How to Make an Effortless Sales Pipeline with Automations & AI
Tom Jewson
September 11, 2024
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-jewson/
Unlock your Sales: it’s finally time to Automate it with AI
I made something special for The Generalist Co. the other day: an (almost) totally automated sales pipeline. We have seen a vast increase in productivity as a consequence, namely: writing project proposals have decreased from 4hrs to just 20min, and the rate of lead closing deals increased by over 50%. Here is how you can make one for yourself.
How to Build an Automated Sales Pipeline with AI: A Step-by-Step Guide
With the advent of AI and automation tools, it’s now possible to eliminate many manual tasks that were holding you back from scaling super quickly and efficiently. This blog post walks you through key steps in building an automated sales pipeline based on insights. To see the steps in greater depth do look at the video attached.
Identifying Opportunities for Automation
Before diving into tools and techniques, the first crucial step is identifying the areas in your sales pipeline that are ripe for automation. While many sales processes can be automated, determining which ones offer the best return on investment is essential for success. Here's how to begin:
Map the Business Process: Start by creating a top-down view of your business. You can use tools like Miro or Fig jam to visualise the workflow and identify areas that interact with sales. Understanding how information flows between different processes.
Review Documentation and Interview Stakeholders: Often, company documentation won’t tell the full story. It’s vital to interview team members to uncover inefficiencies and pain points that don’t appear in formal documents. Use tools like video interviews and surveys to gather this information.
Analyse Processes: Once you’ve collected information, categorise the processes as healthy or unhealthy. Inefficient handoffs between departments or bottlenecks in information flow can significantly slow down your sales process.
Prioritising Automation Using the Moscow Framework
Not every automation opportunity will have the same impact, which is why the Moscow Framework (Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, Won't Have) is so valuable. Prioritise tasks that fall under "Must Have" as these directly impact the efficiency of your pipeline.
For example:
Must Have: Automating lead generation and CRM integration.
Should Have: Streamlining internal communications for better handoffs.
Could Have: Automating follow-up emails to leads.
Won’t Have: Automating parts of the process that need significant human oversight, such as crafting personalised sales pitches.
See the video which explores this previous two sections in greater depth below:here
If you have questions DM me on LinkedIn:Tom Jewson
Enriching Your CRM with Automated Lead Enrichment
A powerful CRM is the heart of any sales pipeline. In this case, automation can help enrich your CRM by automatically scraping data from public sources like LinkedIn. Here's how you can do it:
LinkedIn Scraping with Cassidy: Tools like Cassidy allow you to automate data collection from LinkedIn profiles. By simply inputting a LinkedIn profile URL into your system, you can retrieve information such as:
Name
Job title
Email
Company size and funding
Industry
+ Anything Else which is published on their profile
Zapier Integration for Automation: Use Zapier to automate tasks between apps. For instance, when a new lead is added to your CRM (such as AirTable), Zapier can trigger workflows that enrich the lead’s profile by scraping their LinkedIn information.
Extracting Data with Python: If the data output from the scraping process isn’t human-readable, Python can be used to parse JSON files and format the information for better usability. This step ensures that the extracted data is automatically organised in your CRM.
By enriching your CRM with automated data scraping, you eliminate the need for manual data entry, allowing your sales team to work with more complete and accurate lead information.
This can be a bit fiddly, so I would recommend watching the video below here
If you have questions DM me on LinkedIn:Tom Jewson
Automating Lead Qualification and Disqualification
Once you’ve automated your lead enrichment, the next step is to streamline the process of lead qualification. Automation tools like Zapier and Slack integrations allow you to manage this seamlessly.
Qualifying Leads Automatically: Use a scoring system in your CRM to qualify leads based on predefined metrics such as budget, company size, or project scope. This is where automation can help by assigning scores automatically based on the lead’s attributes.
Disqualifying Leads: If a lead doesn’t meet your criteria, automated workflows can trigger disqualification. For example, a Slack command like "/disqualify" can automatically update the lead’s status in your CRM and send a polite email informing them that the opportunity isn’t a good fit.
Manual Oversight: Even though automation handles most of the heavy lifting, you should still retain manual oversight for key decisions. A quick review of qualified leads ensures no mistakes are made.
