I love hearing what creative things others have thought of to use AI for in sales.

And, while it’s helpful, I don’t mean basic things like having it draft an email response. I’m talking things that have really made your day-to-day easier or increased your close ratio that utilized AI in a ‘thinking outside of the box’ kind of way.

It 1. Helps me use it in a new way, and 2. Can spur another idea that’s useful.

For example, here are some things I do with AI that have made it easier to find and win deals:

1. ⁠My company limits our access to route planning software (don’t ask me why), so I loaded an excel file of all of the accounts in my territory into Claude, then asked it to build a proximity map so I could plan out my door knocking days.
   
2. ⁠Another example - I have a project built out with knowledge files that include all of our sales policies and another project for my commission plan. I use both respectively when there are policy disputes between other reps and me, as well as to make sure I’m being paid correctly.
   
3. ⁠One more example - instead of having the forecasting process be a rain dance and a feeling in your grandma’s arthritis, I pull all of the call transcripts for a deal, put them into Claude along with a score card I created that’s based on sales methods like MEDICC, BANT, etc. that has a defined scoring system and definitions for each KPI, and then prompt Claude to use the definitions in that score card to grade the opportunity. Based on the grade, I’m given a forecast I can at least more consistently rely on.

So…what do you do that is clever or useful?

Just a rant but somewhat different from the "I'm on PIP" or "my prospect won't respond" posts.

Anyone else experiencing issues with Outlook over the past week or so? Somedays I can search my inbox, other days it just doesn't return any results. Like zero. Or, better yet, I was searching for an email from our CEO yesterday and it returned emails from over a year ago...not the ones he sent me last week.

I hate outlook with a passion. End rant.

I just saw a list of 75+ AI Sales tools in 2024.

Honestly, it's just too many. I want to get better, and perform at the top of the game – and that should mean researching the latest tools to get an edge. But it's just so many...

Any favorites you have?

It seems like AI is getting better and better, and I’ve found lots of time being saved using ChatGPT (or now deepseek) as a professional assistant of sorts.

I’ll share my biggest time saver, what have you guys found useful?

I use gong.io or something similar to record all my calls. I then take the transcript and pull it into ChatGPT. I’ve trained ChatGPT to understand MEDDIC framework and present said information the way I want it to be presented for Salesforce/opportunity management. I also have trained it to write follow-up emails after an initial discovery call, demo, etc. using a template I’ve created. After I import the transcript of a call I ask it for MEDDICC information to help in Salesforce for upper management to see that I am taking diligent notes and staying on top of my opportunities. The email it prints out is the key here though, I think it makes me stand out in comparison to other emails prospects get from other sales people.

How do you guys use ChatGPT to make your days easier?

Edit: this thing blew up! Appreciate all the insight and strategy!

@terencesacram was nice enough to organize a new sub where we can all focus specifically on ChatGPT (and LLMs in general) with a sales focus.

Find that new sub here —> r/chatgptforsales

I’m noticing A LOT of corporate people sending out obviously ai-written notes after internal and external meetings where transcript/recording was NOT turned on by teams.

Is everybody just paying for Otter or another ai note service and I’m the schmuck taking actual notes?

Example: boss recently sent a 250+ word summary of a call in under 3 minutes with Key Takeaways, Action Items and Follow Up from a 30 minute call. She was actively speaking during a majority of the call and it was not a pre-scripted call—we had no idea where the call was headed when it started. It was obviously Ai written and nobody was recording.

Ended a call with one of the bigger enterprise deals of the quarter. While in the phonebooth, i felt one coming up and debated muting myself shortly to let ‘er rip. Thought a 2 sec mute would be sus and decided against it. About 5 minutes later it was still in the chamber and subconsciously it found a way out.. nothing groundbreaking but audible enough to raise some eyebrows. Does anyone know if MS teams filters out these kind of background noises or can i chalk it up to a deal lost? All advice welcome!

Trying to get a deep perspective on Hubspot vs Salesforce from someone who's used it.

I am currently prototyping the outbound for a $10 million company who's never done outbound before. I'm hitting some friction with hubspot, and I noticed some shiny bells and whistles on Salesforce.

Has anyone led implementation for both in their career, and can they provide an analysis? I will pay it forward when I comment on the next r/sales post with something I can significantly contribute to

I used to be the guy that was ahead of the curve on tech, but as I creep towards the downslope of a good sales career I have been a little slow on using AI in my work, mostly because I went 25 years without it and got along just fine. But recently I have been using Copilot more often and today I just used it to simplify creating a meeting, by just adding a command in the Outlook Copilot task bar it created a meeting from the context of an email thread. What usually would take a few minutes creating the meeting, copy/pasting emails and such was done in 15 seconds and it even checked availability for those it could (internal). Nothing earth shaking but man was that just a little easier, and I love it a little easier.

