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Beyond the integration of Artificial Intelligence programs into your prospecting strategy, your focus should primarily lie on exploring the potential of new technologies for enhancing your prospecting efforts.
AI truly shines when it transcends the automation stage, particularly when you’re able to seamlessly integrate it into the different tools you use. At this stage, think of AI as your invaluable assistant; it doesn’t replace existing tasks but rather inspires and enhances them.
The idea is to harness AI to delve into the intricacies of each prospecting stage. This approach allows us to assess how effectively AI can benefit us in each aspect of the prospecting process.
And that’s exactly what I will go over in this article, I’ll be your guide to seamlessly integrating AI into every step of your prospecting process.
Disclaimer 📢
This article would not be possible without the intervention of our resident ChatGPT expert: Claire Ribiere! She’s a No-Code AI enthusiast who can help you create amazing systems without writing a single line of code.
If you want to learn more about AI No Code and have fun with Claire, check out her website and go say hi, she’s awesome!😉
Let’s dive in! 🙂
Artificial Intelligence vs. Automation:
We noted the notion of AI and Automation earlier, and it’s usual to do so in these types of posts because the two are linked and have been the center of quite the hype lately. So let’s define these two concepts;
- Automation is the application of technology (running programs, scripts, whatever you may call it) to streamline and perform repetitive tasks with minimal human intervention based on a set of pre-defined rules.
- Artificial Intelligence is the development of algorithms and software that enable programs (or robots) to mimic human intelligence, focusing on tasks like problem-solving and decision-making. For now, the technology still needs human input.
Expert Tip 🧠
AI, by itself, functions as a tool and it has little to no utility when your use it independently.
If I had to choose between AI and automation, the clear choice for me would be automation. The reasoning is that in the prospecting context, having the ability to automatically follow up with a prospect who hasn’t responded within a week is simply superior. It saves me time as much as monetary ressources.
Claire even agrees on saving repetitive tasks to automation, and taking care of creative tasks herself.
Naturally, the ideal scenario would be to combine automation and AI and get the best of both worlds. And that’s where La Growth Machine comes in!
- Write all outreach messages in mere seconds
- Automate the sending of LinkedIn voice messages
- And out newest addition: Personalized Voice Messages, at scale!🎙️
Example 🔍
The best example of this is adding an extra step to your outreach process where you take the latest news about the lead from LinkedIn, send it to the AI program, and ask it to list the three key events or the three topics the lead has covered in their most recent posts.
For example, if the person is actively recruiting, you could mention that you noticed they’re currently searching for new talent. This type personalized approach transcends the standard “Hello {{firstname}}” automation by moving beyond data retrieval and into truly personable approach.
Why integrate AI into your prospecting strategy?
You might doubt all I’ve said so far about how AI is here to enhance your prospecting in all its stages. You might even be skeptical and don’t really trust that it can help you. [insert grumpy boomer GIF here]
Allow me to explain it further.
AI introduces a new dimension of ultra-personalization to our automations, surpassing the limitations of basic algorithms.
Example 🔍
Have you ever heard of the term “mass-customization”?
You might think it’s an oxymoron, how can you customize something for the masses?
Well, I learned about this term back when I was in marketing school years ago. And back, it might’ve very well been an oxymoron. But today, I don’t think that’s the case anymore. With AI, you can achieve this level of customization at scale.
Previously, prospecting was limited to variables like a person’s name, job title, or current interests, but AI opens new possibilities.
New Feature Alert 🎉
Automated voice messages are great, and it works wonders! But what if you took it a step further? 🤔
La Growth Machine now lets you personalize your voice message intro using AI.
Select your personalized intro and the tool will read it in your own voice!
Write your message including custom variables, such as the lead’s First & Last Names.
Record the rest of your message that will be common to the whole of your audience.
1 lead = 1 personalized (voice) message
We’ll combine the two messages in order to personalize each one!
For each lead, the personalized message read by the AI and your own are merged, to combine spontaneity and large-scale personalization into one awesome outreach! 🥳
Want to try it out? Sign up for a 2-week free trial!
The fact of the matter is: Even when presented with compelling data, convincing companies to embrace AI remains a challenge to this day.
This reluctance to adapt is rooted in the human brain which typically resists change and is often averse to it. We, as a species, simply do not like change.
To put it plainly: Adapting to these changes is crucial, but it’s important to recognize that the transition may not be straightforward; it will undoubtedly require time and effort.
So, on that happy note, let’s see how you can at least adopt AI into your prospecting strategy! 🙂
How to Integrate AI into Your Prospecting?
