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This is how you should use AI for sales
In today’s issue, I’ll share three concrete ways you can use AI for sales. AI has been a trending topic in sales for a few months. With more experience, we can now understand what AI can do for us and what its limitations are.
But first, let me share a quick story to demonstrate how AI is more of a productivity tool than a superior intelligence that will take your job.
Below is a sticker I created using AI on my iPhone (yes, it’s my son):
Here’s the initial picture:
I kept my finger on the element and the AI extracted it:
As you can see, the AI highlighted and automatically extracted the element. This process took me 1 second compared to 3 minutes without AI.
This is an example of a task that AI can perform better and faster than a human.
And here are 3 ways it can help salespeople:
Idea #1: Prospect research
AI, specifically ChatGPT, is extremely useful for prospect research. For instance, you can utilize AI to brainstorm challenges faced by prospects using the following prompt:
Prompt: “Act like {nameOfProspect}, the {jobTitle} at {company}. {company} is {companyDescription}. Here’s more details about {nameOfProspect}:
{LinkedInAboutSection}.
Now list your top 3 challenges for 2023. Bullet point answers only, no jargon, clear and concise sentences.”
Example: “Act like Jeff Weiss, Chief Revenue Officer at CMiC. CMiC is a construction software for accounting and project management, built on a Single Database Platform. List your top 3 challenges for 2023. Bullet point and concise answer only.”
When you’re done, you can ask the AI to find symptoms of challenges with the following prompt:
Prompt: Now list 3 symptoms for each challenge above. Bullet point and short answers only.
Example:
Idea #2: Outreach Personalization
Personalizing outreach is crucial for receiving replies when prospecting through email or LinkedIn. However, the challenge lies in the time it takes to personalize each message. Here are some ways you can significantly reduce that time:
Step 1: Export the resume of your prospect in pdf
- Go to the LinkedIn profile of your prospect and locate the “More” button.
- Click on “More” to reveal a dropdown menu.
- In the dropdown menu, select “Save to PDF” to export the profile as a PDF. This works for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree connections.
Step 2: Ask the AI to skim the resume for personalization elements
Prompt: Here’s the LinkedIn profile of a prospect. I’m trying to get this prospect to reply to my LinkedIn messages and I need to mention an element of their profile that is relevant to problems I help solve:
- {problem 1}
- {problem 2}
- {problem 3}
Now find me 5 elements from this resume that I could mention to catch their attention. Here’s the resume:
{PDFcontent}”
Example:
Step 3: Write your message
Now that you have learned more about your prospect, you can select a personalized element that is relevant and use it to compose your outbound message.
In the given example, I chose point number 4, which mentions the prospect’s experience with private tutoring.
Here is the message I wrote:
Idea #3: Writing Cold Emails
AI is similar to a super virtual assistant. It operates continuously, learns rapidly, and continually expands its knowledge through training. You can train AI to compose a cold email, and it will utilize that training to generate new email ideas. Here is a prompt you can use:
Prompt: Now I’d like to build a [x] touchpoint outbound sequence in order to get [prospect] to reply to my prospecting. I use the following framework for each message:
- Question: A question based on one of the 9 symptoms above
- Teaser: A potential resource to help alleviate the symptom mentioned in the question
- CTA: A simple question to get a reply
Here’s an example for the first symptom you listed:
- Question: How do you avoid and inconsistent of undefined sales process?
- Teaser: If you’re interested, I can share a 3-step checklist to help you audit your sales process.
- CTA: Worth checking it?
Now based on the framework I shared, build a cold outreach message for each symptom listed above. For the teaser, don’t mention a case study or webinar. Instead make it more appealing by calling it a resource, checklist, playbook, framework. Always introduce the teaser with a variation of “If you’re interested, I can share a [teaser]” or “If you’re into it, I can share a [teaser]”.
Example:
And these are 3 ways you can use AI to become more efficient. As you can see, the AI helped brainstorm, find relevant triggers faster, and turn a template into a message quickly. It didn’t replace what makes a salesperson successful: their experience and knowledge.
And if you’re interested in learning how I use AI for prospecting, you can join my free workshop at the Sales AI Marathon.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Thibaut Souyris
P.S. When you’re ready, here are 5 ways I can help you:
→ Write cold messages that get a 38% reply rate and 27% meeting rate here (75+ students)
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