ChatGPT – if you’re reading this blog post then this is a name that pops up in your conversations and on your feeds endlessly. At VIBE, we decided to sit down with a few industry veterans and get into the meat of how SaaS sales leaders are using this tool for their teams.
Are sales teams actually using ChatGPT as a tool?
Yes, but not in the way that you might think. From a content perspective, the best sales leaders are seeing ChatGPT as more of a risk than a reward.
Stuart Watson, who was most recently the VP of Sales Development at Lacework, had this to say:
“As a second or third line leader, you’re thinking in terms of quarters and years. For an SDR, they are thinking in terms of weeks and months. There can be a misalignment in the messaging because there are times that SDRs don’t appreciate that they can burn bridges with the TAM.”
Solely relying on ChatGPT to create messaging to reach prospects poses an issue as the tool is not 100% accurate and that can and will show through to prospects if not monitored closely.
What are the benefits you’ve seen from using ChatGPT?
Sales leaders are seeing better usage with identifying and targeting the right prospects using ChatGPT rather than the content itself.
John Marcus III, the VP of Revenue Operations at Regal.io, emphasized that “proper prompt engineering is critical for the success of ChatGPT within sales.”
John is building prompts within ChatGPT to teach the AI to determine if a prospect is right for Regal based on their website. From there, sales has an accurate list of companies to target – helping with speed and efficiency of the sales process.
When speaking with Prakash Nagpal, the VP of Sales & Marketing at Ajmera Infotech, he says “at some point you have to answer the questions: What do you do? How do you leverage the power of AI? How is it going to enhance your product experience?”
There are certainly benefits to ChatGPT if used properly, but marketing that you’re using the tool for the sake of riding the buzz isn’t going to get you very far.
Prakash went on to say that “one company mentioned generative AI 37 times in a recent quarterly business review. Apple mentioned it 0 times in their most recent quarterly business review. The conclusion was determined that Apple is focused on the customer experience and how they get there is irrelevant.” Click Here to watch the full interview.
This further illustrates the point that unless you are improving your customers’ lives and/or business in some way, whether or not you use ChatGPT is not something people are going to care about.
Are there challenges to ChatGPT?
There are several challenges. Firstly, there has to be a human that is working with the tool to make the messaging unique and relevant to the prospect. It can be done, but it has to be a team effort and not left to be the sole responsibility of ChatGPT.
But, in working with ChatGPT to craft messaging, you will be giving away data on your company, your product, and your prospects. We won’t claim to know exactly where that data is going and who has access to it, but with anything you’re doing online – be cautious of what you’re asking and saying.
Is ChatGPT going to be a useful sales tool going forward?
It absolutely can be a useful tool going forward. The biggest takeaway we had was that it all comes down to properly engineering prompts to make the tool work for you. Referencing John Marcus III again, he is seeing great results as a prospecting tool but does see a world where ChatGPT and LLM’s in general can replace the need for entry-level sales and marketing whose main job duty is to gather and summarize information on prospects. The concern here is that ChatGPT could become too useful, potentially replacing the need for SDRs.
Will we let it get to that point? Remains to be seen.
Main Takeaways:
ChatGPT is already becoming useful and widely adopted for both personal and business use. There is a long road ahead, however. If you’re not being creative in the way you’re engineering prompts, there probably isn’t going to be much use in the business setting. But, if you are thinking outside the box, ChatGPT can be hugely advantageous and expand your own creativity.
Generative AI as a whole has already changed the way that sales teams operate. The question going forward is how will we be leveraging this type of technology to engage the right prospects with captivating messaging?
Based on our conversations, there will always be a need for a human approach in some regard.
