When it comes to sales, nothing can be guaranteed. A loyal customer may decide to switch to a new competitor brand. A product that has been selling well may lose popularity after a new trend on social media emerges. A holiday sale from another brand might cut into the revenue you expected in Q4. This keeps sellers constantly on their toes, evaluating marketplace shifts, prospecting throughout the year, and building trust with current customers.
While human behavior remains unpredictable, new AI technology is transforming how sales are conducted. AI-driven tools and platforms are reshaping how sellers do their jobs. By automating repetitive tasks, analyzing large quantities of data, predicting behavior models, and more, AI is a revolutionary co-pilot that any sales team should have on board. Here are three ways sales teams are harnessing AI tools to drive unstoppable growth.
1. Identify Leads
One way AI enhances a sales team’s efficiency is by identifying leads. Lead identification is an always-on tactic essential for any seller. Without leads, your business’s success is at risk. You need customers to generate revenue, expand your portfolio of offerings or products, and stay competitive. While leads are vital for every business, finding and verifying reputable leads can be one of the most challenging tasks in sales.
Customers hold the advantage in today’s oversaturated marketplace. They know what they like from the brands they trust and expect exceptional customer service 24/7. This can be problematic for any business, especially newer or smaller ones. Being able to not only serve but also overdeliver can be demanding for all team members — and costly, too. However, newer AI tools and services enable sellers to determine which leads are worth pursuing and which ones are misleading or false.
With predictive analytics, AI tools analyze past and current data to identify patterns within lead generation models. These tools start by collecting large amounts of data and organizing it to find commonalities. Then they build predictive models to learn from these patterns, helping forecast leads or other relevant outcomes for sales teams. This knowledge allows sellers to adopt a more strategic approach, targeting leads deemed reputable by the algorithm and setting aside the rest.
2. Streamline Outreach
Once leads are identified, the next step in a seller’s process is to conduct outreach. Outreach is key to converting followers to customers. It’s how followers of your LinkedIn page turn from mere bystanders to paying customers. It’s how loyal readers of your brand’s newsletter share a referral code with their social circles. And it’s how conversations are started after an interested lead has filled out an interest form on your site.
For sellers, outreach can be a time-consuming part of their day. Even though it’s necessary, that doesn’t mean they need to handle it on their own. Thanks again to AI and machine learning, sellers can now hand a large portion of outreach over to these tools with great results. These tools can suggest marketing copy to be sent to newer followers via email versus reminder SMS messages to send to passionate fans. It can even optimize various channel efforts, sending messages at optimal times when there is a higher likelihood that they will be read.
These systems can greatly impact just how much outreach can be done per day. For instance, car dealerships are leveraging AI in automotive sales processes to suggest certain models to inquirers based on their prior search results. It can even schedule appointments in real-time, providing days and times when a human salesperson is available to take them on a test drive. By answering live questions from consumers, sellers don’t need to be tied to their devices throughout the day to make sure potential customers’ needs are being met. They can prioritize the next step — closing deals — and leave the back-and-forth messaging up to the trained AI software.
3. Close Deals Faster
For many sellers, there’s no better feeling than closing a deal. Depending on the industry, however, closing deals may not be happening as frequently as sellers would like these days. Economic pressures, tariffs, and overall market uncertainty have many buyers thinking twice before handing over their credit cards. Although AI can’t guarantee closing a deal, it can help free up a seller’s time so they aren’t so bogged down in the administrative tasks.
AI can conduct research before a call, providing detailed background information that could help understand the market and the client’s prior buying history. A medical sales representative going into a new hospital for a cold call can be more prepared in their presentation, knowing that the doctors are currently using a competitor’s model.
During a sales call, AI tools can be activated to listen and summarize conversations, providing action items and key takeaways. This means sellers can focus on the live conversation instead of furiously writing down notes and ensure accurate follow-ups, too. It can suggest how to respond to different leads, draft personalized emails, and even sales pitches.
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Takeaways
Research found that sales reps spend less than 36% of their overall time on actual selling! Most of their time is taken up with administrative tasks, redundant work, and other low-risk initiatives that aren’t responsible for business growth.
In many ways, AI is a seller’s new assistant. It can take on projects, conduct needed research, evaluate sales calls, and more in a day’s work. AI can equip sellers with the information they need to feel confident during their pitches and show up with the necessary knowledge set, which gives them a better chance of closing the deal.
