C-Suite Sidekick

Grow Your Revenue Without Hiring More Salespeople, Leverage the Power of AI

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In this episode of C-Suite Sidekick, host Summer Poletti dives into how AI can help small and midsize businesses grow their revenue without expanding their sales teams. Sharing real-world experiences and insights, Summer explains how AI can make your current team more efficient, allowing them to focus on building relationships and closing deals rather than getting bogged down in repetitive tasks. Discover how AI can level the playing field, especially for financial services and SaaS companies, and why adopting AI now is crucial to staying competitive. If you’ve ever wondered how to scale without scaling headcount, this episode is for you! 

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Hello, and welcome back to the C-suite sidekick. I'm your host summer poli. Now are you looking at the end of this year? And you're also starting to look at 2025. You're thinking about growing revenue. Yeah. If you're like most business owners, I know, of course you are. Do any of those plans involved perhaps? Hiring more salespeople in order to. Drive more revenue. Most business owners. That's what we think of. I got to get more feet on the street. I got to get more folks dialing. I got to do more outbound. I'm going to take you back to. When I told the CEO. My boss at one of my old employers, but I wasn't going to do that. His plans were, we need to double the revenues. So you're going to double your team and I didn't do it. And boy, did I take a lot of flack that year? But we had a plan. We worked on making the current team more efficient with a number of different things that were available to us at the time. And we met the revenue goal. With the same size team instead of the double size team. And. I got to give the glory to my team light there. They really came through and the owner of the company started coming around to newer ways of doing things. And that was before Chiechi PT came onto the scene. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Growing your revenue without growing your expenses exponentially, sending everything to your bottom line. What if I told you that we could grow your revenue without growing your sales team? If you're like any other business owner that I say that to maybe your eyebrows raised a little bit. Yeah. We're going to get into that. So I talk a lot about AI and the reason why is it is the latest. Hugely transformative technology to come into the business world. And. I like it because it allows small businesses to compete. With larger businesses without having to have massive teams or huge software budgets, you can get a lot done. Believe me, I do it with. Small subscriptions to AI models and just a great customer and employee centric strategy. So before we get onto today's topic, here is a powerful stat from Gartner sellers who partner closely with AI are 3.7 times more likely to meet quota. And those who don't. And that is the opportunity at your finger tips. If the thought of. Adopting AI feels overwhelming too complex, or maybe even a little risky. I'm here to simplify it. AI is the newest way to help your sales team work smarter, not harder. And we can do things in a way that. Does not. Bring about more risk than I'll financial service or a SAS company should take on. I've worked in these industry for years. I know that we have to be careful. So let's talk first about why AI can level the playing field for small and midsize companies like yours. It's no secret that large organizations are already using AI to analyze data streamlined processes and automate repetitive tasks. Because it's got such a low barrier to entry. It allows you to adopt some of these processes without the huge spend. Imagine AI, helping your team, analyze customer data, track industry trends, plan sales, and follow up campaigns and generate insights for better decision-making. Your salespeople could be more efficient and focus a higher percentage of their time on building relationships, which ultimately is going to close more deals going back to Gartner. Their research indicates that B2B buyers. There's still value. A trustworthy and consultative sales person. And they're looking for someone who can give them insights to help them make better buying decisions. So if you are automating the mundane tasks that your sales folks do, and you're really focusing on the relationship building. And the insights that a highly consultative sales person brings to the table. That is going to be powerful and those folks can help you close more deals, and then you don't need a whole bunch of newbies dialing for dollars. So here's the secret to success with AI is finding the right balance between technology and human connection. There are a lot of types of softwares that we'll go into in another. Podcast, but I'll leave you right here with this. I got an AI powered. Video message from someone who I had never talked to before. It was the first message in a cold outreach. And it was one of those where it fakes your name. So somebody who I didn't know was in a video saying my own name. It was super creepy. And by the way I blocked him. Right. We're always going to look at. Ways that you can leverage the technology, but also to give your buyers the personalized type of experience they want. But without going so far, As to creep them out. Definitely not a good buyer journey right there. So what we're going to work on is AI not replacing your sellers and their efforts, but AI enhancing. Here's an example. I've worked with companies to develop AI powered, smart sales playbooks that allow them to operate efficiently, maybe even with a part-time sales leader while still growing their business. These playbooks, don't just automate tasks. They help the sales team craft smarter strategies. And with that machine learning. You're uploading things that have worked and have been successful and over time it gets better and better at helping you out. Kind of like a sales leader would working with a team. So we didn't Hanses that sales leadership. With AI, analyzing customer data and trends, you can create valuable insights that make strategic business reviews more meaningful. For example, it's kind of like arming each seller with a personal assistant. This way, your team is focusing on what they do. Best building, consultative, relationship driven sales processes. And without getting bogged down in the repetitive tasks, AI can handle those. And I mean, let's be honest. Those are the ones that you're