Latest / The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors / How Anthropic Rebuilt Its Sales Org From Scratch When Demand Went Vertical: 54% of New Enterprise Logos Now Come Self-Serve

Transcript

How Anthropic Rebuilt Its Sales Org From Scratch When Demand Went Vertical: 54% of New Enterprise Logos Now Come Self-Serve · The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Give a warm welcome to Anthropic's Head of Industries, Eleanor Dorfman.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Eleanor Dorfman All right.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, everyone.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Eleanor Dorfman.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: I lead the commercial and industries sales team at Anthropic,
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: and I've been at Anthropic for a little over a year and a half now.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: We've had a commercial product for the last three years,
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: but it wasn't until the Claude III family of models,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: when Claude started getting really good at coding,
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: that things started to accelerate.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until December of 2025 when things really took off.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: The launch of Opus 4.6 in December was a bit of a sea change for us,
• 0:50
  and we came back from what was in hindsight an incredibly
• 0:54
  restful winter break to
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: demand going vertical.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: We had not hired for it.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: We had not prepped our processes for it.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: We had done extensive planning for the year.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: And what we thought the year,
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: or at least the first quarter,
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: was going to look like,
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: we were not prepared.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Jason M.
• 1:16
  Lemkin' Even if we were prepared to hire an onboard and 3x or
• 1:20
  4x or 5x the sales
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: team,
• 1:22
  you simply can't absorb that number of bodies at the pace that
• 1:28
  we needed to absorb
• 1:29
  them in order to deliver against the demand and in order to
• 1:33
  deliver a positive
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: customer experience.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: So the question we had to answer early in January of this year,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: which now feels like a lifetime ago,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Amy C.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Lemkin Jr.:
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Was how do you build an AI native sales org from scratch,
• 1:49
  because we fundamentally had to turn everything we'd been doing
• 1:52
  on its head in
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: order to meet the moment that the market had put in front of us.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Amy C.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Lemkin Jr.:
• 2:00
  Our thesis was that we actually had invested in a really
• 2:04
  incredible stack of
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: existing tools.
• 2:07
  All of these tools had thread her had threaded cloud natively
• 2:11
  within them.
• 2:12
  They had if we just heard from from someone who had put cloud
• 2:16
  inside of their tools.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And if we had a strong stack,
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: and a foundation,
• 2:22
  we could build coherence and a holistic approach to the
• 2:25
  customer journey in those
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: tools,
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: and then thread cloud where we didn't have solutions.
• 2:31
  So build on the stack we already had,
• 2:34
  and lean on cloud for everything around that stack,
• 2:37
  in between that stack and making sure Claude was the narrative
• 2:41
  thread and the
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: connective tissue.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't just six tools with Claude bolted on.
• 2:46
  It was a cohesive customer experience built on top of our
• 2:50
  existing investments with
• 2:52
  Claude doing things we hadn't even imagined it was capable of
• 2:55
  before Opus 4.6.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: We'd invested in tools and we use them.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we use lean data for routing.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: We use clay for enrichment.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Salesforce is our system of record and source of truth.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: We use JIRA for tickets.
• 3:11
  Intercom's FIN product we use for customer support as well as
• 3:15
  for sales support.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: I joke with the Ironclad team that I'm a daily active user.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: I am in Ironclad every day working on contracts.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: We have Snowflake.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: We have BigQuery.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: We are the heaviest Slack users you can imagine.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: We use the G Suite, all of the above.
• 3:33
  And these were all working for us,
• 3:35
  and we decided to double down on our investment in them.
• 3:40
  So we fundamentally made four investments around the four
• 3:45
  constraints that we couldn't move.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: We had demand we couldn't staff.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: We had clawed inside of our existing stack.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: We have functions around sales.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Sales doesn't operate on its own.
• 3:58
  Sales sits around legal and deal dust and rev ops and billing
• 4:03
  and compliance and
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: customer support and customer success.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sales is not alone on an island delivering a great customer journey.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Many, many teams needed to meet the moment alongside of sales.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we had to just aggressively grow AE capacity without killing them,
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: which is also a constraint I probably should have put on this slide.
