the ai for sales podcast

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Ryan House, Director of Business Development at Programmers.io. Ryan says that the market for programmers is currently at an insane level. He talks about how they help companies find top-quality candidates in the market to bolster their programming and AI.

He shares about the many levels at which AI is being used no matter if it's for the sales motion or for business development. He also discusses his perspective on how AI's "perfection" could still be a dealbreaker for many consumers today.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Where AI plays a role in the projects of big companies
• AI being used in business development
• Bot automation and AI in the sales focus
• The disadvantage of AI being "too perfect"

QUOTES

Ryan: "It's not Star Trek exciting or anything like that but to just have that where you're starting to see manufacturing companies and industries you would never really expect to use AI are starting to now use AI and programming in general."

Ryan: "I would say it's so efficient in terms of taking something that is a traditional skillset, i.e. cold calling, and modernizing it to the speed that is needed for today."

Ryan: "The biggest thing is the rationality of human decision-making. AI is so rational and that's the problem right there of why it can't be replacing a human, so to speak."

Learn more about Ryan and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-house-469662a4/
• Email: ryan.house@programmers.io
• Website: https://programmers.io/

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by John Nord, Head of Sales of Craftable. Everybody in the hospitality and restaurant industry has to count, cost, and sell ingredients and products in the most efficient ways possible to maximize profit.

John talks about how automation and AI play a role in connecting what businesses buy with what they sell to break down profitability more accurately. He shares his thoughts on AI augmenting many of the processes, especially in the hospitality and restaurant industries. He also discusses some of the newer technologies that focus on AI in the sales motion.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Where does AI play a role in solving customer's problems
• The value that their software provides
• Does AI replace or augment
• Advancements for AI in the sales motion 

QUOTES

John: "Our analytics product is essentially advanced recording for operators, recreating spreadsheets and just data ultimately being fed into it whether it's from the food or beverage side, a combination of both, or just purely from the point of sale."

John: "There are certain aspects of a client moving from one tier to another where AI is probably a better fit. Some of the most successful companies that we've seen over the last 10 to 20 years have been exiting out of the SaaS boom right now and going into in-app transactions or in-app upgrades."

John: "It's cool to actually see the team learn through a piece of technology that can analyze a whole day of conversations and kind of compile it where we can have a quick 20 to 30-minute conversation and better understand that there's a lot of information but let's just try a piece of it."

Learn more about John and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnnord/
• Website: https://craftable.com/

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Seth Earley, CEO of Earley Information Science and author of The AI-Powered Enterprise. Most businesses will discover that data involved in pilot testing may not necessarily translate into production. Seth discusses the importance of investing in data and architecture for its increased impact in work.

He also talks about the challenges of integrating and organizing data in the organization's business and IT sides. He shares that having a more holistic view of the organization is essential. He suggests starting with the business objectives and then identifying where you can speed up the flow of information using AI.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Early applications of AI and machine learning
• The AI-Powered Enterprise
• Fixing data: Business problem or IT problem?
• The customer journey is a knowledge journey

QUOTES

Seth: "I like to say the first thing about AI is forget about AI. Focus on the business, the business process, and the business outcome. Look for those places where you have friction points in your information movement. Where, if you have that right information, can you speed up all those downstream processes?"

Seth: "What it does is that it gives you a greater ability to locate exactly what you need. And that, of course, is based on information architecture. There's no artificial intelligence without information architecture."

Seth: "They come armed, they're knowledgeable, and they understand what they need. It's not like the old days when the salesperson was the gatekeeper of knowledge and information. Customers want to have that control, they need to be able to get that information from their website and from other sources."

Learn more about Seth and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethearley/
• Website: https://www.earley.com/

Book: The AI-Powered Enterprise

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Oscar Beijbom, CTO and Co-Founder of Nyckel. He talks about the essential factors of building up your own AI system, training, deploying, and adding the API to your application.

He shares insight into the general use of AI and how its value in increasing the efficiency of work still outweighs fears that it will replace people. He also discusses how Nyckel is able to provide the necessary functions for users at such an affordable pricing model.

HIGHLIGHTS

• What enables Nyckel to operate in a short period of time 
• Importance of bias in general AI
• AI in the sales space
• Deploying the technology at an affordable price

QUOTES

Oscar: "We actually use AI to figure out which subset of models to try and we use AI to approximate how long it will take to train. We use all these levels because it's so easy to add we kind of use it to boost up our own product."

