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Using AI to Improve Sales Timing and Targeting with Mehdi Tehranchi · Sales Against the Odds

• [00:00:00] Mehdi Tehranchi: My suggestion to your business owners, to your sales leader is to change the question for what am I doing with ai? To what signal am I missing? Where is my users going to find out that my client's going to find out? How do I get AI to actually hook into those things? It kind of like changes the picture. And I think that's KnowledgeNet. [00:00:39] Lee Brumbaugh: Hello everyone. Welcome back. This is another episode of Sales Against the Odds. My name is Lee Brumbaugh, CEO of Sales Xceleration. Very excited to have my next guest with me Mehdi Tehranchi is joining us. we were just talking about your, your background and how your journey. But a, a journey filled with transforming companies, being an AI thought leader and an influencer in the space, and really excited about the work he's done with KnowledgeNet and breeding what we use at Sales Xceleration to really enhance top of the funnel Medi, thank you so much for joining us today. [00:01:11] Mehdi Tehranchi: Thank you for the invitation. I'm excited to be a part of Sales Xcelerations, efforts to get the word out there, to get AI out there. You guys are fantastic. We are enjoying this relationship and the leadership that Sales Xceleration provides. [00:01:25] Lee Brumbaugh: Thank you. We appreciate it. So you were just telling me a little bit about your background, but you know, when you think about, you've had not only KnowledgeNet, but you've transformed other AI companies, grown them in the space, in the technology space. How did you. How did you get to be into the this? [00:01:39] Lee Brumbaugh: Somebody that really could take an AI company, take technology companies and grow them? Tell us a little bit about your background that got you into this role. [00:01:47] Mehdi Tehranchi: Sure. being a technologist, I give you a [00:01:50] Mehdi Tehranchi: little bit of a secret. We didn't get out and say, let's build ai. It's really about certainty, revenue certainty, and AI applied to sales. It gives you exactly those two revenue and I think that's where we started as a team. We started saying, where are the break points? [00:02:17] Mehdi Tehranchi: how do the existing leaderships are using a tsunami of data, but yet falling back on their revenue Where is that gap? Where can we like close that And I think that's really the top, revenue certainty how more data doesn't translate to [00:02:40] Mehdi Tehranchi: better certainty. [00:02:42] Mehdi Tehranchi: KnowledgeNet actually closes that gap. as a vision. We can close that and bring you more certainty. [00:02:50] Lee Brumbaugh: for those listeners, we, we are a partner. We, we recommend KnowledgeNet for, for a lot of our different clients in the SMB space because we know. How hard it is to solve for top of the funnel. Right. And you just said it. it's no longer a quantity game. it's also a quality game, [00:03:06] Lee Brumbaugh: the days of buying a 10,000 lead database and just saying running or spraying prey campaign doesn't work anymore. So how does KnowledgeNet solve for that problem of more of a quality versus quantity perspective of really helping that top of the funnel engine? [00:03:22] Mehdi Tehranchi: My team is tired of me saying this. There are three things. The three things are you [00:03:29] Mehdi Tehranchi: Focus on the ICP ranking and selecting your ICP, because if you don't have that. You're really back into that, [00:03:36] Mehdi Tehranchi: uncertainty. I don't know if my ICP is right, they're not answering my calls. [00:03:42] Mehdi Tehranchi: They're, and so a lot of lost energy, lot of better certainty if you choose your ICP correctly Second is really messaging. When you go for, you have to remain, relevant. Are they going to an event? Are they having problem with their supply chain? Are they feeling that their region is in pressure of growth and they're not catching up without growth So [00:04:10] Mehdi Tehranchi: messaging [00:04:11] Mehdi Tehranchi: staying relevant to that messaging, to that intention of, the client is a huge element of the three element. And the third is really the timing. [00:04:24] Mehdi Tehranchi: If the school is just, um, about to, finish this year, you really need to focus on summer. You really focus on how do you get the next season. [00:04:36] Mehdi Tehranchi: the intentions cannot be, Hey, you should now buy stuff from us. Well, the season