Category: Uncategorized

May 08, 2019 by Stefan Groschupf

Companies spend more than $3 trillion every year on wasted time and inefficient processes. Employees can spend between 10 and 25 percent of their time on repetitive computer tasks. The bottom line: inefficient processes waste money and time.

Now imagine taking these repetitive tasks away. How much more productive could employees be? Would their work be higher quality? How would this affect the operational costs of your company?

A future without all this waste is just around the corner. Fully autonomous business processes are near and the groundwork is being laid as we speak.

Potential of business automation

A typical rule-based process (like data entry or sorting files) can be about 70 to 80 percent automated, yet these tasks take human workers several hours of manual work daily. It’s estimated that 50 percent of automation opportunities are overlooked.

Business process automation is not a new thing. It’s when a machine, software, tool or system is able to handle a certain step in a work process or an entire task on its own with little-to-no human influence.

Until now, BPA tools were very limited in what they could do, understand or the tasks that they could perform. But with the latest innovation and democratization of artificial intelligence, BPA has expanded beyond rule-based systems.

We can use customer service email addresses as an example. Email inboxes like these previously had to be sorted manually. Now with AI-powered email servers boosted by natural language processors, the intent of the email can be understood and passed to the correct department or representative, drastically shortening customer response time.

But what other opportunities are there for autonomous business processes? Things like CRM data entry, various human resources processes, documents and record management, claims, booking and invoice management and many IT processes all have automation potential.

We can use sales teams as another example. Without using any sort of business or robotic automation tools, sales reps on average spend almost 11 hours a week on data entry and other admin tasks related to their CRM. This drastically cuts into the time they can spend on revenue-generating interactions with prospects and customers.

When reps automate their repetitive processes with sales AI tools, they save time and the company money. Reducing waste is where the real value is implementing autonomous business processes.

By applying BPA, companies can reduce labor-intensive, repetitive tasks by 80 percent. Almost all (98 percent) of IT leaders agree that automating business processes is essential in order to drive positive company benefits.

Introducing ‘Business 5.0’

AI-powered BPA opportunities are no longer reserved for niche industries, departments or processes. A wave of innovation is now occurring that will significantly reduce all the wasted time employees spend on repetitive tasks.

To properly explain this next evolutionary industry shift, Automation Hero coined the term “Business 5.0.” It’s the idea that automation powered by AI will drastically change company structure, business processes and employee workflow as we know it over the coming years. To fully understand what “Business 5.0” means, you must understand what came before it.

Throughout history, there have been several industrial revolutions, the first of which ended in the early 1800s and sparked massive transformations around manufacturing technology.

There were major advancements in mechanical, water and steam-powered systems. In 1870, the second industrial revolution ushered in the age of mass production with the assembly line. This is also when electricity became widespread. The third, known as the “Digital Revolution,” has been considered to kick off in the mid-twentieth century when manufacturing went digital with computers, the internet, mobile phones and automated systems converging.

Currently, we’re at the peak of “Industry 4.0” — the advent of connected devices, otherwise known as the Internet of Things. Based on the innovations derived from Industry 4.0, we predict “Business 5.0” will lead companies down a groundbreaking path.

During this next wave of progress, information workers will begin working alongside artificial intelligence in order to produce more, waste less and do it all in a shorter amount of time. AI tools will reduce the manual workload for human employees and give them time to focus on the valuable, humanistic aspects of their work.

To go a step further, we predict that in just ten years every information worker will be using some sort of AI assistant in their job. There have already been mass adoption rates for personal AI assistants. Almost half of adults in the U.S. (46 percent) use some sort of voice-enabled personal assistant that make our day-to-day activities easier and more enjoyable. This same obsession with our AI devices will bleed into our jobs.

Place for people

Thinking of a future like this, while there are substantial benefits, is scary for some people because of the looming job loss that comes with an autonomous business. I won’t sugar coat it; a future with fully autonomous business processes will come massive shifts in the job market. Gartner predicts that by 2020, 1.8 million jobs will be eliminated due to AI.

However, don’t let that stop you from embracing autonomous business processes, for Gartner also predicts that there will be 2.3 million more jobs created in their place. Business 5.0 is not about replacing humans, but rather getting rid of outdated processes and tasks. Humans have much more valuable work to focus on.

It is estimated that 85 percent of the jobs that will be in demand in 2030 have not been created yet. Esteemed futurist, Ray Kurzweil, spoke about the cycle of job loss and creation in an interview with Fortune when he said:

“We have already eliminated all jobs several times in human history. How many jobs circa 1900 exist today? … “Well, don’t worry, for every job we eliminate, we’re going to create more jobs at the top of the skill ladder.” And people would say, “What new jobs?” And I’d say, “Well, I don’t know. We haven’t invented them yet.”

Business process automation will shift the job market and the tasks required of business employees will change. Businesses will put a higher value on employees with critical skills that machines can’t replace like creativity, critical thinking, innovation, and empathy.

Imagine the possibilities for human work after excess processes are stripped away. After each revolution, human capabilities and skills surged forward and reached a potential that was never imagined in the era that preceded it. AI will redefine the way we work but will also pave the way for something new.

Automation will bring tremendous benefits to businesses by making them more efficient than ever before while also reducing operational costs. And Automation Hero will be the technology platform that makes it happen.

May 08, 2019 by Jessica Munday

There’s a revolution coming for businesses. A revolution where sales automation will be the key to either seeing success for falling behind.

Automation Hero CEO, Stefan Groschupf sat down with AA-ISP’s Bob Perkins to discuss everything sales AI. They go over its developments and capabilities and where Stefan sees sales automation making the biggest impact in sales organizations.

Listen in on the interview or read the transcript below

Bob: Hey everyone, it’s Bob Perkins with Inside Sales Studio bringing you a special episode and an interview on artificial intelligence. With us today, we have Stefan Groschupf. Stefan, how are you doing?

