Quilt

The CRM is dead, and LLMs killed it. Or, slightly less provocatively, LLMs have 10xed the potential of interacting with customer data. My friend Zach Lawryk and I spoke to dozens of founders, GTM leaders, and VCs over the past several months. Our conclusion is that, in 12 months, your relationship with customer data will change. In 24 months, it will be virtually unrecognizable compared to the SFDC reporting + activity tracking of today. Read the blog post to learn why and how ?? And some quick highlights: ?? The CRM is the single most important piece of software for the GTM organization. But it doesn't provide a true customer 360, and no one loves it. ?? With LLMs, you can now reliably query unstructured data similar to your structured data. CRMs are the source of truth of structured customer data. But there is 10x more unstructured data waiting to be tapped. ?? In the future, a single aggregation and reporting layer will emerge over all of the structured and unstructured data in the organization, the CRM being one of these data sources. ?? Manual data entry will be a thing of the past, and GTM teams will have on-demand visibility and insights that is currently impossible. You will have a true customer 360. #CRM #LLM #AI #Sales

New feature announcement??? We’re adding Linear to our list of supported integrations! As a technical team, now it’s easier than ever to bring in issues, projects, and product roadmaps from Linear into the Quilt knowledge lake and use them in chats, questionnaires, and beyond. Check it out in Quilt today!

I’ve had conversations with a few well-respected SE leaders recently. A common theme was a mandate to show operational efficiency with generative AI. This is not new news: 2024 was rife with AI experiments chasing productivity gains. What’s different now? Over the past two years, generative models have matured from experimental to production-ready. Companies are starting to see real ROI investing in AI tools — SEs included. When James Kaikis and I wrote about this a year ago (linked in comments), we didn’t anticipate how much better models would get, and how quickly. The space of useful work to be automated is rapidly expanding. For instance, if you’re not currently automating your RFPs and security questionnaires, you are missing a huge easy productivity win! AI is allowing us to move up the value curve of “useful automation” — from RFPs, Q&A, and CRM updates to meeting prep, account research, and real-time assistance. With Computer Use, AI could be coming for demos as well (though still early)! How are you using generative AI to help your team be more productive? Comment below ??

Happy Tuesday! At long last, we've added Salesforce to our list of supported integrations. Hate it or love it, Salesforce is THE system of record for revenue teams. It contains a wealth of structured knowledge that is invaluable in making informed revenue decisions. It is missing piece in our knowledge assistants having a full customer 360. Ready to see it in action? Reach out or request a demo today!

How much time can you actually save by using AI to automate your RFPs? Let’s do some simple math. Last month, some of our customers asked around 5,000 questions each using our platform. On average, each question would have taken a solutions engineer 3 minutes to search around and answer. That is 250 hours saved in a month, or almost 1/8th of a full time SE. At $200k fully loaded, that’s almost $300k/yr of savings! ?? Best of all, more time saved means more time spent with customers and more deals closed. Are you as obsessed as we are about giving time back? Reach out to try out Quilt today!

LLMs have come a long way. When we started Quilt, the number one objection we got was model hallucinations. Business users were hesitant to use LLMs for mission critical applications, and memes about LLM hallucinations were all over the internet. Now, fast forward 2 years later, RAG is a mature methodology, and we have significantly better abilities to adapt models for our specific use cases. At Quilt, when we respond to questions, our accuracy is near 100%. The caveat being - the answers are only as good as the data sources. We have gotten to the point where the only knowledge Quilt lacks is the knowledge stuck in people’s heads. Try it out using our Slack bot or Questionnaire Assistant today!

LLMs have become a game changer in RFP automation, yet we found that a number of teams are still filling out RFPs manually. Here are some common misconceptions and the truths about AI RFP automation: 1?? ? Misconception: AI will hallucinate and make up content in your proposals ? Truth: We have very mature RAG technology that only answers based on information in your database, and tools like Quilt even have direct links to references for you to double check 2?? ? Misconception: AI is not able to capture the tones and professional styles needed for RFP submissions ? Truth: You can customize style and verbosity in AI-generated answers 3?? ? Misconception: It takes just as much time to review AI-generated answers as it does to write them yourself. ? Truth: Our AI answers 100+ questions within 1 minute, and shows you confidence scores on the answers to prioritize which answers to spend time on What are other misconceptions you have seen? If you are still manually filling out RFPs, it’s time for a change. Reach out to learn more about what Quilt can do for you to automate RFPs ??

It was great hosting some of the best solutions and GTM leaders in SF together with Kintan, Max Elster and Sachin last week! Since we first started Quilt, we have been fortunate to have the support of the tight-knit SE community and it’s always great to have the opportunity to bring folks together. Follow us for more events like this!

Standing out in this market can be super hard. Here are 7 things I’d do if I was hunting for a pre-sales role right now: 1 - If you don’t already have a website, I would sign up for a Webflow account. You need a digital “front door” in today’s super interconnected world. I would do a simple homepage, outline a little about my background, and some key areas where I have strengths. The second page I would include previous projects I've worked on and sample scenarios specific to pre-sales activities. This allows potential employers to see my thought process. Let’s call this the “projects” page (more on this page later). 2 - Grab a free Loom account (my favorite tool for making screencasts). They have some pretty good analytics too. In the context of hunting for a job, I would make a few Loom screencasts showcasing my best technical and business skills. 3 - Sign up for a trial of Quilt. One of the most painful aspects of pre-sales is having to document technical knowledge and response to RFPs. I would work through some examples of how I tackle knowledge documentation for a set of given topics and then ultimately query that information to prepare for a (sample) RFP. Capture a nice Loom video and add it to your projects page. 4 - Submit for access to Demoboost (Link: https://lnkd.in/eHUnzw45)! In an awesome move to help pre-sales professionals land their next role, you can get free access if you are currently open to work. I would build out some sample demos of solutions that I know well showcasing my demo skills and ability to articulate value. The best part here is that you can also embed these on your project page directly. 5 - ChatGPT is another easy win. Pick a F500 company, an executive, and showcase how you’d do account research prior to the meeting. This is probably one of the most underrated skills in pre-sales but it’s so critical to building a strong relationship and deeply understanding your buyer. Record in Loom and add to the project page. 6 - Sign up for a free trial of Opine. We seriously spend so much freaking time in POC/POV land it’s almost painful. Once you have your account, setup a playbook for a sample POC, walk through how you’d structure the experience for the buyer (again showcase your thinking), record in Loom, and add to your project page. Boom! 7 - Last but not least, let’s not forget about LinkedIn. This one might seem obvious but I’ve seen way too many people in the market that haven’t updated their LinkedIn profile in years (sadly). This is one of the first places recruiters and HR teams will look these days so it should not only be up-to-date, but you should add your projects page and your favorite Loom in your featured section so they stand out. #sales #presales #cybersecurity #careers #hiring

?? New feature release??? Excited to share that now you can ask follow-up questions to Quilt Knowledge Assistant, in both Slack and Web. Asking clarifying questions and referencing context in prior answers are easier than ever. Give it a try by chatting with Quilt today!