Oscar: "With Nyckel it's less of a problem because we train, what we call, narrow AI specifically on your data. So we use pre-trained models but we tailor them to your data. You can always make sure that the data you're providing is consistent with your product and ethics."

Oscar: "It's more about making sales representatives more efficient. It could also be like identifying patterns in what companies to reach out to. So you have a database of ten thousand companies you could potentially try. Now you could use an AI to identify which of the remaining are promising that are similar to the ones that already replied."

Learn more about Oscar and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oscar-beijbom-696aa6/
• Website: https://www.nyckel.com/

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Jonathan Spier, CEO of Rev. Sellers recognize the challenge of getting to prospects with many saying it's the hardest part of the job. Now, AI might just be the answer.

Jonathan shares his thoughts on AI being an enabler for people and helping them continue to be smart about decisions at an even faster pace. He also gives insight into the sophistication of AI as a technology while still giving the user control of the important variables. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• AI as a pattern-matching technology for prospecting  
• Putting the user in control at the right levels
• Rev if AI did not exist
• How AI enables people

QUOTES

Jonathan: "B2B sales, over the years, has specialized more and more. We've gotten better and put dedicated themes around closing deals, we've got our nurturing functions set up in marketing, and now we have people who are dedicated to BDR and SDR function opening doors." 

Jonathan: "It's got to be something where we help the customer build a model of who their ICP is. Let them choose, like in a Google Maps kind of way, the variables they really care about."

Jonathan: "The opportunity of AI is to see more really good patterns early. In our case, it's seeing who's a good person to purchase before they even know to show intent yet. That's where AI is just super exciting for the sales process."

Learn more about Jonathan and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jspier/
• Website: https://getrev.ai/

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Rodrigo Witt, co-founder and CEO of Innvox. He and his team built Innvox as a sales coaching software to help contact center teams succeed by providing AI guidance after each call.

He talks about traveling a lot from an early age and how this led him to remote working. How Innvox is integrated with AI to generate more impact in different conversations is also discussed. He gives insight into how they source teams that can use the technology and how to utilize AI processes effectively in a company. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• Love for traveling and becoming an advocate for remote work
• How the Innvox approach to AI started
• Building a team that understands the technology
• How we can make better conversations between machines and humans

QUOTES

Rodrigo: “Whatever you're doing, you choose what's hard for you. If you're going to be an employer or you're going to be a startup founder, both are going to be hard if you're going if you want to do it well. Choosing the hard way is a tough choice but also proud because I want to help people with what I'm doing."

Rodrigo: “We analyze those conversations and figure out what the agents are doing or what they're not doing correctly in those interactions. But most important is that where we're doing with our solution right now, our goal is to be the first real-time solution for the Spanish language, with guidance and automated coaching workflows for agents as well."

Rodrigo: “When you talk about only sales, it's a pretty competitive market. But the market is so big that you see many solutions that are, in their own way, different. So it makes a lot of sense for different types of the sales process, for example, lead qualification, lead scoring, revenue, and lead nurturing. So you have a lot of solutions that could help you do a better job as a sales rep."

Learn more about Rodrigo and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodrigo-xavier-witt-abad/
• Website: https://www.innvox.com/

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Tukan Das, co-founder and CEO of LeadSift. LeadSift is a Foundry company focused on delivering relevant leads to B2B tech companies by layering research-based intent from the public web. 

Tukan shares how intent signals are being utilized by LeadSift and other intent providers to enable companies to scale B2B revenue. He explains how intent ties into the process of making a buying decision.

He gives insight into the difference in privacy concerns between the B2C and B2B when using AI. He also shares his interest in the concept of GPT-3 and expects it to be used more in the AI space in the next few years.

HIGHLIGHTS

• What is intent and how does LeadSift leverage it?
• Where AI plays a role in the process
• Privacy concerns in the use of AI in B2B 
• The concept of GPT-3

QUOTES

Tukan: “Buyers are showing these signals of interest even before coming to me and filling out a form, so we need to get ahead of the game and predict when they start showing intent so that we can reach out to them with our sales and marketing message."

Tukan: “LeadSift would look at a whole bunch of different sources, or any intent provider would do that, and give you a ranked list of companies that they think are in-market to buy. Now, as the seller, you take that data and then you craft your message to reach out to them at the right time."

Tukan: “That's the beauty of it. You train a system and the system will statistically label data and it will say, 'hey, based on what you're telling me, this is what the trend looks like' and this is just for one of the trends. But yeah, without AI, we don't exist." 

