How to Use AI for Sales Prospecting

AI for Sales Prospecting is a way to use artificial intelligence to do the work that Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) usually do by hand. This includes researching potential customers and figuring out if they’re a good fit for your product or service. It’s like having a digital SDR that can quickly look through lots of information and pick out the important parts.

In this article, we’ll cover three approaches you can use AI for sales prospecting in B2B, how each approach works, their benefits and challenges, and which businesses they’re best suited for. You’ll learn how AI can help your sales team work more efficiently, reach more potential customers, and focus on the leads most likely to buy. By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of how AI can change your sales prospecting.

How Can You Use AI for Sales Prospecting?

The first way you can use AI for sales prospecting is to use Large Language Models, or LLMs for short. These are advanced AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity that can understand and answer questions. You can ask them to research a person or company, and they’ll give you useful information. Here’s why Perplexity stands out: Claude can’t search the internet, while ChatGPT and Perplexity can both search in real time. However, Perplexity is built specifically for research, which often makes its answers more focused and relevant.

This method works well if you don’t have too many prospects to look into, but if you are qualifying thousands of prospects per month (like most companies do), you need a more scalable solution.

AI Prospecting Tools

All-in-one prospecting platforms are one of these solutions where you can use AI for sales prospecting to high volume of leads. Tools like AiSDR and Reply.io’s AI SDR Agent offer a complete solution that can handle the entire prospecting process automatically, from lead generation to initial outreach and follow-ups. Both of them have access to databases of potential leads, and they use AI to analyze your ideal customer profile and find prospects that match your criteria. This means you can quickly generate a list of high-quality leads without manual searching.

One of the most impressive features of AI Prospecting Tools is their ability to personalize outreach at scale. They can analyze a prospect’s recent social media activity, company information, and other publicly available data to craft highly personalized messages. For example, they might reference a prospect’s recent LinkedIn post in an email, making the outreach feel much more personal and relevant.

Most tools focus on outbound, although some can handle inbound leads as well. AiSDR, for example, integrates directly with HubSpot and uses your data to tailor messaging to each lead. Additionally, they can analyze your prospect purchase and hiring intent, qualify and score leads.

AI prospecting tools might work through email, LinkedIn, SMS, and sometimes even phone calls. Many of them can automatically answer questions from potential customers, deal with common objections, and set up meetings by checking your calendar. Some tools offer fully automated responses, while others give you AI-generated suggestions to review before sending. It’s important to remember that not all tools have the same features, so you need to pick one that fits what your sales team needs.

AI Prospecting Workflows

While AI prospecting tools are truly amazing, some companies often need a solution that can fully adapt to their existing sales processes. Tools like Clay and Persana AI can set up what’s called AI Prospecting Workflows.

AI Prospecting Workflows are integrated systems for prospect research, qualification, and outreach. They are the most customizable method of using AI for sales prospecting. They allow you to automate and scale your existing prospecting process, rather than adapting to a pre-built system. Here’s how they typically work:

1. Data Collection: The workflow pulls information from various sources like company website, social media profiles, and databases like Apollo, Zoominfo, Lusha, and others.
2. AI Analysis: Using AI, it analyzes this data to identify potential leads that match your ideal customer profile.
3. Qualification: The AI scores leads based on criteria you set, helping prioritize the most promising prospects.
4. Personalization: It uses the gathered information to create personalized outreach messages.
5. Integration: The workflow can integrate with your existing CRM and sales tools to send information automatically.

The key advantage of AI Prospecting Workflows is flexibility. You can customize each step to fit your specific needs and sales process. For example, you might set up a workflow that first checks a company’s size and industry, then looks for specific technologies they use, and finally analyzes their recent growth or hiring patterns.

This approach allows for more complex and nuanced prospecting strategies than off-the-shelf AI tools. Let’s say you have a sales process where SDRs, account executives, and sales managers work together on a single deal, but their involvement in each step of the process depends on the specific deal. Typically your account executives will take the first few calls, but if you evaluate that a company can be a key account, you may want your sales manager to step in. Pre-defining that process in AI Prospecting Workflows will do that automatically. It’s like you mapped out your standard operating procedures (SOPs) and AI Prospecting Workflow will execute it.

Setting up workflows often requires expertise in both sales processes and AI capabilities. AI Prospecting Workflows rely heavily on using LLMs, such as ChatGPT and Perplexity (the ones we’ve covered in first approach), to research and qualify prospects and for that you need to know how to write prompts to get accurate answers. If you want to learn how AI Prospecting Workflows can help your business, feel free to reach out to us – we offer this service and can show you how to make it work for your specific needs.