Stefan: Good. Good morning Bob.

Bob: Good morning. Stefan is the founder and CEO of Automation Hero, they’re a supporter of AA-ISP.

This whole thing, Stefan, on artificial intelligence is coming on so strong. And it’s just not a new technology, it’s something that potentially can change the way we sell, how we sell and it’s going to help us sell better.

And I think it’s going to actually help the profession of sales grow. A lot of people think “AI robots are going to take over selling.” It may take over pieces of it, but I think it’s going to help us.

The Martech landscape has grown and surged in the last few years. What’s the current state of the Salestech landscape and what direction is it headed?

Stefan: There will be a very similar development in the Salestech landscape that happened over the last decade with marketing technology. We went from relying on gut instinct to know what was working to developing a data-driven approach and a lot of tools developed because of that.

What is critical is that we recognize that our sales reps are extremely busy with all the tools they have to maintain. An average seller uses four and a half tools on a day-to-day basis.

It’s really important to understand that our sellers are extroverts. If you look at the typical personality profile, like a Myers Briggs, sales reps are hired because they’re great at building relationships with customers, at talking and pitching the product. Now making them data entry robots and yelling at them if they don’t complete their Salesforce updates is not the right approach.

On the other hand, the innovations in sales technology are very exciting. However, I think we need to recognize we’re really working with a different type of target audience. Instead of making their lives more difficult and preventing them from spending time with customers, we must invest in technology that can simplify their lives and give them more time to be with customers.

Nobody likes to talk to a robot. If I call my bank, I don’t like speaking with a robot. So the key here is learning how we can support our people and give them more time with their customers.

Bob: Now you mentioned helping them enter information into a CRM. Who wouldn’t love to not have to do CRM? The best salespeople avoid it.

Thinking about AI for sales, what do you think are realistic or maybe unrealistic expectations of what AI can do for selling?

Stefan: Even though there are incredible innovations in the AI space, I think we all have to stay realistic.

Sales reps will not be replaced by AI. And as I just mentioned, I don’t like interacting with a robot on the phone or even per email. There’s a bigger opportunity to take away these pesky tasks that sales rep steps do every day. As you just said, updating Salesforce, rather than making these AI algorithms customer-facing.

At this point, I think the real opportunity is to help our sales reps with mundane tasks or help them to make the right decision rather than replacing the human touch with robots.

Bob: I was at a conference last week, and I spoke on rehumanize selling. I think that AI can help us do that, we’ve gotten away from the human-to-human piece, partly because of all this other stuff we have to do. So, I would agree with you.

What are some examples of technology that you’re seeing emerge relative to AI?

Stefan: Now for every company “AI” is the new buzzword. Like five years ago “big data” was everywhere and five years before that you put “social” or “mobile” everywhere. It’s important to be careful, not every company that does data analytics is doing AI.

The exciting innovations in artificial intelligence that are coming up now, is the concept of deep learning. This is where a massive amount of data storage and compute is used to simulate the human brain, where we have neural networks stacked on top of each other. So this, for me, is real AI.

There are now new capabilities around natural language understanding. AI that’s able to understand the intent of an email and then autonomously scheduling a meeting. It could also differentiate between a phone number, job title or address within an email and then can extract that data straight out of the email and update it in the CRM. Because nobody likes to copy-paste that data over.

Sales automation is capable of tackling all sorts of processes, but also what’s fascinating about this deep learning technology is that you can make fantastic recommendations. It requires enough data but helping you to understand which customers are at the right point in the buying cycle and also understanding which product might be most relevant.

For these systems to work you’d bring in datasets like online behavior, CRM data and historical success of sales reps which the AI can use to accurately predict and recommend next steps for better success. Who wouldn’t love to call a customer that is ready to buy at the right time? AI can help us be more precise and augment our intelligence.

Bob: It’s interesting, the growth potential when you think of marketing automation. It helped grow the SDR/BDR role. We added salespeople because we were getting more leads. If sales automation can get us better leads, I think again we’ll have the need for more salespeople. Much like the computer in the 80s; people thought it was gonna replace people, but instead, it spawned a whole new revolution of IT and a lot of other jobs.

So let’s let’s talk about implementing AI. What are some of the challenges that a leader might face?

Stefan: It’s not as much of a technology challenge, but a change management challenge. It’s really important that you bring your people along. AI is a scary topic, lots of people are afraid they’ll be replaced.

It’s really important to bring them in very early on. So what we do is bring everybody into a room and do a Use Case Discovery Workshop. We ask “Here’s what the technology can do. Where do you guys have the biggest pain?”

Most often sales leaders push tools onto their team from the top-down. The perception from the sales rep is, “Oh, here’s another tool that’s observing me.” Turn this situation around and ask your team for suggestions on how to use this innovative technology to help address the challenges they are facing.

So it’s really about change management, getting people to overcome these fears and then focus on high-value use cases, rather than what this feels good for you as the sales leader.

Bob: I recall back in the early CRM days we had to do change management for that as well.

Let’s talk about success stories you’ve seen in the field that might help people watching this interview. Can you share any successful implementation stories or examples and then any tips on how to get started?

Stefan:There are many, so ping me if you wanna know more. But maybe just as a headline: IDC predicts that by 2020, AI in combination with CRM and sales overall will increase revenue by $1.1 trillion.

These are fantastic uses cases. It starts by getting your CRM data quality up because you’re using sales automation for CRM updates. That will then trigger better quality marketing and sales automation, better forecasting, and so on. Our product helps people save an hour a day on these tasks. They spend more time calling customers and are focusing on closing deals.

We had customers with SDR teams that spend 30 percent of their time just scheduling meetings. It takes four emails to schedule meetings. And let’s be honest, it’s just two humans between two machines. The sales rep has a calendar and the customer has another one, and they have to figure out if Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday works better. So those are things that could be helped through sales automation.