• 4:25
  So we couldn't kill our sales team,
• 4:28
  but we couldn't grow headcount overnight.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: We have an extensive recruiting process.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: We weren't going to sacrifice our bar,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: our culture,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: or anything like that in order to service the demand.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we were left with no choice but to build to support it.
• 4:47
  There are a lot of orthodoxies that have governed and really
• 4:50
  defined the last 15
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: years of enterprise software.
• 4:54
  I've been in developer tooling and infrastructure for a very
• 5:01
  large part of those last 15 years.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: And this is one that I really stood behind.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's product-led growth and there's sales-led growth.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: And never the two shall meet.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Self-service wasn't the enemy.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was just a different team.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't part of what the sales team did.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we had to throw that orthodoxy aside at the beginning of this year.
• 5:21
  So I've always thought and I've always operated with my product
• 5:24
  counterparts that
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: enterprise plans should be dated by a human.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Customers want to talk to an AE during this buying journey,
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: and we no longer could make that the case.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we no longer have enterprise plans dated by humans.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: We've launched enterprise self-service.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: We launched an MVP in January.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: We launched it into production, I think in February.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been a huge success.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: We do not think of self-service as a downgrade.
• 5:51
  We think of it as a part of the buying journey and a way that
• 5:55
  we can remove
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: friction and make sure that we get the right customer,
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: the right buyer,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: with the right plan at the right time.
• 6:05
  All of our leads are enriched and evaluated and qualified by
• 6:09
  Clay and by Claude.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then there are two funnels and we're still working on nailing this.
• 6:15
  So you might hear some people who feel that they ended up in
• 6:18
  neither funnel,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: but we're willing to make sure we're really investing to make sure
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Amy
• 6:24
  C.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L.A.L
• 6:45
  to build,
• 6:45
  take their flagship support product and make it a viable tool
• 6:49
  for sales.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been amazing.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Then they get set up with an enterprise plan.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's real ACV.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: They have terms of service.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: They can do invoicing.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: We get them enrolled and provisioned,
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: enrolled in training,
• 7:03
  and kickstart their journey completely self-serve using Claude
• 7:06
  and our tech stack.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: If Claude and Clay qualify you for the sales funnel,
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: the lead goes to the BDR team,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: they're qualified,
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: and they're AE routed.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we're running these two in parallel at any given time.
• 7:20
  And since we launched this soft launched in January,
• 7:24
  hard launched in February,
• 7:29
  54% of our new enterprise logos have come through the
• 7:34
  self-serve funnel in 2026.
• 7:37
  So this has been an incredibly important funnel and a way that
• 7:41
  we've tried to meet
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: the moment and drive a more effective sales funnel.
• 7:47
  The second investment is that we knew that Claude lived inside
• 7:51
  of the tools that we
• 7:53
  had already bought and spent the last three years building
• 7:56
  around our needs.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: We have six core tools that really define the journey of a lead.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: We've talked about Clay.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a huge Clay fan.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Clay for Enrichment,
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Lean Data for Routing,
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Salesforce for Op Creation and Opportunity Management,
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: GONG for Call Coaching.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: We are heavy, heavy GONG users.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Iron Cloud for Contract Redlines and
• 8:23
  Slack for Close One feels like a really small way of describing
• 8:26
  the role Slack
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: plays,
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: but Slack is for deal coordination.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's for comms.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's for many other things, as I'll show you in a few slides.
• 8:34
  But for the purposes of a lead working its way through our
• 8:38
  architecture and our
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: plumbing,
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: these are the six tools.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: However,
• 8:44
  I imagine you don't want to just see an architecture slide that
• 8:47
  talks about the
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: tools we built.
• 8:49
  And as I said earlier,
• 8:50
  Claude isn't just the seventh tool we built it on,
• 8:53
  we bolted on.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Claude is what makes the tools we've already bought,
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: talk to one another,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: work together,
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: and create a seamless customer journey.
• 9:04
  So let's talk a little bit about how that shows up for the AEs
• 9:08
  and the sales team
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: on a Tuesday morning,
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: a Monday morning,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: any day.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: When a new lead comes in and the accounts created in Salesforce,
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: we're working on getting all of them in,
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: but it's a work in progress.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Prioritization is done.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Claude and Clay do the account research up front.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: They do the prioritization.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: They update the account record.
