Everyday AI Podcast – An AI and ChatGPT Podcast - EP 60: Making More Sales with AI

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

How can you use AI to make more sales? Sunehra Malhotra, an Enterprise Account Executive at Brevo joins us to answer that exact question. We're breaking down the benefits of incorporating AI into sales strategies and how AI can help boost sales performance.Newsletter: Sign-up for our free daily newsletterMore on this: Episode PageMore on this topic in today’s newsletter Join the discussion: Ask Sunehra and Jordan questions about AI in salesUpcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: [e-mail] Connect with Jordan on LinkedIn Time Stamps:[00:00:17] Daily AI news[00:03:30] Intro to guest Sunehra Malhotra and Brevo[00:04:50] How does Brevo use AI without AI policies?[00:07:13] Brevo's AI email marketing features[00:09:38] Using AI in Sales[00:11:20] Example of using AI in sales properly [00:16:24] Using AI for automating sales sequences[00:18:00] Bringing human connection to AI use[00:21:12] AI is a tool to enhance salesTopics Covered in This Episode:- Addressing concerns about AI potentially replacing sales roles- Encouragement for salespeople to evaluate how AI can benefit them- Discussion on the potential advantages of AI based on understanding its capabilities- Welcoming viewers to the live broadcast and inviting questions in the comments- Mention of Brevo as a larger company generating significant revenue- Lack of AI policies in companies and how Bravo uses AI tools to enhance performance metrics- Utilization of AI to research target accounts and assist with email sequences- Emphasis on the importance of customized and personalized emails to stand out- AI's role in reducing time spent on researching software usage- Desire to automate sequences for targeting accounts and input target criteria for AI to provide a list- Importance of personalizing approach and mentioning personal experiences in emails to specific companies- Acknowledgment that AI will never fully replace salespeople but can make them more efficient and productive- Potential applications of AI in various aspects of sales and personal/professional spheres- Emphasis on the importance of research and competitive analysis when using generative AIKeywords:AI, ChatGPT, automation, tasks, concerns, roles, sales, department, company, fear, benefits, advantages, understanding, live broadcast, questions, comments, Bravo, revenue, AI policies, performance metrics, Send Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info) Start Here ▶️Not sure where to start when it comes to AI? Start with our Start Here Series. You can listen to the first drop -- Episode 691 -- or get free access to our Inner Cricle community and all episodes: StartHereSeries.com Also, here's a link to the entire series on a Spotify playlist. 

This is the Everyday AI Show, the Everyday Podcast where we simplify AI and bring its power to your fingertips. Listen daily for practical advice to boost your career, business, and everyday life. Meet Firefly AI Assistant, now live in Adobe Firefly, the All In One Creative AI Studio. Just describe what you want to create and the assistant handles the rest, orchestrating multi-step workflows across Photoshop, Premiere Express, and more in one conversational interface. You direct the outcome. The assistant accelerates execution. How can you use AI to make more sales?

Well, here's the ending. We're going to skip to the ending. You can, and it does help. All right, my name's Jordan. I am the host of Everyday AI. This is your daily live stream podcast, free newsletter. What else do we have? We have a little of everything just to help everyday people like you and me

keep up with what's going on in the world of AI. And not just that, but how we can actually use it. So we are going to talk AI in sales today. But before we do, let's talk about news. Let's talk about what's happening in the world of AI news. So make sure, again, to go to your everyday AI.com. We send this out in our free daily newsletter, but let's take a high level look. So there's a new report today from Reuters looking at just the Silicon Valley race for

autonomous AI agents and looking at if this is going to be the next big thing. So what is an AI agent? Well, think of it like this. You're chatting to chat GPT or you're talking with Bard. What happens if it was an AI agent doing that or a series of AI agents? So that's kind of what these autonomous AI agents and kind of what the next big race in Silicon Valley is. It's to have kind of smart, smart AIs talking and working with other smart AIs. All right. So another big story that came out less than 24 hours ago, Wix, the CMS platform. So maybe you've heard of WordPress or Shopify or Squarespace.