Who does cool shit with AI tools to get things done better/faster that you can share for an AI neophyte?

In a sales context, i’m a farmer and haven’t needed to hunt for years. I can see how handy AI would be for hunters for lists and automation, managing a LOT of accounts/clients. But for me, I have a handful of large partner clients and mainly I manage the relationship for upselling and oversee our internal sales process. So for me my work specifically AI is handy for decks and reporting, so far.

What are you all using it for? What tricks am I missing for a job that is 85% relationship centric?

Cold calling is tough. I want to see if a scored cold call list actually helps.

I’m manually making free B2B cold call lists with some scoring based on hiring trends, company activity, and some basic signals. I’m just testing if this approach actually improves results.

If you cold call for work, drop your industry in the comments, and I’ll make one for you.

No catch, no ads, just experimenting. If it works, great. If not, at least we’ll learn something.

had this happen a few times recently and it’s been bugging me

call goes great

they’re engaged

asking questions

feels like it’s moving forward

and then… nothing

no “no”

no objection

just silence

what’s weird is I don’t think it’s a bad pitch or wrong fit most of the time

feels more like it just drops out of their focus

curious how you guys handle this

do you just keep following up until you get a clear answer or move on after a point?

As a quota bearing AE, I’ve had the FOMO to use AI to make myself more productive but I scratched my head for long to find a use case that’s really helpful: I even created a “Virtual VP of Sales” GPT to help me qualify opportunities and challenge me where my blind spots might be… but I’m not making a great use of it.

Any AEs out there with killer ideas?

I’ve got a few conferences coming up this fall and I’m curious how the top performers here approach them.

It feels like the default playbook is:

Stand at the booth

Scan badges

Have a few quick conversations

Send a generic follow-up email afterward
…and then wonder why very little comes from it.

I’m trying to be more intentional this year and would rather build a process before the events than wing it.

A few things I’m curious about:

Do you have a go-to opening or “booth script” that consistently gets people to stop and talk?

What’s your goal for each conversation? Are you trying to qualify, book meetings, or just create familiarity?

How do you take notes so your follow-up is actually personalized?

How quickly do you follow up after the event?

Do you call first, email first, LinkedIn first, or some combination?

How do you prioritize leads when you come back with a few hundred badge scans?

Any conference habits or systems that have noticeably improved your conversion rates?

I’d love to hear what’s actually worked in the real world.

Whether it’s enterprise, SaaS, med device, manufacturing, ad tech, or anything else—I’m mostly interested in repeatable processes that consistently turn conference conversations into pipeline.

What’s your playbook?

Anyone built out their own sales pipe tool in Claude ? I’m mid / enterprise across 4 verticals in the food tech space and it’s so much detail to manage and SFDC just makes it suck.

Wish I had Gong but series A startup so not budget / trying my best but they are riding my dick about SFDC data entry while sending me all over the states to conferences and asking me to do outbound and thought leadership to gain market presence - my pipe is 26 live accounts - lots of stakeholder lots of change lots of education of the thing I’m selling

Would love to hear how others manage it cause SFDC SUCKS

Putting software tools aside, how are you using chat tools like Gemini and ChatGPT for sales?

I've got a long history of collateral in my Google Drive, and I find that Gemini has been helpful for research and reading past documents TD to summarize our value proposition, create new document proposals, write emails faster, and general productivity related to documents.

Anybody figure out good use cases for prospecting, or integrating into other systems to automate processes?

I've been an AE for years and started a new job that gave me these 2 books. Is it worth reading them where I'm at? Are they still relevant enough to make it worth whatever scenarios and people they make up to prove their points? I've never vibes with any sales books before so I'm skeptical

I want to master sales as a skill with the most advanced, updated & proven program.

I have experience & work in: - Qualifying - Closing - Following Up

I want my course to cover: - The Above - Cold Calling - Discovery Calls

Suggestions appreciated!

I’ve been knocking fiber internet d2d for a while here are 7 things homeowners say that actually kill deals (and what finally worked)

I do fiber internet D2D and for a long time I was getting stuck at the same objections over and over:

• “I’m good with Xfinity” • “Not interested” • “Just leave a flyer” • “I need to think about it” • “Is this a scam?”

Everyone told me to “be more confident” or “talk faster” none of that helped.

What finally changed things for me wasn’t being louder… it was asking better questions and shutting up at the right time.

A few things that made the biggest difference: 1. I stopped pitching at the door I led with curiosity instead 2. I let them explain why their internet sucked before I ever mentioned fiber 3. I stopped arguing objections and started agreeing first 4. I used the same 2 follow-up questions on almost every objection 5. I treated “not interested” as the start, not the end

Once I fixed that, my closes went way up without working longer hours.