You don’t want to automate away the human conversation. But other things like CRM updates, scheduling, cross and up-sell recommendations, best next steps recommendations are all things that can be incredibly valuable. We frequently see tens of millions dollars in ROI in larger sales organizations and significant cost reduction. With the same amount of people, you can work so much more pipeline.

Bob: That’s great. I want to end though with learning a little bit more about Automation Hero. I know you’ve attended AA-ISP events, we’ve partnered together on many things and we appreciate your support.

But just a minute ago, you mentioned saving people quite a bit of time with the scheduling feature of our sales automation platform. Can you tell us specifically what Automation Hero does to help sales reps?

Stefan: Let’s take a step back. So I built a market leading company in big data analytics, raised $100 million in venture capital and went from zero to the market leader in seven years. But as a tech guy, I had to run a sales organization and, boy, that was hard.

So the idea for Automation Hero came from an older observation we had there. What we’re building is a sales automation platform that uses advanced artificial intelligence algorithms to automate pesky tasks that sales reps don’t like to do. Fifty-nine percent of a sales reps’ time is spent doing administration work. Only 37 percent of their time is spent with their customers and that’s our KPI. We want to increase the time sales reps spend with customers.

We do a whole bunch of things, but for the end-user, our product is personified as a personal assistant we call Robin. So every sales rep now has a personal system that helps to schedule meetings with the customers, does CRM updates, provides them with best next steps or finds their next customer.

And the beauty is that our system continuously learns from the individual sales rep, not the whole organization. Which is really critical, because the way Johnny sells is very different from the way Susan sells. So Robin learns from you, the seller, and then helps you every day by doing the tasks that you have to do, but that aren’t helping you drive revenue.

Bob: I want to hire Robin. I need Robin. Well Stefan, thanks so much for sharing this great information on AI.

If you’d like, what’s the best way for somebody’s seeing this interview to contact you or reach out to you.

Stefan: Just head to our website, saleHero.ai. Follow us on LinkedIn, we have a lot of really interesting information there. I think it’s fast moving, at this point. Sales automation makes a very big competitive difference, so don’t miss out there.

May 08, 2019 by Jessica Munday

Optimization — it’s what differentiates successful, market-leading companies from the rest. Without it, companies would be operating with the most expensive, inefficient, and slowest means possible.

Our world thrives on optimization. Every day there’s a new company pushing the boundaries and setting higher standards for the world as we know it. There are no finish lines when it comes to who can do it best.

This next industrial wave will make business optimization more important than ever. It will put AI alongside the human workforce to produce more, waste less, and do so faster and better than ever imagined.

Keep in touch

Building blocks of business optimization

Business process automation (BPA) is not new. It stems from business process management (BPM) that was brought about during the 1990s. BPM focused on simplifying and optimizing processes for businesses on a broad scale. BPA is an aspect of BPM that uses automation to eliminate repetitive workflows using a machine, software, tool or system with little-to-no human interference.

The goal of BPA is to rapidly improve the efficiency and productivity of an organization by getting rid of the mundane tasks that waste the valuable time of a company’s human workforce. It’s holistic technology that covers end-to-end automation of a certain process.

Historically, BPA tools were limited in what they could do, understand, and the tasks they could perform. Most tools often automated precise, rule-based processes like manipulating data or triggering automated responses.

Then there is robotic process automation (RPA), which is the software that enables BPA. It’s the physical technology that does the automating and completes these tasks. While BPA focuses on widespread automation of processes, RPA focuses on more narrowed automations.

Gartner calculated global RPA revenue on this technology to hit nearly $2 billion in 2021, with expectations that the market will continue to grow at double-digit rates through 2024. This explosion saw little-to-no signs of slowing down even in the face of economic downturn from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The future of this technology continues to impress. By 2025, the economic impact of implementing RPA into organizations is expected to reach $55 billion, and 35 million employees are expected to interact with the technology regularly. 

That type of growth within the RPA industry wouldn’t be possible without the advanced technology that’s now becoming increasingly available to businesses, which leads us to the next generation of business optimization: intelligent automation.

The next generation of intelligent automation

AI is now more advanced, more capable, and more easily accessible than ever before.

The developments in recent years have made it so machines can perform much more than previously imaged. For example, virtual assistants can now understand language and complete requests by humans. Other AI can recognize facial images and automate based on its detection (e.g. iPhone’s face unlock feature). These examples are merely the tip of the iceberg for the potential of AI and related technologies on business optimization.

This technology is also steadily becoming more available to the masses. What was previously only reserved for academia, the elite or science fiction is now in the majority of the global population’s pockets.

When these advanced AI technological capabilities are combined with RPA software, the possibilities are endless. RPA automates repetitive tasks that bog people down while AI analyzes, learns, and solves problems. The next generation of business tools will use technology enabled with both RPA and AI to accelerate productivity to unseen heights.

This generation of tech is called intelligent automation. Intelligent automation can be easily defined as a mixture of automation and AI to perform work processes, augment decision making or solve problems.

Intelligent automation is incredibly powerful. Some real applications include:

• Using text mining and natural language processing to generate documents such as insurance claims, medical forms, and invoices from email text or other unstructured formats.
• Analyzing the behavior of financial customers and recommending best next steps for a banker to close a mortgage loan deal.
• Optimizing logistics routes, manufacturing workflows, or packaging warehouse output to increase speed efficiency and automatically alert proper departments or representatives involved in process handlings.

The above are tasks that would take workers hours of cognitive effort to strategize, plan, and execute, while it only takes an intelligent automation platform a fraction of that time.

This frees up employees to spend time on more productive work. For a doctor, this means more availability for seeing patients. For a banker or insurance provider, this means more availability for helping customers. With intelligent automation, people can spend more time on the tasks they enjoy and excel at.

