5 Ways AI Can Grow Your Sales

Five Ways AI Can Grow Your Sales

Hey, this is Mick Holly welcome back. And this episode is entitled Five Ways AI Can Help You Grow Your Business.

Yes, AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. Now a lot of people seem to be , frightened of artificial intelligence that it's going to supplant us. But it really is a liberating technology. It allows you to offload repetitive tasks, helps you Sort through complex data. It helps you make decisions that would perhaps take you a lot of time And it's really something that you should embrace.

Anybody with a Small medium sized business you want to be able to be as productive as possible and ai is coming. So you either need to embrace it or it's going to crush you because other competitors are either going to be using it to grow their business and grow their sales, or they're going to be able to automate a lot of their processes so that they'll reduce their cost base,

so they'll become more cost effective and they can actually put bids out that are more, much more competitive than yours.

You know, I use, chat GPT .If you're not really very good at writing and you write a long email and it's not really very easy to read, you can pop that email, copy it, put it into chat GP and say, please rewrite this email, in summary form and boom, it'll do it for you.

It's highly, highly, effective in being able to do those kinds of tasks. But what we're going to be focusing on today is how you use aI to grow your business.

Now we all want to grow. The question is how do we sell more? Right.

And the great advertising executive, Gary Halbert. Gary Halbert, was posed this question in order for, to sell more, what would he add?

What would he like to add to. Products in order to make them more attractive so that they would sell more.

And his answer was quite profound. He said, I don't want more product features. I don't want. a better product. What I want is a starving crowd.

So imagine, imagine that, you've got a little hot dog stand on the corner of the street and, you know, one or two people march past, doesn't matter how good your hot dogs are, you're going to sell three or four.

Whereas , the hot dog stand in the middle of the football stadium at, is going to sell like hotcakes, and it doesn't matter if they're, the taste is terrible, they get smothered with relish and ketchup, but they will sell thousands and thousands of, of hotdogs. Why? Because of a starving audience.

And the biggest issue that most businesses... have is that people don't know what you do. They don't know what you offer. And when they're thinking about buying the product or service that you offer, you're not the people that come to mind, right? So you're invisible. You're wearing this cloak of invisibility.

You know, like in Star Trek, those Klingon vessels always had cloaking devices, shields. He couldn't see them. And I see so many businesses, they put these shields on. And they're cloaked and they're only known to a few. You have to have a secret handshake to even get in to be able to ask if you can buy something from them!

It's absolutely crazy. So what we want to do is in order for you to sell more, it's really, really quite simple.

You've got to be having double the number of sales conversations, right?

It's a function of the number of people on your marketing list, the number of contacts that you've got and the number of offers that you're making to that list.

So what we want to be able to do is to grow a bigger list, to build a bigger audience, to create this starving crowd.

So the first thing that AI can do for you is outreach. Outreach, going to your market and finding... Potential customers. What I see is many, many businesses do well, you know, they, they, they're talking to one or two key customers and , a few of those customers represent a significant amount of their revenue and their volume every year, which is all well and good until the economy slumps or your company Key customers have a problem and they shrink. They're not ordering as much.

And if your only vehicle for getting more revenue is tied to those few customers or that method of talking to customers. When the recession comes or the slump comes, you are gonna slump. You are not in control of your own destiny. The companies that succeed are the ones who are in control of sales.

They're sales centric. They are market makers, they are rain makers. You can go out and find business. You win business, you get new customers. Even in. And if you are, if you have a predictable sales engine that goes out and gets new customers in a recession or a slump, you're killing your competition because they're dying.

And then when the recession ends, your market share has gone up significantly. So your growth is exponential when it bounces back. So not only do you prosper in the down times, but you accelerate away from your competition in the up times.

So we need to be able to reach out to people who currently don't know us or aren't thinking of us. So the first thing that AI can do is to go and target your ideal customer.

 One of the things that I would advocate for you is that you identify your... Ideal customer or your customer avatar. Those are the customers who you like working with that you deliver that they're easy to work with. They generally pay you a lot of money. They're high margin and they pay quickly. So the cash comes in very, very quickly.

And there'll be a certain type of profile, a certain type of work that you do really, really well. And you want to focus on that. Now, once you've identified that particular segment, let's say you're a flooring company, a commercial flooring company, and you sell floors.

