(888) 815-0802Listener Q&A: Generative AI All Day [Episode 1141]
Thanks to our loyal listeners, the message line is going strong! This week, Alastair and Howard answer more of your questions submitted to our message line and surprise, they’re all about generative AI and its impact on the job market. Alastair and Howard discuss the excitement and possibilities that generative AI offers in augmenting human intelligence and improving communication between sales teams and customers. They also emphasize the importance of open communication and transparency when approaching sales teams about using generative AI to help shape the future of their jobs and ultimately their success.
Podcast Transcript:
00:00:00:05 – 00:00:21:06
Speaker
The truth is, they have an opportunity to help shape the future, to help shape their jobs, and to help bring in the type of technology that will really empower them to do better. Bingo. Bingo. Bingo.
00:00:21:08 – 00:00:47:04
Speaker
Welcome back, everybody, to this week’s Sales Strategy and Enablement podcast. I’m Alastair Woolcock, CSRO over here at Revenue.io with my fantastic co-host, founder, CEO and a lifelong learner of all things revenue science, Howard Brown. Listen, today we’re really excited. We wanted to do a Q&A episode from some of your calling questions and unsurprisingly the internet is ablaze and all things generative.
00:00:47:08 – 00:01:17:16
Speaker
AI are popping up left, right and center. Now, Howard, before we dive into the call with questions, you know, you’ve been around the world of AI Revenue.io has been in the AI space now for five seven years In terms of conversation, the behavior based all of that and generative is finding. It’s like this awakening around artificial intelligence of what is possible and actually what it is going to do for the very basics of jobs.
00:01:17:18 – 00:01:42:23
Speaker
And, you know, I’d love just to start before we go into the Q A your perspective, and we’re as excited as everyone else about this now. I call it the awakening and acceptance of AI. That said, you’ve been working on for years. Yeah, it’s a hugely exciting time when you think about all that’s possible in the world of generative AI, we’re just starting to touch the surface.
00:01:43:01 – 00:02:19:11
Speaker
It’s incredible to see the excitement that people have about generative AI and chat to beauty because it’s really the first time we can touch A.I., we can literally touch it with our hands, we can ask questions, we can get responses. The idea that this model was studied tons and tons of content in conversations and literature and fact sheets in the air net and people all and now can respond to human language and provide incredible answers is a incredibly exciting time.
00:02:19:12 – 00:02:52:22
Speaker
But it’s just the beginning. There’s a lot of fear. Absolutely. What jobs will be replaced, What jobs will surface because of it. And I think that’s worth spending some time on. It’s not just about displacing people. It’s literally about augmenting human intelligence with the AI. We’ve been talking about that for years by studying conversations, by studying the way sales teams engage with their prospects, their customers, Now is an opportunity to take it to the next level.
00:02:53:04 – 00:03:25:02
Speaker
How do we implore how do we empower sales teams, front office teams to better communicate, to better deal with the issues we know where buyers and customers are having? So I’m hugely excited about the possibilities, the process effects of using AI in everything we do well, as am I. But let’s take it to the street and let’s get some of our caller questions in and see where their heads are up, because you and I know can excitedly get all caught up in all things AI on any given day.
00:03:25:02 – 00:03:54:01
Speaker
But yo, let’s, let’s cue the first caller question and see what’s going on. Hey, Howard. Hey, Alistair, Love the show. So I have a question for you guys. There’s a lot of excitement about what generative air can mean for sales, but I feel like it’s also bringing up a lot of questions about misinformation and job displacement. What would you say is the best way to approach my sales team, to sell them on generative AI without scaring them into job hunting?
00:03:54:03 – 00:04:17:23
Speaker
Thanks. That’s a great question, Howard. Do you want to go first? Sure. I think the communication is key and transparency is key. And I think there’s a lot of question about where this is all going. And none of us, quite frankly, have the answer. It’s not like we can project into the future and know what’s going to happen.
