The AI for Sales Podcast

Welcome to the second season of The AI for Sales Podcast! In today's episode, Chad is joined by Mike Montague, Director of Community Engage at Sandler Training and Host of the How to Succeed Podcast. Mike first shares his journey in the sales world and other activities for his career over time. He then discusses how Sandler interacts with AI and the different possibilities we could explore when it comes to integrating AI in sales training, prospecting, and more. QUOTESThe possible impact of AI for sales training - Mike"The same crash is happening here and people get confused, what's the AI's job? What's the salesperson's job? And how do we combine these two in the best of both worlds so we don't lose our humanity but we also don't lose all the insights, data, credibility, efficiency, and 24/7 availability of AI? And I think we can do both." Mike on AI for prospecting calls"That's a really great way to think about AI, it's not how do we replace you? How do we outsource all the work we don't want to do to the AI, right? It's how do you make the best possible outgoing prospecting calls. That's really what we're all about here."  Learn more about Mike and connect with him in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedmontague/Website:  https://www.sandler.com/ Learn more about AI for Sales with Chad:LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12811259/LinkedIn Personal Page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadburmeister/YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheAIforSalesPodcastTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ai4salesFacebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/theaiforsalespodcast/Twitter Page:  https://twitter.com/saleshack The AI For Sales Podcast is sponsored by our proud partners: BDR.ai | https://www.bdr.ai/TruVersity | https://www.truversity.com/ The AI for Sales Podcast is brought to you by BDR.ai, Nooks.ai, and ZoomInfo—the go-to-market intelligence platform that accelerates revenue growth.Skip the forms and website hunting—Chad will connect you directly with the right person at any of these companies.👉 Visit www.SDR.ai/intro to unlock your direct line.

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Ryan House, Director of Business Development at Programmers.io. Ryan says that the market for programmers is currently at an insane level. He talks about how they help companies find top-quality candidates in the market to bolster their programming and AI.He shares about the many levels at which AI is being used no matter if it's for the sales motion or for business development. He also discusses his perspective on how AI's "perfection" could still be a dealbreaker for many consumers today. HIGHLIGHTSWhere AI plays a role in the projects of big companiesAI being used in business developmentBot automation and AI in the sales focusThe disadvantage of AI being "too perfect" QUOTESRyan: "It's not Star Trek exciting or anything like that but to just have that where you're starting to see manufacturing companies and industries you would never really expect to use AI are starting to now use AI and programming in general."Ryan: "I would say it's so efficient in terms of taking something that is a traditional skillset, i.e. cold calling, and modernizing it to the speed that is needed for today."Ryan: "The biggest thing is the rationality of human decision-making. AI is so rational and that's the problem right there of why it can't be replacing a human, so to speak." Learn more about Ryan and connect with him in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-house-469662a4/Email: ryan.house@programmers.ioWebsite: https://programmers.io/ The AI for Sales Podcast is brought to you by BDR.ai, Nooks.ai, and ZoomInfo—the go-to-market intelligence platform that accelerates revenue growth.Skip the forms and website hunting—Chad will connect you directly with the right person at any of these companies.👉 Visit www.SDR.ai/intro to unlock your direct line.

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Zach Selch, Founder and CEO of Global Sales Mentor. Focusing on international growth is an inevitable challenge that many companies will face along the way. In what ways can you incorporate AI for your business if you want to expand globally?Zach talks about the relevant details that come with international growth especially when you can use the right technologies available today. He discusses some of the reasons why people shy away from international business and how to resolve them. He also shares his view on the possibilities of AI taking over. HIGHLIGHTSThe idea of getting to see a little bit of the world How AI and the internet help reduce the cost of face-to-face meetingsAddressing the fear of complexities in international businessWill AI take over QUOTESZach: "If you can be proactive about planning out how you want to live your life, you can get there. If you just sort of try and let the universe guide you, you're probably not going to get any place interesting."Zach: "In 2020 and 2021, I closed as much business as I closed in 2019 without getting on a plane which I would have thought was impossible. And it was basically through using good technology."Zach: "I think there's always going to be room for the top salespeople and the top sales jobs to be doing their thing. AI isn't going to replace them. So it's not that everything is being taken off the table, it's just a lot of the work is being made easier with AI." Learn more about Zach and connect with him in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zselch-internationalsales/Website: https://www.globalsalesmentor.com/ The AI for Sales Podcast is brought to you by BDR.ai, Nooks.ai, and ZoomInfo—the go-to-market intelligence platform that accelerates revenue growth.Skip the forms and website hunting—Chad will connect you directly with the right person at any of these companies.👉 Visit www.SDR.ai/intro to unlock your direct line.