5 Ways AI for Sales Prospecting Helps B2B Sales Teams

1. Increased Efficiency

AI can do a lot of the boring work that SDRs usually do. SDRs spend about 65% of their time on activities that aren’t actually selling. That’s a lot of time that AI can save by automating these tasks. This means your sales team can spend more time talking to potential customers and closing deals.

2. Scalability

To increase your prospecting and sales volumes with SDRs, you had to hire more people. If you have a small team of SDRs this means your costs will increase significantly, which makes it hard to scale. With AI, you can prospect more potential customers without hiring lots of new people. You might still need some SDRs, but not as many. For example, if you used to need 10 SDRs, with AI you might only need 2 to check the AI’s work.

3. More Up-to-Date Information

B2B data decays at a rate of 70.3% per year leading to a reduced sales productivity by as much as 50% (people change their jobs, companies switch the technologies they’re using, pivot on their offering, rebrand, hire people, fire people, and so on). AI can check information in real time, so it’s much more likely to be correct and up-to-date.

4. Personalizing Outreach with AI Prospecting Data

With all the data AI gathers during prospecting, you can pick out specific bits of information to make your outreach more personal. AI can find things like recent company news, the prospect’s job role, or their company’s challenges. You can then use this information to write emails or make calls that feel more tailored to each potential customer. This personalized approach makes your messages more interesting and relevant, increasing the chances that the person you’re contacting will respond positively.

5. Improved Lead Quality and Prioritization

AI is really good at looking at lots of information and figuring out which potential customers are most likely to buy from you. By focusing on high-quality leads, your sales team can spend their time on the people most likely to become customers, which means they can sell more efficiently.

Overcoming Common AI Prospecting Challenges

While AI for sales prospecting solutions can be powerful, there are some challenges. Here are two common issues and how to handle them:

1. Data Quality

AI can sometimes get things wrong, especially large language models like ChatGPT that are behind AI prospecting solutions. It’s really important to make sure the information AI gives you is right. When you add a new AI step to your process, try it with 10 prospects first. Look at the results, and only scale it once you’re happy with the output. You can also have an SDR check the AI’s work before sending out messages. This way, you’re still saving time, but you’re making sure everything is accurate.

2. Giving AI Too Much Freedom

It’s tempting to let AI do everything, but that can lead to problems. Don’t let AI write entire emails or even full sentences. Instead, create email templates with blank spaces for specific information. For example, instead of asking AI to write about a company’s customers and their problems, you could write something like this: “I saw that you likely sell to [JOB ROLES], and they often face challenges like [TRIGGER POINTS]. Our service could help by…” Then, let the AI fill in the blanks with the right information. This way, your emails still sound like you wrote them, but they’re personalized for each prospect.

Keep these tips in mind, so you can use AI for sales prospecting to improve your process while avoiding common pitfalls.

How to Choose The Right AI for Sales Prospecting Solutions

When picking an AI solution for your sales prospecting, consider your business size, needs, and resources. Here are some tips to help you choose:

1. Manual LLMs: This is a good choice if you’re a small business or startup. It works well if you don’t need to prospect a lot of leads each month. You’ll have more control over the process, but it will be slower. This option is great if you’re just starting with AI and want to learn how it works without spending too much money.
2. AI Prospecting Tools: These are perfect for small to medium-sized businesses that have a standard sales process. If you need to handle a moderate to high volume of prospects, but don’t want to build a custom system, this is for you. These tools are easy to use and offer good automation, but you might not be able to customize them as much as you’d like.
3. AI Prospecting Workflows: Larger teams or businesses with unique sales processes should look at this option. It’s also great if you’re handling a very high volume of prospects. You’ll need some expertise to set it up, but once it’s running, it’s very powerful. You can customize it to fit exactly how your company works.

The best choice depends on your specific situation. Think about how many prospects you handle, how unique your sales process is, and how much time and money you can invest in setting up and learning to use the AI system.

Conclusion

AI for sales prospecting can make B2B sales teams more effective and efficient. AI helps by increasing efficiency, improving scalability, keeping information up-to-date, personalizing outreach, and improving lead quality. Whether you start with manual LLMs, use AI prospecting tools, or build custom AI prospecting workflows, pick what works best for your business. As you start using AI, remember to keep a good mix of automation and personalization, and always make sure your data quality is high. By using AI in smart ways, you can stay ahead of the competition, reach more qualified prospects, and drive better results. The future of B2B sales is changing with AI – are you ready to try it?