So Wix kind of in that same sphere. So they just announced new AI building websites with just text. So there's been plenty of platforms that have offered this, but not really any of the big names. So Wix is kind of the biggest name so far in the content management system games to come out and just say, all right, you don't need our whole platform. You just need this text to speech and it's going to get you going. So more on that in the newsletter. Third story, not last but definitely not least. So we're going to be talking about this a lot because even though it is 2023, we are here in the U.S. at least, we are ramping up for the election cycle. So a new ad from the Ron DeSantis Pack

actually went against his Republican opponent. So the DeSantis Pack using an AI Donald Trump voice to kind of make the former president saying things that he wasn't saying. So it's not the first time. It's not the last time. But this is one of the first cases where it's kind of in-party using AI against each other. So if you haven't seen these ads yet, don't worry, we are going to be hit with so many deep fake AI ads. So that's a whole other thing to unwrap. But let's instead, let's talk sales.

You know, that's talking AI and deepfakes in politics seems too much right now for 730 AM Central Standard Time. So let's bring on our guests of the day, very excited to talk sales. So with that, we have Sonara Melhotra from Bravo. Thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk a little bit more about sales and AI and what I've been doing with it. So excited to be here. Let's go.

I'm super excited as well. So I know Brevo, but maybe people know Brevo's former, the former name, Sendin Blue. So quickly just tell us a little bit, you know, what Brevo is. is what Brevo does. Yeah, so we were formerly sent in blue. We did rebrand a couple months ago. We are an all-in-one marketing platform. So everything from emails, SMS, web push notifications,

forms, landing pages, all under one roof. So if you're looking to send emails to your contact list, if you have an e-commerce shop, if you have a newsletter going out just like you do, you could use Brevo to send that out. And we have a great platform, really, really intuitive, great design, and easy to use. So we are an all-in-one marketing software.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, have it up on the screen here if you're joining this live. And thank you for those that are. A couple comments coming in. Brian saying, good morning. Bronwyn saying, good afternoon. Joining us from South Africa in Rastafas. So thanks for joining us.

So if you have any questions, whether about the Bravo email platform or just how they're using AI, please feel free to drop it here in the comments. So what's kind of interesting, and we kind of talked a little bit pre-show about this is, you know, seems like no companies really have policies. You know, so Bravo is a little bit of a bigger company. I think I looked it up, you know, doing eight figures, eight figures in revenue, right? So how does that work, you know, when a company doesn't have like that AI policy?

It's just, you know, you're using the tools at your disposal to get your job. done to the best of your abilities. But how does that really work? It's just like, all right, well, I'm going to, you know, I know AI can do this. So I'm going to use it to, you know, improve, improve this metric. I think it's, you know, as an individual contributor to a larger team, ultimately, it's really based on your judgment. You're going to judge whether this is the right thing.

You know the difference between right and wrong. So all of us are, you know, just doing what we think is right. If we do something that is, or if we write something that isn't, you know, basically by company policy or guidelines in terms of our marketing strategy, all of that, obviously we're not going to write something that doesn't fit with that strategy. But we don't have a policy just yet. I know that a lot of companies don't. I have a lot of friends who work in different tech companies as well. And they don't have policies just yet. I think management at all levels and all companies is trying to figure out what a policy should include, what really going to do and how also to leave a little bit of creativity up to the individual contributors at the end of the day. You know, you can't have this helicopter figure over you. And AI is helping us. And as a platform, we're incorporating AI into our product itself. So I think that our company is a lot more flexible with that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And it is tough. It is tough, you know, to have, you know,

that first piece of, you know, company, you know, rules, you know, where we say, here's how we're going to use AI, especially when you're offering, you know, AI to your clients. But I will, I will put in a short, or a short plug here. So if people are listening and you're wondering, how do I even start, you know, an AI policy, you know, episode 56, which I'll, I'll throw on the comments here. We did kind of go over that. I think it's extremely helpful with, with John there. So let's, let's switch back because, you know, one thing that you mentioned there is you are offering AI to your clients now. So this is, I think you said brand new, right? Kind of kind of a little breaking news. Tell us about what Bravo is doing with AI for its clients.

Yeah, absolutely. So I just got news this morning that this feature has been released 100% to all Bravo users and of course new users who do sign up. So essentially, this is our first large integration with AI. And what it does is you can incorporate AI into creating your subject lines. So AI is a huge part of marketing. Marketers all over the world are using it every day to increase conversion rates, increase opening rates, all of that.