• 9:29
  They pull in any historical context from Slack,
• 9:32
  from Google Docs,
• 9:33
  from previous gone calls.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And when the AE is slotted in,
• 9:37
  they have all of the context they need that helps drive their
• 9:40
  prioritization and
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: their actions.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Every single customer facing rep starts the day in Claude.
• 9:49
  I'll talk about this a little more later,
• 9:50
  but we've built a series of skills
• 9:54
  Jason M.
• 9:54
  Lemkin' Inside of Claude that enable the AEs to be massively
• 9:58
  more productive.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: One is the morning brief,
• 10:02
  which is built on top of all of the connectors that we use to
• 10:07
  run our business.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: So on Gmail,
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: on Gong,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: on Slack,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: on Google Docs,
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: on Calendar,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: on Salesforce,
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: on Intercom,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: on Greenhouse.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many systems where little pieces of context
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: are incredibly relevant to ensure you're prioritizing your time,
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: you're operating efficiently,
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: and you're delivering a world-class customer experience.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: So with one prompt, this is how every AE starts their day.
• 10:34
  I have mine sent to me in Slack every morning at 7 a.m.
• 10:38
  Eastern,
• 10:39
  because I'm based in New York.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: But it tracks everything that looks at your calendar.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: What do you have that day?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: What emails have you not answered?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: What Slacks have you not actioned?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: What centralized initiatives do you still need to deliver?
• 10:51
  What marketing events are coming up where you need to
• 10:53
  prioritize inviting customers?
• 10:55
  That morning brief is deposited in your inbox or Slack or in
• 10:59
  cloud.ai every single
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: day and prioritizes your day.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: These three actions need to be taken.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: These emails need to be responded to.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: Further along in the deal cycle,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: we've leveraged Claude inside of our tooling,
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: which we use,
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think we'll use Outline for,
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: and Google Docs,
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: where we publish our policies inside of historical precedent and policy,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: as well as context based on Slack discussions,
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: emails,
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: and gone calls.
• 11:28
  So when AE is ready to draft and ship a proposal to a customer,
• 11:33
  Claude does it.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Claude made sure it's within policy.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Clod made sure it lines up with the customer expectations.
• 11:41
  Clod has all of the knowledge of our products,
• 11:44
  of our models,
• 11:45
  of our roadmap.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Clod knows where we've won in the past and why we've won.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Clod knows who the customer is,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: what they care about,
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: who are the stakeholders that have been involved,
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: what has been the shape of the negotiation.
• 11:59
  And with one prompt instead of an AE opening up a spreadsheet
• 12:03
  opening up nine
• 12:04
  different tabs with all of the deal desk guidance listening to
• 12:08
  dawn calls and
• 12:09
  looking at transcripts to find the history of what had been
• 12:13
  negotiated Claude
• 12:15
  generates the proposal for you uploads it into ironclad and
• 12:18
  kicks off the process
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: I will be honest,
• 12:24
  we still start every forecast meeting with at minimum a 10
• 12:28
  minute discussion on how
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: we should be forecasting.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing a lot of forecasting.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: We're trying to be disciplined.
• 12:35
  It is a moving target and a work in progress when the ground is
• 12:39
  shifting under your
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: feet as rapidly as it is in AI and for the labs today.
• 12:44
  It's definitely something where I'd like to think we're getting
• 12:46
  a little bit better at.
• 12:47
  This week felt like we had a good forecast call yesterday,
• 12:50
  but we still have a ways to go.
• 12:52
  What's most important is forecasts are being largely run by
• 12:55
  Claude and then
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: inspected and reviewed by managers.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, AEs are using stills to make sure their sales force is updated.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Next steps are accurate.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Account notes and account plans are current.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: We have a sense we're a consumption business, so we know where spend is.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: We know what the commit is that we're talking about.
• 13:16
  We know what historical patterns have shown for that type of
• 13:19
  customer in that
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: cohort with that set of products.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: and AEs are submitting their forecasts using Claude.
