Latest / What is Business Development? / Episode 148: Next Generation Business Development AI with Usman Sheikh

Transcript

Episode 148: Next Generation Business Development AI with Usman Sheikh · What is Business Development?

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, BD pros, and welcome to the BD podcast, the
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: official podcast of the Global Business Development Association. And today,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about something that so many business
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: developers are really excited about, some are a little anxious about,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: and that's artificial intelligence. And, you know, I've never heard
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: any business developer say, I love updating CRM. Yeah, I
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: bet you you're one of those people that's always been
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: frustrated with just the administrative grind of entering data into
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: CRM and other software solutions that are supposedly designed to
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: improve our abilities, to increase our success with business development,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: but it just turns into a grind. And so today
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the next generation of business development,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: artificial intelligence with our guest Usman Shaikh. But before we
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: get into that, let's talk about a book that.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: We all know and love.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: If you've listened to this podcast before, it's the Business
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Development Body of Knowledge. It's available on Amazon. And once
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: you read the book, then you can go to our website,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the Global Business Development Association website, that's gbdassociation.org, and find
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: out how you can get your business development professional certification.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Now, You know, we want to talk through the.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Really exciting path that so much of business development is
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: moving toward when it comes to artificial intelligence. And in
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: some situations, you can get 2.3 times increase in response
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: rates and 40% faster opportunity creation.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love some of that. And today.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Usman Shaikh, the founder and CEO of Agentive, will walk
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: us through the latest functionality in his AI platform. And
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: that is an agentic AI revenue platform that reimagines B2B
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: sales by deploying specialized AI agents to automate core go-to
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: market world workflows from end to end. And so, That
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: helps remove all that research heavy work and consolidated fragmented
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: tools and improves your pipeline quality, increases your productivity, and
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: what we all love, helps boost your win rates. So
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: with no further ado, let's welcome Usman Shaikh back to
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the show for the third time.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Usman, welcome back.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Tony. Good to be here. And thank you
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: for having me as a third time repeat guest. That's
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: really a great honor for me.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Well, it's so fun having you back because each time
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: we talk through how your platform, Agentive AI, has advanced.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: And you gave me early access to the latest functionality.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: And I was just.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Blown away by what is really now the next generation
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: of artificial intelligence and supportive business development. So first of all,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: before we get started, Usman, can you really quickly just
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: kind of walk us through why did you start Agentive?
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, great question. So, Agentive is my third company as
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: an entrepreneur in the go-to market and AI space. And
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: I've been doing this in the past with SAP, where
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: I've been building platforms for them. And I came to
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: the realization almost about 10 years ago that the CRM
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: that we all used to or are using today is
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: not really meeting the demands of enterprise sellers. And what
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: I mean by that is that CRM in its current
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: incarnation was actually designed, believe it or not, almost 30
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: years ago. Salesforce was launched in 1999, so it's been
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: 26 years. And it was designed as a system of record,
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: meaning for being able to keep my contacts, being able
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: to manage my leads and opportunities and forecast. It was
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: never designed as an assistant that would help me discover
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: new leads and then orchestrate the process through which I
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: would engage with potential buyers and walk through the different
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: stages of the buying cycle. And over time, what has
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: happened is that it has mushroomed and we bolted on
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: today about 12 to 16 different solutions that are meant
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: to help it actually try to achieve some degree of
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: assistance for sellers. And what that means is what I
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: refer to as the Frankenstack. It is a hybrid solution
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: with many different platforms in there. And today we need
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: to have all these solutions talking to each other. What's
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: really exacerbating this situation is that AI is coming around.
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  Speaker 3: And when we start layering AI on top of processes
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  Speaker 3: that are difficult in the very inception for them to
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: talk to each other, this problem starts getting compounded and
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: starts becoming really obvious. And so we need to be
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: very careful in terms of how we use AI in
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: context of CRM. So Adjunctive was born to basically, number one,
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  Speaker 3: address this problem, which is how CRM should actually work
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  Speaker 3: as a system of engagement rather than a system of record.
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  Speaker 3: And agentive is that system of engagement.
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  Speaker 2: All right.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And I have used the system and it is absolutely transformative.
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  Speaker 1: I'm dating myself a little bit here, but I remember
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: when the CRM tools were first coming out. I was
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: actually a project manager helping implement CRM tools for telecommunications companies.
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  Speaker 1: And I remember the excitement back then, particularly with business
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  Speaker 1: developers who thought, oh, boy, this is going to be great.
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  Speaker 2: It's going to automate a lot of my activities. And no. But,
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  Speaker 2: you know, there's been so much advancement.
