid adaptation and efficiency improvements.
Once a well-researched potential buyer is on the hook, scripts generated by Gen AI and delivered by empathetic salespeople make for an interaction that is much more likely to not only seal the deal but be the start of a fundamentally longer-lasting relationship. Both salespeople and their tech counterparts can deliver an unparalleled experience for their potential customers in that customers will feel like all their needs are being addressed on an emotional level and precise manner.
To refine the process all the more, at Bounti, we believe in the importance of a strong feedback loop in AI systems. Communication between sales reps and their tech is crucial for refining agile sales strategies that are continually tested, evaluated, and improved. We’re all about helping you and your team understand where AI can do its best work when successfully integrated.
Streamlining Sales Enablement with AI and Bounti
When AI Practices have been fully operationalized intentionally, B2B companies can expect to see increased efficiency with the automation of routine tasks leaving sales representatives free to focus on mentalizing skills.
The research-based work completed by the tech counterparts paired with mentalizing-focused salespeople ensures customers will have a much more personalized experience. By removing all tedium and having a hyper-knowledgeable ally at the start of a business relationship, salespeople can feel more connection and confidence in the work that goes into forming and securing long-lasting, quality connections with buyers.
These enhancements are embodied in the Bounti platform. Our tool helps sales teams stay ahead by decreasing time spent on mundane tasks such as data entry and organization, outbounding, prospecting, and crafting personalized emails and scripts to use with potential customers. We’re creating a future where salespeople are empowered by technology.
Get in touch if you want to see Bounti in action!
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