As humans waste less time, the benefits of using business optimization technology pile up. Overall productivity improves, operating costs are reduced, and tasks are done more efficiently.

The global spend on intelligent automation hit $10.9 billion in 2021, with continued growth anticipated for the industry to surpass $13 billion during the next two years.

Where does intelligent document processing (IDP) fit in?

Intelligent document processing (IDP) has emerged as a crucial element within the wider automation landscape. IDP technology was born out of the need for organizations to accurately extract data from documents. In essence, IDP leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to effectively handle and oversee document-centric business processes.

Through the adoption of IDP, companies can optimize business processes involving a large volume of documents to reduce manual effort, enhance precision, and reach their digital transformation goals.

A notable advantage of IDP is its seamless integration capability with other automation tools like robotic process automation (RPA). This compatibility with existing technologies enables companies to enhance their current automation strategies, leading to improved overall efficiency and expanded operational scope.

Hero Platform_ uses an Application Programming Interface (API) to transform existing systems, software, and databases into a “business intelligence fabric.” Our industry-leading native AI is built into the platform, so it can intelligently process any document, providing a valuable service within a wider automation strategy.

Why use IDP in your IA strategy for sales

In 2021, a major challenge for B2B businesses centered on qualifying leads and generating high sales performance. Without a well-oiled, highly productive sales organization, businesses fail to scale, grow, or remain successful and profitable in their market. Yet, the sales process is riddled with inefficiencies that prevent representatives from being productive and bringing revenue into the company.

Sales teams spend hours writing emails, scheduling meetings, entering data, filling out forms, and copy and pasting information. In total, this burden amounts to 64% of a sales team’s time spent on non-revenue generating activities. 

Eliminating these excessive processes that prevent sales productivity should be an initiative on any company’s agenda. Using intelligent automation will give companies a competitive advantage.

In 2021, intelligent automation was the automation technology companies considered investing in most, according to a survey of digital transformation leaders across industries, with 48% of participants looking to allocate resources to the growing field within the next year.

Businesses, now more than ever, rely on tech to optimize their processes. This is especially the case as a new generation of business optimization approaches with artificial intelligence and automation at the helm.

Unlock the intelligence in your documents with our AI-driven automation today

Learn how we helped Markerstudy reduce its claims processing time by 40%. Additionally, learn how we reduced total claim processing time by 80% for another multinational insurance partner — cutting down manual tasks from 10 minutes to just two minutes per claim.

• Speak with an expert — tell us about your specific use case.

• Get a personalized demo — schedule a demo, and our Heroes will get in touch!

May 08, 2019 by Jessica Munday

Picture this. A sales organization in which data automatically flows into the CRM like a clear, clean river. Sales organizations have a full view of their pipeline and can easily streamline their processes. There’s peace throughout all levels of the sales team. Forecasts are always precisely on the nose and revenue flows in abundance. This a perfect paradise for sales operations and the sales team as a whole. This is the reality with sales automation.

Sales operations know that clean, accurate customer data is essential for a smooth-running and efficient business. Sadly, this is far from reality for most sales organizations.

CRM data is often linked to a variety of sales tools such as external prospecting or forecasting tools. It also guides critical business decisions like expectations of how much a company can spend or grow. Not to mention it provides a holistic view of the sales pipeline.

Unfortunately, too many organizations rely on manual data collection, rather than sales automation tools for data entry. This ends up in disappointment across the board. Data is inaccurate, delayed or straight up just missing.

Think about it. If a sales rep is having a busy week (Yay! Maybe this means more sales!), it’s likely that their CRM duties will fall by the wayside. And I’m sure you can figure out the repercussions.

And this isn’t just a one-off problem as 79% of opportunity-related data that sales reps gather never make it into the CRM system. At all. As for the data that does make it into the CRM, 88% of CRM users admit to entering incomplete contact information and 62% say they don’t log all of their activities.

All of these issues with data collection leave sales operations teams with a lot to clean up:

• 30% of B2B contacts are outdated within a year.
• At any time, 20% of CRM contacts are no longer valid.
• 69% of users have outdated CRM data.
• 63% have duplicate contacts in their CRM.

The problem here is not with the sales reps. It’s a much larger issue with your current sales processes.

It’s time to get out of the way of your sales reps and let them focus on selling by removing data collection barriers. Introducing sales automation.

Sales automation tools that take on data collection can be a huge lifesaver. This task is one of the most time-consuming undertakings (and often cited to be the most boring).

75% of sales reps said they could be more productive if they spent less time on data entry. And 81 percent of reps said that the accuracy of their data could be improved by capturing quality contact info from people they meet or email with.

There are tools that can collect all of the important sales data without requiring anyone from the sales team (or even the ops team) to put in any grunt work.

Sales automation tools use intelligent mining and sourcing technologies to capture customer and business data, whether it be structured (like spreadsheets) or unstructured (like emails) and input them into the CRM. Magic!

With data collection done on a regular basis and done with better accuracy, the reliability of the sales data increases. Sales management and operations team then have more accurate forecasts and reports, which leads to smarter business decisions.

It’s imperative for sales organizations to find the right tool for the business problem they’re facing. This has given rise to the importance of the sales ops role as the optimizer of the sales process and owner of the tech stack.

As sales automation with AI becomes increasingly relevant in business processes, it’s more important than ever for sales operation to focus on keeping their teams competitive through automation and augmentation.

Plus: the role of CRM automation.

May 08, 2019 by Jessica Munday

Sales teams should be selling, not entering data into a CRM. Data entry is tedious and often doesn’t play to a sales professional’s strengths. Unfortunately, a survey by Salesforce found that most sales reps spend just 34% of their time selling and the rest on low-value tasks like data entry and quote generation — a lose-lose situation all around. And yet, companies need reliable data inside their CRM systems, whether that’s Salesforce or something else.