You do a lot of work with, property managers, commercial property managers.

Well, I'm sure there are lots of commercial property managers who don't know who you are. So what we need to do is to use our AI to identify them. So what AI can do is you type in, commercial property managers in Atlanta and AI will seek out all of those people with their telephone numbers, with their email addresses, with their websites and import that into your database.

Now what you've got is a bigger list of ideal prospects. So that's the that's the first thing.

The second thing is automatically as those prospects come into your database, your A. I. Can be trained to send them marketing .emails, you know, a series of five emails saying, Hey, , we can help you with maintenance on your floors.

Uh, an email that says, Hey, you can increase, , tenant occupancy by having a great atrium three things that you need to be aware of as your floors wear out to create added longevity.

And so you're speaking to your commercial property owner over time, and you might make an offer and saying, Hey, we can come and give you a free estimate and the AI can do all of that for you in the background without you doing any of that.

Because I know in particularly in commercial services, right you're so busy delivering work, working on the job. Doing the contract administration, doing the risk management that you don't have time to prospect.

My own studies have shown that commercial, services salespeople only spend about 6 percent of their time prospecting.

Well, if you have an AI engine in the background that's doing that prospecting for you and building your database, you're going to have A bigger list, which means that you have a bigger crowd.

And at some point that crowd will be starving.

So you can set up your AI to add, say 200 new leads each month. Well, if you do that for a whole year, that's 2400 new leads that are in your system that you're ideal client where the AI is sending them information, keeping them warm, letting them know that you exist until they are ready to buy.

And if you don't have that, then , you're missing, you're missing a very, very significant, trick.

Now, what, the other thing is when, when you invite, people, I'm sure you do some, , some advertising. The next thing that you want to think about is where do they go to find out more? Where do they go to get an offer? about your service.

Often, you'll spend time building out your website. And I look at lots of websites. And the problem with websites is that they are confusing. They've got multiple messages. You know, this is who we are. This is our history. These are our products. These are our services. This is our dog.

And there's lots and lots of buttons.

And it's all very confusing if you want to buy something. So you want to substitute, or complement your website with landing pages.

The difference between a website and a landing page.:

A landing page has a singular purpose. It only has one option. For that prospect, and that is to click on something, click on, download our free brochure, click on, get a free estimate, click on, look at our portfolio, click on, schedule a meeting, so we can talk about your needs, it drives them to one purpose, and it collects, when they do that, it collects their email, and if it's intelligently set up, the AI will also collect the text.

So now you've got an email and a text, because a startling fact about websites is that 96 percent of people who visit your website aren't ready to buy.

So they're going to bounce off your website. .

When I look at a lot of websites, there are so many different options, that I don't really know what to do. And I get confused, I get distracted, and I leave. Because I'm not ready to buy at that point. I'm not ready necessarily to schedule a meeting with somebody. Right? I'm not ready to talk to somebody about getting a quote.

But I am interested now a landing page would say leave us your information and we'll give you some value in terms of here are the things that you need to think about if you're thinking about buying this type of service and now you've captured that information so you have put something on the landing page that is magnetic that attracts them that invites them to give you their contact information and you put that into your database where your AI engine will nurture those leads.

And I'll talk about lead nurturing in a moment.

But the second thing that you need to have is a landing page that is collecting that information because those people aren't going to be ready to buy. They could be part of your starving crowd, but many of them won't buy for at least three months.

The third thing that AI can do for you is , now that you've collected those emails and texts of people who are not ready to buy just yet, the AI will continue to send them emails, ideas, thoughts.,

Offers over the next few months so that you you in your company is always top of mind And that you are offering value And the ai will sense when those people are ready to buy because they'll put their hand up saying I'm ready to talk or I downloaded something signaling I have some interest and the AI will flag that up, call you, it'll text you and say, Hey, this person has downloaded this or they're interested in that or they've clicked on this and they're ready to have a meeting.

You should, you should follow up with them.

The AI can do all of that in the background. When I Introduce this topic of the AI or the system sending out emails to people., 70 percent of the time, business owners tell me, Oh, no, we don't want to spam people. We don't, we don't want to be those people that are sending stuff out all of the time and irritating people.

