ChatGPT, Gemini, Co-Pilot, Clay… we’re now surrounded by AI programmes, something that has really ramped up in the past couple of years as generative AI has developed and become mainstream.
A recent Ethical Sales poll on LinkedIn showed that 36% of salespeople use AI tools daily to support their roles, with a further 36% using them weekly. However, a decent proportion – 20% – of salespeople admit they never use AI, so there’s plenty of room for improvement and exploration.
Our recent masterclass delved into the topic of AI and sales with Heather Murray, founder of AI for Non Techies. With a background in marketing and sales, Heather set up her company after becoming an early adopter of AI programme CrystalKnows and realising the potential for using AI to enhance daily work.
If you’re interested in how you can develop (or start!) your use of AI in your sales role, read on for Heather’s AI tool recommendations, what you can use them for, and how you can ensure your use of AI aligns with your ethical values.
Five AI tools for salespeople to explore
With so many AI tools out there, from general writing to more sales-specific ones, it can be tricky to know where to start. Here are five tools that are worth exploring.
- Humantic – this assesses a person’s LinkedIn profile and interactions, then creates an instant playbook tailored to them, giving detailed information on their archetype, interests, job history and more. It also highlights the best ways to interact with that individual, and what style will work best. Information can be downloaded as a PDF, which can then be used in conjunction with other AI programmes – more on that below.
Humantic also allows you to analyse people in batches, which can be extremely useful for assessing a buyer committee and how they’re likely to interact with each other and you. - Claude – this is a Large Language Model (LLM) similar to ChatGPT, but its more ‘human’ voice means it can be better for generating content. According to Helen, it’s preferred by marketeers and designers.
- ChatGPT – the best-known AI tool, this all-rounder is great for research and digging into topics. Heather recommends going for ChatGPT as a first investment if you only have time to learn one tool well.
- Perplexity – described by Heather as “Google on steroids”, this answers very complex queries and questions with detailed information, rather than simply returning sites that match keywords. It also cites its sources, making it easy to fact-check.
- Sybill – a sales-specific programme that creates transcripts of meetings, writes an overview and then creates outcomes that link with your CRM. Heather explains that Sybill also writes email follow-ups in your tone of voice and even creates conversation starters for future chats. Information from Sybill can be downloaded as a PDF and then used in other programmes such as Claude or ChatGPT to analyse your sales performance, look for missed opportunities and analyse the client relationship and how it can be improved.
It’s worth starting your AI journey with a paid version of an LLM such as Claude or ChatGPT. The free versions are limited in what they offer and also may decide to use the information inputted to develop their own language skills. To ensure your organisation complies with GDPR and other data protection legislation we recommend carefully reading the small print before diving in.
You’ll need to feed your LLM specific data and learn how to properly prompt it for best results. There’s so much an LLM can do, but if you don’t prompt it properly then what it returns will be limited.
“A lot of people are put off by getting broad, bland, boring outputs. You don’t get those if you upload the data and learn how to prompt.” Heather Murray
Using AI tools for prospecting and engaging with customers
While the possibilities for using AI in a sales role are endless, here are three effective ways you can start using it today as you explore its capabilities and start to link programmes together.
- Create personas
LLMs are great for creating personas. Once you feed the LLM the right data, it can create fantastic customer personas that you can interact with to practise sales conversations, objection handling and more. Even if you know your company’s persona inside out, LLMs can give you fresh insights and add things you might not have considered before.
There’s even the opportunity to practise sales calls with a persona using ChatGPT’s advanced voice mode, creating a chance to rehearse what might happen during the real thing.
- Enrich prospect lists
Clay and Persana are useful for enriching prospect lists. Regie offers this alongside building lists from scratch and running entire campaigns, although this is a more expensive option.
- Data-backed proposals
Use an AI note taker (such as Fireflies) in prospect meetings, then use an LLM to analyse this information when writing up your proposal. This will ensure you’re covering everything mentioned in the meeting and putting it in the right order. You can also pair this with information from Humantic to help word your proposal in the way your prospect will relate too.
How to utilise AI tools ethically
To stay true to your ethical framework, AI must be used to provide value for potential clients. Often AI tools are thought of as synonymous with dubious actions such as sending thousands of emails, but obviously, that’s not something any ethical salesperson wants to be involved with.
Using AI to hyper-personalise communications, however, or tailor a proposal to address specific pain points, is something that provides value for a potential client, as well as helping to showcase your product or service in the best possible way.
While AI won’t replace salespeople, it does feel that the time is rapidly coming when every salesperson will be using an AI tool or ‘agent’ as part of their day-to-day.
“It will soon feel like trying to do your job without the internet. Now is the time to be playing and experimenting. AI isn’t that mature and it does break, but get to know its capabilities and its uses.” Heather Murray
If you’re interested in learning more about AI and sales, check out our previous blog on AI versus Humans: What the Future Holds for Sales, as well as our blog on The Role of AI in Sales, both of which discuss the ethics of this topic in more detail.
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