What’s the answer? It’s CRM automation. Here’s why a CRM and a good automation strategy are so critical.

1. Full view of the pipeline

You may not realize it, but sales managers have a lot of their plate. They’re being pressured from the C level to drive revenue and turn a profit. This is a tall order when the pipeline is disorganized, with multiple reps working various accounts at ever-changing stages in the funnel.

Without good pipeline visibility, sales forecasts are inaccurate, data is dirty and the team is working on potentially risky opportunities. A CRM system is a game-changer because your managers can watch every deal as it moves through the pipeline and lead the team accordingly.

They can also see what activities lead to conversions, which your management and operations teams can lean on when creating a deal-closing process.

2. Sales reports and forecasts

There are several sales tools and systems that integrate with your CRM system and use its data to create sales reports and forecasts. It’s crucial these reports are built on accurate data since they influence major company decisions, like spending budgets and plans for company growth.

According to Salesforce, CRM systems improve forecast accuracy by 42 percent. Your small updates have a big impact on the operations of your organization — your entire team needs to work in alignment with the “big picture” goals of your company.

3. Sales coaching and training

Sales coaching can increase revenue by up to 20 percent and CRM analytics indicate to managers which areas your team could improve. This is revealed by how quickly prospects move through or fall out of the sales funnel via accurate CRM data entries.

This insight impacts what your management (or sales ops) team cover during training by turning conversion rates into corporate assets. For example, if a number of reps have trouble with technical qualifications, this can be polished during the next sales coaching session. Feedback from your CRM data is used to reduce sales mistakes and sharpen your skills.

4. Customer data hub

Before CRM systems, sales reps had Rolodexes with hundreds of contacts, phone numbers and addresses; taking diligent notes or using an excel spreadsheet to track prospects in the sales cycle. And all that information is completely lost or hard to find when a rep packs up for a new job and another rep has to take over the account.

CRMs are a centralized location where it’s easy to find a prospect’s contact information and past interactions. Now all the information needed to sell to a prospect is in one location.

5. Customer needs and experience

American businesses lose $62 billion dollars every year due to a poor customer experience. Since all customer information is located in one place, sales reps can better understand customer needs and provide a positive experience.

Reps can look back on past interactions and adjust the dialogue accordingly; making follow-up interactions personable and relevant to each prospect. That data also shows you cross and upsell opportunities.

6. Smooth handoffs

A survey by Accenture found that 89 percent of customers get frustrated repeating themselves to multiple representatives. Information about a prospect can easily be lost between SDR and AE if there isn’t a streamlined hand-off strategy.

With the CRM holding all customer interactions throughout the team, communication appears seamless and there’s little to no disconnect in customer conversations with the opening and closing reps.

CRM automation to the rescue

CRM automation tools can help you gain back the time you spend in your CRM with little to no effort on your end. They can save you hours each week so you can get back to selling.

Let’s say you spend an hour each day on updates. How much more could you do if you got that hour back through CRM automation? That’s two more meetings or four more calls each day. Imagine what that would do for your quota over the course of a year!

Just because it’s a pain to update your CRM it doesn’t mean that it’s not important. Be the trendsetter in your organization and start using a CRM automation tool. Ask your sales operations team or sales managers to look into CRM automation tools that integrate with your current tools and process.

start new section

We all remember our first week in the sales industry. You were a wide-eyed, young sales rep ready to take on the world. While your journey was rocky (and often confusing) those experiences made you the sales rep you are today. Here are 11 sales GIFs that show the range of encounters SDRs can face during their first week on the job:

1. Not being sure what office attire is appropriate on your first day… So you show up slightly overdressed.

2. Then there’s the moment you first got introduced to the rest of your sales team.

3. And all of a sudden you were overloaded with acronyms… CRM, BOFU, TOFU, ROI…the list goes on.

4. The confusion only increased as you were introduced to the dozens of sales tools you now use every day.

5. And just when you think you’re settling in, your manager tells you what your quota is.

6. And they also let you know that you’ll be working long hours… and weekends… and holidays…

7. When it was finally time for you to start sending out cold emails, you realize you had no idea what to say.

8. But at least that’s better than calling 100 phone numbers without a single pick up.

9. When a call finally does go through and you get a gatekeeper.

10. And we won’t remind of how badly you fumbled on your first pitch.

11. But finally (against all odds), your hard work paid off and you scheduled a demo with a prospect. Congrats!

Hope our sales GIFs gave you a bit of a laugh today! For more sales humor, read here.

By Jessica Munday

Content Marketing Specialist at Automation Hero, writing about technology, sales, AI and the future of business!

Published May 08, 2019

Posted in Tips and Tricks

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May 08, 2019 by Stefan Groschupf

4 habits that separate real salespeople from order-takers

In many companies, most of the revenue comes from a small group of sales reps — the old 20/80 adage.

As I was building the sales organization at my previous company, Datameer, I started to notice the qualities that separate the top 20 percent from the rest of the sales team.

With the help of my team there, we built a data analytics company with close to $100 million in VC backing. We managed to double bookings six years in a row. How? The secret sauce was developing a sales team that understood the benefits of a data-driven sales approach.

About 20 percent of sales reps were on board with this — I call them “real” sales reps — and 80 percent who weren’t, I’ll call them “order-takers.” The 20 percent who were willing to step outside of their comfort zone, try something new, and be proactive possessed much more than people skills.

Let me take a moment to explain my definition of an “order-taking” sales rep. These are reps who don’t find or create any of their own selling opportunities but simply wait for an interested and ready-to-buy customer to come along. All they need to do is take their order.

More than that, these reps don’t work their deals. Often saying something along the lines of “try it out and let me know how you like it,” rather than properly educating their customers on the product’s uses and benefits. They rely on their personality to sell rather than developing a sales strategy.