is over. You really need to get the timing piece so these three things is really key to the success that [00:04:51] Lee Brumbaugh: So you get that ICP, you're getting what's relevant to them at the time, and then you landed that timing piece How does it translate into something that's then actionable? How do you continue to pare it down? What does that look like for an SMB company that's saying. [00:05:06] Lee Brumbaugh: Yeah, that makes sense. But that's a manual process for me to find these areas. How are you taking the tools that you have and making it so much more efficient for an SMB owner to digest? [00:05:17] Mehdi Tehranchi: there are a couple of different areas. One, let's just talk about what AI does. AI is a 24/7 coworker, so think about it as you kind of, head out to your rush hour. End of the day, you get home, you have a coworker stay and if you have that coworker properly set up, properly engaged, that coworker is looking for signals, is looking for, well, operationally, what just happened? [00:05:53] Mehdi Tehranchi: How many customers did we contact? Is there any customer that can help me to get into another customer? There can be many scenarios. This coworker is never. Off work. So what we are trying to do is to really focus on how do we create an always on scenario in AI world an always on scenario is the one that the operational side of a business. [00:06:23] Mehdi Tehranchi: Now I'm not suggesting you've turned the flip on and all of a sudden this will happen. In the next three to five years, we will have an always on scenario. Companies Who management relies on this, always on AI to coordinate workflows to detect signals, to bring in new, fresh data into the view. And this coworker is augmenting your key leaders. [00:06:56] Mehdi Tehranchi: Making their work more efficient, enabling them to go further. I give you an example. We have a Midwest distributor. We deploy an ai not just to go out on top of the funnel, but we actually did Google Maps, found out where their, clients are, all the stuff that we talked about. [00:07:18] Mehdi Tehranchi: In terms of our engagement, they had a 10 x increase in their lead pipeline. They had 220 verified leads that turned into opportunities. They had a 30% increase in their professional network connections in LinkedIn and other, so this is an example of an always on network turned into real metrics [00:07:52] Mehdi Tehranchi: that allowed that management team to say, whoa, spray and pray is out the door It's not gonna happen. [00:07:58] Mehdi Tehranchi: 10,000 names and let's see if, five of them will come back, is not the way to go. It's very laser focused. [00:08:07] Lee Brumbaugh: some of the thing that's, that's resonated with me is, and again, back to where we started, quality versus quantity, right? Because if, if I'm reaching out a time that's meaningful, impactful, and you said it not only new customers, but. [00:08:19] Lee Brumbaugh: Impacting our existing customers having data points that are meaningful impact to them. How do you see the evolution of kind of that reputation score? How will trust be viewed as we move into this new generation? Because again, I wanna work with clients that I trust that's branded, that's coming to me and engaging with me in not only way that's meaningful to me, but at the right time. [00:08:39] Lee Brumbaugh: So how is that all building into that trust, which equals kinda that reputation score that I know has been mentioned and talked about within your company? [00:08:47] Mehdi Tehranchi: What we are about to see is, and a lot of people are talking about it AI revolution What does that mean? It means AI is gonna be in every facet of our life, besides personal, but in our business, on our corporation, way of [00:09:04] Mehdi Tehranchi: operating. [00:09:06] Mehdi Tehranchi: Where we have to be careful is that this technology is new. it does hallucinate, it does. [00:09:15] Mehdi Tehranchi: Put themselves into my shoes and represent themselves as me, as me, the salesman, as me, the support person, as me, the hr, those individuals, their voice is becoming the AI's voice. But if the AI is impacted by hallucination. Or if AI is not collecting the right data and not representing the right data, that's my reputation, is not the AI's [00:09:43] Mehdi Tehranchi: reputation. [00:09:45] Mehdi Tehranchi: this is key. Be transparent, in my opinion, to say this is ai. This is a message that is created by ai, but as soon as you respond back to me, I am me. I have a voice, I'm