• 13:27
  Managers are then reviewing them because all of the
• 13:30
  reconciliation has happened
• 13:32
  between Claude and our existing tools and then submitting them
• 13:36
  and forecast calls
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: are for discussion.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're not for gotchas.
• 13:39
  They're action oriented and they're focused around where does
• 13:43
  the AE need help?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Where do the managers need help?
• 13:46
  Where do we need to make sure that the customer needs are on
• 13:49
  someone's radar?
• 13:50
  What is hopefully coming soon is forecast accuracy,
• 13:54
  but we are not quite there yet.
• 13:58
  One other way we've been leveraging our existing stack that
• 14:01
  shows up for the AEs,
• 14:02
  and this one to me is critically important because when you're
• 14:06
  absorbing as many
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: new hires as we are,
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: and when you're operating in an environment where things change hourly,
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm confident while I'm up here with you,
• 14:15
  something will have changed in the AI ecosystem that I'll need
• 14:18
  to internalize.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Jason M.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Lemkin' But with product launches,
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: with model launches,
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: with an incredibly dynamic,
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: competitive ecosystem with many different flavors of customer needs,
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: preserving a culture of coaching is incredibly important.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have tried
• 14:34
  I'm excited to really make this part of our culture for the AEs
• 14:38
  and for frontline
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: managers,
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: where every week Claude surfaces six coaching moments.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: And this isn't a static set of coaching based on a methodology.
• 14:47
  This is dynamic based on how the needs of our business evolve
• 14:51
  month over month.
• 14:53
  What Was A Priority Last Month Is Not Necessarily The Top
• 14:56
  Priority This Month Is
• 14:58
  Not Necessarily The Top Priority Next Week And The Most
• 15:02
  Important Thing We Can Do
• 15:04
  The Scarcest Resource We Have Is Mindshare And Ensuring That
• 15:08
  We're Hitting The
• 15:09
  Coaching Moments With The AEs Focused On The Most Important
• 15:12
  Things Is The Moment Is
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: The Way To Ensure We Maintain A Culture Of Coaching
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: We maintain focus in the field,
• 15:19
  which is a critically important thing in order for the AEs to
• 15:22
  meet the demand and
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: to be effective.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And we maintain a growth mindset.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody has done this before.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And if anyone says they have, they are fooling themselves.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: We are all learning together.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: and making that part of our DNA and how we work with our managers,
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: how we work with the sales team,
• 15:42
  how we work with our customers is so important to showing up
• 15:45
  authentically and
• 15:47
  ensuring that every member of our go to market team is getting
• 15:50
  even a little bit
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: better every day.
• 15:52
  And what I always tell the team is your job is to wake up every
• 15:55
  morning and figure
• 15:56
  out how you can make Claude and Anthropic incrementally better
• 16:00
  that day with our
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: customers,
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: for our cross-functional partners,
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: or for your deals.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now you have to do all this.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: Closed one is my favorite dopamine hit.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's reliable.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: It gets me every time.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: It never gets old.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: I never get sick of it.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a checklist.
• 16:18
  And when we're growing as quickly as we are,
• 16:20
  the governance of closed one really matters.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: You need to make sure you have terms of service in place.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: You have a provisioning path for the customer.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: They're getting enrolled in onboarding.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: They're receiving an invoice.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: We have mapped their orgs correctly.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: We're a complex business.
• 16:36
  We're available on first party services as well as through
• 16:39
  cloud partners.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes just getting all of the little admin pieces in place.
• 16:46
  can accidentally create a horrible customer experience if you
• 16:49
  don't get them all right.
• 16:50
  I have personally spent many late nights inside of our billing
• 16:53
  system trying to
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: reconcile invoices when customers get locked out.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is a very important part of the cycle.
• 17:00
  And so we have one still per step for closed one so that Claude
• 17:05
  can work across the
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: cross-functional systems and ensure that everything is in place.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: We do this for self-service too,
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: to get the customer's account closed,
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: provisioned,
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: billing set up,
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: and getting them enrolled in an onboarding training.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Again, sales is not an island.