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  Speaker 1: I want to jump right into the latest advancements that
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: really represent not just what you're doing with agentive, but
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: across the board and what's taking place in the industry.
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  Speaker 2: So let's let me go ahead and share screen here.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: If you would like to pull up the agentive front
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: end Usman, and then that way folks that are watching
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: the show can follow along and see some of the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: functionality and live action. But again, folks, we're talking to
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Usman Shaikh, the founder and CEO of Agentive. It's artificial
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: intelligence for business developers. I think you're really going to
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: be excited to see the functionality that he's going to
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  Speaker 1: show us here. Okay, so let me bring the front end.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: of Agenda to the screen. So Usman, tell us what
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: we're looking at here.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So before I get into showing you the platform itself,
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: first of all, are you able to see my screen? Yes.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
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  Speaker 3: So I just want to highlight a few things in
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: terms of AI evolution as well. And that is that
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: we started with generative AI almost two years ago now.
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  Speaker 3: And the first thing that came out in the market
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  Speaker 3: was we had we were writing prompts to get AI
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: to give us answers. And if you recall, prompt engineering
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: was considered to be the number one job. Well, prompt
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  Speaker 3: engineering moved further and it became an arduous task to
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: actually figure out how to write the right prompts to
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: get the right answers. Second thing, where we are today
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: in the market is that we're trying to add context
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: to that. So within what context should the prompt be asked?
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  Speaker 3: And the burden of putting the context, writing the prompt,
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: falls on the user, in this case, the seller or
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: the business development expert. But our philosophy at Agentive is
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  Speaker 3: that AI, especially AI that's purpose-built for go-to-market and business
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  Speaker 3: development activities, should work for the user, not the other
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: way around. I shouldn't have to stress out about framing
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: my questions in the right context with the right verbiage.
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  Speaker 3: So number one, what you're going to see in Agentive
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: and what we're showing you on the screen is Agentive
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  Speaker 3: is a recommendation engine. And what it's doing is it's
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: putting recommendations together. Here is our home screen. And within
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: our home screen, we have a list of companies in
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: Agentive that we are following. And within those companies, we
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: have certain opportunities. And right here, It's supposing I'm Brian,
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  Speaker 3: and it is bringing up and saying, these are recommended
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: next steps that I need to take in the different
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: opportunities I'm following. So for example, here I see that
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  Speaker 3: it's telling me to build a document. I can simply
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  Speaker 3: click on it without having to write a prompt, and
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  Speaker 3: Agentive goes through and actually starts putting together a very
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: detailed development program for that which is coming up right here.
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  Speaker 3: I didn't have to write a prompt. I didn't have
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: to think in terms of context. It went in and
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: as you can see on our screen over here there's
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  Speaker 3: a context engine and it's picking up this company called deal.
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  Speaker 3: It's picking up an opportunity within that deal and if
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  Speaker 3: I wanted to I could add people in here that
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: I wanted to bring up and continue to add contacts
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  Speaker 3: simply at a click. And then Adjentive does the rest.
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  Speaker 3: And it builds out a very detailed next step document
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  Speaker 3: that I can literally use in my sales activity. And this, Tony,
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  Speaker 3: can be done at many different levels. It can be
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  Speaker 3: done at the level of writing a document, creating an email,
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  Speaker 3: for example, that I could use over here, it becomes really,
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  Speaker 3: really easy for me to then be able to conduct
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  Speaker 3: my work. And within seconds, it's created not only an
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  Speaker 3: email that I could have potentially sent to my prospect,
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: but also a LinkedIn version that I could use to prompt. So,
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  Speaker 3: That's number one, that it is helping me identify what
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: I need to do. Okay, I'll continue going. The other
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: thing it does is we are now getting into role-based outreach.
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  Speaker 3: So here I have a number of accounts. I can
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: open an account. Get all the details. This is McKinsey
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  Speaker 3: level research that has been done for me right here
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  Speaker 3: about a particular company. Why I would want to sell.
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  Speaker 3: What is my sales play over here? Signals. These are very,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: very important. This is news emanating about the company. And
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  Speaker 3: I can use this news now to actually engage my
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  Speaker 3: customer very much on terms and on familiar grounds. And
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: here I want to draw your attention to where it
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  Speaker 3: says recommended next steps. And this is where I was
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: talking about that it, agentive now starts wearing the hats
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: of the different roles. So we have next generic next steps,
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  Speaker 3: next steps that are designed for account executives and next
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  Speaker 3: steps for SDRs or BDRs over here. And let's look
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  Speaker 3: at this number three next step. And this is me
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  Speaker 3: as an SDR wearing the head of the SDR wanting
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  Speaker 3: to have a call outreach script built for me. I
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: don't have to go and think too much about it.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: I just simply go hit my generate. Again, it has
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: the context of the company over here and it is
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: now starting to write out a very customized call script
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: that I could use to target this particular company. And
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: as I was saying earlier, I could also add an
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: individual and put it in the context of the company,
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: the individual, and the opportunity. And let's take a quick
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: look at this. It's saying it's a call script for
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  Speaker 3: this person who's the CTO at this company. Known account context.