With an AI-based subject line, you can gain a little bit more inspiration rather than keeping the same monotonous subject line that you're getting in your inbox all the time. We get a ton of marketing emails anyways, so why not kind of differentiate it a little bit and try out the AI in there as well. Yeah, absolutely. So it is interesting because if you're listening, you might think like, oh, why something so small as an email subject.

But as someone that's been doing email marketing for like 15 years, the email subject is so, so important. And it matters, right? It really does. And ultimately, your subject line and your preview text are so important to grab your contacts attention and really get them to open the email. At the end of the day, you're sending emails. You want them to be opened.

You want your contacts or your clients to open the email and then read through the email, possibly there might be a link in there somewhere where you want them to click that. Perhaps you're trying to, you know, sell a product, sell a service, whatever it might be. Your end goal is to get people to convert from either a free user or to a paid user. So at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. And yeah, subject line is like the initial starting point. Of course, there's a lot more that goes into it, but that's like the first thing that your contact's going to see. Yeah.

So it's actually so important. And we spend a ridiculous amount of time looking at subject lines, even for our daily newsletter. So, yeah, very, very cool feature that Brevo is launching here. So, you know, you mentioned something about like opening emails, but that's even in your role in enterprise sales. That's something that you're even fighting with as well and using a little bit of AI. So talk about even just how you're using AI to help in your role. Yeah, absolutely. So obviously, being in sales, it's a lot more than just meeting with clients and showing them the platform. You want to be speaking to new people. You want to be speaking with people in all different verticals and industries. So a big part of that is cold sales. Unfortunately, no one has the privilege of just having fully inbound sales, although that would be the best case scenario. But when it comes to cold sales, you really need to be sending, you know, cold emails and getting the reader's attention or getting your, you know, target accounts attention. So a big part of that is your sequence. Number one, what is your cadence

going to look like? Are you sending five emails on day one? Or are you sending 10 emails over the span of a month? So I've been using AI to help me with number one researching target accounts. So what is my target? I'll give it a little bit of criteria there. Annual revenue, size of the company, what kind do they brick and mortar stores or the e-commerce, whatever it might be there. And then, of course, going into where they're located. I like to do. focus on specific territories initially and then expand from there. But that's that's kind of the two-step approach, target accounts and then helping me with my sequences, building customized, personalized emails is so important. Your target accounts and your prospects are getting hundreds of emails a

day from sales reps like myself. So I want to differentiate myself a little bit and I don't want to just be the same email that they're getting already. Yeah, you bring up a great point because especially if you are a decision maker at a company who might be making a decision on something as big as an email marketing platform for a large, you know, a large operation. They're probably getting a lot of emails, right? So what's one way that you've, you know, you've talked about how you're kind of, you know, using AI to help you, you know, analyze and, you know, do some research and to best set up your sequences, what's, what's maybe an impact or a result that maybe you've seen so far?

You know, whether it's, you know, hey, it used to take this process, used to take eight hours, now it's taking two, or I used to send two, you know, be able to create two sequences a day, now I can create eight, you know, maybe what's one result that you've seen from, from properly using AI technology? Yeah. And again, I'm no expert in this. I've just been playing around with it in my free time and trying to make myself more. efficient, but I have seen a large, I think the biggest difference in my whole process and my

day-to-day has been my target accounts, getting those set up. And that takes a lot of time. It's a lot of work in researching the companies, researching their financials, taking a look at what software is they're currently using. That is really time-consuming. So with AI, I've been able to kind of make that a little bit more efficient. AI is not at a point just yet where it can tell me every single software that a company is using in their tech stack.

hopefully one day they will be there because then my job would be way easier. But it has really helped in cutting that time down for the target accounts. Yeah, absolutely. So I want to get back to that. But we do have a couple of questions coming from the live audience. Again, if you're listening on the podcast and you want to join us, we do this every single weekday morning, 7.30 a.m. Central Standard. So Brian asking, is Bravo a CRM?

Yes. So we are a full suite CRM. So we do have a sales management pipeline tool as well as a contact management tool all under one roof. So yes, full CRM. Awesome. All right. Mark saying good morning. Thanks for joining us, Mark.