a human right. [00:10:02] Mehdi Tehranchi: Be able to actually have that transparency turn into trust because everybody's gonna use ai. If you are hiding AI and now all of a sudden I see a video and you're not really you. You look younger than you and LEAP is, looks like Leap and the mouth. [00:10:21] Mehdi Tehranchi: I've seen that actually in podcasts that people are, I'm like, I know this guy. their Motions are very repetitive. You know, you, you and I probably know how to detect an AI doing things, especially my team kind of goes, well look at, look at his fingers or eyes. Used to be, fingers are hard for ai. [00:10:42] Mehdi Tehranchi: Now they're not and they're getting better at it. But my point is, transparency is important. Quality of AI is important. Ability for humans to be in the loop is important so the humans are actually the checking and giving guidance, [00:11:03] Mehdi Tehranchi: right [00:11:05] Mehdi Tehranchi: coworker as AI versus the front face being Those things are critical to have, and I want everybody to kind of like, don't be afraid of ai. [00:11:17] Mehdi Tehranchi: Just put the guidance and governance around. [00:11:21] Lee Brumbaugh: Yeah, and that's one of the things I've loved with the tool. I, I know there's so many things that you can do within. KnowledgeNet. But one of the things that I've liked is just simple relationship mapping. You know, I can look up you as a resource and now I've got critical insights of who you are, how we're connected, who else we're connected through, I can even individually reach out because now I've known you're in the Boston area, you've talked to me about your together. [00:11:42] Lee Brumbaugh: Like I get that relationship side. we've said so much through this podcast, is it's taking the resource at our disposal and making it more intelligent conversation based on value versus something that's just the spray and parade campaign. And that's, that's where you get to where you said it's predictable because now it's quality versus the right metric. [00:12:01] Lee Brumbaugh: [00:12:01] Mehdi Tehranchi: exactly the key is used to be that data meant activity and people focused how do I get more data and better data. [00:12:15] Mehdi Tehranchi: AI turns that into data does not turn into quality necessary, and automation is really the key ability for you to take that data, make it actionable, have reliability in it, and then the human take over and start [00:12:36] Mehdi Tehranchi: processing. [00:12:38] Lee Brumbaugh: So as you've gone through this journey, a lot of things that we've talked about, again, evolution is a word that comes up in this space with everything changing so quickly. I'm an SMB leader, right? And I got a strategy, it's a moving target. [00:12:50] Lee Brumbaugh: How much are you having as a company having to pivot? how much is this, is, we've got a roadmap and that roadmaps evolving and would love to just know, like, how quickly does that pace? Is it adapting in today's world? [00:13:02] Mehdi Tehranchi: let me tell you like real pivot case this is us maybe about year and a half ago [00:13:11] Mehdi Tehranchi: where we kind of looked at. What does AI mean to us? And I think a lot of the leaders are facing the same thing ultimately I'm not creating ChatGBT. ChatGPT is a tool for me. [00:13:23] Mehdi Tehranchi: Claude is a tool for me, right? Same as it is for any of our audiences they're using, but they need to use it in a fashion that makes sense. If I take you to 10,000 feet. We switched from being a software company to an outcome company That one word that kind of like you are providing me with software versus this is my outcome. [00:13:56] Mehdi Tehranchi: This is what I need to actually, do to stay in business. Understanding that is a key. So about a year and a half ago, actually, we completely kind of said the company needs to go outcome as a service, [00:14:12] Mehdi Tehranchi: because that's what our customers are looking They're looking for that 10 x, they're looking for that $2 million contract. [00:14:20] Mehdi Tehranchi: They're looking for something that they can rely on. So why don't we focus our attention and say, we are aligned with you. We will get you the outcome. And that could be multiple AI engines and being able to kind of string them together, automate that process and the rest of the work. But we are focused on getting the outcome you need. [00:14:44] Lee Brumbaugh: Most companies don't have the bandwidth to build a high functioning sales department