Now let’s get right to the heart of the matter. I’ve broken this section down into the major prospecting steps to make it easier to navigate and implement.
Here are the steps to follow in order to properly integrate AI into your prospecting strategy:
Step 1 — Defining Your Target:
When it comes to sales, targeting is becoming increasingly sophisticated, thanks in large part to automation. What the best and most efficient salespeople tend to do is automate the retrieval of lead intelligence with the help of tools such as:
- Pharow
- ZoomInfo
- Apollo.io
- etc.
But it’s not just about collecting the data, is it? It’s what you do with it afterward that counts.
You feed your AI program the wealth of information that is your persona data (so their characteristics, their pain points, their industry, etc.), and let it work its magic.
Example 🔍
Take, for example, the different reasons customers might leave a training program. This is a form we’ve all seen before: “We’re sad to see you go! Why did you leave?” Something along those lines, with the different options to choose from.
Instead of manually combing through the countless forms, you can plug the data into your AI program and ask it to provide a distilled summary that gets straight to the heart of the matter.
Every month, you have access to why customers are dissatisfied, why they decided to leave, etc.
Maybe you targeted the wrong persona? Maybe you targeted the wrong pain point? The point is that now you know what you need to tweak to better fit your market.
Simple, but effective! You now have a clear monthly action plan.
And it’s not just feedback analysis.
This same principle applies to competitor targeting. By harnessing tools that automatically gather intel on competitors’ audiences, you can craft a more precise and impactful targeting document without having to read through every bit of data yourself.
As we said earlier, use ChatGPT as your strategic partner. It’s like having a brainstorming buddy that not only can you bounce ideas off of but also one who’s available on-demand.
Feed it information, have a back-and-forth conversation, literally refine your strategies as you go.
Prompt Generator 🤖
Prompt 1 → Validate your targeting with an automation that scans a list of contacts:
I’m a sales representative for a company in [Sector name]. Here’s my typical target persona [Describe your target’s characteristics]. I’m going to give you a profile, and you’re going to determine whether it fits my target based on the criteria I’ve listed for you.
Example:
I’m a sales rep for a digital training company. Here’s my typical target persona: Women who have their own business in the Paris area.
I’m going to give you a profile, and you’re going to determine whether it fits my target based on the criteria I’ve listed for you.
Profile : Claire Ribière, CEO @clairenocode, Puteaux
If the profile fits the target, you must return true, otherwise false.
In the end, it’s about working smarter, not harder. By allowing AI to handle the heavy lifting, you free yourself up to focus on the creative and strategic elements that truly move the needle.
Step 2 — Targeting:
Now that you’ve selected and finely segmented your target audience, the next step is identifying leads that fit these segments.
Traditionally, you would use scraping tools which, while powerful, are not infallible. Let’s be honest here, how many times did you have to manually check the scraped list to ensure the profiles actually match your criteria?
AI can play a very important role here. Utilize it to validate the relevance of each prospect by using the prompt from earlier.
Expert Tip 🧠
AI acts as a validator for your list, helping to ensure the final list is leaner and more efficient.
Even if you prefer to manually click through your list, checking it post-AI-cleanup means your list more than likely has fewer entry errors.
You’re still going to comb through it because we’re not still at that stage where we can trust AI 100%. But, at least now you have “pre-combed” list, which means less hassle.
Let’s kick it up a notch!
You can add an extra step where you input the latest LinkedIn posts to provide context to your prospecting sequence. These can represent a sales trigger, or worst case scenario, a cool icebreaker.
Prompt Generator 🤖
Prompt 2 → Retrieving information from a LinkedIn profile
I’m going to give you the last 3 LinkedIn posts from a profile, and I want you to write a list of 5 key points that will give you the context you need to exchange with this person by email.
Here are the different posts:
With the newest updates to ChatGPT, you can maybe even automate this step and have relevant context on your lead’s interests in seconds!
So now, you’re armed with key insights into your lead that have you writing a relevant prospecting message.
Step 3 — Copywriting:
While it’s common to start with a message template, you have to personalize it significantly. This is no longer a differentiating factor, there’s no two ways about it.
But! That doesn’t mean you can’t leverage AI to personalize the email and have it seem as though it was tailored by hand. 😉
With access to recent posts from the lead thanks to our previous prompt, your email can now begin with context that immediately resonates with them and only them. Making the recipient feel acknowledged.
- Write all outreach messages in mere seconds
- Automate the sending of LinkedIn voice messages
- And out newest addition: Personalized Voice Messages, at scale!🎙️
And what’s better than to have your lead feel a genuine connection, rather than feel like just another entry in an email blast en masse…
Prompt Generator 🤖
Prompt 3 → Send prospecting emails
You specialize in sales prospecting. You work for a company in [sector, size, any background information useful to ChatGPT]. Write a concise prospecting email targeting [target persona] with a catchy subject line. The aim is to obtain a phone call with the recipient. You can’t exceed 100 words.