• 17:24
  There are so many supporting functions that needed to have the
• 17:28
  same elasticity.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: We were trying to build in the AE org in order to meet the demand.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is deal desk.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: This is legal.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: This is RevOps.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: This is customer support.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we had had, I mean, we still do, but it was a gnarly system.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was a sea of DMs.
• 17:46
  You needed to have the institutional knowledge or just simply
• 17:49
  be co-located on the same floor.
• 17:51
  A lot of A's would just walk by RevOps and DealDesk desk to try
• 17:56
  and get quotes approved.
• 17:58
  A lot of people on the East Coast and definitely in Europe were
• 18:01
  staying up very
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: late,
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: chasing approvals.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: We were creating a very unhealthy cycle.
• 18:09
  And reps,
• 18:10
  so what we did is we looked at this and said,
• 18:12
  these functions play dual roles.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: They are there to support the sales team and enable a customer,
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: an excellent customer experience,
• 18:21
  but they're also there to protect the company and to provide
• 18:24
  governance to ensure
• 18:25
  you're doing good deals that are in policy that you can stand
• 18:30
  behind in the future.
• 18:32
  So with the supporting functions and all of the systems that
• 18:34
  they leverage,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: which are honestly even many more than I had laid out,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: but JIRA is a critical one for us.
• 18:41
  We structured this and invested in our tools so that reps
• 18:44
  stopped going to their
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: systems and rather their systems came to them.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we made Slack the front door.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Slack comes in, ticket out, Claude does the triaging.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: So Claude actually, Co-Work now does a lot of this.
• 18:58
  And that's changed for us probably in the last week since I
• 19:01
  made these slides.
• 19:03
  But Co-Work can check your emails and can submit the Slack
• 19:07
  ticket in your behalf or
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: the seller can submit the Slack ticket.
• 19:10
  Claude will triage and either resolve the ticket based on
• 19:15
  precedent and policy,
• 19:17
  or it will escalate the ticket with all of the requisite
• 19:20
  customer context,
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: all of the history pulled from email from Salesforce from Gong
• 19:27
  and we'll assign it to a human and let the AE know that they're
• 19:31
  in the queue so
• 19:32
  that the AE can set expectations for the customer and can
• 19:36
  follow along so that the
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: quote is resolved,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: the terms of service is resolved,
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: the vendor onboarding,
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: the security questionnaire,
• 19:45
  all of the compliance pieces that are required to unblock and
• 19:50
  get a customer
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: started.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we made Slack the front door for all of the support functions.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so then the last investment we made, and this is the more fun one.
• 20:01
  The last investment we made was taking the best practices of
• 20:06
  our best reps and
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: encoding them as skills.
• 20:10
  So this is how we looked at all of the spaces in between our
• 20:14
  existing tech stack,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: all of the activities and the patterns that our best reps were doing.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have time or the luxury
• 20:23
  of having incredibly handheld onboarding and a detailed
• 20:27
  methodology so that we know
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: when a new rep starts.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: On their seventh day, they'll get their first account.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: On their second week, they'll take their first call.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: On their fourth week, they'll be able to start working with customers.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: On their sixth week, we expect their first deal.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: We aren't able to model out productive capacity like that anymore.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: We have to get reps in the dorm.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: They go through bootcamp.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: We give them a territory and we give them a sales plugin.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And a plugin is a combination of MCP connectors and skills.
• 20:57
  And we built a sales plugin that documented what our top reps
• 21:00
  do and turned them
• 21:02
  into five skills that we included in Claude that every rep uses
• 21:08
  every single day.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: The first one is the one I talked about before,
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: but it's so helpful and so simple that it merits a second call out,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: the morning briefing.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: I simply do not know how I used to operate without it.
• 21:24
  I am someone who gets lost taking the subway home and it's
• 21:26
  incomprehensible to me
• 21:28
  that I used to navigate my day or week without Claude telling
• 21:32
  me every morning
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: what's important.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: So this is the one we talked about earlier.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: The second one is call prep.
• 21:38
  The morning briefing will give you the bird's eye view of what
• 21:40
  to prioritize and
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: how to think about your day.
• 21:43
  But before calls,
• 21:44
  your best reps used to go on LinkedIn and research
• 21:47
  stakeholders.