to allow them to meet the revenue targets with Sales Xceleration they don't have to. Our experienced fractional sales leaders consult and implement your sales strategy, infrastructure management, and team development. [00:15:01] Lee Brumbaugh: Discover how we deploy these proven sales solutions to address your sales challenges. By going to our website, filling out the contact form, we'd love to hear from you. [00:15:13] Lee Brumbaugh: that was the biggest thing. We had knowledge at our summit where we had. the majority of our 225 plus advisors there and we had ca real world case studies and it was fascinating to me to see her people, come up and give the stories of this was a $30 million manufacturing company and here's how we embedded, yes, lead generation, networking, those types of things, but here's how we embedded across the organization. [00:15:34] Lee Brumbaugh: And I do love the fact. That you are approaching it, this company can drive this type of outcome. If we solve, if we put agents here and deploy the year and, and have a roadmap and a vision to that, it is a lot different than when I started with knowledge. Then it was, you know, here's a simple solution. [00:15:49] Lee Brumbaugh: It really is evolved to be outcomes tied to the company. Right. I think it's a powerful shift. [00:15:55] Mehdi Tehranchi: [00:15:55] Mehdi Tehranchi: Exactly. And that's really a true alignment. And we see this movement in the market which is good to see because we feel we are ahead of the market in getting outcome rather than being a feature or a software or a license to. And the more I think the market is gonna go towards this direction because what's happening there is a collapse. [00:16:25] Mehdi Tehranchi: Of where the data is and how much work is it necessary to get to the outcome. AI collapse is coming, which is taking that distance and treading it down, getting it closer to a outcome on AI deployment that you do. So it gets closer to that, and then you deploy human resources to actually make it really your brand. [00:16:53] Mehdi Tehranchi: your trust, your way of approaching your customers, and I think that's where our company and many other company need to go to, to say, we are aligned with you. we help you to get closer to the outcome. [00:17:07] Lee Brumbaugh: let's say I'm listening to this today and I'm a, you know, I'm a $15 million manufacturing company and everybody loves the word outcomes, right? what's that vision for what that outcomes looks like? So if I'm skeptical, right, I'm that again, that $15 million owner and I'm like, oh, that sounds great. [00:17:21] Lee Brumbaugh: how do you roadmap to that? Walk us through kind of what that looks like. [00:17:25] Mehdi Tehranchi: the first thing about outcome is really being [00:17:28] Mehdi Tehranchi: aligned with your business, defining what are your business plan? How would we try to get the playbook clearly defined in terms of what are the outcomes that you're looking for, but how do we get there? What are the elements in that that can be AI automated? [00:17:51] Mehdi Tehranchi: So if I sit back and I say everybody loves to get a list of, clients to call [00:17:59] Mehdi Tehranchi: Monday morning, here is list of 10 people. And then that's really an item, right? But there's a lot of AI companies or other companies who Are looking to do that in fashion that's not quality. Let me just give you an example. [00:18:20] Mehdi Tehranchi: One of our clients is looking for shipping goods and how they could store them. [00:18:29] Mehdi Tehranchi: them. [00:18:30] Mehdi Tehranchi: one way is to start, Connecting to people who are in manufacturing and having a conversation and so on. Right? The second method is actually what we are focusing on is to connect to shipping companies on rail. Now I have a heat map [00:18:49] Mehdi Tehranchi: where those commodity are going. [00:18:52] Mehdi Tehranchi: The AI engine now a predictive signal that this is happening in Cincinnati. This is happening in Houston because the goods are not there yet, but they're coming and there is a abnormality in that process. Now, I have understood your business. Understood what you're looking for, but went above and beyond and use the AI to find the right data set in order to give you the intense signals of who to focus on where to focus. [00:19:31] Mehdi Tehranchi: Imagine a heat map, Houston is going. why? [00:19:36] Mehdi Tehranchi: Because manufacturing [00:19:38] Mehdi Tehranchi: is going, because there is a ton of goods being