If you have questions DM me on LinkedIn:Tom Jewson
Crafting Sales Scripts and Automating Outreach
Once you’ve qualified leads, you or your sales team can focus on moving them through the funnel. Automating the creation of sales scripts and email outreach ensures consistency and saves time.
Sales Script Automation: When a lead is qualified, your system can automatically generate a sales script tailored to that client. Using information scraped from their LinkedIn profile and additional insights gathered during qualification, this script helps your sales team prepare for calls faster.
Outreach with Dripify: For email and LinkedIn outreach, Dripify.io allows you to automate follow-ups. For instance, if a lead doesn’t respond to an invite, the system can automatically send a follow-up or like one of their recent posts to build rapport. This drip campaign continues until a lead responds or disqualifies themselves.
Custom Messaging: While automation speeds up outreach, always personalise your messages to avoid sounding robotic. Use the lead’s first name, reference shared connections, or comment on their recent work. Personalised automation is key to building trust, this can be done by feeding the information into an AI bot, Clay.com is good for this. The details of how to do this I will explore in a later post. Though, I personally have found outreach to be more of an art than a science. What has worked for one person might not work for another, ultimately the crux is to understand your customer and understand what they value as you'll likely be competing against 100s of other messages.
Automating Sales Call Transcription and Proposal Creation
One of the most tedious parts of the sales process is writing up project proposals after a call. By leveraging AI-driven tools, you can automate most of this process.
Call Transcription and Analysis: Tools like TLDV can automatically transcribe your sales calls. This transcription can then be fed into AI systems that extract key information, such as pain points and solutions discussed.
Proposal Generation: AI can generate a project proposal based on the information gathered from the call. While it won’t be perfect, the proposal will be 80-90% complete, requiring minimal edits. This automation cuts down proposal creation time from hours to mere minutes. A key consideration here is how you can make the project proposal sound human written and not AI written, as clearly AI written content can put people off.
Integration with Slack: Once the proposal is ready, an automated Slack message is sent to notify the team. This ensures that the sales process continues smoothly without switching between multiple tools and platforms. Likewise, it is also possible to add a step in the zap which provides a reminder nudge to take some action.
If you have questions DM me on LinkedIn:Tom Jewson
Reducing Context Switching with Slack Integrations
One of the most significant productivity killers is context switching—constantly moving between different tools. A seamless automation process minimises this by centralising all communications in one place.
Slack as the Command Center: By integrating Slack with your CRM, email, and proposal tools, you can manage the entire sales process from one interface. Whether it’s receiving updates on qualified leads or reviewing proposals, everything can be done without leaving Slack.
Minimising Distractions: Automation reduces the need to log into multiple tools, decreasing the chances of distraction and boosting overall productivity.
Continuous Optimisation and Behavioural Change
Automation is not a set-it-and-forget-it solution. Over time, you’ll need to refine processes to maximise efficiency. This is where frameworks like COM-B (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation-Behaviour) come into play.
Reviewing Results: Regularly review the effectiveness of your automation tools. Are leads being qualified correctly? Are proposals being generated with minimal error?
Behavioural Change: Adopting automation tools may require a cultural shift within your organisation. The COM-B framework is useful for helping employees transition to these new tools and processes, ensuring long-term success.
Aftercare and Documentation: Ensure you provide thorough documentation and support after implementing an automated system. This guarantees that the tools are used correctly and optimally over time.
Conclusion:
We have seen a lot of tangible improvements in our KPIs by building this system (namely, writing project proposals have decreased from 4hrs to just 20min, and the rate of lead closing deals increased by over 50%). One of the key benefits of an automated sales pipeline like this is that it allows your sales team to focus more on selling than on low-value tasks which don't shift the needle much -- this is a tool which actually supports them. As well, it goes unmentioned the intangible and the unmeasured improvements. Namely, building a system like this has allowed us to focus more on the important un-automatable decision making and much less on the grind that follows. At The Generalist Co. we are building the business from the ground up with AI and automation in mind and it’s shocking how rapid we can respond to changes of signals as a consequence. IMO we’re part of a new generation of business which is going to be lean on manpower and anything but lean on output. In my view: if you don’t do the same, you’re wasting time and resources. If you want to see how we can help build your business with AI and automations in mind, why not ask me on a call?