Learn more about Tukan and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tapajyotidas/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/tdas
• Website: https://leadsift.com/

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Eliav Cohen, chief hot air balloon pilot and founder of The Bot Lab. Having Helium and Drift, the top chatbot platforms in the world, Eliav and his company help organizations set up AI chatbots to deliver amazing customer experiences. 

He explains all about preventing gated content, integrating chatbots to a website, and the optimal functions of chatbots with AI. He also shares how he got into hot air ballooning and how it shaped his current approach to business. 

Finally, Eliav discusses how third-party organizations work with governments and top AI systems to make sure that AI sticks to what it's supposed to do.

HIGHLIGHTS

• First experience with hot air ballooning
• The idea of "intent decay"
• Setting up a chatbot
• Why chatbots don't really need to answer every question
• Making sure AI systems don't make decisions on their own

QUOTES

Eliav: “If you're a marketer and you're reading an article about something, typically the content that's been created is specifically for your use case. They're putting it on that site knowing your use case, who the audience is, and that's why you're interested.”

Eliav: “When people ask those questions, no live person should be answering those. That's the value of a good chatbot. Now, for B2C that's what it should do. But for B2B it should be 'does it integrate with this?' If you can answer that question, there's no reason to have a live person because it should understand the intent and go to book a meeting.”

Eliav: “You're going to get a bunch of random questions and you probably should have an AI that answers those questions. The more niche that article is, when you're talking about whether it's a piece of sponsored content or it's an earned media article, being able to chat on that and ask those two or three qualifying questions makes it then worth it.” 

Learn more about Eliav and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliav-cohen-5643795/
• Website: https://thebotlab.io/

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Andrew Woessner, President and CEO of Telogical Systems. He is also the Founder and CEO of R-Path Automation which helps incorporate automation technology for small and mid-size firms.

Andrew explains the functions of Telogical Systems in telecommunication and the practicality of automation as the market changes over time. He also shares his perspective on the changes we can expect in using artificial intelligence for sales and the practicality of AI in general.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Where AI is being used in R-Path Automation and Telogical Systems
• The form the company would take without artificial intelligence
• Team's reaction after AI was introduced in operations 
• Changes that Andrew expects with the increased application of AI

QUOTES

Andrew: "I look to automation as a way to breathe life back into that business. So we use it for aggregating data from a whole variety of sources, structuring that data, and loading it into databases. So we probably have about 30% savings in our operational costs when we adopted the technology."

Andrew: "If you were given a choice to work for a company that is deploying AI and automation throughout its operations to one that wasn't, I definitely would want to be when they are because they're going to be conducting business better, faster, and cheaper.”

Andrew: "People are starting to really focus on employees not just as a cost to the company but as an asset that needs to be preserved, nurtured, and built. And I think automation is one of the best ways to do that.”

Learn more about Andrew and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewwoessner
• R-Path Website: https://rpathautomation.com/
• Telogical Systems Website: http://www.telogicalsystems.com/

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Jamie Shanks, Founder and CEO of Sales for Life. He is also the CEO of Pipeline Signals which helps sales teams redirect their focus to selling instead of spending too much time on research.

Jamie highlights how businesses can use AI to obtain sales intelligence and data so that their sales professionals can concentrate on netting new sales, cross-selling, and upselling. He also explains how this can significantly streamline work processes while also cutting on human capital costs.

He shows us his perspective on the partnership between humans and technology. Both are necessary in terms of creativity, obtaining resources, and coming up with the right decisions.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Where Jamie sees AI being deployed today
• The concept of social proximity
• Pipeline Signals' solution for customer acquisition and success
• AI for product usage and workload consumption

QUOTES

Jamie: "The left side of the brain I've always found very intriguing and it's amazed me how subjective and whimsical sellers have been in their collection of sales intelligence to make informed decisions."

Jamie: "I'm paying my sellers for outcomes, not to be analysts and researchers. So whether there are cheaper resources that can acquire this information and make informed decisions, that's the basis. So, what we're doing is buying back sellers' time."

Jamie: "You're most expensive resources are sales professionals. You need to maximize their return on effort or their yield. And if you're not applying technology and AI to help aid that, then you're deploying really expensive resources in an inefficient way."

Learn more about Jamie and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamestshanks/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/jamietshanks
• Pipeline Signals Website: http://www.pipelinesignals.com/
• Sales for Life Website: https://salesforlife.com/

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Seamus Ruiz-Earle, CEO of Carabiner Group, a firm specializing in Revenue Operations information technology services.