shipped out of Houston's port going somewhere Oh, okay. So I need storage. Right. So that's the way I think the sales leaders, the business leaders, should look at AI not ask the question, what do I do with ai, but what's that missing signal? [00:20:01] Mehdi Tehranchi: Right? Where am I not running this thing efficiently? [00:20:05] Mehdi Tehranchi: my suggestion to your business owners, to your sales leader is to change the question for what am I doing with ai? To what signal am I missing? Where is my users going to, to find out that my client's going to find out? [00:20:24] Mehdi Tehranchi: How do I get AI to actually hook into those things? it is kind of like changes the picture. And I think that's, knowledgeNet because we are trying to create a network of knowledge. We connected the rail shipping company to the storage company. If you're looking at another company who actually uses the rail but in a different way in the real estate. [00:20:48] Mehdi Tehranchi: now we are beginning to get these little brain of different companies kind of hook into each other. [00:20:54] Mehdi Tehranchi: right? That's where I think the vision and the direction of AI is gonna take us to. [00:20:59] Lee Brumbaugh: it's almost building its own specific kind of networking groups that are creating value within it. [00:21:04] Lee Brumbaugh: that first initial question is, it's almost like not. How AI can help us. It's how do we have a problem that we need to solve and back into that way. [00:21:11] Lee Brumbaugh: So I love that direction. So I wanna talk a little bit about kind of, 'cause I know you, you've been giving back, but when you think about the the SMB space, in this marketplace, anything that stands out that I'm that owner today that we haven't covered today, that you really feel like you need to get [00:21:26] Lee Brumbaugh: ahead of? As you think about growing your sales vision, your revenue line, anything that's that you see five years on the horizon, that's gonna be another type of game changer for the SMB space. [00:21:39] Mehdi Tehranchi: couple of things that I think are gonna happen is that our dependency on AI is gonna grow, meaning AI is gonna be providing the automation. [00:21:51] Mehdi Tehranchi: You know, Salesforce of the world, are gonna go in the direction of automating the data rather than being a software provider. hate to say it, a lot of other software companies are gonna go Blockbuster way, where they were big, everybody was going to the store, and all of a sudden Netflix came around and said, "Hmm. Why am I shipping these CDs and tapes and so on?" If you remember what [00:22:18] Mehdi Tehranchi: happened to Blockbuster, right? So to answer the question, the leadership should embrace AI in terms of bringing in what signals they need, what type of automation they need, and team up with the right partners, Sales Xceleration included. [00:22:42] Mehdi Tehranchi: To actually get there faster. It's not, Hey, I use ChatGPT to write emails. That's [00:22:49] Mehdi Tehranchi: long gone. That was two years ago. I think it's more about how do we get, automation as native as it gets to our ideas. [00:22:59] Mehdi Tehranchi: It's getting to a point that the leadership can say. It needs to be done this way, and it can be done that way without that much of expense and That's what AI brings you now the right AI partners. The right sales partners can get you there in the right way because it doesn't mean it's all gonna be done without problems, but if you have experience in how to engage with aI and put AI to work for you, then you're gonna see the momentum developed. [00:23:37] Lee Brumbaugh: Yeah. And I [00:23:38] Lee Brumbaugh: love how you say that, getting AI to your ideas. 'cause so much of our advisor community, we, we've done so much of being proactive on, on the AI side. But at the end of the day, you still need that guide that takes the ideas that you have and matches it to the AI solution. And if you get that wrong, you're just spending time, energy, and resources that's creating noise. [00:23:58] Lee Brumbaugh: Right. And that's what we're trying to do is get past the noise. [00:24:01] Mehdi Tehranchi: Exactly. And I will suspect that Sales Xceleration leaders are gonna run to companies who have. Taken this AI on and they have found out that they have a hodgepodge of ai. [00:24:13] Mehdi Tehranchi: Now they need somebody to come in, like Sales Xceleration, AI experts, ourselves as team to come in and say, well, let's, let's now do it. [00:24:22] Mehdi