← From the Ground Up
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- [00:03]
A
Hi and welcome to this special podcast episode from Inc. Custom Studio in partnership with Salesforce. I'm your host, Abigail Bassett, and I'm joined today by Salesforce's executive Vice President and General Manager of sales, Cloud and Growth product, Chris Billmeier. Salesforce is back for the second year in a row underwriting a portion of the Inc. 5000 CEO survey. It's been a whirlwind year for leaders of the fastest growing companies in America. And sales teams in particular have had to adapt to a shifting market, revolutionary technology, and constantly evolving workforce. This year's survey results give us some insight into how sales teams are navigating this environment. Let's start with what's different from last year.
- [00:39]
B
Well, first, thanks for having me. I think that you're absolutely right. You know, businesses have weathered a ton of uncertainty in the last year. I think the shift is generally related to AI and how companies are starting to augment and leverage AI to improve their overall quality of the work that they do, the outcomes they drive. And we're finding that many customers are leveraging AI to do the more menial tasks that have previously taken up a ton of time so that their sellers and their sales teams can get back to doing what they love doing, which is selling. And I think that's the major difference here.
- [01:16]
A
And with the advent of AI, so many people have so many questions about how it's going to change the way we work, the way we assess data. Did the survey reveal anything that was surprising to you in how sales teams are growing despite these various market pressures?
- [01:32]
B
One of the things the survey highlighted that I thought was super interesting was effectively what I saw as skyrocketing growth. We found that the average sales team has increased from right around 12 individuals to over 40 sellers, which I think is truly astounding. You know, how have these companies kept growing their business and expanding that sales capacity? And this is why we partnered with inc. We wanted to uncover the how behind all of this, the people, the processes, the technology, and to learn more about those fastest growing companies and how they operate, because we think really that could be the blueprint for overall successful growth.
- [02:09]
A
And Chris, what do you think that this shift, this change from 12.4 last year to 40.5 sellers this year, what do you think that means for the sector in particular? And do you attribute this to any specific trends sort of outside of AI?
- [02:25]
B
Well, I think it's really interesting for the sector generally. I think it's saying that this sector is becoming incredibly successful, growing rapidly. Clearly, the thing that I find so interesting. And again, I'll go back to the AI moment is with AI, these teams and these smaller companies can act and operate like much larger companies. And I think it's now all about outcomes, regardless of the size of company you are. And I think the. The enterprises of the future are going to look more like the small businesses of today, just with the advent of AI and the ability to scale as one seller surrounds themselves with the tools that are going to make them so incredibly more successful.
- [03:05]
A
Say a little bit more about that, because I find that really interesting that small businesses, you know, are going to look just like big businesses in the future. What does that actually mean for small businesses? For their ability to grow, for the changing market, and for their ability to access customers?
- [03:19]
B
The way I think about, and I said this earlier, but the way I think about it is how do you drive outcomes and what is the outcome going to look like from a seller who takes advantage of the AI tools and capabilities that a company like Salesforce provides to them? What does that team look like when they're automating tasks that are repetitive in nature that take up five, six hours of a day and instead leverage that time in actually meeting with customers and actually selling and actually closing business? This opportunity in the state we're in is going to drive more productivity holistically with the things that sellers do the best, which is building relationships with, which is selling to customers and which is closing deals.
- [04:01]
A
So it's really about allowing them to focus on the high touch points. Is that accurate?
- [04:06]
B
That is my opinion. I strongly believe that we're getting to a place where that personal relationship matters so much, and that's what we're going to allow sellers to get back to doing. When you think about what a seller has to do today, as it pertains to, like creating a lead, for example, there's a lot of back and forth just to set up a meeting. You don't need to do that anymore. You can have agentic workflows do that for you. You could have agents do that. And you then just get to do what you want to do, which is prepare for that meeting, have that meeting, and feel like day one seems like day 100 based on all the data and information that's gonna surround the seller.
- [04:41]
A
And I noticed that in the study, AI adoption grew across nearly every core business area year over year, with sales and services seeing the biggest leaps and marketing continuing to see a lot of this AI saturation as the AI adoption accelerates. To your point, how is Salesforce Seeing the demand from customers around Gen AI evolve.
- [05:01]
B
One thing I'll add to that is we see that a majority 94% of small business leaders are really optimistic about AI's potential to really help with their business. So we actually have a ton of customers and our trailblazers who are just super excited about AI and what it can do for their business. In fact, we, we've actually seen amazing growth in our AI products amongst our small business segments. So we see the smaller business segment as the early adopters, as those who are experimenting more, who are moving incredibly fast into that kind of overall experience. We think that those who are engaged and are experimenting early and we're seeing this, are really tapping into the benefits of AI and they're going to stay ahead of the curve and competition and you know, everything's moving so rapidly. It's just very exciting to see. And again, those who stay on the ball are going to be able to compete even better than they are today.