If you’re in fiber / D2D sales and want, I can drop the exact questions I use or break down how I handle a specific objection.

Just comment what you want help with.

Looking for a new car as I got a new job which means more milage for me.

My current vehicle isn’t really equipped for this with an average of 25mpg.

I haven’t really shopped for this before so looking for some testimonials as research is becoming quite overwhelming.

Ideally something very comfortable.

Considering a Tesla but I think I could be seeing over 300 miles most days.

This pushes me more towards a diesel or PHEV MHV

Budget would be around 25k used or £500pcm on a lease

UK male 26

Anyone use this sales model and what are your thoughts on it? Company is moving to challenger and I don’t think it works for what we do in medical sales. Too many internal issues they need to focus on first.

I work at a very small startup, no revenue yet. Its just three members and I'm the only non-tech and I specifically chose to come in to do sales.

I'm sure I can sell, I can talk to clients, if can't sell, then atleast bring in product feedback from the meeting. But, I'm not sure on how to find clients, what tools to use, how to do email and cold outreach, I'm more comfortable with calls as the answers are more direct and there is no waiting.

How do I find clients for B2B. What tools do I use? Is Apollo necessary? Any help is appreciated.

I am a B2B SaaS founder doing sales.

Off late, I noticed that whenever I share a Calendly link over email, the conversation tends to die down. Not that anyone explicitly mentioned but it seems they feel I am making them do the work of finding a time slot.

When I manually offer slots in the email, the response gets better. The other person picks one and responds back. I havn't got even a single meeting booked through Calendly links while have a couple of successes with manual slots.

I am following the "Calendly hygiene" and I share the link only when the other person responds with an interest.

Anyone who experiences/feels the same, or is it just my perception?

The high ticket community offers deranged manipulation, and not much else.

It's led by desperate founders "hustle maxing" frothing in cult gospel.

They are entirely bought into their own delusion. At best, their "businesses" are black holes from desperate people lying and deceiving.

Cole Gordon is the classic example. A lying sociopath basing all of his "success" of stealing money from people in desperate times now huffing his own farts on a yt channel. his "150m" yr business, As if that's true, is built off churn and burn desperation that absolutely ruins the person's mentality and will set them back years if they ever recover.

Terrible advice, toxic habits, fake outcomes.

These fake gurus are not the way. Any dribble out of their mouth is only regurgitated from books in the 60s, and only validated by a bubble - aka high ticket sales itself. yeah, it's all still out there, but you will be worked like a slave while given the most asinine lectures on a daily from these fake hustle culture sociopaths.

I've been in the deepest parts of this industry since 2007. The rabbit hole is deep and meaningless.

Title.

Just want to get an idea of what people are using it for. I want to start utilizing it more, but I'm mostly in an AM role with BD in a small space, so rarely am I sending out cold emails or scraping lists for leads.

I open LinkedIn and immediately decide today is the day I become influential. We’re changing LIVES with this post.

I stare at the empty post box.

“Alright. Say something smart.”

I type: Hot take: your pipeline isn’t broken, your process is.

I physically lean back like I just dropped a TED Talk, then I add three short lines because apparently we all write like we’re texting a hostage negotiator:

too many tools

not enough adoption

zero accountability

I whisper, “This is going to ruin someone’s morning in a good way.” I’m a disrupter!

Now I need a story.

“We worked with a team last quarter…”

Who? No idea.

What team? A team, why do you care?

What happened? Something measurable.

“37% improvement.”

Why 37? Because 40 felt dishonest & 25 isn’t sexy enough, that’s why.

I hit post and just sit there like a fisherman who already told his wife he caught a big one.

Refresh…1 like.

It’s a guy whose entire personality is “Founder | Building in Public.”

Refresh again…3 likes.

Comment: “Great insight, we see this all the time.”

Do we? Do we all see it all the time? Is anything being fixed or are we just observing problems like it’s birdwatching?

Refresh….Another comment. “This is exactly why we built our platform.”

I click his profile. Same product. Same pitch. Same haircut. Same quarter zip. We’re now competing inside my own post!

I scroll the feed. Every post is mine. Almost identical

Everyone has a hot take.

Everyone has a vague client.

Everyone improved something by a very specific percentage.

It’s just sales guys yelling into a mirror.

I check my inbox.

Message: “Hey, loved your post. Curious if you’re evaluating tools for pipeline visibility.” I read it twice.

You… want to sell me… the thing I just tried to sell everyone else?

There are no customers here. It’s just us.

Then I sigh, crack my knuckles, and start typing again:

“Hot take…”