Tehranchi: Right? [00:24:23] Mehdi Tehranchi: Let's now find out where this infrastructure is falling apart and, bring it home to where we want it [00:24:29] Lee Brumbaugh: That's right. And we actually, I know you guys are part of this, so we, we have launched our, AI expert integration. And so essentially what you're doing is a owner goes through, it's a series of questions of strengths and weaknesses in their AI solutions. And it's usually typical around top of the funnel coaching and productivity. [00:24:48] Lee Brumbaugh: And it's gonna go then to the tools that can help to support that, the gaps and weaknesses. So as a Sales Xceleration advisor, we're bringing in, because if not you just said it, you've got five or six tools that are not being utilized. We wanna have the tools that speak to your pain points, that are tied to your idea valuation creation. [00:25:06] Lee Brumbaugh: So I think that's critically important and we know that KnowledgeNet is a partner in that stack that, that spits to those solutions as well. So, Mehdi, this has been excellent. I know there's a lot of things that you've shared with me as well outside of this. [00:25:17] Lee Brumbaugh: I've done so much of working with. CEOs and entrepreneurs and coaching in their career. We do a lot of coaching at Sales Xceleration focused on tactical sales solutions. But you're doing some coaching that's really giving back to the CEO [00:25:29] Lee Brumbaugh: level. Can you, can you talk to us a little bit what you're doing there? [00:25:31] Lee Brumbaugh: I just thought it was very fascinating for [00:25:33] Mehdi Tehranchi: thank you for that question. First of all, it's, it is really near and dear to me. I'm a serial entrepreneur, so this is my third company. But when you look at my LinkedIn. you see multiple companies who I have, been fortunate enough to learn enough to be able to coach other CEOs. And when I do coaching, I kind of ask them to, um, team up with me. there's multi-year engagements. normally I do executive coaching for two, three, up to four or five years. Help the company grow, help the company find their, their mojo. And then there there has been multiple exits that they have had together as a board member, as an executive coach. [00:26:12] Mehdi Tehranchi: I've, I've walked them through that process. I'll take those and I say, take that instead of paying me, there's a church in Ohio together we support, uh, orphanage in, um, Dominican Republic. So now for, uh, 15 years actually, I've helped that orphanage grow. church has a partnership. We kind of put the financial, structure around them. [00:26:38] Mehdi Tehranchi: it is such a good kind of setup through multiple coaching exercise and so on I've been fortunate to be able to get about 300, 400, kids now go through [00:26:51] Mehdi Tehranchi: that program, go through, become college graduates and see them kind of graduate high school, get education, and it's wonderful to see. [00:27:00] Mehdi Tehranchi: the best thing I've seen is that other CEOs that I have coached and they have successful exits, they have stepped up the game and they're doing the same and, uh, coaching other, other entrepreneurs and having them contribute to the ch [00:27:16] Lee Brumbaugh: I don't know if there's a better definition of servant leadership. that's one of our core values with Sales Xceleration in our community. We [00:27:22] Lee Brumbaugh: have a, you know. [00:27:23] Lee Brumbaugh: annual give back day, but that is taking you to the next level. and it's gotta be so meaningful to see, I mean, it's fun to see somebody succeed. [00:27:31] Lee Brumbaugh: It's the best part of what I've ever done in, in my career, of mentoring and helping others. But to see that then result and to kids getting an education, there's nothing more powerful. So [00:27:40] Lee Brumbaugh: thank you for sharing that story. [00:27:41] Mehdi Tehranchi: every time I see this, I kind of get goosebumps, but the, the best thing is to see a repeatable model with other CEOs, other leaders who have taken this on and grown their business and then give back. [00:27:55] Lee Brumbaugh: Well, this has been great Mehdi. Thank you so much for, for joining us today. Thank you for what you've done in, in helping grow the community. join in next week everybody. In two weeks we'll have another thought leader business [00:28:05] Lee Brumbaugh: Expert that gives us more tools and resources to help you grow your bottom line. Thanks for joining us. This has been Sales Against the Odds.