Order-takers are more common than you may think, as most customers are already 57 percent of the way through the decision-making process when they make contact with a rep. The modern buyer does much of their own due diligence and research on products they’re interested in. Many sales reps choose to coast along, since the customer takes a more active role in the buying process.

I’ve observed true, successful sales reps in action too. These reps are self-motivated and pursue prospects, pull leads through the funnel and strategically follow up with customers until the deal is closed, embodying the Challenger Sale methodology.

They map the prospect’s pain point to their solution, highlight additional features that might be beneficial and clearly define the ROI. These real sales reps are always looking to improve and adopt new, modern sales tactics.

In my years leading a company and sales team, I’ve seen that the most vital sales skills are actually the ones that you’d least expect. Traditionally, you think communication, charm and a solid pitch is what it takes to sell.  But having a data-driven sales process and staying organized are far more important.

A perfect sales pitch and a charming personality can only take you so far. Order-takers are masters of communication, but to become a true seller you need to be a good communicator and have excellent data behind you.

I’ve observed that former project managers make the best sales reps. Why? Because a deal is a project that you need to work in just the right way.

In both roles, you need to move multiple parts in the right direction for the project or deal to successfully close. The moment one decision maker or variable is out of place, the entire deal is in jeopardy. This is why organizational skills are key to being a stellar sales rep.

It’s never too late to step up and become a better sales rep and a star member of your team.

How do you get there? By changing the way you think and work within your role. Let’s dive into four habits of top sales reps that you can adopt to become a real seller.

1. Take charge of your process

I’ve observed that order-taking reps often rely on their operations or management teams to coordinate the sales process and tech stack. They follow orders and complain about inefficiencies among themselves. If you want to become a true sales rep, scratch these habits.

Star sales reps evaluate their sales process, find solutions to their pain points and simplify their workflow. They share their findings with their team to improve as a unit.

Find the holes in your process

There are inefficiencies in all sales process stages. It’s up to you to analyze, be data-driven and find these pockets of wastefulness and look for solutions.

Here are a few sample questions to ask yourself: How effective are your email campaigns? Are certain subject lines more effective? Can you A/B test when you send them? How much time does it take you to write them? Which aspects of your email engagement process could be improved by a sales automation tool?

Share solutions with your colleagues

Chances are, other people on your team are feeling the same pains. Many sales teams have an internally competitive atmosphere, which to a certain degree can be healthy and productive. But, you’re all in this together. Just imagine that if everyone sold better, there would be more revenue coming in and everyone would get a bigger piece of the pie.

Manage up

Your managers and operations team are always purchasing new tools to simplify your sales process. However, they’re rarely the ones using them. This is a golden opportunity to review what’s in your tech stack and be vocal about how these tools impact your sales process — both positively and negatively.

Continue to fine tune

Top sales reps know that improvement has no final destination and that it’s not enough just to build a killer process; they know they need to continuously re-evaluate and fine-tune to stay in the top 20 percent.

Constantly review what’s working and what’s holding you back, ask for feedback from your managers and customers and adjust your sales tactics accordingly. Don’t get comfortable with the status quo.

2. Use a data-driven sales approach

Nearly every sales organization hires sales reps with an ESFJ Myers Briggs personality type. By definition, this means they’re great with human interactions but averse to processes and are much less data-driven sales strategy. And while communication skills and personality make the first impression, it takes a plan and analytical insight to move the deal along.

Order-takers tend to avoid updating information in their CRM system, but successful reps understand the value of data both for a fully functional sales team and for the larger organization.

By 2020, the customer experience will surpass both price and product as the key brand differentiator. The CRM was made to help reps manage their customer relationships by keeping all of the customer data in one place. Great reps use it to personalize the customer experience and to stay organized and track prospects throughout the sales cycle.

Educate yourself on the value of your CRM and push yourself to keep it accurate and up-to-date as often as you can. Look back on your past CRM records whenever you follow up with a prospect to keep your dialogue personable and relevant.

3. Embrace AI rather than fear it

Many sales reps are afraid of artificial intelligence and its potential to replace their jobs. And as a result, many shy away from opportunities to use it to their advantage.

Real sales reps are stepping into the modern era and embracing AI. They know AI tools can be helpful in a number of ways, such as prospecting, lead scoring, analytical insights, coaching and training, CRM automation and scheduling.

Sales AI is going to lead the next wave of growth for corporations. Forty-six percent of companies are looking to invest AI into their sales and marketing teams and sales AI adoption is forecasted to grow 139 percent over the next three years.

With AI on their side, winning sales reps can redirect their focus, energy and efforts on interacting with their prospects and customers, ultimately driving more revenue for their organization and crushing quota.

Look for sales AI tools that can automate the tedious tasks that detract you from revenue-generating activities. Look once again to the inefficiencies in your process and see which AI tools in the sales tech landscape can solve them.

4. Know your worth

The top 20 percent of sales reps recognize the value they bring to the table. They understand the skills and knowledge they possess are specific to their role. Time is their most valuable asset and they refuse to waste it.

Each sales rep is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to sell. Understand that your time is best spent contributing to the growth of your company, driving revenue, improving as a sales rep and (most importantly) providing solutions for your customers.

Take a moment every week to understand why you were hired. It wasn’t your ability for data entry, scheduling meetings or filling out spreadsheets. You have the perfect combination of skills, personality, drive and organization to sell; don’t waste your time or your company’s money on tasks that don’t utilize these.

You may not think your C-level managers are looking, but people who understand their worth and work to improve every day don’t go unnoticed. These reps are recognized and praised for going above and beyond (and usually see bumps in their commission and bonuses as a result).

