Rise of the Sales Jedi: The Power of GenAI to Boost Revenue Growth

Over the past year, the buzz around generative AI (genAI) technologies and their impact on the go-to-market space has been overwhelming. But what's the truth behind the hype? How can this cutting-edge technology actually benefit sales teams?

People.ai 's Victor Oliveros , SVP of Product Management, and Brian O'Neill, MBA , Strategic Account Executive, sat down with Mariah Petrovic , Communications Director, to discuss the real value of generative AI for sales teams and provide some insight from the perspective of a salesperson and a product engineer.

The genAI false start and why sales orgs are struggling to find value

"When everyone started using ChatGPT, it was truly mind-blowing. The potential seemed unlimited. However, after six months, I primarily find myself using it for drafting outbound emails," shared Brian, a sales executive.

The initial excitement most people felt about genAI hasn't fully materialized. Brian has found a similar sentiment among customers and throughout the sales community. "Initially, everyone was enthusiastic, but in more recent conversations, there has been some hesitation," said Brian.

Sales leaders are recognizing the need to take a step back and develop a more comprehensive strategy. No one wants disconnected solutions that won't integrate or work together effectively and there is significant concern about security and data privacy with public large language model tools. And leaders have started asking better questions. What are the implications for data security and privacy? Could our competitors access our data this way?

Does all this mean the hype isn't real?

No. The hype is real.

Victor explained, "Every emerging technology goes through a technology hype cycle. Right now we are at the very peak of that hype cycle for genAI. Here we're finding out the technology isn't actual magic.”

“You go from the peak of the hype cycle to the trough of disillusionment,” he continued. "That means we're facing the reality of what this tool can actually do for us. It's not magic anymore, but it is real.”

If we think about the emergence of genAI as an inflection point in the evolution of technology, we can compare it with other transformational technologies. Considering every transformational technology over the past few decades, ask yourself: did it immediately give value to the general population or a subset of the population?

For example:

• Internet: The first use case was email. Anyone would get an email account relatively easily and could send emails instantly across the globe.
• Smartphones: The first big use case was driving directions in your pocket or walking directions in your pocket.

Both of these use cases were useful for almost everyone, right away.

"The common factor [of the Internet and smartphones] is that you didn't need to know how the technology worked to get value from it. It's the same thing with ChatGPT and Bard. We’ve all found value out of it, no matter how small or how big," explained Victor.

The real value of genAI for sales

“With ChatGPT, which to me is honestly still magical, it can only help sales organizations so far because it's only trained on data that exists in the public internet,” stated Victor. "But I start seeing real, impactful value when we look at deeper, next-level use cases." These use cases can start to be addressed with private, purpose-built genAI solutions. 

Some examples discussed that will have a big impact on sales organizations:

• Providing next best actions
• Summarizing calls
• Providing deal summaries
• Partially or fully automated quarterly business reviews (QBRs)
• Data-driven coaching recommendations
• Chatbots that can provide insightful answers about accounts and opportunities
• Real-time pipeline inspection

"ChatGPT and Bard can't do this, but I guarantee you that in the near-immediate future, there will be tools specifically built for sales teams to do this," said Victor.

Value of genAI for sales leader

Generative AI may be even more useful for sales leadership than sellers themselves; for sales leadership, oftentimes the problem is scale. Sales leaders need to be thinking about how to scale best practices across the entire organization. The bigger the organization, the harder it is to scale.

"With generative AI sales leaders will be able to zoom in and out on deals and accounts in seconds. They will be able to inspect accounts and opportunities at every level and at scale, providing a holistic view of the entire GTM organization." – Brian O'Neill

Imagine in a single work week, day, or even meeting being able to answer these questions instantly.

• How is my business doing?
• What deals are at risk?
• Who in this buying group is a detractor or supporter of this deal?
• What happened in that last call?
• What happened in the last email?

This would give sales leaders the information and speed to be much more strategic and agile in their coaching and execution.

Right now, sales leaders and reps are spending a tremendous amount of time in one-on-ones and QBRs simply reporting the news and updating each other. With generative AI, sales leaders can spend their 1:1s discussing deal strategy and working out problems like helping their team find ways to break into target accounts.

Brian highlighted another benefit for leaders: "Instead of playing a game of telephone, where information gets passed through multiple levels, it would be really valuable for top-level leaders to have direct access to the source and a clear understanding of what's happening. And even more so, second-level leaders have so many opportunities under their purview and they are expected to stay informed at all times. That's where having an easily accessible chatbot with all the necessary information can truly be a game changer for sales organizations, from the top all the way down."

Value of genAI for sales reps

Think about prospecting and outreach, a significant portion of time is spent crafting the communications. Moreover, sending recap emails entails revisiting notes and writing a compelling follow-up. The daily investment in these tasks is substantial. It's not just the administrative workload that can potentially be alleviated by a tool like this, but also the prospect of reclaiming valuable time.

Picture this, it's Friday afternoon, the weekend is almost here. Is filling out a MEDDPICC scorecard or an account scorecard in the top 5 things you'd like to do? No. But it IS on the list of the top 5 things your sales leadership would like you to do.

"GenAI is more than just doing the annoying things you need to do, but also doing the things that leadership is asking of their teams to effectively run the business. That's huge." – Brian O'Neill

Will genAI replace sales reps?

GenAI is not something coming to replace you and take your job. It is a tool designed to assist you, improve deal execution,  increase productivity so you can work more deals at the same time effectively, and, ideally, help you and your organization make more money.

Victor explained, "It's not about replacing jobs. It's about: How can you perform better and have more brain space, using generative AI as your assistant?"

"It's not about replacing jobs. It's about: How can you perform better and have more brain space using generative AI as your assistant?" – Victor Oliveros

Brian added, "The reality is that sales cycles are so nuanced, especially in the enterprise. There are just too many human elements to it. There's nonverbal communication. You're on a call with a customer and they may be saying one thing, but you're looking at their body language and it's saying something different. There's subtext. There's politics. There are things that an AI engine will never be able to understand. "

Ultimately, generative AI will make sales leaders and reps more productive, effective, and strategic – and help organizations do more with less.

The future is NOW. Join us on Tuesday, Oct. 12th to find out how you can get cooking with AI during our most anticipated product launch yet! Register here.