00:04:18:01 – 00:04:43:12
Speaker
What I can say is go to your sales team, go to these individuals and ask them what if they had they played with chat, CBT, Where do they think it would help them in their job? How? How have they used generative? What have they read? What have they heard that might help them at your company to really use this to help them advance?
00:04:43:12 – 00:05:20:15
Speaker
Is it training? Is it coaching? Is it education? Is it helping them write emails? Is it helping them summarize details? It’s really about communicating what your thoughts are around it and listening to what their is are. You can’t reassure them that everything’s going to be perfect and their jobs aren’t going to change. That’s not the truth. The truth is they have an opportunity to help shape the future, to help shape their jobs, and to help bring in the type of technology that will really empower them to do better to improve their performance.
00:05:20:20 – 00:05:48:13
Speaker
So I think open conversation at this point is probably the most helpful. Yeah, and I’m going to piggyback on this. Say, how are there ways, as everybody knows in the world of tech and may I there is the open letter signed by hundreds of people, you know, a month or so ago, almost to now challenging that we should post this right you and everybody from you know Elon Musk all the way through different venture firms, a bunch of people saying, hey, look, I is I have such an impact.
00:05:48:15 – 00:06:11:10
Speaker
We just need a pause before we turn this stuff loose now, personally. But he really disagree with that. And even my old firm, Gartner, is about to come out with a piece that they are going to challenge and openly disagree with that open letter as well. You know, companies and enterprises today, this this is one of those leapfrog moments.
00:06:11:12 – 00:06:35:01
Speaker
And I get it’s scary. I understand that people are at going, wow, suddenly you have generative things that are able to do manual workflow steps, create content, they’re able to replicate voice, they’re able to do all of these things and the rate of learning is compounded week over week. But the very real reality is like this is this is for these companies.
00:06:35:01 – 00:07:01:12
Speaker
Remember, the average enterprise today is very immature and what they do in sales and so they how do they mature? It’s not linear anymore. This is a tense moment. This is what technology does. That is amazing. This is one of those multiplier moments where you can apply, I think of the role and think of how you turn every employee, every seller into a technical seller.
00:07:01:14 – 00:07:24:16
Speaker
And if you’re not challenging and thinking that way as a sales leader and you know, setting the tone for your team to think that way, you’re going to get left behind. And I know that’s a very aggressive progressive stance on the usage of this. There’s a lot of uncertainty, there’s a lot of governance, compliances, all kinds of things we could pick apart to say, why not?
00:07:24:18 – 00:07:52:14
Speaker
But, you know, yeah, you’re going to have two camps that say no because of risk. And I have the camps to get the ten X multiplication I need to take share in the market. I’d rather be on that side of that. And Howard, I’m thinking of, you know, you’ve been in conversations in the, you know, in the banking world and finance and some of the biggest firms out there, they’re making this overture to every CEO that this is going to displace.
00:07:52:16 – 00:08:22:02
Speaker
It is going to drive change. But that doesn’t mean displacement replaces people. It augments people and turns them into Teen Xers. And is that mentality that I think is is so key for everybody to embrace and understand. And I feel your excitement and I feel the Internet’s excitement and I feel the excitement amongst CEOs and other leaders. At the same time, there is that fear.
00:08:22:02 – 00:08:47:23
Speaker
And I think how we reshape that fear is by empowering people to think about how they can use this to benefit their life, to benefit the jobs they do. How do we take these tasks, these mundane tasks, and eliminate them so that we as human beings can focus on what we do? Great, Are creative in our connection with others, our problem solving.
00:08:48:01 – 00:09:15:11
Speaker
We cannot think about this as you’re going to put the genie back in the bottle. It’s out. So now it’s time to have real, open, honest conversations about how to use the technology to empower people, to help connect people, to help solve problems that we weren’t able to do in the past because we were bogged down by the mundane, the boring, the things that aren’t as interesting.
00:09:15:13 – 00:09:41:09
Speaker
This is an exciting time. I believe that if we get the creative thinking of our teams, if we talk to them openly about what the opportunity and challenges are, it’s limitless. Yeah. The idea today that generative A.I. is here, you’re not. That’s not going to change. It’s how do we use it? How do we get people to think about how they hone the power of generative A.I.?
