4 Ways Sales Managers Can Use AI to Support Account Executives
The advent of artificial intelligence is accelerating an already intense pace of change within the sales profession. Tasks that used to be done manually in a time consuming way can now be done automatically, at massive scale, and at minimal cost. This makes for profound changes in what can be done and what impacts prospective buyers, and leads to big changes in how sales managers can use AI to support and measure their teams.
1. More is Less, the Paradox of Hustle and AI
It used to be that sales reps with “hustle” were the best. They were persistent, and continually followed up with prospects until they were able to secure a meeting. However, the value of hustle was that it was difficult, and thus it was a sign of a great sales rep. Sales automation tools have automated the outreach now, and the onslaught of spammy outreach has alienated buyers everywhere.
The #HoldTheHustle movement formed as a response to this. Top sales teams are no longer pushing to increase their raw activity as they realize it is driving more buyers away than it is bringing buyers in.
Relationship intelligence systems, made possible by AI under the hood, are now able to track the growth and strength of the relationships that a sales team is developing. These are real relationships based on meetings and back-and-forth with buyers over time. The metrics can’t be gamed or the approaches automated, the only way to be better at building relationships is good old fashioned hard sales work.
2. Smarter Deal Desks
Armed with this new data on relationships, sales managers can use AI applications like Spiro.ai to better guide reps on deals and in their territories. In most complex sales environments, there is a pattern of what a buying committee looks like. The level and roles of the buyers involved in a successful deal often looks quite different than the “single-threaded” deals that sound promising but ultimately fail to close.
With AI and relationship intelligence to look at a deal and the relationships in support of it, sales managers can provide clear guidance to sales professionals on where to focus. Some deals might be missing a relationship with an executive leader, other might not have the support of finance, and some may have very little depth with any user buyers. Knowing how a given deal compares to the model of what a successful deal looks like provides sales leaders with highly actionable and effective guidance when reviewing deals with their teams.
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3. Cleaner Pipelines
Taking the same concept one level higher, AI allows sales leaders the opportunity to be much more strategic about their focus and much more accurate in their assessments of pipeline health. The combination of relationship intelligence to understand where trust has or has not been built, with artificial intelligence to map how each deal compares to ideal, allows a sales leader to quickly see the health of each deal in the pipeline
Being able to quickly see which deals are healthy and which are at risk, at any moment in the quarter, allows a sales leader to allocate effort against at-risk deals early in the quarter when there is still a chance to make a difference. Reps with a consistent pattern of missing certain relationships can be coached or trained accordingly. Scarce executive resources can be brought in to deals where they are most likely to have the largest impact.
As an added benefit to sales leadership, the ability to objectively look at deal health, and not rely exclusively on self-reporting by reps, allows a substantial amount more confidence in the forecast number committed to the executive team, which frees up leadership time for more critical activities such as coaching and guidance.
4. Sales Management and Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is here to stay, and is already making profound differences in the sales professions. Activities that were very manual are becoming automated, which frees up rep time, but also greatly devalues those activities in the eyes of the buyer. Data sets that were unavailable, such as the strength of each relationship, are now available, leading to new ways of understanding pipeline and allocating resources.
Sales leaders who embrace AI and change with it will see phenomenal success in the coming years. On the contrary, sales leaders who fail to embrace it will find their effectiveness plummet and their ability to deliver results greatly impacted.
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