17
Brainstorming and Prioritizing AI Possibilities

Now that you're thinking about how you spend your time, let's brainstorm a list of the work, activities, and tasks that you'd like to give to AI. As a refresher, brainstorming is a problem-solving technique that involves throwing spontaneous ideas on the wall without judging them. You can do it yourself, but it is even more fun and effective to do with a team. Here are some ideas to get you started:

Outreach

• Email management: For most salespeople, email takes a big bite out of the day. So, it's no surprise that time management and email management go hand in hand. Artificial intelligence can help you write, organize, and prioritize your emails automatically, so you can spend less time in your inbox.
• Scheduling send times: Optimize email send times by analyzing when each recipient is most likely to engage. Then you can draft emails when that activity best fits into your day without having to sync up your schedule with the recipient.
• Content sharing: AI can suggest and create posts for sharing on LinkedIn or other platforms to help you maintain an active presence without having to dedicate so much time to research and early drafts. Remember, though, that AI is a tool, so you can't accept what it puts in front of you as truth. You still need to check everything and put your own spin on things, but AI can reduce the amount of time you spend staring at your screen hoping an idea for a post comes to you.
• Media: Create engaging media using AI to generate relevant text and data visualizations.
• Engagement optimization: AI can identify optimal times and contexts to engage with prospects' posts or messages.

Daily Tasks

• Research automation: AI can research far faster than you can. This doesn't mean you don't need to do the reading and the work, but it can wrangle useful sources so you don't have to spend time looking for them. Before a meeting, AI can scour the web and pull everything together for you, so you have a nice stack of digital resources to read as you prepare for sales conversations.
• Agenda setting: AI can suggest agendas and talking points based on prior interactions and customer profiles, stakeholder personas, and individual communication styles (for example, DISC or Jeb's A.C.E.D. style types1).
• Automated CRM data entry: AIs can enter relevant email and call data into your CRM to minimize manual entry, along with information it collects from other online sources. This works much the same way that AI can populate your calendar based on meeting invitations and email content.
• Alerts for follow-ups: AI can automate reminders for follow-ups based on prior interactions with prospects and customers.
• Quick edits: AI can suggest quick improvements and edits in your documents, ensuring they are error-free and polished.

Me Management

• Task prioritization: Utilize AI to prioritize daily tasks based on urgency and importance.
• Sales day optimization: AI can suggest the best times to make calls, arrange meetings, or engage in prospecting activities.
• Time tracking: AI-powered time-tracking tools help you gain insight into where your time is going, all without having to deal with a manual timer.
• Automated scheduling: AI can manage scheduling workflow to simplify the scheduling process, using algorithms to arrange the day for you.
• Prioritization of tasks: AI can analyze task lists in real time, prioritizing items based on their due dates, statuses, and more. AI-powered prioritization helps you manage tasks and tackle work in the most effective way possible, so you can make the most of your time and energy.
• Personalized reminders: Like a great assistant, AI can offer personalized reminders that help you stay on track. You can tailor these notifications according to your preferences and get them delivered through various channels, like email, Google Chat, MS Teams, or Slack.

Prospecting

• Opportunity finder: Use AI to identify networking opportunities and events where prospects might be present.
• Intent and buying windows: Identifying which prospects are more likely to buy or are moving into a buying window.
• List building: AI can analyze mountains of intent data, combined with ideal qualifying checkpoints to build high-probability prospecting lists.
• Connection suggestions: AI can recommend new social media connections based on mutual interests, common connections, or potential business synergies.

Strategic Thinking

• Brainstorming: AI can help you with brainstorming ideas by adding to what you are able to generate on your own (a very cool use of generative AI).
• Pre-call planning: When you are getting ready for sales conversations, AI can help with finding information on stakeholders and companies, scanning through and summarizing documents, pointing to where there may be pain or opportunities to solve problems, and developing discovery questions.
• Deal prediction: Using historical data, AI can predict which deals are most likely to close, which helps you prioritize and invest your time on pipeline opportunities with the highest win probability.
• Risk alerts: AI can send alerts for deals that may be at risk, helping you increase or change communication when it's most needed and allowing for timely intervention.
• Account expansion and retention: For account managers and customer success professionals AI can identify opportunities for upsells and cross-selling. It can also identify which customers are most at risk and help improve net revenue retention.
• Competitor analysis: AI can provide insights into competitors' strategies and offerings, helping a salesperson stay informed and prepare rebuttals to competitor claims.

Professional Development

• Sales performance tracking: Keeping track of personal sales metrics and KPIs to continuously evaluate and improve performance requires a great deal of human energy. AI can surface this data much faster and more accurately.
• Improvement recommendations: AI can crunch your sales numbers and provide suggestions for areas of improvement based on performance analytics.
• Continuous learning: Based on what you want to learn or may be interested in, AI can recommend articles, videos, and courses to help you stay abreast of industry trends and enhance your skills.

Prioritize Return on Investment

The universe of AI-powered tools is exploding. There are myriad applications on the market right now that can make your life significantly more efficient. Many more are on the horizon.

Some of these applications will be integrated into the tools you already use, such as your calendar, CRM, and email platform. Others will need to be purchased separately and may not be available to you depending on your company's policies.

What you can count on, though, is that if you are paying for tools out of your own pocket, you'll need to be prepared for sticker shock. AI is expensive. Therefore, as you prioritize what you plan to give to AI, be sure you'll get a reasonable return on your investment and that the price you pay is worth the time you could gain.

AI Adoption Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

When used effectively, AI will allow you to laser-focus on the things that you do best and that make you happy. It will not only put hours back into your sales day and personal life, but it will take away activities that steal your joy. This is one of the great promises of AI.

It won't solve all of your problems, nor will you be able to unload everything you dislike, but when you consider all that you do as a sales professional, the possibilities for leveraging AI are mind-boggling. However, gaining an AI Edge in sales will be a long and winding journey, a marathon rather than a sprint.

Let's begin your journey with four exercises to spark your imagination about what is possible and help you prioritize what you should give to AI and what you should keep. As you approach these exercises, answer these questions about the activities and tasks that take up your time:

• Is this something that is aligned with your purpose?
• Is spending time on a task something that provides meaning in your life?
• Does the activity move you closer to your goals?
• Do you enjoy this work?
• If you don't enjoy the work, is it impactful and mission-critical work that you must and should do?
• Is this work that only you can do?
• Do you bring special value to the work that no machine can do nearly as well as you?
• Does this work make a unique and impactful contribution to your company, income, customers, family, or life?
• Can you give yourself over to the activity and do your very best work?
• How much time do you spend on this work now and why?
• How much time are you spending now on activities that give you joy and only you can do?
• How much time are you spending on activities that steal your joy that AI can do better than you?

EXERCISE 17.1: ENJOYABLE SALES ACTIVITIES

Brainstorm and make a list of the sales...