- [05:56]
A
What kind of interest are you seeing specifically from small businesses? Like what are small businesses currently using AI for and what sort of services is Salesforce offering to support them?
- [06:08]
B
We look at the overall sales cycle as a cycle. Everything from capturing leads to outreach to account planning, to quoting to closing deals. And it's a cycle that has had a human in the loop at every phase up until this point in history. So what we're seeing our SMB customers leverage is effectively our agentix sales cloud. Everything from how customers prospect. Tell me what kind of prospects you're looking for, we'll go out and find them for you. Tell me about your products. Well, we'll have our agent reach out to those leads and try and qualify them on your behalf. Once you're meeting with the customer, we create a gent plan so the seller has all the information dynamically at their fingertips to have the right meeting, the right conversation at the right time. Follow ups, white space analysis. Every point in the process, we're leveraging agents and we're seeing SMBs adopt that entire process and cycle to help their reps achieve more.
- [07:08]
A
And as they adopt this process, as they adopt AI into their selling process, have you noticed a shift in sort of speed to close or the number of deals done? Like, is there any sort of tangible data that you might be able to share that shows how small businesses are really leveraging this?
- [07:25]
B
We are seeing a lot of the respondents saying that they're relying more on technology solutions, especially AI for sales related tasks compared to a year ago. We talk about how internally our reps used to spend a ton of time on actually non sales related tasks. And so we're giving massive time back to those customers and seeing the productivity outcomes associated with it.
- [07:49]
A
In terms of some of the data from the actual study that you guys are working on, did it reveal any areas of opportunity or any kind of concerns about the use of AI in sales? Because obviously, you know, it's not all rosy. Right. We've got some drawbacks to the use of AI in terms of how we interact and how we connect with customers. Right?
- [08:09]
B
Yeah. I mean, I think some of the biggest obstacles and challenges and I'll say opportunities that sales leaders face now ties back to acquiring new customers. That remains the biggest growth challenge. I think it was right around 67%. And in parallel to that, building pipeline was a main challenge in the sales process at 33%. With the survey data showing us the increased tech investments and confidence in AI tools, that's where the frontier of opportunity lies and where leaders can make gains in the face of these challenges. So I really think AI and automation will help significantly in those areas.
- [08:47]
A
Given the data, how should executives consider AI in terms of implementing it into their sales force? Like how? What are some things that they need to know about this, especially if they're still sitting on the sidelines at this moment?
- [09:00]
B
Yeah, I think it's all about one, embracing two learning because we're in an evolving moment and figuring out your specific use case internally. At Salesforce, we have a ton of leads that come in traditionally hadn't been worked because their lead score was too low. But now we're leveraging agents to reach out to all of those leads so that everybody can have a conversation and can learn more about Salesforce. So that's just an internal use case for us. We've seen great traction there. That's our use case. But I think it's defining your use case, figuring out what that first step is for you, where you're having challenges, what's the easy win that you can drive and then expanding from there. I think when you try and do everything at once, that's probably not a recipe for success. So I would encourage everyone out there who's just getting started with AI, pick your use case and then expand.
- [09:51]
A
Right. So don't just sort of say, I'm going to apply AI to everything and like throw spaghetti at the wall and hope that it sticks. Right. It's more of a targeted, what do I need? What are the places where I could create a method around these processes?
- [10:04]
B
Right, exactly. That's exactly right. And then as you evolve with that one scenario that you're trying to solve for others will unfold. Because it is a process and a flow. The sales cycle is a cycle. Agents are really good at understanding the cycle of things. Pick a piece of it and figure out how to leverage AI in that piece. And then you'll see kind of the domino effect play out well.
- [10:26]
A
And we're also in an environment where there is this tightening labor market. We're seeing a lot of slowdown in hiring or, you know, kind of a glut of jobs that are, that remain open for a long time. That's one of sort of the side effects of AI, obviously. I think, you know, one of the things that AI has sort of generated is this issue around hiring. How can CEOs or leaders in businesses really leverage AI to help with the hiring process or bring better salespeople into the fold as they're sort of navigating this new world?