Personalize this email, knowing that you’re addressing a person for whom you have the following information:
You might’ve seen emails claiming: “This wasn’t written by AI; it’s really from me,” or LinkedIn posts proudly stating they weren’t penned by AI as if that’s a seal of quality or authenticity.
I personally find these funny.
Just because it wasn’t crafted by an AI doesn’t mean it’s any better quality.
– Claire Ribiere
Quality comes from the message’s relevance and personal touch, regardless of whether it’s initially drafted by AI.
Expert Tip 🧠
That said, it’s very important that anything AI produces is reviewed by a human before being sent out. No piece of communication should go out under your name without your personal review. You have to ensure it accurately represents you and your intentions.
AI is a tool, not a replacement for human oversight.
Gather as much client information as possible for your segmentation and feed it to your AI. The more context you provide it with, the more relevant the message will be. Its message will only be as good as the input you feed it. If you don’t know who you’re addressing because you lack essential information, AI won’t be able to fill in those gaps.
Step 4 — The Follow-Up:
The best thing that can happen to a salesperson is when the prospect responds with an “I want to know more!”. Oh, few things feel better in this world. 😊
Try automating draft responses to your received emails using AI. Don’t make it so the AI sends the emails on its own, rather prepare draft replies that you can review later. That’s what I call efficient!
Example 🔍
You receive about a hundred emails per day. By the time you check your inbox, the drafts are just there, waiting for you to go through them.
Check for context and relevance, make any necessary edits, and there you have it!
Try it out! See how you’ll spend about half as much time on emails as you used to.
Nonetheless, it doesn’t stop at initial responses!
Because you have all the relevant information about the leads and the context of your ongoing conversation, you can go even further.
You can have ChatGPT split the conversation into individual messages – this is easily done by identifying the “from: [email protected]” in the thread. Then ask it to summarize the course of the conversation, one message at a time. Provide it with this history, and it creates a follow-up that could almost stand on its own.
Expert Tip 🧠
Again, save these AI-generated messages as drafts first, do not have them sent out automatically!
The idea is to save time and scale your efforts. Reduce the time spent without compromising, or even improving, the quality of interaction.
As of now, AI is not good at creative tasks, only repetitive ones, that’s why you have to review its messages before sending them!
5. Analyze the Results:
The analysis phase is often overlooked in the prospecting process, yet it’s (one of) the most important ones. My feeling is this is largely because people aren’t sure which metrics or KPIs to look at, so they end up skipping the analysis altogether.
Don’t just blindly test new strategies without understanding how your previous actions went. You’ll simply miss out on the insights that come from evaluating your results.
The cycle is straightforward: test, analyze, reiterate.
Once your campaign (or sprint, or test, or whatever you might call it) has concluded, and you’ve gathered all the responses, you take stock of:
- Who converted? Who didn’t?
- Why? Why not?
Then you can turn to your trusty AI program to debrief. Provide it with detailed results and point out where it has gone wrong. You can give it additional rules for future segmentation for instance.
Treat this process like a brainstorming session and ask ChatGPT to analyze each mistake one by one. This is about refining your (and its) methodology for the next campaign. By having it examine each misstep or oversight, you will improve every step outlined before.
Expert Tip 🧠
Remember, analyzing these ‘errors’ or ‘missteps’ is vital. Don’t think of them as setbacks; they’re opportunities for growth and improvement.
Taking the time to analyze and adjust based on past performance is a crucial part of evolving your prospecting strategy and ensuring better outcomes in the future.
Final Thoughts:
AI isn’t meant to replace humans, rather about saving their time while simultaneously improving the quality of their output. This is at the heart of the technology, it will revolutionize our professions.
Example 🔍
Claire mentions the example, of comments posted on her training videos. It’s actually her responding to all of them, even though most are mundane or outright delusional inquiries like when someone asks for the link to download ChatGPT.
In those instances, Claire’s personal touch isn’t required at all. AI would be perfectly capable of informing users that ChatGPT is available at chat.openai.com.
I’m confident that in the future, we’ll be able not only to have such automations but to push it even further. In an ideal world, you would spend all day in front of the camera, creating content, sharing knowledge, conducting experiments, and actually making use of your value.
Your videos would edit themselves and even recycle themselves seamlessly into articles, podcasts, and other formats, and all would be published automatically following a schedule.
That’s the dream!
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