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by John Nord, Head of Sales of Craftable. Everybody in the hospitality and restaurant industry has to count, cost, and sell ingredients and products in the most efficient ways possible to maximize profit.John talks about how automation and AI play a role in connecting what businesses buy with what they sell to break down profitability more accurately. He shares his thoughts on AI augmenting many of the processes, especially in the hospitality and restaurant industries. He also discusses some of the newer technologies that focus on AI in the sales motion. HIGHLIGHTSWhere does AI play a role in solving customer's problemsThe value that their software providesDoes AI replace or augmentAdvancements for AI in the sales motion  QUOTESJohn: "Our analytics product is essentially advanced recording for operators, recreating spreadsheets and just data ultimately being fed into it whether it's from the food or beverage side, a combination of both, or just purely from the point of sale."John: "There are certain aspects of a client moving from one tier to another where AI is probably a better fit. Some of the most successful companies that we've seen over the last 10 to 20 years have been exiting out of the SaaS boom right now and going into in-app transactions or in-app upgrades."John: "It's cool to actually see the team learn through a piece of technology that can analyze a whole day of conversations and kind of compile it where we can have a quick 20 to 30-minute conversation and better understand that there's a lot of information but let's just try a piece of it." Learn more about John and connect with him in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnnord/Website: https://craftable.com/  The AI for Sales Podcast is brought to you by BDR.ai, Nooks.ai, and ZoomInfo—the go-to-market intelligence platform that accelerates revenue growth.Skip the forms and website hunting—Chad will connect you directly with the right person at any of these companies.👉 Visit www.SDR.ai/intro to unlock your direct line.

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Seth Earley, CEO of Earley Information Science and author of The AI-Powered Enterprise. Most businesses will discover that data involved in pilot testing may not necessarily translate into production. Seth discusses the importance of investing in data and architecture for its increased impact in work.He also talks about the challenges of integrating and organizing data in the organization's business and IT sides. He shares that having a more holistic view of the organization is essential. He suggests starting with the business objectives and then identifying where you can speed up the flow of information using AI. HIGHLIGHTSEarly applications of AI and machine learningThe AI-Powered EnterpriseFixing data: Business problem or IT problem?The customer journey is a knowledge journey QUOTESSeth: "I like to say the first thing about AI is forget about AI. Focus on the business, the business process, and the business outcome. Look for those places where you have friction points in your information movement. Where, if you have that right information, can you speed up all those downstream processes?"Seth: "What it does is that it gives you a greater ability to locate exactly what you need. And that, of course, is based on information architecture. There's no artificial intelligence without information architecture."Seth: "They come armed, they're knowledgeable, and they understand what they need. It's not like the old days when the salesperson was the gatekeeper of knowledge and information. Customers want to have that control, they need to be able to get that information from their website and from other sources." Learn more about Seth and connect with him in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethearley/Website: https://www.earley.com/ Book: The AI-Powered Enterprise  The AI for Sales Podcast is brought to you by BDR.ai, Nooks.ai, and ZoomInfo—the go-to-market intelligence platform that accelerates revenue growth.Skip the forms and website hunting—Chad will connect you directly with the right person at any of these companies.👉 Visit www.SDR.ai/intro to unlock your direct line.