00:09:41:09 – 00:10:08:12
Speaker
How do they come up with the prompts that will help them better connect? That’s where the future is going. So it’s exciting. I know it’s scary. There’s a lot to think about. There’s a lot to be challenged by. But I urge you, put your fear away, not disregard it. It needs to be studied. We need to do a lot of work around it, but absolutely bring that creative self.
00:10:08:12 – 00:10:29:10
Speaker
Think about how to solve problems with this technology. All right. Let’s go on to our next question, because otherwise we’ll run out of time and we will never get through more than one. So let’s see what our next caller is worried about here. Hey, Howard and Alister, this is Suzanne calling from Laramie, Wyoming. Love listening to the podcast.
00:10:29:12 – 00:11:07:02
Speaker
A question for you, how it’s tentative. I going to challenge common existing sales models. Thanks so much. Why, thank you. As I think about that, Howard, it’s a first off, a great question. Right? So you think of if you’re a sales leader today and you’re considering generative AI, what I’d actually start is think of your sales model and just literally Aisha Sellers, of all the things that are manual tasks that are not that are not sales orientated, they’re not communication orientated, they’re not actually doing the job of selling and can you use generative to help on that?
00:11:07:04 – 00:11:27:16
Speaker
And, and you know, you think in terms of the sales model, I’ll use a very tactical example right? We have released the generative email summarization so you don’t have to send right emails anymore. No. To write them. Nobody likes to write follow up emails. Okay. So that’s a great example of a task that is not really what you pay a seller to do.
00:11:27:18 – 00:11:49:10
Speaker
You don’t pay them to be great writers and write emails all on the generative can now automate that step. Yeah, they do a little bit of polishing on it and then it’s out the door as a productivity game and just simply go through every single task in your sales model and ask yourself, Is there something I can now augment with artificial intelligence?
00:11:49:10 – 00:12:19:12
Speaker
And I don’t think it’s always generative. It just AI in general is how I would suggest looking at it. But what’s your thoughts? Yeah, I look, I think that the opportunity to focus on the sales model has never been more great because if I think about a sales model, it’s really how do I connect with my buyers or customers to deliver the most of value, whether you’re a challenger, medic, MedPAC, the idea is that you as a seller deliver value to them.
00:12:19:12 – 00:12:49:00
Speaker
You help them make a decision based on information whether or not your product or service will help solve their business problem. Hopefully that’s baked into whatever sales methodology you use. Now, if I can automate a lot of the tasks that don’t allow me to focus on really that customer, their needs helping bring value to them, that is the point of having a sales methodology.
00:12:49:02 – 00:13:20:01
Speaker
It’s understanding your buyer. It connecting with them, it’s delivering value that that should be underneath every sales model. So I believe all the generative stuff actually helps me further that cause, which is bring more value, be able to answer more questions, build case studies, build use case build. Like that to me is where our sellers can focus. So it really helps us reinforce what’s important about a sales methodology.
00:13:20:06 – 00:13:45:02
Speaker
Yeah, when when I think of the scope here, right, And I think just I in general, the thing I would say to, you know, this question of how is are you going to challenge existing sales models? We have been in the field of real time intelligence for several years now, real time augmentation of the rep to rise and meet the expectation and the buyer is exactly what the market once right now spot on.
00:13:45:06 – 00:14:08:09
Speaker
And all of a sudden there is, you know, chatbots and all these things have suddenly created that or AI is here. What I would tell you is, you know, a lot of this actually has already been in the works for several years and the technology’s there and large enterprises are doing this and it is augmenting the sales model with the intelligence to help the rep meet that expectation because there’s a big gap, that expectation.
00:14:08:09 – 00:14:32:18
Speaker
Howard, you and I talk about that all the time. You know, there is there is a knowledge gap that now exists today where you have a high volume ISR, BTR, SDR as an example. They just got to try to reach to people, connect with them. Personalization isn’t just reading length it right then they get they actually talk with people they know they might be talking with you and if they got lucky, you happen to pick up on all of those things.