Nancy asking Brevo Academy, what's that about? What is the Brevo Academy? Great question. So Brevo Academy is basically where you can go and get certifications and learn about the tool itself. So if you are a one person team and you're going to be doing everything yourself, this is a great way to get, you know, situated with the product, what you can do, functionality, features, and I learn a lot about the ins and outs. So as part of my onboarding when I first joined the

company, I did the whole Brevo Academy and it taught me everything I needed to know about the platform. Love it. The great thing, I haven't even taken Brevos, but even if you're not a client or a customer, you know, on board, go through it because you can learn so much just great tips about email marketing from expert companies, obviously. Another great question here, and this goes to just a lot of AI tools in general. It's always hard. So obviously they just released this this morning. But do you know yet, is it fully integrated into Breville or does it require an API key?

So the subject line AI assistant is what it's being called right now. It is fully integrated. So you do not require an API key at this time. Yeah, awesome. That's good to know. Yeah, you never know until you sign up. And then it's like, oh, I have to, you know, get an API key. And for some people that aren't very technical, it seems like a big jump.

It's not terribly difficult, but great question. So I do want to go back with the whole research and competitive analysis piece because I think that when people think about using generative AI, even if it's just chat GPT or Google Bard, you know, I think people just think of creating content and they think of writing, like automatically. So with your use case, I think it's great. Because we spend so much time having to manually research things and to analyze, yeah, different products, you know, potential, you know, customers and clients. What's that process been like for you now?

Because I'm sure there was a point where you were doing it all manually. What's that process like for you now that you have, you know, chat GPT to do all these things with you and kind of for you? What's that process? How's it different? Adobe just introduced an entirely new way to create, bringing the power. and precision of its creative suite into one conversational experience. Meet Firefly AI Assistant, now live in the Adobe Firefly app, the All In One Creative AI Studio.

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Every step the assistant takes is visible so you can refine, redirect, or take over at any time. You stay in the driver's seat as the creative director. Adobe Firefly AI assistant now in public beta. See it today at firefly.adobie.com. I think it is a lot easier. I mean, sorry, I'll take that back. It is different to a certain extent.

Obviously, I'm a firm believer in that AI is not the expert just yet. I find myself having to double check, triple check, reprompt a ton. And again, I really want to get better at prompting AI tools. But it's become easier, but still it's not at a point where I can just set it and forget it. So we're still pretty early into the whole AI scheme of things worldwide. But it's become a little bit more efficient, though we're not at a stage where I think that, you know, AI can do my job. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point. And that's even a great reminder of like who this show is for. You know, no one, no one on here is an AI expert. We're all trying to learn it, you know, as it comes out, as it develops, as it gets better. So that's, that's a great point. No one is an expert.

We're all trying to learn and to make it work the best we can for us. What's kind of your, you know, because the job of a salesperson is not easy. You know, you are sometimes doing marketing. You're technically doing, you know, customer service, customer experience as well. What's a way that either you personally or maybe, you know, your sales team is starting to look to either continue to use AI or maybe something in the future. That's a great question. I can't speak for the rest of my team.

I think this hasn't been discussed on a larger level just yet. But for me personally, I definitely want to be able to get to a point where my sequences are like fully automated. Of course, there's a lot of different components that go into that, but I do want to be able to put in my target criteria, not have to triple check that list. AI is going to tell me exactly which 50 accounts I need to go after.

what software is they're using, and then I can just set it and forget it. So that's the ultimate goal, but at the same time, like I do find that researching myself makes me a little bit closer to the accounts that I'm targeting, so I'm able to personalize it myself. So if I've used a product before, let's say it's, you know, if I'm going after Zara, for example, Zara does send a lot of emails. And I've, you know, I've purchased from them before. I was in the store the other day, shopping, whatever it might be.

I can put in those personal experiences into my emails where AI most often cannot do that, at least with my tone of voice, all of that. So, yeah, it's a lot to think about. Yeah. I love that. And we've actually had a few guests on the show so far share about how their experience, and sometimes even their first experiences working with AI, they had maybe an expectation that it was going to take kind of the human out of it.