• 21:48
  They used to go through Slack and Salesforce history to find
• 21:51
  contacts from
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: previously closed lost ops.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: They would spend time thinking about how did they want to position?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: What was their exit criteria for the call?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: What are the right discovery questions?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Claude is now their co-pilot.
• 22:04
  We use a backslash as the shortcut to summon a scale backslash
• 22:07
  call prep and the
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: rep gets a briefing.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Who's on the call?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: What do they care about?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: What is the historical context?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: What does a great outcome look like for the call?
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: What are some discovery questions they should ask?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: How should they position?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: What's the competitive landscape?
• 22:23
  What has this company been saying publicly about their needs
• 22:26
  are and where Claude could fit in?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: What partners are they working with?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: What other tools are they using?
• 22:31
  A succinct one pager before every call directly to the AE to
• 22:35
  ensure even if they're
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: back to back to back to back,
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: they can get on that call and provide a seamless,
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: tailored,
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: and personalized customer experience.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now they still have to read it.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Claude?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: does not do that for them yet, but I think ever.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: But this is a way that even with five minutes,
• 22:54
  an AE can show up on a call and know in their bones and manage
• 22:59
  the context
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: switching that happens throughout their day.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: The third one is my favorite.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Many things keep me up at night.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: One of them is wondering, are AEs following up on everything?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: When they tell a customer they're going to do something, do they do it?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: The customer follow-up still solves for exactly this.
• 23:20
  It will extract action items from your email,
• 23:23
  from your dawn calls,
• 23:25
  from your Salesforce notes.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you're working with a customer or a partner on Slack,
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: it will extract the follow-ups for you there.
• 23:33
  It will draft responses and put them directly in your email
• 23:36
  provider and send you a
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: summary of everything you need to do.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then a reminder in your morning brief the next day,
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: if you didn't actually go in review and click send,
• 23:46
  which you still need to do because humans in the loop are still
• 23:49
  a critically
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: important part of the sales cycle.
• 23:53
  So the customer follow-up skill is so you can manage all of the
• 23:57
  volume and the
• 23:58
  context switching without missing a beat and go to bed every
• 24:02
  night knowing you have
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: followed up and responded to your customer.
• 24:04
  We try to set internally a 24-hour SLA to follow up with
• 24:09
  customers and deliver on action items.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: The next skill is called Competitive Intel.
• 24:15
  This is a competitive environment and it is changing hourly,
• 24:20
  certainly daily,
• 24:21
  absolutely weekly.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot going on.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: AEs spend their days on the phone with customers,
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: and they're not able to necessarily keep track of every AI newsletter,
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: every competitive release,
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: every small product update from our team,
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: and it's happening over a ton of surface areas.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: So with the competitive Intel still,
• 24:44
  rather than having a battle card that product marketing
• 24:47
  maintains every quarter,
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Claude will generate an interactive battle card.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: It will have a matrix of the customers.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: It will be tailored to the customer you're working on.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's dynamic.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's up to date.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: You can interact with it.
• 25:02
  And this enables AEs to always be ready from a competitive
• 25:05
  perspective and to make
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: sure on every call and in every customer interaction,
• 25:10
  they're positioning Claude in order to win the deal and provide
• 25:14
  the best customer
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: experience.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: The last one is very whimsical.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's my favorite.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Create an Asset.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Previously in prior lives,
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: if you wanted to build custom collateral for a deal,
• 25:27
  you either had to be working on a top five deal or you had to
• 25:31
  have a friend on the
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: marketing or design team who would prioritize your work.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: with create an asset inside of Claude for any deal,
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: any stakeholder at any stage,
• 25:42
  you can generate a completely custom piece of collateral and
• 25:46
  Claude will surprise
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: you.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: You can tell Claude what you want it to do,
• 25:49
  but you can also let Claude decide what is the best asset for
• 25:53
  this moment in this
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: deal with this stakeholder at this moment in time.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: and cloud will generate a prototype,
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: a one pager,
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: a landing page,
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: an interactive HTML file,
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: a puppet show,
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: probably not a puppet show,
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: usually one of the ones I just said,
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: but cloud will generate that asset for you.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: You can generate it while you're on the call.
