Ok, time for a gray hair story. It was the spring of 1996 and I had just completed my first formal sales training. “Want, need, DBM, objection handling, prospects”; a completely new business vocabulary had been thrown my way like a box of Legos tumbling down a terrazzo stairwell. Along with the vocabulary came new tools, and the most useful back in the day was the lead card.
This magnificent 5” X 7” sheetrock wannabe spreadsheet tab was the NFT of the moment. Each lead card represented a unique prospect waiting to be converted into a new customer after a flawless pitch.
The lead card died when CRMs entered the world of sales, and every sales professional who delayed embracing the new technology was left behind. That is the nicest way I can say that they had their lunch eaten by everyone else who was not only an early, but proficient CRM adopter.
That was over two decades ago, and today, artificial intelligence (AI) is doing to content creation what CRM did to the lead card and its users. If you are not using Generative AI (GenAI), you are being left behind by your competition, and there is truly no reason for that.
I say “content creation” in the broad context of multiple forms and functions:
Videos
Podcasts
Blogs & articles
Graphics
Collateral
Presentations
Courses
Exams
Over the last six months of conversation with prospects and clients, I’ve observed the main concern shift from “should we use AI?” to “which AI [application] should we use?” While encouraging, there is still a general apprehension to fully embrace and adopt GenAI.This supports the fact that broad adoption does take time, as groups of innovators through laggards eventually embrace the technology for use in their businesses. That said, the more you wait, the steeper hill your company will have to climb to level up to those using the technology with proficiency.
AI itself has crossed the chasm, and we are right now on the leading edge of the early majority finding ways to embed AI into their day-to-day operations.
If you find yourself in the group now asking “which AI application, should we [I] use?”
Focus first on your business plan, and on the goals with the highest impact and lowest to moderate risk. The analysis will surely help you narrow the choice to select the correct application or group of applications you should embed in your business processes.
Future proof your choice(s), so you can pivot to another application without disrupting your business operations. Spoiler alert – you will see changes in the AI application ecosystem at break-neck speed. Plan accordingly, but act decisively.
Start small and expand; but by all means start. Any similarity to skydiving safety rules is pure coincidence (pull stable, pull at the right altitude, but by all means PULL).
Partner with a team that has “done it before”. Sometimes the approach is to have an outside team help you not only deploy the new technology, but use the occasion to reassess and redefine processes, optimizing your business performance.
It's early in 2024 and you can still edit your yearly goals to include AI initiatives. I’m not talking about academic research or thinking about it; I’m talking about doing at the very least and organized pilot to integrate best of breed AI into your business workflows.
The more you delay the inevitable, the greater heads start you give your competition. If you choose to wait longer, you’ll at least lead the competition for the MOTO award as you realize what innovators and early adopters already did; that there is no real reason to wait.
I’m sure that we can make a trophy or plaque from those “lead cards” killed by CRM.