This is a challenging but rewarding career choice. You are assisting a business as it grows and placing yourself in a position to rise through the ranks. Do not let yourself fall into the habit of coasting by. Challenge yourself and aim for that 20 percent.

May 08, 2019 by Jessica Munday

Most salespeople spend only 15 hours of their 40-hour work week selling (36 percent of their time). What’s taking up the rest of their time? According to Salesforce, one quarter of a sales rep’s time is dedicated to valueless administrative tasks.

Sales operations managers often try to combat this by rolling out “productivity tools.” But these tools tend to inhibit productivity even further by adding more steps to the sales process and making optimization even less of a reality.

“Productivity tools” just aren’t going to cut it. Decreasing the complexity of the sales process and maximizing selling time is true optimization. Sales operations must shift gears and integrate a solution that eliminates steps in the sales process and enhances sales team abilities.

How did we get here?

Between 2011 and 2018, the number of marketing tools out there multiplied nearly 47 times. The landscape went from about 150 tools to almost 7,000 in just eight years and is still on the rise. This same trend is underway in sales.

This is the current sales tech landscape, currently with over 700 tools. In 2015, there were just over 300. Soon sales technology will skyrocket in the same way MarTech has, with thousands of tools adding noise to the sales industry.

Adding a tool to the tech stack means wading through this maze to solve an organization’s specific pain point. Until recently, the only option was to waste hours researching products, talking to vendors and unraveling the complexity to find the right tool or just hope that the first tool they came across was a good fit.

This is inefficient both for the sales operations specialist and the sales team. Sales ops has more productive initiatives to work than finding “the needle in the haystack.” It’s also inefficient for the sales team because these tools are adding more complexity to an already convoluted process.

It’s time to look to the future of automation.

Intelligent sales process automation

It’s time to introduce sales operations to intelligent process automation. It’s likely that operations have already heard of robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI); intelligent process automation is the powerful combination of these two technologies.

The RPA involved in IPA automates repetitive tasks that bog employees down, while AI analyzes, learns and solves problems. This allows IPA solutions to automate complex tasks that waste human worker’s time and augment employee decision making.

This is the future of productivity. According to McKinsey, companies experimenting with IPA are automating between 50-70 percent of repetitive computer tasks, most often with triple-digit ROI growth.

When it comes to what sales can do with IPA, the potential is limitless. Imagine an organization that automated 50-70 percent of the repetitive tasks that sales reps do daily. This means accelerating email creation, eliminating data entry, quickly generating documents and reducing meeting scheduling, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This frees up their day to connect with customers and further drive revenue for their business.

Sales process automation is the highest level of optimization a sales team can achieve, as the only tasks the sales reps need to worry about are directly related to selling.

Larger business shift

Gartner estimates that global spending on RPA technology in 2018 hit nearly $680 million. In 2019 they predict that the RPA industry will grow 57 percent, making it the fastest growing software category. And according to Market Research Future, the global intelligent process automation market will see a compound annual growth rate of 40 percent by 2023.

While market growth means little to sales operations, it shows that this technology is on the cutting-edge and will soon be implemented across organizations and radically transform them. The next era of business is a term Automation Hero has coined “Business 5.0”.

Business 5.0 borrows its meaning from the previous industrial revolutions (see Industry 4.0) but focuses on the development of organizations. We predict that automation will liberate information workers from their computer tasks, allowing them to dedicate more time to work that drives real value for their company. In the coming years, businesses will go through another digital transformation and sales process automation will become commonplace.

Future of sales operations

With the onset of sales process automation, the operations role will need to shift, both in mindset and in knowledge base. Here are some of the changes we see coming:

Move away from short fixes:

Rather than implementing short-term productivity tools to solve existing problems, sales operations will begin thinking about long-term changes for their organization. They must pragmatically implement a solution that can scale with their organization and automate well into the future of the business.

Become technology experts:

Sales operations needs to cut through the noise more quickly and precisely than ever. To do this they must have an excellent understanding of the technology in the market and how it can impact their sales organization. It’s important to understand which features they need and ignore products without the right technology under the hood.

Specialize in systems integration:

It’s critical that any solution is integrated seamlessly into the existing tech stack. Sales operations needs to be knowledgeable on their integration needs and work even more collaboratively with IT for installation, configuration, maintenance, training and support of these systems.

Data engineering:

Sales Ops is already the delegated owner of the sales data, now they will need to work on properly collecting, storing, processing and analyzing these huge sets of data through the lens of sales process automation. They’ll need to learn how to build automation flows and manipulate data using their IPA solution.

Ignite the revolution:

It is operations duty to spark the digital transformation for the sales organization. They will need to articulate the long term ROI this technology will bring for the business and influence stakeholders to be on board with this shift. One aspect of this is combating the fear of “automating away” the sales team. It’s important to express that this technology is meant to make sales reps more productive and encourage more human work processes, rather than replace them.

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What makes a high-performing sales team? It’s not fancy CRM machines or gleaming sales reports. It’s not a fancy coffee machine in the break room or high-reward quota goals. The real determining factor for high performance is having a data-driven sales culture.

Sales productivity is a major problem for more than half of B2B organizations. None of the fake productivity and morale boosters listed above will change this problem. What will make an impact is a systemic culture change that motivates and supports the sales team to reach their goals.

Based on Salesforce research, top sales teams are three times more likely to use data analytics than under-performing teams, making it the top indicator of a high-performing sales team.

However, adjusting culture within any team or organization is no easy feat. Below are four steps you can take that will put your sales culture on the right track

Building a data-driven culture strategy

Creating a plan to make your organization more data-driven is the first step to building a data-driven sales culture. Start with a clear goal and create a strategy on how your organization will reach it. Give this goal a quantitative metric so it’s easier to track.

Some examples of quantitative sales goals: increase annual revenue by $x, increase productivity by xx% in Q1, increase overall conversion rate by xx% by xx date, increase quarterly lead quality by xx%.