Seamus explains that while sales ops focuses on sales and marketing operations on marketing service, Rev Ops is the carabiner between all of these and connecting them to ensure visibility across the board, hence the name of the company.

He gives insight into the impact and roles that AI may play in the sales process. How they acquire talent is also discussed as Seamus even hired a Navy Seal transitioning from the service because of his earned life experience, even if he's never sold technology in his life.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Where does AI play a role in the sales motion
• Using AI for transactional vs relational sales skills
• AI as an effective decision-making tool
• Talent development under Rev Ops

QUOTES

Seamus: "There's only 24 hours a day, about 6 to 8 of those need to be spent sleeping. That leaves you with a limited amount of time to do what salespeople do best, connecting people with solutions. And AI is supposed to make that job easier and better." 

Seamus: "We're not there to just take your money. We're there to build a relationship. I teach my sales folks to be, effectively, the person you meet at the bar who you make a good connection with and who happens to know the person who can solve your problem."

Seamus: "There's a knowledge gap with the value that artificial intelligence and machine learning can have for businesses that are anything other than technology."

Learn more about Seamus and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seamusruizearle/
• Company Website: https://carabinergroup.com/

HIGHLIGHTS

• Learning to make connections at an early age 
• Getting introduced to entrepreneurship and sales
• How AIM Media helps lifestyle brands be more effective online 
• Taking advantage of automation as a sales professional

QUOTES

Mezue: "Technology usage, whether it's AI or blockchain, there's so much you can do. So you kind of have to find your niche and carve something for yourself. Who knows where it might go?"

Mezue: "Sales is not just about pitching to somebody, it's kind of forming a relationship. Communicating 'how can I help you?' and making sure that the other person notices that what you're doing is genuine."

Mezue: "You're going to have more information to collect that's even better than what you were using previously. When you look at technology, technology is always to improve and to make things more simplistic." 

Learn more about Mezue and connect with him in the links below:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mezue-eneh/

Website: https://www.aim-media.co/

HIGHLIGHTS

• Wanting to be plastic surgeon but ending up coding
• Using AI to recommend the most effective marketing strategies
• A web app that returns budgeting solutions for marketing channels
• AI offers improvements using decentralized business processes

QUOTES

Eris: "We gathered the data, again 'bypassing' the conventional way of gathering data using my previous experiences, and through that, we are able to provide any type of business, mainly B2C ecommerce businesses, with the best marketing strategy and the best audience that they can get in front of them." 

Eris: "We analyze the behaviors of the end users, see exactly what they like and, at that point, it's a no-brainer to connect these people is going to like this brand or this product or they are more into this type of spending."

Eris: "The decision-makers on the top, the ones who are deciding what I see on each platform or what I buy, is decided based on AI, whether it's a recommendation engine or similar... so it's better to have the businesses also get shown where the AI is going."

Learn more about Eris and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eris-verne/
• Website: https://alfinder.com/
• Email: vernee@alfinder.com

HIGHLIGHTS

• 12 data layers explained and 5x's service to stitch them together
• Case studies of companies improving their data efficiencies
• AI in future sales: Use AI to come up with recommendations
• AI and jobs: Data scientists will be in high demand

QUOTES

Tarush: "The first 5 layers of the stack are kind of pretty well-understood and, at that point, that's kind of verticalized but more sort of horizontal. But in terms of the other capabilities which the modern data stack can start to provide, we sort of get into data lineage and data catalog."

Tarush: "We take the modern data stack and stitch together and provide it as a service. So as a business, you're kind of good to go on day 1, you don't need to worry about signing enterprise contracts or figuring out how it all plays together."

Tarush: "A lot of the core problems before AI need to be commoditized, what are some of those problems, right? A big part of that problem is the infrastructure of the data platform required to get to a point where you have stable, clean, highly-modeled data which is, again, the sort of 5 layers."

Learn more about Tarush and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarushaggarwal/
• Website: https://5x.co/
• Email: hello@5x.co

HIGHLIGHTS

• Recognizing buying signals and connecting customers
• AI doesn't remove sales jobs, it empowers you to convert better
• Keeping AI up-to-date with real-world data
• Empathetic AI and creating a code of ethics 

QUOTES

Suraj: "We've basically innovated a solution that can help you find the right customer for your company based on different buying signals. If somebody is new to a job position, they're very likely to buy. If the company has recently received funding or there's a partnership in the works, they're more likely to make a buy."

