What is AI? A New Buyer’s Journey Introduction

For the buyer of sales technology, you can sometimes be overwhelmed by the term, Artificial Intelligence. Like any buzzword, it’s attached to all the latest platforms and products trying to entice buyers, into purchasing a new Sales Technology. The reality, however, is that there is just as much hype as there is confusion around exactly what Artificial Intelligence is. For those who purchased a few solutions, I’m sure you have largely ignored any sales person who touts an A.I. option, possibly placing it in a category where all the other buzzwords go. But it seems this time, maybe this isn’t a buzzword, and maybe we should be paying attention. From someone who’s been around the block and back in salestech, maybe it’s time to give A.I. a chance. Not one to keep you in the dark, I’ve made it my personal mission to educate buyers as much as I could about A.I., because like most people, (and you shouldn’t be afraid to admit it) you may know little about it and how it can help an organization. So, from a buyer’s perspective, we set out to learn more. Here’s what we concluded so far:

Artificial Intelligence isn’t one thing, its many different things.

The term Artificial Intelligence can be viewed as somewhat of an umbrella or blanket term, encompassing multiple aspects or facets of A.I. itself. There’s a variety of differences, and types, like Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Deep Learning, etc. You may not know the differences associated with each term, you might just be beginning to wrap my head around each, but they all can be, in some form, simplified (for the sake of this article) to a computer mimicking or doing tasks normally completed by a human.

It can be simple – For a lot of buyers, one of my primary drivers of tech purchases has always been to maximize production by offloading or automating repetitive but necessary tasks. Now, the debate of whether automation is A.I. may not agree, but at a simplistic level, this can be viewed as a form of artificial intelligence, and it is key. There’s a good chance any operations professional can list 5 processes or tasks that could be automated. Some tools can easily be bolted on to make simple decisions based on limited criteria or factors, or shuffle cases or accounts from one status to the next based on a trigger. Either way, removing these repetitive tasks can add some time back to your associate’s day and aid in preventing human error.

It may not seem all that impressive, but small task automation is a necessary improvement for any business of any size. Small menial tasks appear to take little time and make no impact, but they add up quickly. A task may take a few minutes to complete, but the time between the tasks, or any ancillary work around the task also adds to the total time. Now something that takes moments, can take 10-15 minutes. Add on a minute or two for distractions, and suddenly you have a very real idea of how limited your productivity could be. For a sales organization this is extremely important, because anytime dedicated to non-revenue generating efforts can be wasteful. Now imagine if you had all that time back. What could you get done? What would the increase in productivity or production be? Therefore simple A.I. is key. It allows you more time to do other, more impactful things. For anyone new to sales technology and A.I., I would suggest looking to start here.

It can be complex - But let’s say you have automation, maybe you have a pretty well-oiled machine for an operation and a sales floor. Excellent! A.I. offers the ability to take your organization even further. How about a platform that serves up sales content based on details around an opportunity, making it more likely to close? Or a platform that tells you how many times to call a lead before moving on? Or even what leads to call? At this stage in your operation you are probably looking to grow faster or produce more, and this is where A.I. can help. This is where you can truly leverage technology to scale your business!

In the early days of sales tech, A.I. played a large role in, amongst other things, predictive analytics. Making determinations on prospects most likely to convert, scoring leads for prioritization, etc. These days, depending on your organization's complexity, there are plugins or A.I. based solutions that can serve up content or playbook materials based on deal progress, ensuring top of mind presence of your customers, track prospect engagement with content, and alerting you to it, and flagging these as “buying signals”. There’s A.I. backed platforms for communicating and scheduling meetings and demos with prospects and even understanding their personalities to help facilitate positive interactions.

Regardless of the level of complexity, the point is there appearing to be solutions across the board for whatever your business need is. When looking into A.I. solutions, careful attention should be made to uncovering the actual business need itself. Too often I’ve heard the buying or sourcing process for sales tech starts with a challenge in mind, only to come to realize the true issue or problem in the discovery process. In my experience with those who are buying tech, it’s important you clearly understand the impacts and what the business need is. Which brings me to another key conclusion: Continue Reading...........