When developing this goal-oriented plan, consider including:

• Short and long-term objectives
• Current KPIs and if those will need to change
• Who owns which metrics
• Delegation of responsibilities
• Team alignment on objectives
• Rough timeline of goal milestones
• Obstacles that may prevent or delay implementation
• Process for installation and on-boarding of any tools
• Training for end-users on tools
• Review sessions to continue optimization

Each organization is different and has unique needs. Be sure to add any other items to this plan that may be important to adjusting your sales organization to be more data-driven.

2. Align on larger goals

A study by Censuswide and Geckoboard shows that metric-driven companies are more than 2x as likely to hit their goals.

So the next step is to ensure that all teams and stakeholders are aligned with your data-driven plan. For this to work seamlessly across teams, there needs to be a path of direct and open communication.

Start by sharing your plan with stakeholders/team members and reiterating the value of building a data-driven culture and reaching your quantitative goal.

Often, sales reps misunderstand the intentions of management teams and feel they’re being forced into robotic processes or that unnecessary sales steps are being added. But the real goal here is to drive efficiency and growth; make sure these benefits are well understood.

3. Ownership of metrics

Clearly define ownership of the data. Determine which team is in charge of delivering which metrics/KPIs, define how those metrics should be reported and create a system where data quality is ensured.

In larger organizations, it might make sense to appoint one member of each team to be in charge of the data from the marketing, sales, support, product and other teams. This cross-departmental team can then collaboratively solve any challenges that arise

4. Metric check-ins

Set up regular status meetings to track progress against your goal. Research shows that the more often you review a metric, the more likely you are to reach it.

This could be as simple as touching base for 15-minutes every week or a deep analysis on a monthly basis. Whatever method, just make sure there are multiple check-ins before your deadline to reach your goal. This allows you to collaborate and correct any problems that may prevent that goal from being met before your deadline.

Consider using a Design Thinking approach to quickly iterate and come up with improvement ideas. Or, it might be worthwhile to consider running your process as sprints, an approach many software development teams have been very successful with. This involves tackling big complex projects in small steps on a weekly basis.

By Jessica Munday

Content Marketing Specialist at Automation Hero, writing about technology, sales, AI and the future of business!

Published May 08, 2019

Posted in Tips and Tricks

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May 08, 2019 by Jessica Munday

Let’s say you’re a salesperson, looking to increase your overall productivity. Take a look at these six tips on how to work with both sales AI tools and our automation assistant, Robin.

Tip #1: Understand Robin’s skills

According to InsideSales Labs, about 67 percent of sales reps rank administrative tasks, such as researching and data entry, as the least effective of all sales tasks. Lucky for you, Robin can handle much of those tasks that you hate doing.

Here’s what our rockstar automation assistant Robin can do for you:

1. Create: Create new leads and contacts in your CRM system or suggest promising, new accounts.
2. Update: Update existing lead, contact or account information, keeping phone numbers, titles, company descriptions and other information up-to-date.
3. Log: Log your activities such as emails and calendar events to their respective CRM records.

And that’s just the beginning. Robin can be customized to handle a whole range of tasks in our enterprise model.

Tip #2: Prospecting made easy

Sales reps waste 50 percent of their time on unproductive prospecting, according to B2B Lead. With Robin, that’s time you can now spend talking to hot leads.

Robin prospects for new accounts based on past historical success. In other words, it only brings you accounts similar to accounts you’ve previously won or closed.

*NEW FEATURE ALERT*:

We’ve recently updated Robin so that you can customize its prospecting capabilities.

Now, not only will Robin bring you accounts based on historical data, but you can also set your parameters by region, annual revenue, employee size and industry.

Say you close medium-sized businesses in insurance on the West Coast. You can set those parameters and Robin will bring you the best accounts that fall within them.

Tip #3: Data entry done right

A study by DMC Software found that 88 percent of customer data records contain errors.

Robin can eliminate errors by finding the empty fields in your CRM and pulling in the most up-to-date information from your emails, calendar, or the Automation Hero database. These can be details like a phone number or job title.

And ESNA found that 79 percent of opportunity-related data never makes it into the CRM system to begin with.

Robin will proactively log your emails and calendar events for you. Now you can measure your account health and opportunities without the pain of data entry thanks to sales automation.

Already using another tool to log emails? No problem. Robin will never create a duplicate. It will only find what’s missing.

Tip #4: Improve week over week

Sure, your daily to-do list email from Robin is awesome, but you can also design Robin to send a weekly email that shows how your activities stack up week over week.

Each Friday, Robin might emails you an at-a-glance summary of the week’s activities to help you see where you measure up compared to your goals. This report includes all of your Salesforce activity around email and calendar events, plus lead, contact, account and opportunity creation.

This helps you see how you’ve either been more or less productive compared to the previous week.

Tip #5: Your personalized automation assistant

There are no surprises in your relationship with Robin. It’s easy to customize the tasks you want (or don’t want) it to do, and it learns from your interactions over time to bring you a better to-do list every day.

If you don’t want Robin to perform a certain skill set — say you don’t want it to log any calendar events in your CRM — simply go to the Robin interface within Automation Hero and click “Disable this skill.” Robin will not generate any more of those tasks until you re-enable it.

Robin is also learning from the individual tasks you accept or reject. Say you constantly reject tasks related to a certain account. Robin will learn from this over time and stop offering you tasks related to this account.

So, if you see something you don’t want updated or logged into your CRM, just reject it and Robin will take care of the rest.

Tip #6 Behind-the-scenes security

Your privacy and security are of the utmost importance to us. Which is why all your data is strongly encrypted and each user has their own unique encryption key.

No data is shared between users and no data is ever made available to anyone inside or outside of Automation Hero. Basically, the only person that can see your data is you.