- [10:56]
B
You know, one, when we looked at the characteristics for hiring a salesperson, we didn't see dramatic shifts from last year. Companies still want salespeople who fit into the culture. I think was at 45% who have genuine enthusiasm and can hit the ground running with their connections. That's not changing what I think is not changing either. But potentially a focus area is on those soft skills. What are the soft skills? What are the relationship skills that sellers have that are going to be all the more important in those human to human engagements? Again, understanding and dissecting data that can make you the best seller you could possibly be in a human to human engagement standpoint.
- [11:37]
A
And would you say that the hiring sort of pipeline or the hiring struggle is probably one of the biggest ones that small businesses are facing right now in terms of bringing great salespeople on board? Or is there other places where they have seen sort of some restriction in terms of like product or retention or innovation obstacles?
- [11:56]
B
The characteristics and the demand for hiring salespeople is still there. Again, it goes back to the future of sales teams becoming really core to those soft skills and working with AI and agent technology. It's effectively a matter of upskilling the workforce like you never have before. But again, being able to have those real human to human connections with your customers to truly understand their business and the pain points of their operation. AI is not going to replace that. It's just going to help you become better at it.
- [12:27]
A
It strikes me as more like a partnership rather than a sort of replacement, which is what, you know, you hear a lot in the Headlines you hear about how AI is going to replace all of us in what we do, including things like this. And you know, it doesn't seem to be the reality, especially particularly as you mentioned in those high touch sectors, right, where human skills matter, conversations matter, contact matters. Is there a way that, that you see that AI can be applied to help enhance things like that? Much like you said, it surfaces specific data about having the right conversations. Walk me through a little bit more of what that looks like. Especially for someone in sales.
- [13:05]
B
We are only limited by the hours in a day that we're able to work. Right. And so as I think about the sales process and again, going back to what it consists of, well, it consists of building pipeline, it consists of growing and working deals. It consists of looking for white space and analysis. Well, in the products that we've built today. Prospecting and building pipeline, you don't have to do that anymore. That can be done by an agent. And you could wake up to a full list of leads that you're ready to meet with, that you're ready to work and that you have data about because of the way the agent has interacted with them. That's a huge time save and productivity save. And then as we see the sales process, we do things like meeting transcription, generate those transcripts, we create next steps coming out of that. The agents can follow up on your behalf assistively or autonomously, take the customer to that next step in the process and effectively allow you to monitor it and maintain it just as if it was your assistant, effectively. And so again, the whole process as we see it is being augmented by agents and humans working together to really achieve more than either could ever alone. And that's how I think the process is going to evolve here. And those who do it best are going to be the most successful.
- [14:23]
A
Right. And really what that's a conversation about is the soft skills and sort of the tasks that rely specifically on those soft skills. How do you think the advent of AI and the usage of IT in our daily lives and in our business lives is going to impact sort of our, our soft skill ability or those soft skills that we need to improve in order to continue to grow our small businesses as we sort of move through this new period in business?
- [14:51]
B
Well, I think it's going to allow for much more focus and time and energy to be spent on advancing what those soft skills are. But I also think there's a coaching aspect to it. And things that I think about are how do the best salespeople perform today and how can we learn from them and how can our agents help coach us to that direction to become the best to take me? If I'm a B player today, how do I become an A player? How do I learn from the people around me and how do agents help coach me and get me there to deliver the right message at the right time to drive the the highest value outcome. Time and assistance is going to really be a big focus here.
- [15:31]
A
You know, getting people to be open to that kind of feedback from agentic AI or an AI that's like, hey, here's an example of someone that does this really great. Here's a way that you can improve your soft skills or improve that conversation that you had so that you can close the deal more quickly. How do you think that'll change sort of the relationship between a customer and a and a seller?
- [15:52]
B
I think it's two effects. One is, you know, we built a product that we call our sales coach. It's kind of your always on coach that's always helping you, much like any coach you would have taking you to the next level. But I think that's kind of step one and then step two is applying all those learnings and all that practice and what you're actually going to focus on to those human to human conversations. And so I just think we're going to become more in tuned to what actually matters in these human to human engagements because of the data and because of the tools that we're surrounding ourselves with. And I think it's a really exciting time to be in this industry.
- [16:27]
A
Well, I have to say, Chris, I really appreciate your deep insights into this space. Agentic AI is something that is obviously at the top of everyone's minds right now. And I think you have some really interesting insights into sort of how it can be a partner rather than a competitor. We'll see what the rest of the year has in store for the Inc. 5000. Chris, thank you so much for all the time. I really appreciate it.
- [16:49]
B
Thanks for the conversation and thank you.
- [16:50]
A
All for joining us for this special episode in partnership with Salesforce course for Ink Custom Studio. I'm Abigail Bassett. My producer is Avery Miles and my editor is Nicholas Torbly.