Technology has been changing the sales game at a rapidly increasing pace for decades. And now, new Artificial Intelligence (AI) content tools are threatening to upend it entirely.
The concept of AI is not new to the sales industry, but next generation tools like ChatGPT and its siblings and children are. These tools are capable of spitting out content that is often quite difficult to distinguish from human-generated content, and can do so almost instantaneously.
New AI content tools seem to emerge daily, filling new niches and improving the quality and precision of results. But how much will all of this actually change the complex B2B sales game? Here’s my take.
Complex B2B sales requires a greater level of professionalism and human touch than high volume sales. The speed and efficiency of AI generated content can be useful in some applications, but the results are often generic and bland, making it a poor choice for many uses in complex B2B sales. However, that doesn’t mean the industry won’t be impacted.
Change is coming, but some things will never change, not even with AI.
Many major sales technologies are already incorporating AI content tools into their packages. Some of these tools may be useful, if they’re aligned with your strategy and process. But they also have the potential to lead you down a path to multiply your problems instead of solving them.
Here’s how to use AI-generated content effectively on your sales team.
I saw a tool advertised for attorneys that claims it can draft legal documents. My first thought was that it was a terrible idea, given the number of errors I’d seen in my “research.”. But then I saw an attorney talking about how they used it to generate outlines and bulk content, which they then reviewed with their own expert eye to edit into a useful condition.
Using AI - be careful so you don’t end up sounding like everyone else.
We do something similar in our marketing department at Membrain, where we use AI to generate summaries of podcasts and other content, and then our internal experts review the summary to ensure it’s accurate and reflects our voice and messaging. Likewise, salespeople can use AI-generated content to help them craft communications, as long as they are also bringing the expertise to ensure the resulting content is accurate and aligned with our messaging.
It’s easy to remember data and not remember where you found it. Or to want research to back up a point. Finding these sources can be laborious and time-consuming for a human. But AI doesn’t mind, and can do it almost instantaneously.
We’ve used AI generation tools to perform research on companies we want to pursue, as well as important topics we want to write about. We then review the sources cited to ensure they’re valid and reflect the type of data and information we can trust and want to expand on.
Once again, in order to be effective, this use must be backed up by human expertise, to avoid proliferating bad information and poor resources.
Finally, it’s important to ensure that the AI you’re using has been trained on a relevant data set. The quality of AI content will always depend on the quality of the data and content it has trained on.
If your AI was trained on a mass of random information, such as the entire Internet, it will bring all of the biases, misinformation, and other issues it finds into the content it produces for you. Developing AI tools that are trained specifically on relevant data sets is going to substantially improve its ability to assist, and I expect to see more niche AI offerings emerge along these lines.
In the meantime, be aware and wary of the data that your AI is mining from, and ensure that you are always double checking its work with an expert eye.
I’m curious whether your teams are using any AI tools for content generation? How are you using them and how is it going?
George is the founder & CEO of Membrain, the Sales Enablement CRM that makes it easy to execute your sales strategy. A life-long entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in the software space and a passion for sales and marketing. With the life motto "Don't settle for mainstream", he is always looking for new ways to achieve improved business results using innovative software, skills, and processes. George is also the author of the book Stop Killing Deals and the host of the Stop Killing Deals webinar and podcast series.
Find out more about George Brontén on LinkedIn
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