00:14:32:18 – 00:14:55:09
Speaker
Well, there’s a there’s a 2030 year intellectual and experience gap there. Yeah, that’s an unfair game. Real time intelligence that is already has had been in-market for a few years now is front and center is simply now the application of it I think is going to hyper accelerate as a result of all of this. Yeah, that’s the and that’s the point, right.
00:14:55:12 – 00:15:17:07
Speaker
Are our real time application. The whole point of it was to help the seller in the moment that they’re engaging with buyers, to help buyers get what they need out of sellers helps sellers meet the expectations of buyers. It’s kind of what this generative thing is about, right? Like I have a question I can go to chat GPT, I can ask it a question.
00:15:17:07 – 00:15:45:06
Speaker
It gives me a very valuable answer right away. That’s what we expect now from technology. The reason people love chat you beauty is it literally gives them immediate results that are really, really good. It helps them deal with whatever problem, whatever information they’re looking for right now. Now, imagine that in the context of I mean, a conversation, it’s listening.
00:15:45:06 – 00:16:28:04
Speaker
My buyer has questions. I’m not trained enough to handle every single question. What is the technology do? It informs me on how to best solve the problem. Answer the question that the buyer has. That’s what we’ve been doing for years now. It’s the idea of putting that in a text bot or text chat. Guess what? Super important. But where this continues to impress and amaze us is the ability to listen live to conversations, to meetings and help reps take the next step and meet that buyer’s challenges, meet that customer’s challenges, and essentially turn every rep into an expert.
00:16:28:06 – 00:16:55:17
Speaker
Agreed. The other piece of advice I would have for people, Howard, and then we’ll go to the next question is invest and understand how to do plant based engineering now. Right? So when you think of your sales methodology, medic, med pick, challenger, band, whatever you want to use, right? We all know the stages. They’re very well documented. You know, the tasks need to occur, but how are you driving prompt based insight to reinforce the sales process?
00:16:55:17 – 00:17:19:02
Speaker
A methodology itself, and then applying that through real time intelligence? Right. Because you don’t know, Rob wakes up and goes, Oh, I love any sales process. I’ve never met any of that. Like, I love it. It’s just a way of creating common language, an approach for a company to scale in the enterprise. Okay, Alastair, sorry, I got to interrupt, but prompt engineering, What the heck is that?
00:17:19:02 – 00:17:42:12
Speaker
Yeah. So that Alastair doesn’t take it too far down the rabbit hole. It’s the idea of asking the right question. So the they inputs, right will get you the right output. So you can’t just ask a question in a general way if you’re asking a question and you wanted to answer in the voice of Abraham Lincoln, you got a pop chat GP Answer in the voice of Abraham Lincoln.
00:17:42:12 – 00:18:02:22
Speaker
So again, it’s making sure you understand just because you’re asking your question. If you don’t give it context to answer those questions, it’s probably not going to be that helpful. Bingo, bingo, bingo. Let’s leave that question there. And sales ops people, go learn how to do exactly what Howard just outlined. You need to know how to do that.
00:18:03:00 – 00:18:28:00
Speaker
All right. I think we can try to squeeze in one or two more. Let’s go next specs, caller, question. Hey, our analyst your quick question is generated. I going to make the SDR role obsolete or just change it? Thanks, guys, for all the great insights on the podcast. I got this one. I absolutely do not believe that it will make the SDR role obsolete.
00:18:28:00 – 00:18:55:21
Speaker
Now, what does the SDR role encompass that? I think will change dramatically, right? The idea that they are the first point of contact within a organization. Right? So I as a buyer need to either reach out or reach into somebody to answer questions. Sure, I can ask a chat bot, but a lot of people like to talk to a human being.
00:18:55:21 – 00:19:30:10
Speaker
They want to make sure that the organization understands their particular challenges, understands their use case. They feel heard. I think that one of the key roles of a sales development rep, it’s to one obviously discover, find out some information and then it’s hopefully to answer some questions and build that connection so that when that lead or that customer is ready to talk to an 80 or an overlay specialist or maybe a customer success rep, they’ve already engaged with the company.