Suraj: "What I've observed is people don't want to do the prospecting, they don't want to do the personalization because it's a lot of busy work. Imagine if you could spend that time conversing with a customer who was actually somewhat interested. You could focus on the conversation."

Suraj: "Things can go wrong with AI and things could right, but I try to be on the optimistic side. I believe in the greater good of humanity to innovate in a direction that is for the greater good. I think there'll be obviously more penetration of AI, but I also think it'll very empathetic and sensitive AI."

Learn more about Suraj and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/surajvenkat/
• Website: https://bitbaza.io/
• Email: suraj@bitbaza.io

HIGHLIGHTS

• Create leads with AI efficiency combined with human creativity
• AI for finding the right target audience
• Use AI to determine client tendencies and match services to that
• Shift salespeople to brand influencers because of AI

QUOTES

John: "You got to take the culmination of that AI for the speed, the efficiency, the data, and then you got to combine that to real, authentic, vulnerable community-building and messaging in your content creation."

John: "We would look at whether or not you use an e-store, how would you curate that store, and then how would you actually promote that store and modify off of the data that comes on who's buying what, what's selling, what's not selling."

John: "You have two types of conversations. Number one, you have the one where you're just getting them right back to that order process where you know that they're going to buy that, but you also can monitor the tendencies that they don't have so you understand what suite of services they're not using."

Learn more about John and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/%E2%98%98%EF%B8%8Fjohn-morris%E2%98%98%EF%B8%8F-96148716/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGv7-PFxvKZD6HKsecYgBrw
• Website: https://www.clubcolors.com/
• Email: jmorris@clubcolors.com

HIGHLIGHTS

• Nurture meaningful connections with Strata
• AI builds classifier models that identify your relationships
• Natural language generation is the next frontier for AI
• AI allows people to work on jobs with higher value activity

QUOTES

Thor: "It's much more meaningful because really our focus is on the relationship. It's not on the transaction. So most tools, sales tools being obviously the primary example, are really focused on closing a deal, closing a sale, and like something transactional."

Thor: "Analyzing the contents of the conversation to the point of being able to tell the nature of each relationship, and then that crossed with every other possible contact is a huge computational problem. So being able to spin up a 90+ core CPU to just churn through, again it's not rocket science, but just churn through a massive amount of data—and it's not even quick, it still takes us many days to process—but it's possible."

Learn more about Thor and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thorernstsson/
• Website: https://www.strata.cc/
• Email: thor@strata.cc

HIGHLIGHTS

• AI potential to determine lookalike buyers is a powerful application
• Pattern recognition for buying triggers
• Sales tip: Focus on the deals you can actually close

QUOTES

Brent: "Data analytics or AI that can help you get to your ideal buyer quicker and recognize that pattern, and there are more and more companies, I think, as you know, that are using AI to think about lookalike buyers."

Brent: "Zoom, I've helped a couple of clients recently buy different packages from them. They're getting better and better at firmographics and buying triggers. So they can tell you different, kind of by industry, what the different purchases... different platforms that people are buying."

Learn more about Brent and connect with him in the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bkeltner/
• Website: http://winalytics.com/

HIGHLIGHTS

• AI to customize page content for each visitor 
• Sales prediction: AE jobs are on the way out 
• Multiply your sales efficiency with AI

QUOTES

James: "That's kind of what it does, so it's looking at what signals come in, where you're coming from, what paths you've been on, the intent scores, and it sort of makes that decision for you to help serve as like relevant content."

James: "I think the traditional AE goes away and maybe there's something that comes in there in its place. If its the customer success, it gets a bit different in terms of running pre-imposed sales."

Learn more about James and connect with him in the link below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesbkessinger/

HIGHLIGHTS

• AI creates online copy with minimal human editing
• Automated sales process: Cold email, getting responses, CRM integration
• Technology takes the mundane out of work

QUOTES

Sean: "We've incorporated AI into our sales touch points using thing like Zapier and automation tools. You get an email response here, it goes into your CRM without a data entry person in between. We've also written some content with AI, quite a bit."

Sean: "We probably close 40% of clients that get caught into our ecosystem and that includes different touchpoints like LinkedIn, so we're messaging a client via cold email, we can still touch them on LinkedIn and we have a process for that. Even Twitter."

Sean: "The more technology frees us from the mundane, I think the more people will go do cool things, do what they love, maybe you're a corporate guy but now you love to paint and you paint cars. That's your business."

Learn more about Sean and connect with him in the links below:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanchaudhary/
• Website - https://alchemyleads.com/
• Phone - 818-408-6550