And that, you know, that's going to offend people and they won't be customers. Look, the first thing is, they don't know who you are. Right. So, how are you going to make yourself known to them? If you're unknown to them, they cannot buy your services. So you've got to get in front of them and you've got to email them.

 That's the, that's the first point. And if you, if you, if you offend some people, it doesn't matter because they, they were invisible before and now they're just people who say, well, I'm not really interested in what you're sending right now.

You haven't lost anything, but you've gained a lot of other people who are seeing you and they're seeing that you're in business and that you're showing up.

The second thing is, go to your, go to your email inbox, what's, what do you see? Amazon, Amazon, Amazon, Amazon, Amazon, you looked at this, you looked at this product, here it is, it's on sale. We, we thought, you know, it's had these reviews. Take a look at this. You get in emails from Amazon every day.

Do you go, oh, those Amazon people, they're spamming me. I'm going to turn off Amazon. Of course you don't turn off Amazon, because that's where you go shopping. And they're sending you stuff. And they're actually sending you valuable stuff, because they've... They, they, their system, their IAI knows what you've looked at.

And these are the products that they think that you're going to be interested in. And you are because the system works so well and it pops it out in front of you. You're very, very busy. You don't always open the. Amazon emails, you don't have time, but sometimes you open it and you say, Oh yeah, no, they send me some good stuff now and again.

And Oh yeah, I did look at that. Yeah, no, I, I, I should buy that now. Click one click boom easy.

And that's what the AI should be doing for your business is it should be sending out emails that are providing some value. that are providing some education and it should have a very simple button that they can click or a number that they can call and boom, it makes it really, really easy for you to do business, with them.

So don't be concerned that people will see email as a spam provided it's valuable. Look, email, gets a 40 to one. Return on ad spend. So it has the highest return on investment. It's the most powerful way that you can interact with your prospects, that starving crowd. And I very, very rarely see any proactive, marketing campaigns.

And in that whole lead nurturing process, what AI can do for you is it can intelligently craft the email. It can intelligently insert and change the subject line on the email so that your email gets opened more frequently. You don't even have to think about it. It does it all by itself.

Just think you have this ninja marketing and sales team who are going out sourcing your best clients, warming them up, bringing them into your database, capturing all their information, sending them value and offering to talk to them, offering ways for them to connect with you and your organization all in the background. You don't need to do anything. Your sales team don't need to do anything. It's all done for you. Why wouldn't, why wouldn't you do it?

Another key statistic which will, which will frighten you is that, I think it was Rivkin did a study of small businesses and found that 62 percent of calls, telephone calls to small to medium sized businesses don't get returned.

62%.

Now, the question I have for you is how many calls are coming into your business? And how many of them are you calling back? Nine times out of ten, you won't be able to tell me how many calls are coming into your business because you don't track it, there's no way to track it. Right, and they might get a voicemail and somebody might follow up but you don't know all of the people that called and didn't leave a voicemail because you don't have a mechanism to, to track that.

 The first point is 62 percent of calls go unanswered.

Here's a study done by MIT, MIT found, they studied thousands and thousands and thousands of calls to small businesses and found that your chances of connecting with that inquiry, that lead, falls by 80 percent after five minutes.

So if you didn't call that lead, they left a message or they popped in and you didn't get back to them inside of five minutes, that person's head has gone somewhere else.

Even if you call them, they're not going to pick up the phone after five minutes because it's gone. It's gone out of their consciousness. They moved on and in sales, it generally. The person who shows up first wins the business. So you need a mechanism, you need a mechanism to, to respond to those people who have demonstrated interest in your company.

And AI can do this so easily. So you can have a number that they can text or a telephone number that they phone and when somebody goes through that number, And it doesn't get answered, or they leave a voicemail. The AI knows that calls come in. They know, and the AI knows that nobody spoke to them. And the AI will send them a text, or an email, or both, saying, hey, sorry we missed your call.

We were busy with another customer. We're gonna call you right back.

 Or, it could even say, Is there anything I can help you with? And by configuring the AI, the AI can have a text based conversation in natural language and find out exactly what they're interested in. It, almost as though they're talking to a real person.