• 26:17
  Some of our reps like to take gone calls when they've had a
• 26:20
  really good discovery
• 26:21
  call and drop them into cloud code so that cloud code can build
• 26:24
  a prototype.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: but they can build a completely tailored asset.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: It could be a proposal.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: It could be an ROI calculator.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's designed to assess the deal,
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: assess the stakeholders,
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: and assess what the needs are at that time.
• 26:40
  This is the only one that got a follow-up slide because I
• 26:43
  really do like this one.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the one where the teams are really using it all the time.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Stills also know your brand.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so,
• 26:51
  so nice to not have to worry on if you've selected the right
• 26:55
  color or if your A is
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: in the right position.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: We are very, very, you know, we're protective of our brand.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: We care a lot about it.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: We invest a lot in it.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: We work really hard.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: and we don't want AEs shipping.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: I heard AI Slop mentioned a lot in the previous session.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't want them shipping AI Slop to customers.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: We want it to be tailored.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: We want it to be on brand.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: We want it to help them win.
• 27:24
  This would not be a tech talk at a conference if I did not end
• 27:28
  with four ways that
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: you can get started today to make your team a little more,
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: which I call it AGI pilled.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: How can we be an AI native sales team?
• 27:37
  how can we do one thing manually once and then make sure we've
• 27:41
  trained Claude to do
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: it the next time?
• 27:43
  How can we have Claude spotting the patterns before we can
• 27:47
  because Claude is the
• 27:48
  co-pilot on every deal and context is flowing in between
• 27:53
  Salesforce and Slack,
• 27:55
  the AE's brain and back into Claude and Claude is just getting
• 27:58
  better and better at
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: our sales motion and delivering for our customers.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: So number one, turn on cloud where it's already embedded.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's not even just flipping a switch.
• 28:08
  It's making sure you're being intentional and not just saying,
• 28:11
  okay,
• 28:11
  great.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: We're using this AI feature in Salesforce.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's how are we using it?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: And how does it connect to the rest of the customer journey?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thread cloud through the sales cycle you're already running.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's an accelerant.
• 28:23
  And with new capabilities,
• 28:25
  we've moved from just deterministic workflows for probabilistic
• 28:28
  ones.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: It is fun to experiment with cloud and to use cloud as your coach,
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: as your partner,
• 28:34
  as your co-pilot in the deal and to let it make you better and
• 28:39
  let it push you
• 28:40
  outside of what always got you here and think about new ways
• 28:43
  that you can honestly
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: win and close deals.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: The sales cycle you're running works.
• 28:49
  So thread-clawed through the sales cycle you're already running
• 28:52
  and think about it
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: from what is the customer experience?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: What is the AE experience?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: And how can I track and accelerate these at every single stage?
• 29:02
  Getting tickets submitted for deal desk and legal was a massive
• 29:06
  accelerant for us.
• 29:07
  This is not something you'd normally spend time thinking about
• 29:10
  as a sales leader.
• 29:11
  But sales leaders are rapidly becoming systems thinkers over
• 29:15
  deal strategists.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to think about the system in its entirety.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Number three, really double down there.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Make Slack or Teams the front door of one of your support functions.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: It is a massive enabler.
• 29:29
  And four,
• 29:30
  document what your best reps do and ship it as a scale,
• 29:34
  as a still.
• 29:36
  I cannot fully explain the cognitive relief that comes from
• 29:39
  knowing that I can take
• 29:41
  the best practices of my best reps and make them the baseline
• 29:46
  for how everyone else
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: operates and have total confidence that I have made that the baseline.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: This was entire deck was brought to you by Claude Design.
• 29:58
  I did not actually try to pitch any products,
• 30:02
  so we'll put that to the side.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: But it isn't a new stack.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the thing I really wanted to convey today.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's being intentional about your existing stack.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: These tools are incredible.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: We have spent years learning them,
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: building around them,
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: investing in them,
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: designing them to fit our sales motion.
• 30:20
  But if you have clawed in between and clawed around it to
• 30:24
  enable the reps,
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: your people,
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: your processes,
• 30:28
  you can massively increase the adaptability of your team and
• 30:32
  the capacity and
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: productivity that they can manage.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.