Endgame

We got over a 100 demo requests after our announcement last week. Interestingly, many prospects are pretty skeptical of AI tools but still believe there’s value to find. Here’s what we’re hearing from sales leaders: “I bought an AI SDR and it’s going to take us months to fix our domain reputation.” “Email to meeting conversions were great at first, and then dropped off a cliff.” “We were promised results, but the KPIs aren’t moving” This isn't just a response to AI vendors. I think it's a reaction to how early AI tools are in the market. Check out the AI in sales results survey from Theory Ventures—I've added an image to this post. My key takeaway is that AI is still early in showing lagging indicators that ultimately matter to sales leaders, but many buyers expect it to improve soon. So, what is Endgame doing about it while the market matures? First off, we believe AI is too early to try to remove humans from the loop. Most AI tools are focused on low-level automation, e.g., emails, calls, data entry (which are easy to measure as proof of “impact”), but the best-case scenario is replacing a high-school-level SDR, and most businesses would be served better by up-leveling the experienced talent they already have. Our goal is to helps reps differentiate by removing the work that’s really hard for humans to do so they can do the work humans are excellent at: building relationships and creating value for customers (posts on this topic coming soon!). Measuring the impact of smarter sellers and deeper customer relationships is hard in the short term, but that's where the real value is. 10x over 10%, even if it takes a bit to prove out. To demonstrate our value, we've made Endgame incredibly easy to set up and risk-free to test. Getting hands on product and seeing what AI can do is absolutely critical. Our philosophy? Show, don't tell. We'd also love to hear from you to better understand what's working. What are AI vendors doing that’s making a real impact?

Great sales reps know they have to sell to people, not accounts. However, it takes a lot of work to translate company-level pain points and initiatives into value props you can communicate to individual stakeholders at the companies you’re trying to serve. Check out our post (link in comments) on how to think through this problem, starting with an earnings call analysis and ending with persona-specific messaging, and how much AI can help accelerate your process!

Earnings calls contain a wealth of information that sellers can use to understand public companies in their book of business. It’s pretty remarkable how much insight CEOs, CFOs, and other public company executives provide to analysts each quarter that great reps can use to deeply understand what their customers care about and how they can help. However, they are a pain to review — watching the video is super time consuming; picking through long transcripts can take just as long. Happily, ChatGPT makes this way easier. Check out a post where we use Zscaler as an example to show how ChatGPT can help you: * Glean insight into strategic initiatives * Suss out market and executive sentiment * Learn how the company is responding to market concerns Check it out in the comments, and let me know if you have any thoughts!