highly relationship motivated. Sellers probably don't enjoy doing and don't do very well anyway. So let's just let a robot take care of those. Now, why is it important, especially for financial services and SAS? These industries are already being transformed by AI, whether it's in your face or whether it's behind the scenes. And companies that failed to adopt these strategies this year or at risk of being left behind. And SAS, for instance. AI is already disrupting traditional pricing models. If you think about the pricing model, but as a per user pricing model with a lot of companies talking about scaling back their users, as they automate more, that means less revenue for a SAS company. So those folks are having to completely rethink their pricing strategies. AI is also getting really good at coding. So there are some companies who are thinking about, instead of paying the hefty price tag for a SAS software that they'll use an AI model to craft something. For themselves. That is totally custom. Is it going to be as good or as robust? No, but the temptation is there. And the agile. SAS company that is thinking ahead and leveraging the new technology instead of fighting against it or ignoring it. Those are the folks who are going to win. And in financial services. Adopting AI enabled sales strategies is equally crucial with the shift to digital first customer experiences. Buyers are demanding quicker responses and more personalized engagement buyers. Don't want. Generic sounding emails. They want something that references. Previous conversations that have been had, you don't want to seem out of touch right now and AI can help you deliver that. The companies that wait for AI adoption to fully prove itself. Risk losing market share to more nimble competitors who are already using these tools to enhance outbound sales and customer experiences. We will get into things that you can do to mitigate your risk. Using an AI model. I am very sensitive to the risks that. financial services have to be wary of. The good news is that getting started with AI is much easier than you might think. We're going to keep this super simple. If you're not already doing it. Let's start small and we're going to start with chat GPT. It is easy to use. It's free and it can give you a couple of quick little wins. So here's a practical example. Let's say you're stuck writing a follow-up email to a prospect. You can turn on chat GBT, describe the situation and ask it for five different ways to close the email. We want to get five, because of course it is a robot and sometimes it gives you responses that are super cheesy. But what it does is it'll give you one that's good or maybe two that have bits and pieces. It gets you unstuck. So instead of staring at your screen for a long period of time, Finish up that email. Get done. Move on to the next task. A quick fix like that to use AI, to brainstorm or get you unstuck. Makes it an invaluable partner in your daily sales activities, these little moments of time-saving they add up over time, and this is an easy way for you to start getting familiar with how you can use. An AI model in your work, you don't have to know everything about AI to start seeing results. And you definitely don't have to be a techie person. How I describe myself is I'm fairly tech savvy for a sales pro. I'll just put it at that. Some quick do's and don'ts when using AI in your sales process. Do start with chat GBT. It's ubiquitous. Everybody knows about it. It's free, it's accessible. And believe me, it is easy to use for things like writing, brainstorming and analyzing data. Don't let AI, right? All of your content. Use it as a brainstorming tool, but always add your own voice to maintain authenticity. Again, It's a robot. So it writes kind of robotically. Do upgrade to the paid version when, and if you're ready for more advanced features. I use the paid version. That's how I am constructing. Smart sales playbooks. With the paid version, you can also upload attachments so that you're not copying and pasting so much. When you're using it multiple times a day, it starts to become, worth having access to the latest and greatest features. And some of those other time-saving techniques as well. It's$20. I definitely get my$20 worth out of it. And don't overwhelm you or your team with too much tech. Sometimes when you see the transformative. Capabilities of an AI model. You want to go AI everywhere. Start with three to five use cases in sales and build from there. A couple of. Intentional goals that you want to accomplish by leveraging some AI. I work on those, prove them out and then move on to something else. That way you're not taking on so much that it's confusing. That it's scary, that things get dropped along the way. And finally I saved the most important for last. Implement AI with empathy for your team. There's a lot of uncertainty around AI. Some people are concerned that AI will replace their job. And if your sales team feels threatened, they will actively resist it. Be clear that AI is here to help not replace them. And my work, I always approach AI adoption with empathy, making sure that both the needs of the buyers and the team are at the center of the strategy. AI should improve the experience for everyone, not just to streamline the processes. That's why it is important to ask. Should we just as much as can we, when it comes to adopting new technology, More on that later. Let's wrap it up. AI is a powerful tool for increasing sales efficiency without the need to expand your team. So if you're not using it yet, It's time to hop on this bandwagon, whether it's helping with messaging, coaching, or streamlining repetitive tasks, AI allows your team to focus on what matters most building relationships and closing deals. If you're ready to adopt AI in your sales processes, but you don't know where to start. I am here to help. Reach out to me on LinkedIn or visit the rise of us.com to schedule a conversation. Let's talk about how we can implement AI in a thoughtful, strategic way that sets your business up for success in 2024 and beyond. If this episode gave you any ideas to improve your sales processes, I would appreciate a review. If you're already been there, done that, please consider sharing it with your network. Not everyone is as far along in their AI journey. Don't forget to subscribe to C-suite sidekick. Let's stay connected and keep exploring the ways that AI can revolutionize your business.

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Summer Poletti

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