AI account research, deal context, signal monitoring, discovery prep, call prep, visit prep, and meeting strategy

AI made me faster at sales.
That turned out to be the least interesting part.

I work in business development, and I use AI almost every day for:
• Researching accounts
• Preparing for calls
• Writing outreach
• Summarising conversations
• Following up with prospects

Sometimes it gives me something genuinely useful.
Other times, it gives me a perfectly written email that I would never send.

The difference is usually context.

AI on its own doesn’t know:
• Someone from our team spoke to the company six months ago
• What the prospect cared about
• Why the conversation stopped
• What has changed since then
• Whether there’s a genuine reason to reconnect now

But when I started using AI alongside HubSpot and the other tools in my workflow, the picture became much clearer.

AI helps me work faster.
The context helps me decide who is worth contacting, what might matter to them and whether I have something relevant to say.

That distinction matters because my manager, Joshua Mathew, is not measuring success by the number of emails AI helps me produce.

It's more about whether those emails lead to conversations, meetings and qualified opportunities.

That’s why the thinking behind HubSpot’s new Agentic Customer Platform clicked for me.

It isn’t simply about adding another AI tool.
It’s about bringing customer data, business context, people and AI agents together, so the AI working with me knows more than what I typed into a prompt.

I work at HubSpot, so of course I’m biased.

But from my view:
AI without context can make us look busier.
AI with context has a much better chance of making us useful.

Has AI improved actual outcomes for your team yet, or mainly increased output?

Also, with Spider-Man all over my personal feed lately, this meme felt pretty apt.

I use AI every day in pre-sales.
And the most useful part of my setup is not a tool. It is a habit.

AI saves me hours every week.
Discovery prep, demo storylines, RFP answers, follow-ups.

But speed is only half the story. The other half is judgement.

For me, every AI task runs through two gates.

Gate 1, before the prompt: Should this information go in?
- Data privacy matters, so I think before I paste.
- Customer data, personal data, anything identifiable: I ask myself if it really needs to be there.
- Most of the time it does not. "A retail company with 40,000 employees" works just as well as the real name.

Gate 2, before I use the result: Should this result go out?
- Is it factually right? AI sounds confident even when it is wrong.
- Would I say this to a client, in the room?
- And is it mine? Edited, in my voice, with my judgement.

AI is the tool. Judgement is the job.

How do you handle this in your daily work? I am curious.

#ProductivityTuesday #PreSales #AI

Yesterday was a great example of how AI is changing field sales.

I was driving to visit a major coffee manufacturing company.
Before arriving, I used AI to research what had been happening in the business.

They recently completed a major acquisition.

10 minutes before pulling into the parking lot...
I sent an email to the Director of Procurement.

Subject line: “Dropping by in 10”

Instead of the usual “I’m in the area and wanted to introduce myself”,
I referenced the acquisition and asked a specific question.

He wasn't onsite, but he immediately replied,
and connected me with the person who was.

“I am still here. Give me a call when you get here.”

Ten minutes later, I was having an educated conversation about the acquisition, their operation, and how the integration could affect sourcing.

AI didn't get me a meeting, but it did give me context to earn the conversation.

For field reps, it can eliminate the 30–60 minutes of research that used to be required to walk through a door knowing what you're talking about.

When I began writing this edition, I wasn't trying to write another book about Artificial Intelligence. I wanted to answer a much more important question:

How can sales professionals use AI intentionally to become more effective at every stage of the sales process?

Over the past several years, AI has become one of the most talked-about technologies in business. Unfortunately, many organizations are still asking AI to replace selling rather than improve it.

My experience has been just the opposite.
AI doesn't replace Value Selling. It amplifies it.

The most successful sales professionals will use AI to:
•       Prepare more effectively before customer meetings.
•       Ask better questions during discovery.
•       Develop stronger value propositions.
•       Create more compelling proposals.
•       Coach more consistently.
•       Spend more time selling and less time on administrative work.

But AI only delivers its full potential when it supports a defined, repeatable sales process.

That philosophy is the foundation of this new edition. Throughout the book, I share practical AI prompts and real-world applications that help sales professionals improve productivity while strengthening—not replacing—the human skills that build trust and create customer value.

This book also serves as the foundation for the Value Selling Institute's Value Selling Fundamentals, Sales Process Workshop, AI Accelerator, and advanced commercial development curriculum.

My hope is that readers will finish this book with a simple realization:

AI will not replace salespeople. Salespeople using AI will replace salespeople who don't.

I'd love to hear your perspective.
How is AI changing the way you prepare for and execute customer sales calls?