If you go and Google Tesla robot selling a car that there's an AI that will, that if you listen to that, that audio guy goes to a Tesla website, clicks on it, calls the number, connects with an AI robot and the AI robot has a conversation with them, ask them about their car, what model is it, why they're looking to buy, why they're looking to change and schedules them for a demo.

AI, robot, no salesman involved. And similarly a good AI system, you can program it so that it can start to have a conversation, engage that prospect, get information out of it, and even direct them to, hey, this is really, we can help you. Would you like to schedule a call to get your free estimate or for somebody to talk to you about this, and it will take you. them directly to your calendar and schedule a meeting. And then when the meeting's scheduled, a text goes or an email goes to the salesperson who's who's been assigned to that particular account or segment. Hey, this person is in your calendar for two o'clock on Wednesday. And these are the things that they want to talk about.

AI can do all of that. That missed call takes back and the AI. Chatbot is a very, very powerful engine so that you don't lose those leads. And when you do text them back, you can ask them, you know, just pop in your email, uh, and a good way for us to connect. And the AI will take that information and put it into your database.

And then it, will go into a nurturing sequence. So even if they're not ready to buy, they're now starting to know you. You are making them aware. You are sending valuable information. You're building up your asset. You're building up your goodwill and your relationship, and you can be making offers to them.

Remember, we have to double the number of sales conversations. That's a function of. A larger list and that you're making offers to that list.

I've just showed you ways that you can exponentially build your list beyond your current clients. Keep those prospects engaged, make them offers. And when they're ready to buy, direct them into your calendar.

It's brilliant.

Okay, the next thing I would advocate for you in terms of the use of AI is something I call ReConnect CPR.

So a lot of you have good... Relationships. You've done great work. You have past customers, but you don't have the time to call the customers. You know that people buy your services every couple of years or so, and you think, I must get back to that person.

You try and keep in contact with him. You try and send them a birthday card , or a Christmas card, but you forget because there's thousands and thousands of customers. done in the past, and you don't have enough time to pick up the phone and call all of those people.

What your AI can do is it can, it can send emails to those, Hey, we haven't spoken for a while. You might want to take a look at this. This is our latest portfolio of products. It allows us to provide a much more effective price point. And this month we're offering a great deal. I know we've done great work for you in the past. Just let me know. If you would like take us up on that offer.

And if they click the AI says, Hey, we've got an interested party. It takes over the schedule, the meeting, and you make a sale, but you have thousands and thousands or hundreds or 20 whatever number of, of past, , contacts.

Now, if you're not talking to them. Somebody else is trying to win their business. Somebody else is calling them. So you want to make sure that you really take advantage of that goodwill and you move forward with those contacts

 Lastly, I mentioned this, is that you want to be able to, your salespeople are very, very busy. They're, they're great people, but you want to feed them hot, pregnant leads, right? You want to show them there's a starving crowd, you know, wanting your services. And so the AI can actually schedule those meetings, will send reminders so that everybody shows up, uh, that they're reminded, they don't forget the times.

 If you schedule a meeting, you're chasing people around, on the phone. Can we do this time? Emails go back, texts go back, voicemails go back. You think that you've got it set up. You're sitting in front of your phone thinking you're going to take somebody through your proposal or your estimate or talk to them and they don't show.

It's very, very frustrating. So what AI can do, it can make that whole process more robust. It schedules it on their terms. It reminds them and it keeps sending those reminders and makes sure that they They show up in your calendar and they come into the call.

AI is incredibly powerful and it's relatively easy to implement.

 Something I can help you with if you want to put in a system that is generating, Anywhere between 10, 20, 50 new leads per month leading to new business building up your list, creating a starving crowd keeping your prospects warm, never letting prospects bounce off your website and go to a competitor, then you need to call me or you can schedule time with me at www.speaktomick.Com

So bear in mind AI is here. AI is going to change the landscape. If you don't take advantage of it, if you aren't using it to harvest your database, I know a lot of you don't even have a CRM, you're gonna, you're gonna lose. You are going to lose. And if the recession comes, you need a predictable engine and AI can be the flywheel that increases your productivity, increases your effectiveness, doubles your sales conversations and brings in the kind of business that's high margin.,

well, that's it for this week. See you next time.