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  Speaker 3: What is the source of evidence that I have? What
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: could be a potential opener? Relevant statement. Permission-based transition statement.
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  Speaker 3: And it also drives out what are likely objections and
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: how I could potentially counter those objections. And then finally
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: concludes by telling me what my meeting setting should be,
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: how I could close off by driving them towards a meeting.
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  Speaker 3: And so unprecedented productivity and gains that you could have, Tony,
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: over here that you could then immediately translate into a
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: call that I might be wanting to do with a prospect.
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  Speaker 3: And the beauty of all this is that this is
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  Speaker 3: not a one-size-fit-all script. As I was saying earlier, I
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: can change the individual I'm going to be sending this to,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: and it will custom tailor it for that particular individual. So, sorry,
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: I'll stop. Yeah, yeah.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: You know, there's just so much packed into what you
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: just talked through there.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: It's so exciting.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: But look, How much time did you just save in research?
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Research to try and figure out, first of all, what
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: prospects to outbound and gauge. Then all of the amount
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: of time that we spend as business developers, traditionally doing
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the background research on the prospects. Second of all, is
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the industry best practices on how you should structure your
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: outbound messaging. So you're coming up with a highly personalized,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: highly relevant outbound engagement that you don't have to spend
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of time trying to figure out, okay, what's
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: my best approach on this?
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: Plus, you're also.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Providing the rationale for why things are being said. So
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: the human that is in the loop here, whether it's
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: the SDR, it's the BDR, it's the account.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Manager, everybody....
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: You have a lot of that rationale being presented so they,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: as the humans, can make that human call on, okay,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: let me just change this one part of that outbound message.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I like 95% of it, but I'm going to make
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: one fine tune because that's who I am as a human.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: And maybe I've had a conversation with the prospect and
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: you really could add that human touch, but you're not
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: wasting time. the hours upon hours trying to do all
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: the research. The other thing I really like about what
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: you're baking into all of this, Usman, is that coaching
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: essentially that's taking place, right? Now you don't need to
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: have as much overhead time with business development leadership trying
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: to coach specific accounts through. The platform itself is guiding
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the individuals. So it's implementing, it's recommending the best tactics.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: It's recommending the best operational functions. I think this is
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: hugely powerful and really eliminating a lot of the challenges
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: that we've had as business developers up to this moment.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: That is really what we've been waiting for, you know,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: is I want that coach. I want those next best actions.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I want recommendations. Now, as the human, I can decide
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: if I want to follow all of them or not.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: But I think this is really powerful, Usman. would you
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: like to proceed to the next functionality that you'd like
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: to show us?
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely. So let me again, give you the little,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: little backdrop backdrop. You have been in sales and business
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: development activities for your entire career. And you know, and
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: you recognize that good sellers usually make this call when
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: they walk into the room that I can read the room.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: I know the people in the room. Well, scientifically, what,
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: data has proven over the last almost 80 years is
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: that when we start using scientific methods, behavioral science, the
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: accuracy of being able to quote unquote, read the room,
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: who's in the room and how to communicate is far
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: better than we just relying on instincts. So instincts is
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: not a strategy, number one. And number two, instincts are
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: not the same for every seller. And they do not scale.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: So here what I'm showing on the screen, Tony, is
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: you and how our AI is actually using behavioral science
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: to help me, the seller, build a relationship with you.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: So we're using a psychographic method to essentially analyze Tony.