#ArtificialIntelligence #Sales #ValueSelling #SalesLeadership #SalesTraining #B2BSales #CommercialExcellence #SalesEnablement #AI #ValueSellingInstitute

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Post-sales teams don't struggle because they lack customer data. They struggle because they spend too much time assembling it.

Before every renewal, executive business review, or customer meeting, teams jump between call recordings, CRM records, emails, Slack conversations, and notes just to understand what's happening in an account. Then they still have to turn those insights into plans, presentations, and customer communications.

Gong Assistant changes that by embedding AI directly into the Account Console, so account teams can get answers and take action without leaving their workflow. Instead of searching across systems or switching between tools, teams can ask questions, get trusted answers grounded in real customer interactions, and generate customer-ready deliverables — all from a single conversational experience.

Bring AI sales agents, your CRM data, and your business context into the one place your sellers already work. Run your entire revenue motion without ever leaving Slack.

Prospect, manage pipeline, and close deals in a seller-first workspace. Agents handle the grind so sellers can focus on what matters: building relationships and closing deals.

I do full-cycle sales.

No human SDR. No AI SDR. And I’ve hit 202% of my Q2 quota.

The only thing I use AI for is research. Which is funny — because half of LinkedIn would have you believe AI is replacing salespeople and I'm in trouble.

I use AI to reduce call prep time by 80% and that's what matters.

Before a call, I use it to:

→ Pull everything public on a prospect.
→ Find relational context — how does this company compare to others of its size? What are companies like them usually dealing with? Pattern recognition.
→ Format lists (lots of lists) and generate structured outputs I can actually use.

That's it.

I don't ask it to brainstorm with me.
I don't ask it to be creative and think for me.
I don't ask it to handle objections or plan discovery calls.

I ask it to help me get informed faster.

Because the goal isn't to automate sales. The goal is to spend less time gathering information and more time talking to people and building trust.

AI has changed how I work as a federal sales leader.

I use AI in a few practical ways:

1) Internally, Michael Broadwood has created different GPTs for things like building slide decks, internal messaging and writing support. I use the internal GPT environment to access the IGEL knowledge base and compile information. For example, when I need a white paper or a one-page brief for a partner or customer, or to understand how IGEL fits a specific government program.

2) I use ChatGPT for my daily schedules and prioritization. I take my calendar, my to-dos and screenshots of tasks from Evernote, dump them into ChatGPT and ask it to prioritize them for me. It is not always perfect, but it puts some logic into the list and gets me in the ballpark. Then I use that to build a working document for the day, where I plan my day-almost down to the minute.

3) And I also use AI to do quick research before client calls. If I have a call about a specific program a partner is working on, I can run a quick AI search, get a high-level understanding of the program and share it with the team before the meeting. It gives the team a starting point, gets us in sync, and helps us understand whether we may be a fit for that platform or opportunity.

In federal sales, AI helps me get smarter, maximize productivity and avoid wasting other people's time, but it does not replace the fundamentals. We still need to figure out how people prefer to communicate, find ways to differentiate ourselves, stay persistent and build our network. AI helps us be more efficient. But what we do with that efficiency is still up to us.

Hacking my way to P-Club using AI as a sales rep. Here's what's working:

1. Claude MCP + CRM + AI enrichment tool to make value pyramids, company initiatives, goals, etc: Build a .MD file that's really good at it, and you can just plug in top accounts to learn your approach in 5 minutes. Outcome is .html files you can review as a dashboard.

2. Claude MCP + CRM + LinkedIn Sales Nav Connector + AI signal enrichment tool (I use Backstory) + Apollo: This is the crazy one. Automatically prioritize accounts > use value pyramid memory > build prospect list > write emails > *human review* send emails. 10~20 great emails a day on autopilot. Closest I've felt to being a hacker.

3. Important meetings moments feed: (CRM + AI signal Enrichment) this is a uniquely powerful one. When anyone at my company (like an exec) connects with anyone across my book of business, I get a notification. For example, our head of product meets with a head of product at a different company to network. Sean comes knocking for intros.

4. Pipeline weakness signals (CRM+ AI Signal Enrichment) : Got a signal engine set up over my forecasting tool that tells me what opps I'm winning and losing. Spend a lot of time trying to strengthen the weak ones. Think Clari, but much more memory/stronger AI machine learning modeling using activity signals. Gives me recommendations for actual actions.

5. Gift card or swag bribing glory: this one is a bit controversial, but can work if you do it right. Gift cards are currently an 18:1 ROI for pipeline development. I vibe coded a swag landing page that showcases my offering in <5 min and they can unlock the custom swag. Possible good way for your BDR to meet with IC's/manager level to learn more info about the company. Doesn't have to be you, so you can keep separation. It's not a play for execs.

What else are people using AI for right now? Teach me something!