How are people making the best of use of AI when prospecting?

Our CEO (like most CEOs) is obsessed with getting our BDMs, AEs, and SDRs to use AI. Only thing is he doesn't really know how to use it himself, nor is he interested in spending money to give us access to the best AI sales tools out there. The best he or anyone on our team can come up with is using AI to write cold emails, but based on all the AI sales tools out there I've seen, I know that there's more we could and should be doing. Instead I find myself creating a list of contacts on Apollo, exporting them to Hubspot, drafting cold emails with ChatGPT, and firing off one sequence after another. In my 11 years of sales/BD experience, that process would get me a 10-12% response rate, but in 2023, it's well below 1%.


Long story short, are there better tools out there that people are using to get that golden response rate, or am I maybe not making the most of Apollo and Hubspot? In an ideal world I would like it if there's a way to get an AI tool to incorporate something from a prospect's recent LinkedIn post or anything that they are interested in into the email, but I don't know if that's even possible.

๐Ÿ”Ž Prospecting
๐Ÿ’Œ Cold Emailing
๐Ÿ–ฅ AI
13
BTQ
Politicker
10
Account Manager
I really like Fireflies AI for meetings to take notes it's great to mine for little details you may have missed. Sure Chatgpt is good for cookie cutter emails but it's not great.
Check out Lavender for email though, it gives scores on your emails.
also rip comment section

HVACexpert
Politicker
4
sales engineer
Came here for the comments
Fenderbaum
Politicker
5
Retired Choirboy๐Ÿช•
I'm right behind you.
BTQ
Politicker
3
Account Manager
Yeah it's gonna be a good one
sugardaddy
Politicker
1
๐Ÿฌ
I'll follow the train!
oldcloser
Arsonist
4
๐Ÿ’€
just the perfect meme...
f2pftw
Opinionated
3
Retention Specialist
I've got the popcorn
NoSuperhero
Politicker
0
BDR LEAD
I've been looking into Lavender and I think we'll go in this direction too, thank you for this!
poweredbycaffeine
WR Lieutenant
5
โ˜•๏ธ
I AM SO FUCKING SICK OF AYE-EYE threads.
oldcloser
Arsonist
5
๐Ÿ’€
Your CEO is a Chatbot fan boy. His significant other is a dogbot with one command. If this, then lick scrotal-butter, else pee on the neighbor. The freaking AI hype is parting a bunch of people with their hard-earned money.
It ain't replacing anything yet. It doesn't cause anything. It's a freaking novelty item in its current state.
RandyLahey
Politicker
4
Account Executive
Dude, search bar. 100s on threads on this
CuriousFox
WR Officer
4
๐ŸฆŠ
Bruh...
antiASKHOLE
Tycoon
3
Bravado's Resident Asshole
Just please wash it first
Justatitle
Big Shot
3
Account Executive
it's rather untested and putting a lot of trust in relatively newer concepts
Kosta_Konfucius
Politicker
3
Sales Rep
Creating templates for c and d accounts
Sunbunny31
Politicker
3
Sr Sales Executive ๐Ÿฐ
Have your management check this out: https://bravado.co/war-room/posts/cruel-feedback-on-genai-prospecting
and get back to us on if it works or not.
Sunbunny31
Politicker
2
Sr Sales Executive ๐Ÿฐ
Does your CEO know that ChatGPT is two years behind?
It's not so great for doing competitive analysis when the data it's using is that old.
And when we are all bombarded with email after email because everyone is automating the process...nobody's getting through.
Pachacuti
Politicker
2
They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy
AI for prospecting is not AI - its just software which creates impersonal interactions and alienates potential prospects. "Personalization" is NOT just adding the prospects name to a subject line.

If you use AI for prospecting you should not be able to call yourself a Sales person. You're Marketing, at best.
wolfofmiami
Opinionated
2
๐Ÿบ
Boooooo
1
Sales rep
idk!
GDO
Politicker
0
BDM
I'm not an early adopter. I'll hear it when it works
Beans
Big Shot
0
Enterprise Account Executive
You can't make a computer chip do your job for you, this is what leadership doesn't understand - they only see the high level pretty posts on LI or anecdotal stories, if it was such a game changer the entire industry would've flipped by now.
J.J.McLure
Politicker
0
Owner at *redacted*
I liked using chatgpt to help me think of implication questions when I was newer at my role. Or Iโ€™d enter all the functions of our product and say โ€œtell me a compelling use story for this productโ€ or give me a S.P.I.N. Script to demo this product. They werenโ€™t usually good but there was almost always something I could use
rocketfuelsteel
Opinionated
0
SDR
Nothing
sugardaddy
Politicker
0
๐Ÿฌ
I have never ever seen or experienced any AI tool that could make my workflow, emails, or anything else more efficient.

People deal with people, and that's how it will always be!
Maximas
Tycoon
-2
Senior Sales Executive
AI topic has been tackled hundreds of times here,check Sales GPT it's a big help!
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