But you just had a great example there of how you can use AI or chat GPT to actually bring more of the human experience and more of your own personal story and personal emotion into the fold. The more that you're able to do that or just the more that people are able to do that, I think that there's a lot of great applications for AI. But how has that really benefited you so far to be able to actually actually. bring in more, you know, human, human touch, more human emotion into using AI. How has that benefited you so far? Well, I guess it's always been the norm, right, is having that human connection, that human tone of voice, whatever it might be. Personally, a big part of why I was so hesitant to get into the whole AI sphere was because

I was worried about, you know, what are the ramifications of using AI? Like, is AI going to take my job one day? something that all of us I think in this generation are worried about, especially coming out of college, you're thinking a lot about what am I going to do, what do I want my goal in life to be? At the end of the day, I think that it's tough to say how my experience has been just because I haven't had a lot of experience with it. I will say that AI's, I find myself double and triple checking a lot of what AI is

telling me or prompting me back, I guess. So it's not been the best experience, but we're still so early on. You know, chat GPT came out in November 2022. We're like not even a year into it. That was like the first big tool that gained a lot of public attention. Since then, a lot has happened. But we're still not at the point yet where I'm like, yeah, I can personalize everything. It can have my tone of voice.

It knows who I am as a person. It can write as if it's me. So at that point, I think I'll be a little bit more scared. But right now I think we're okay. Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, something that you mentioned there probably resonates with a lot of people, you know, listening or watching with us right now. There is that point where you see a potential application for AI or for chat GPT in your role. And you have to think, like, should I jump on board with this?

Or is maybe that bad? Is maybe this going to introduce something into my department, into my company where we find out, oh, yes. So much of this can be automated. So for other maybe people specifically in sales who, when you say that, they feel it. And it resonates with them. And they're like, yeah, I get that. What would your advice be to them, to those people that are hearing this? And they're like, okay, it sounds like I can benefit from AI.

But I'm not sure if it's going to replace me. What would you tell those people in sales, knowing now what you know about how how much you can get out of it. That's a great question. I think that what I would say is that it's never going to fully be you. You know, sales is such a customer-centric and such a personal thing. You're trying to convince someone to buy your product. You're going to tell them all the reasons why they're going to come back with all the reasons

why they shouldn't be or why they don't want to. At the end of the day, my advice would be that AI is a tool that's going to help make all of us salespeople more efficient and make us more productive. It's going to aid in our sales process. It's never going to fully take over in my belief at this point at least. But I do think that it's a tool that we should start leaning on a little bit more to help us perform better at whatever level we're at. Whether you're trying to get a promotion, whether you're trying to be the top revenue producing agent for the quarter, whatever it might be. AI is going to be a way to help you get there.

And it's a big learning process. You know, all of us is still learning. It's trial and error. You have some free time to test things out. This is the perfect way to do that without having like severe. ramifications in your job. Side projects also, great way to test it out. Resume reviews, helping you write some bullet points for your resume if you're looking

for a new job. There's a lot that it can do to really help. And of course, personal and professional is very different. But I do think that testing it on both sides to see the difference is useful. Yeah. It's so useful in that regard too, right? Like we don't even have time to go down that road. But yeah, we always think like how can we use it professionally.

But yeah, there's been so many great examples of how people use it in their personal life. So, Senara, thank you so much for joining the Everyday AIA show. I think that you really took us on a journey, kind of front to back on how people in sales can use AI and just start to use it. So thank you so much for joining the show. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure and looking forward to hopefully another one down the line. All right.

So we did have a lot of questions about Bravo, different questions about using AI in sales. So as a reminder, go to your EverydayAI.com, sign up for the free daily newsletter. It's going to go out here in about three hours. So we're going to have more information, even on Brevo's, their new AI subject tool. It's all going to be in the newsletter. So make sure you check it out. Also, I got to plug this. It's our show.

So I can plug it, I think. We are giving away six months of premium or chat GPT, as well as six private lessons. So, you know, maybe you heard some things that scenario was talking about. And you're like, that would be great if I could use chat GPT for that. But I just don't know how we got you. So thanks again. And we hope to see you back tomorrow and every day on everyday AI.

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See it today at firefly.adobie.com. And that's a wrap for today's edition of Everyday AI. Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating. It helps keep us going. For a little more AI magic, visit Your EverydayAI.com and sign up to our daily newsletter so you don't get left behind. Go break some barriers and we'll see you next time.