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  Speaker 3: It's telling me that you have a strategist kind of
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: a persona, personality type. What are some of the pros,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: the cons of working with you? And then it's building
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: out my sales affinity. How would I actually get along
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: with you? And it's saying we have medium sales affinity.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Not to worry. It's also highlighting those areas where I
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: should really focus. So it says that you are strategic.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: I am also strategic. And this would really, our relationship
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: would work when our conversations are direct, structured, and tied
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: to measurable impact. So this is very important information that
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: I can bake into how I reach out to you.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Then it tells me where I want to drill down further,
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: what to avoid, and conversation tips. And this sort of
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: an analysis keeps going on and on and starts telling
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: me how to build trust, why to reach out, your
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: top priorities, your top pain points. And imagine going back
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: to what you were saying in terms of the amount
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: of research and deduction I would have to do on
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: my own with a high probability of missing it altogether,
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: missing the mark altogether, I have avoided that by using
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: scientific methods to hone in to a proven way of
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: being able to understand who my target audience is and
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: how I should engage with them. It also builds out
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: these insights which are telling me what is an executive overview,
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: what is your career trajectory, what is your leadership style,
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: strategic thesis, and then how to network, how to position myself,
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: what is the risk associated, and so on. Unprecedented amount
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: of information. Now, a lot of your audience might be thinking, well,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: this is great, but it's a little bit too much.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: but again as I was showing you earlier all this
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: background information is good when you're getting ready for a
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: meeting but it also goes into this little guy at
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: the bottom right which is called mojo which is our
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: AI chat box I'm going to click on mojo and
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: here we have Tony up here and I have added
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: the context and I can again go back into writing
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: a cold email for.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Tony.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: And this will take into account your personality, how to
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: reach out to you, your strengths, weaknesses, and it's crafted
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: it in a manner, in a language that would be
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: best suited to get a response from you. I love this.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: It's next level.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Usman, it's amazing how much progress you've made, first of all,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: since the last time you were on the show. I
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: think it was episode 111. And so this is really
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: exciting because you're understanding the psychographics, not just the prospect,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: but also the individual business developer. And you're identifying how
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: personalities may complement one another, how they may conflict. And
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: you're really providing that coaching, that background information so the
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: business developer is fully prepared to understand how they can
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: leverage the relationships that are involved. And then the automated
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: production of the outbound emails or DMs, that's also being
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: generated and taking into account not just the... the technographics
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: of the individual corporation and the account, but also the
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: psychographics of the persona that you're engaging with that individual
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: lead within the account.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: And this is just, wow. I love it. I love
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: this Usman.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Now is there, would you like to go back to
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the main screen here and show more?
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: Yes. One last thing I'll show you, which is how
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: does this all come together? So we've looked at a
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: recommendation engine, We've looked at how the recommendation engine goes
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: very deep into helping us personalize and write out call
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: scripts at scale. So not one size fit anymore. Then
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: we showed you the psychographics. So don't rely just on
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: your instincts and scale the scientific behavioral science methods across
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: your enterprise so that when you reach out to your
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: buyer groups and your different individuals, how you communicate with them.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: bring it together into a really, you know, rubber hits
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: the road, which is how does it work in an opportunity,
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: a specific opportunity? So we gathered all this information and
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: identified that there was a match in the solutions that
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: this particular company is selling to a prospect. And here
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: I've come into an opportunity level detailed plan. And this
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: is aligned with MedPick. which is a framework that is
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: used a lot in enterprises. And right up at the
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: top is my action plan, again, at the opportunity level. Again,
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: at the opportunity level, again, context, remember, is very important.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: Context is already baked into this, and I can jump
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: into these different roles over here that I'm showing, and
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: I can start building out very specific contextually relevant themes
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: and outreach. Two more things I want to show you.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Here's my buyer group for that particular enterprise. So it
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: not only found the opportunity, it also found the personas
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: that would be involved in the decision-making. And Tony, you know,
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: when we were starting out, there was maybe four, five
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: people involved in the decision-making process. Today, on average, in
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: a $ 1 million or larger deal, there are.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: 23 people.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: On average, 23 decision makers involved. And here, what we
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: see is that along with those psychographics, those individuals have
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: been put into three categories, the advocates, connectors, and challengers.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: The psychographics, as we showed you with your profile, I
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: can deep dive in there. It also shows me per MedPick,
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: this is an economic buyer, this is a technical buyer,
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: this is a champion, allows me to do that. And
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: when I have a meeting with Elizabeth, for example. And
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: I discovered that she's actually, I've convinced her to be
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: a helper. I can move her across the lines and
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: drop her into advocates. And the system will ask her,
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: ask me, why am I moving this person? She is
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: a supporter now. And by moving that, I have tagged
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: her so that when my colleague comes and looks at
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: the same opportunity within a gentive, I will have the
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: reference point that Usman moved her from being a challenger
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: over here because he had a meeting with her. One
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: other thing that's really, really important is signals. What are signals?
