The integration of AI in sales processes isn’t just a trend – it’s rapidly becoming a necessity. Gartner predicts that by 2028, 60% of B2B seller work will be executed through conversational user interfaces via generative AI sales technologies, up from less than 5% in 2023.
It’s time to dive in, and we’ve got six proven ways you can use AI to streamline your sales team’s efficiency and effectiveness and drive revenue without increasing their workload or your team size.
1. Build Efficient Workflows
Every minute your reps spend qualifying early-stage leads, responding to routine inquiries, or other low-value tasks is a minute they’re not spending building relationships within priority accounts and closing deals.
These low-value, but necessary, tasks are exactly where AI excels. You can reshape how your sales team operates by automating time-consuming tasks.
A Harvard Business Review article cites Accenture’s use of an AI digital research assistant to analyze earnings call transcripts to help their sales team prepare for calls. Accenture’s tool can process about 7,500 transcripts in just 480 minutes – a task that would take human analysts over 45,000 hours to complete manually.
Leveraging AI capabilities to retrieve and summarize knowledge can save your team countless hours and redirect their efforts to selling. For example, users of 6sense Revenue AI for Sales customers can now use AI to generate summaries of account activity with the past 30 days. Whether you’re planning outreach or preparing for a meeting, AI-powered summaries can help you get ready much faster.
2. Maximize a Lean Team
Ashley Diebert, CMO of Piano, talked about navigating budget cuts creatively in this episode of 6sense’s Revenue Makers podcast, explaining how her team uses AI to punch above their weight.
“I have one amazing content marketer, but I have a global team to execute programs for. So she is only one person and cannot be writing every single email, every single piece of top-, mid-, and bottom-of-funnel content, every social post, etc.”
But Diebert spotted an opportunity to multiply her content marketer’s expertise with AI.
“We know what a good email looks like. We know what a good social post looks like. And so, with my field team, I said, ‘You guys are the ones that are responsible for promoting your webinars, your events, your local campaigns.
“‘Use our formula of successful emails, social, and whatever posts before, and use generative AI to shape it into language that is on brand.’”
3. Capture and Nurture Opportunities with Fewer Labor Hours
Lead nurturing and follow-up are a vital part of the sales funnel. But when your team is small or at capacity, it can be difficult to promptly and thoroughly work all leads while also prioritizing opportunities that are deeper in the sales funnel.
An AI-powered assistant like 6sense Conversational Email can respond to inbound inquiries, ensuring no opportunity slips through the cracks and maintaining engagement with those early-stage prospects.
The impact can be substantial. In a recent study, Conversational Email customers reported:
- A 50% reduction in deal cycle time for marketing-sourced opportunities
- 1.5x increase in average deal size
One customer even generated $900,000 in new pipeline within just four weeks of implementation.
In her Revenue Makers interview, Diebert of Piano reinforced her team’s success with Conversational Email.
“We did have a reduction in the number of business development associates that we have on the team, but we still have a sales force that’s expected to deliver. And we are using this tool now to kind of fill in the gaps of when they are not able to respond to every inbound, because we do drive quite a bit of inbound traffic.”
4. Identify Your Best Opportunities Faster
AI excels at analyzing vast datasets to uncover patterns and insights that humans might miss. By leveraging AI in your prospecting efforts, you can quickly identify which accounts are actively in-market and most likely to convert.
This targeted approach allows your team to focus their energy on the most promising opportunities. For instance, 6sense Predictive Intelligence customers can use AI to identify 6sense Qualified Accounts (6QAs), which are accounts that are considered a strong ICP fit and have key buying personas engaged in research.
Our research has shown that, on average, organizations that adopt the 6QA generate 40% more pipeline, 40% higher win rates, and 3.5x larger deal sizes.
But don’t just take our word for it — according to research by Gong, sellers who use AI to guide their deals increase their win rate by an impressive 35%.
5. Personalize Every Message
Personalization is key in modern sales, and AI is taking it to the next level. By analyzing customer data, AI can help tailor messages to individual recipients, increasing the likelihood of engagement.
Adobe reports that emails with personalized subject lines have 20% higher open rates compared to generic messages.
Use AI to scale this personalization across your entire prospect base, ensuring each communication resonates with its intended recipient.
6. Increase Key Sales Metrics
The cumulative effect of AI on sales processes is profound, touching every aspect of the sales funnel:
- Reach: AI can help your team engage with more prospects in less time, significantly expanding your reach.
- Engagement: Personalized, AI-driven communications boost engagement rates across channels.
- Opportunity Conversion: By identifying and nurturing the best leads, AI helps improve conversion rates from opportunity to sale.
- Win Rates: As we mentioned, AI-guided selling can increase win rates by 35% to 40%.
- Sales Cycle Length: 6sense reported a 50% reduction in deal cycle time for marketing-sourced opportunities using their AI tools.
The overall impact is substantial. McKinsey research indicates that companies investing in AI are seeing revenue uplifts of 3 to 15 percent and sales ROI improvements of 10 to 20 percent.
How to Get Started
As sales leaders, it’s crucial to start incorporating AI into your processes now to stay competitive.
Begin by identifying areas where AI can have the most immediate impact, such as email personalization or lead scoring. Then, gradually expand its use across your entire sales process.
Remember, as Piano’s CMO Diebert showed us, AI is a powerful tool, but it’s not a replacement for human creativity and relationship-building skills. The most successful sales teams will be those that effectively combine AI’s analytical power with the irreplaceable human touch in sales.
By embracing AI, you can empower your team to work smarter, not harder, ultimately driving better results and staying ahead in an increasingly competitive landscape.