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Oscar Beijbom, CTO and Co-Founder of Nyckel. He talks about the essential factors of building up your own AI system, training, deploying, and adding the API to your application.He shares insight into the general use of AI and how its value in increasing the efficiency of work still outweighs fears that it will replace people. He also discusses how Nyckel is able to provide the necessary functions for users at such an affordable pricing model. HIGHLIGHTSWhat enables Nyckel to operate in a short period of time Importance of bias in general AIAI in the sales spaceDeploying the technology at an affordable price QUOTESOscar: "We actually use AI to figure out which subset of models to try and we use AI to approximate how long it will take to train. We use all these levels because it's so easy to add we kind of use it to boost up our own product."Oscar: "With Nyckel it's less of a problem because we train, what we call, narrow AI specifically on your data. So we use pre-trained models but we tailor them to your data. You can always make sure that the data you're providing is consistent with your product and ethics."Oscar: "It's more about making sales representatives more efficient. It could also be like identifying patterns in what companies to reach out to. So you have a database of ten thousand companies you could potentially try. Now you could use an AI to identify which of the remaining are promising that are similar to the ones that already replied." Learn more about Oscar and connect with him in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oscar-beijbom-696aa6/Website: https://www.nyckel.com/ The AI for Sales Podcast is brought to you by BDR.ai, Nooks.ai, and ZoomInfo—the go-to-market intelligence platform that accelerates revenue growth.Skip the forms and website hunting—Chad will connect you directly with the right person at any of these companies.👉 Visit www.SDR.ai/intro to unlock your direct line.

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Justin Clegg, Founder and CEO of Allset. He talks about the disjointed communication experience dealing with home services especially when compared against the efficiency of food delivery apps. As things are, it’s not as easy to communicate with plumbers or carpet cleaners after receiving their service. He shares how Allset addresses this and how AI is being integrated within the platform. He also talks about experimenting with tipping through SMS as a way to increase revenue. HIGHLIGHTSHow Allset helps businesses in customer communication experienceTipping is explored and enhanced through the platformThe potential of predictive analytics to be used even moreContinuing to unlock revenue for home service businesses QUOTESJustin: "You can open up your phone, get a meal delivered, or have groceries brought to you within a 30 to 45-minute period yet when it comes to communicating with your plumber or window washer, there's this disjointed and fragmented technology experience." Justin: "With Allset, we received a lot of customers who will actually reply back with feedback. They will share questions and ask for return visits beyond just tipping or leaving a review or referral. With all of that unstructured feedback, we are now enabling customers to communicate with these home-service professionals."Justin: "You have things like user management and conversation management. Understanding what type of conversations are taking place on our platform and then the analytics that follows that. Everything from response times to deliverability rates, to managing tens and thousands of concurrent messages." Learn more about Justin and connect with him in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justindclegg/Website: allsethq.com The AI for Sales Podcast is brought to you by BDR.ai, Nooks.ai, and ZoomInfo—the go-to-market intelligence platform that accelerates revenue growth.Skip the forms and website hunting—Chad will connect you directly with the right person at any of these companies.👉 Visit www.SDR.ai/intro to unlock your direct line.

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Sammy James, CEO of Speak2Leads. There was a study done that showed that calling back your leads under 5 minutes has an 80% likelihood of closing the deal. But, there are not many companies that can facilitate your ability to do this.Sammy talks about learning to adapt after constantly moving with his family and his early fascination with the idea of business when he was young. He shares about building Speak2Leads even at a time when AI was limited and how it has eventually grown to this day.He also dishes on the study he mentioned and how he thinks 5 minutes is already considered slow. With the capabilities and innovations brought by AI, we can possibly reduce that number from minutes to mere seconds. HIGHLIGHTSLearning to adapt from an early age Building the application outside of AI accessUtilizing natural language and AI voice assistantsHow AI will enable you to fully optimize operations QUOTESSammy: "If I'm walking down the street to take a break and get a cup of coffee, I don't want to miss a lead. But I want the freedom to do that because salespeople, by nature, like to be autonomous. And so let them be, don't make them sit at a desk with some earphones dealing with that CRM or whatever it is." Sammy: "This gets the attention of the salesperson. Without their attention, you would have nothing cause they're the ones who have to call a lead. And so we make it very easy."Sammy: "That's why they were hired. They were hired for their persuasiveness and their ability to listen and have great sales conversations and they were not hired for other things. I want to take those other things off their plate." Learn more about Sammy and connect with him in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sammyjames/Website: https://www.speak2leads.com/ The AI for Sales Podcast is brought to you by BDR.ai, Nooks.ai, and ZoomInfo—the go-to-market intelligence platform that accelerates revenue growth.Skip the forms and website hunting—Chad will connect you directly with the right person at any of these companies.👉 Visit www.SDR.ai/intro to unlock your direct line.