00:19:30:10 – 00:19:58:07
Speaker
I have all of my he’s talking to every person who calls into the company the same time. The SDR role is about doing some outbound prospecting, obviously. Now what do I expect from my prospect now? I expect a rep that is fully informed on my business, on my use case, on my earnings. They understand my role, they understand the challenges I face.
00:19:58:09 – 00:20:39:00
Speaker
And now they’re going to have a conversation with me about all of that information, How their service or product will help me deliver better results will turn me into a better sales leader, turn me into a better whatever, a better version of myself. So I don’t believe that the SDR role goes the way I feel that this data, this generative A.I., this A.I., empowers them to do more of that, connecting, to be more human, to use all of this information, to have better conversations, to write better emails, to better connect.
00:20:39:02 – 00:21:10:12
Speaker
Don’t get me wrong, yes, people will be replaced, but it’s the people that are able to hone this technology. They will outperform their peers. So it’s not a matter of replacing all SDR. It’s a matter of replacing stars that refuse to embrace this technology and use it to provide better results. AI is a great answer. I agree and disagree partially in I think everything you just said is exactly right.
00:21:10:12 – 00:21:31:17
Speaker
What’s happening right now in the world and I think probably connects easily probably three, four or five years, right? Yeah, I do think that’s the time where my disagreement maybe jumps in is I’m not as concrete or absolute that the role isn’t going away. I do think the longer term and you were kind of hinting to this, Howard, it it’s absolutely changing.
00:21:31:19 – 00:22:01:00
Speaker
Right. The the task and what that SDR does an SDR, BTR, that role is going to essentially evolve into full lifecycle ESR is because a bunch of the front end tasks, the emailing that we self-generated the outreaching flows will be self generated the next best action can be supported. They there’s so much in that buying journey and connectivity that generative and AI in general will now supplement today.
00:22:01:00 – 00:22:21:13
Speaker
It augments that future state replaces that SDR function is going to become more full lifecycle ESR because of it. So I think I agree, but I also think you’re like, we’re probably saying the same thing. It’s an evolution of this. Yes. And you better be embracing. Naftali Better. You look at this right now because again, this is the tense moment.
00:22:21:13 – 00:22:45:04
Speaker
Yeah, this is what the Internet was in 1996. And, and you could sit around and not build domains, a wait and see and see what happens. Or you literally go experiment and start to think of those workflows and tasks that can be supplemented with AI right now to help that SDR be augmented with the intelligence and just have a better conversation.
00:22:45:06 – 00:23:06:05
Speaker
Who doesn’t want a better conversation 100%? It’s how do we improve conversations, communications. And I certainly I don’t know where we’re going to be in 3 to 5 years, but what I definitely can say is it better align with the expectations of our buyers. So I don’t know what the role is called. I don’t know where we’re going with all of it.
00:23:06:05 – 00:23:45:07
Speaker
But what I can say is I’m crystal clear that buyers expectations will change of all roles and that if we’re not thinking about what the buyers expect from our API, from our individual tools, whether they’re SDR, a systems, that is the core focus. So we need to study the buyers and our customers and what their needs are and how those needs are changing with all of this generative AI and make sure that we’re training and educating and build in the type of roles that will support the customer with this technology.
00:23:45:08 – 00:24:10:00
Speaker
Howard, I love connecting with you every time on this topic for our callers today. Thanks for sending in those questions. Yeah, we are out of time, but you got the man, the Legend of Revenue Science, telling us exactly where things are going with generative AI. Our let’s keep on top of this. We are heads down in this and have been for years now as a firm and and it’s just exciting to see this all now percolating up in general mainstream.
00:24:10:00 – 00:24:30:03
Speaker
So thanks everyone for your questions. Don’t forget to like and subscribe and submit your questions in Howard and I would do our best to answer those future episode. You can reach us at 3235404777. That’s 3235404777. And we will see you next time on the podcast. Thanks, Alastair.
