Goodbye Opinions. Hello, Reality.

Years ago, I was running a business intelligence software company and everything was going right for it. Growth, employee retention and happiness, sales numbers, customer satisfaction, plus we just completed a successful round of funding. I couldn’t have asked for more.

Then, sales started to slip. 

It caught me off guard, but with the success we had achieved, I brushed it aside. 

But it got worse. A lot worse.

Things started to slide even further to the point where a fix wasn’t an easy solution.

First, the team and I turned to our CRM platform. We examined every bit of data that had been recorded. We looked at our leads, our call numbers, our website visitors. Everything we examined told us the same thing: all was well. 

But all was not well. 

Our CRM identified that deals weren’t being closed, but that was it. We desperately needed to know why. But CRM isn’t built for this answer.

We all have Loss Reasons in our CRM – the reasons why a deal didn’t close. Common answers are “No Budget” or “Bad Fit,” but how many of us have the real reason? 

If we could go a level deeper, we’d see inputs like “I Didn’t Sell Value” or “I Wasn’t In The Zone.”

When I spoke with other leaders, it dawned on me – this was a universal problem. 

Back then, the solution to this problem didn’t exist. But thanks to major advances in Artificial Intelligence, we’re now able to create a new product category: Revenue Intelligence.  

If Artificial Intelligence can beat the world champion in Chess, and if AI can diagnose cancer better than doctors, why can’t AI capture reality better than a salesperson? 

Revenue Intelligence is that flash of light we were all struggling to find with CRM platforms of the old. Now, we have the power to gather data automatically, analyze it insightfully, and share it seamlessly—without a single minute of human oversight. 

Revenue Intelligence is Autonomous.

According to Salesforce’s “State of Sales” report, reps spend only one-third of their time selling. The rest of the time they are taking notes and doing other manual tasks. Salespeople don’t need to be successful note-takers, they need to be successful salespeople! 

By automatically transcribing calls and meetings, with high-quality, standardized notes, Revenue Intelligence frees up salespeople to focus on making conversation and closing deals—and frees up even more time by eliminating the need for data entry after the fact. 

Revenue Intelligence flips the old CRM model on its head with four key benefits:

1. It’s comprehensive. 

Because Revenue Intelligence (RI) leverages AI, it captures everything. No longer is a one-hour customer conversation trimmed down to a 30-word update in the CRM. RI captures it all without the salesperson having to lift a finger. Because of this, it reveals critical moments in the sales process – both successes and losses – and provides a strategy to find more success. 

For example, one of our customers discovered that by flipping the order of their standard sales pitch—by talking about their software offering before their hardware component, instead of the other way around—they could boost sales by 12%. 

This insight is something a human ear could never pick up on its own.

2. It’s current.

Today’s sales strategies have to be constantly updated in real-time. Gone are the days when you could rely on your tried and true sales playbook to guide the way. Instead of months or years, your playbook has a shelf-life of a few weeks or months (at best). 

Revenue Intelligence gives you an up to date view of your customers and market in realtime. Instead of trying to salvage deals that have already disappeared, you can take action before they go south.

4. It’s based on reality, not opinions.

Revenue Intelligence doesn’t rely on a human being to determine what’s important. It simply captures everything—even those tiny details that might make all the difference in a sale. 

A salesperson taking notes by hand might miss these details, or ignore them. Revenue Intelligence will not. Instead, it will ensure that the next time someone from your company talks with that customer—even if it’s on a different channel—those details will be right in front of them. 

5. It brings the company together.

Calling sales an individual sport should be a distant memory, just like using Glengarry Glen Ross as a relevant reference. People work better when they work in teams.  

Instead of leaving everyone to their own devices, focused on their own quotas, deploying their own strategies, worried about their own shortcomings, Revenue Intelligence allows people to see the same reality—and learn and evolve from it.

We announced Revenue Intelligence earlier this month at #Celebrate – a summit dedicated to revenue success. And it’s with Revenue Intelligence that everyone in our industry will find success. I’m incredibly excited to chart this new future with everyone.

This new way of doing business will enable leaders everywhere to say “goodbye opinions, hello reality.” 

If you’d like to hear the full presentation, you can access it here, along with the keynotes from our fantastic speakers, like Coach Kerr of the Golden State Warriors and Patty McCord from Netflix.

-Amit

PS: Feel free to comment on what might help or what questions you’d like us to tackle.