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Jonathan Spier, CEO of Rev. Sellers recognize the challenge of getting to prospects with many saying it's the hardest part of the job. Now, AI might just be the answer.Jonathan shares his thoughts on AI being an enabler for people and helping them continue to be smart about decisions at an even faster pace. He also gives insight into the sophistication of AI as a technology while still giving the user control of the important variables.  HIGHLIGHTSAI as a pattern-matching technology for prospecting  Putting the user in control at the right levelsRev if AI did not existHow AI enables people QUOTESJonathan: "B2B sales, over the years, has specialized more and more. We've gotten better and put dedicated themes around closing deals, we've got our nurturing functions set up in marketing, and now we have people who are dedicated to BDR and SDR function opening doors." Jonathan: "It's got to be something where we help the customer build a model of who their ICP is. Let them choose, like in a Google Maps kind of way, the variables they really care about."Jonathan: "The opportunity of AI is to see more really good patterns early. In our case, it's seeing who's a good person to purchase before they even know to show intent yet. That's where AI is just super exciting for the sales process." Learn more about Jonathan and connect with him in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jspier/Website: https://getrev.ai/ The AI for Sales Podcast is brought to you by BDR.ai, Nooks.ai, and ZoomInfo—the go-to-market intelligence platform that accelerates revenue growth.Skip the forms and website hunting—Chad will connect you directly with the right person at any of these companies.👉 Visit www.SDR.ai/intro to unlock your direct line.

On this episode of the AI for Sales Podcast, Chad is joined by Rodrigo Witt, co-founder and CEO of Innvox. He and his team built Innvox as a sales coaching software to help contact center teams succeed by providing AI guidance after each call.He talks about traveling a lot from an early age and how this led him to remote working. How Innvox is integrated with AI to generate more impact in different conversations is also discussed. He gives insight into how they source teams that can use the technology and how to utilize AI processes effectively in a company.  HIGHLIGHTSLove for traveling and becoming an advocate for remote workHow the Innvox approach to AI startedBuilding a team that understands the technologyHow we can make better conversations between machines and humans QUOTESRodrigo: “Whatever you're doing, you choose what's hard for you. If you're going to be an employer or you're going to be a startup founder, both are going to be hard if you're going if you want to do it well. Choosing the hard way is a tough choice but also proud because I want to help people with what I'm doing."Rodrigo: “We analyze those conversations and figure out what the agents are doing or what they're not doing correctly in those interactions. But most important is that where we're doing with our solution right now, our goal is to be the first real-time solution for the Spanish language, with guidance and automated coaching workflows for agents as well."Rodrigo: “When you talk about only sales, it's a pretty competitive market. But the market is so big that you see many solutions that are, in their own way, different. So it makes a lot of sense for different types of the sales process, for example, lead qualification, lead scoring, revenue, and lead nurturing. So you have a lot of solutions that could help you do a better job as a sales rep." Learn more about Rodrigo and connect with him in the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodrigo-xavier-witt-abad/Website: https://www.innvox.com/ The AI for Sales Podcast is brought to you by BDR.ai, Nooks.ai, and ZoomInfo—the go-to-market intelligence platform that accelerates revenue growth.Skip the forms and website hunting—Chad will connect you directly with the right person at any of these companies.👉 Visit www.SDR.ai/intro to unlock your direct line.