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: These are news stories and that are in the market.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: And the best time, Tony, to reach out to your
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: prospects is in the context of something that's currently happening
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: within the company. And so here's a news story. Actually,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: let's just look at this particular news story, for example,
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: around this particular company. I can open this news story.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Not only does it give me the story over here,
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: but it also tells me who are the members within
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: the buyer group. And it allows me to generate a message,
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: an email, so to speak, with the link to that
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: particular story. I can select who it goes out to.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: And now I have signal-driven outreach. This is the best way, Tony,
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: to get your clients to engage with your outreach, which
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: is put it in the context that's current, relevant to them.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: And what we've done is we can take this, we
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: can put it out here. We can, of course, say,
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: you know, make it more formal. It will rewrite it.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: And it will allow us to, again, take this great
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: piece of information that I got, rewrite it, and then
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: send it out directly from within Agentive to my prospect.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: And so I'll stop sharing right now. And that is,
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: in a nutshell, how we're moving from not working for AI,
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: but actually having AI work for us.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Usman, there was so much that you talked about in
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the newest functionality in your online artificial intelligence platform called Agentive.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: And I'm just really excited about what you've been able
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: to accomplish and what it means for the business development profession. Folks,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: this is what I've been waiting for for a long time.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: I think you have too. You're getting the signals intelligence.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: You're getting the intelligence on the individuals who are on
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: the buying committee, those challengers, those champions. And you're also
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: able to align across your own internal team, whether it's
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: the BDR that's doing the initial outbound, the SDR, the salesperson,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: the account managers, you know, that whole team is getting
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: aligned and it's not this flipping back and forth, trying
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: to look at different screens and understand where things are.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: And Usman, I think you may have mentioned this in
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: the previous episode, but you do have enrichment, the data enrichment.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: So you have the email addresses, you have the phone numbers.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: And of course you have these signals that are coming
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: in as well, right?
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: Absolutely correct. So we brought everything together. that salespeople need
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: under one roof, today sellers are spending only 28% of
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: their week in customer facing activities. And over 50% of
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: their time in researching, and as you're saying, jumping between
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: different tools, copy pasting, trying to make sense of that,
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: and it is with mediocre results. So what we've done
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: by condensing or almost taking what took weeks and days
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: and hours, meaning it never got done, and we had
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: to revert back to relying on our instincts, we're reducing
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: it down into minutes. We're giving the time saved back
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: to the seller to focus on what they really do well,
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: which is engage with their prospects, build relationships, and become
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: a value-added partner. And that's the whole philosophy. Use purpose-built
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: AI to serve you. You, a little while ago, said
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: human in the loop. I like to flip that around
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: and say AI in the loop. Human is always in
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: the command. B2B selling, relationship building between humans is not
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: going to go away. But what we can do is
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: improve the chances and likelihood of how we succeed in
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: building those relationships by relying on AI and proven scientific
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: frameworks and methods that can help us Acceleration. our path
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: to getting better response rates.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Well, we all love that.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: That's music to our ears as business developers.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: We want those higher response rates.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: We want to do what we love to do, which
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: is spend time with our prospects, our customers, and helping
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: them succeed so that in turn, ultimately, they can be
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: advocates for us and help us succeed as well. Folks,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: we've been talking to Usman Shaikh, the founder and CEO
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: of Agentive and just the fascinating next generation of business
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: development that is here now today. Usman, for folks to
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: see firsthand how Agentive works for them, how can they
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: do that? How can they engage with you as well?
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: and really get engaged with the Agentive platform?
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: So we have an offer running right now where people
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: can try out Agentive on their own. And the URL
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: is beagentive.ai forward slash try. And you will have the
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: link as well. So you can go there. You can
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: look up to three accounts. And within five minutes, you
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: will have all the details I showed you plus the
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: recommendation right at the tip of your fingers. And you
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: will definitely earn the wow of your sale and the
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: respect of your salespeople. Use it.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: It's free.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: And to reach out to me, I'm on LinkedIn, Usman
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: Sheikh on LinkedIn with the Gentive. And you can always
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: reach out and connect with me. Yep.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Usman, it's always a pleasure to talk with one of
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the leading minds in business development, artificial intelligence, and one
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: of the pioneers who are really changing the way business
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: development is done, making us better, making us faster, and
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: making us all more successful. So, Usman, thank you so
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: much for all of your efforts to help us accomplish
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: those tremendous goals.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: And it's always great to have you on the show.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: I can't wait to have you back again soon to
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: see the latest that you've developed with Agentive.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: That'll be a real pleasure, Tony. And I appreciate you
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: continuing to bring me back. And I hope this is
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: going to be adding some value to your audience as well.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: So again, thank you and much appreciate it.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Business Development Podcast.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Join our free community of corporate partners and business development
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: professionals advancing the art, science and ethics of the business
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: development profession at gbdassociation.org.