Blinded By The Hype

In the late 70’s I was captivated by the song, “Blinded By The Light,” performed by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. It was one of those “pump you up songs.” I’d listed to it during my morning runs along the East River. Listened as I was starting my day in the office. I didn’t realize for a few months that Bruce Springsteen had written and recorded it in the early 70’s. With respect to Bruce, I always liked Manfred Mann’s version better.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about the song as I look at all the stuff going on with ChatGPT in the sales and marketing world. I see smart people and organizations succumbing to the hype around the platform. More and more people are jumping on the ChatGPT bandwagon announcing their implementations that incorporate ChatGPT. I suppose soon we will see advertisements of [Your favorite sales/marketing software] powered by ChatGPT!

As I start talking to people about this, I struggle, I ask why, how are you exploiting it, does it make sense……. I get varying answers or no answers. In the end I’m left with the conclusion they are doing this because it seems all the cool kids are doing this, so by following, they increase their cool factor.

And the first thing these platforms are doing is leveraging it for outbound prospecting. As I look at what they publicize about leveraging ChatGPT, I’m wondering……… “We needed AI to write this????” “Chat sucks as badly at prospecting as people do….”

Here are a couple of examples:

One vendor has a nice AI platform to inform us more about the individual and company so the user can tailor relevant communications. They use Chat to create this:

Subject: Increase sales team efficiency with [Product Name]

Dear John:

I hope this emails finds you well. I understand that you have been facing a problem with your sales team’s efficiency and win rates. I have a solution that I believe will help you address this issue.

Introducing [Product Name], a powerful sales acceleration tool that will help you…..

[The letter goes on to talk about how great the product is]

Huhhh? We need Chat to write emails bragging about the features of our products. Emails that have little to do with the specific business issues the customer faces and challenges in the current economy. (It should be noted every sales executive faces efficiency and win rate challenges every single day, month, year, so starting a letter with this demonstrates absolutely zero insight.)

As I read this, I thought, “This looks exactly like what they sent before they tied to ChatGPT and my reaction has not changed.”

Then another vendor is bragging about the ability to use their business intelligence platform to customize their outreach, in this case they were looking at how ChatGPT could customer emails to investment banking firms with 500 employees. The result:

Subject: Unlock the power of [Product Name] fpr your investment banking firm

Hi [Name]

I hope this email finds you well. My name is [Your Name} and I am a representative of [Company Name], the leading provider of [product category]. I came across your company’s website and noticed that you are a US based investment banking firm with 500 employees. We specialize in providing [product capabilities] for companies in the financial services industry.

[Product name] is a powerful tool that can help your investment banking firm gain a competitive edge providing you with…. [and the letter goes on talking about key product capabilities…]

I would like to schedule a call with you to discuss how [Product Name] can help your investment banking firm achieve it’s business goals and drive more revenue…….

Again, my thought is, “Do we need Chat to write crappy self centered emails sprinkled with a couple of key words to demonstrate our knowledge about investment banking, in this case? I thought, “Well, I’ll just do a global replace using, “technology companies,” “manufacturing companies,” “professional services” That way I can paper the world with these highly personalized emails demonstrating our knowledge of their issues…..

ChatGPT is powerful, but it doesn’t prevent us from generating volumes of self centered crap!

But then I decided to do an experiment, I took that last example and posed some questions to Chat:

Dave: For sales managers working with investment banks having over 500 people, what are the 5 most important issues their customers are facing in the current economy

Chat: As an AI language model, I don’t have access to current market data or customer surveys, but based on my general knowledge, here are five common issues that investment bank customers may be facing in the current economy:

Market Volatility: [Chat provided a good business school definition of this.]

Regulatory Compliance: [Chat provided a good business school definition of this.]

Digital Transformation: [Chat provided a good business school definition of this.]

ESG Investing: [Chat provided a good business school definition of this.]

Geopolitical Risk: [Chat provided a good business school definition of this.]

Then I wanted to drill down, I asked Chat another question. My goal was to understand how their sellers worked with customers so I might bridge how [our product] could help them:

Dave: As a seller talking to a customer, what are the 5 issues I might ask about to understand the impact of market volatility on their customers

Chat: Here are five issues you might ask about as a seller to understand the impact of market volatility on your customer’s investments:

Investment Goals: Ask the customer about their investment goals and how market volatility is impacting their ability to achieve those goals. For example, are they looking to maximize returns, minimize risks, or achieve a balance between the two?

Risk Tolerance: Understanding the customer’s risk tolerance is crucial in helping them navigate market volatility. Ask the customer about their risk tolerance and how comfortable they are with market fluctuations.

Portfolio Diversification: Diversification is an important strategy for managing investment risk, particularly during times of market volatility. Ask the customer about the diversification of their investment portfolio and whether they have considered alternative investment options.
Time Horizon: The time horizon for the customer’s investments can impact how they respond to market volatility. For example, a long-term investor may be more willing to ride out short-term market fluctuations than a short-term investor. Ask the customer about their time horizon for their investments.

Market Analysis: Finally, ask the customer about their analysis of the current market conditions and their expectations for future market performance. Understanding their perspective can help you tailor your sales approach and provide relevant insights and guidance.

I thought, well those are the questions the person that manages my portfolio talks to me about, but usually he gets into more detail on each, providing some insights and opinions. As a seller, to this industry, I might take an example of how [our product] could help the sellers engage their customer in these discussions. But I also expect a seller to investment bankers should probably already know this (Yeah, yeah, I can’t get away from that nuisance topic, business and customer acumen. I still believe we have to understand our customers at least as well as we understand our products. But, increasingly I feel I am tilting at windmills…..)

But I was curious, I thought, “If I really want to engage an investment banking sales executive, I want to see how something like the current interest rates and economy impact their sellers success. I thought, if I could show how [our product] might help the sellers in these conversations with their customers, maybe I could create a compelling reason for the executive to buy [our product].

So I asked Chat for a cheat sheet:

Dave: How do current interest rates and the current economy impact investment goals?

Chat: Current interest rates and the state of the economy can have a significant impact on investment goals in a number of ways:

Return on Investment: Interest rates and the overall economy can impact the return on investment that investors can expect to earn. In a low-interest-rate environment, investors may need to seek out higher-risk investments to achieve higher returns, while in a high-interest-rate environment, investors may be more likely to seek out lower-risk investments with more modest returns.

Inflation: Inflation is another key factor that can impact investment goals. When inflation rates are high, investors may need to earn a higher return on their investments to maintain the purchasing power of their money over time.

Investment Strategies: The current economic climate can also impact investment strategies. In a recession or bear market, investors may be more likely to focus on defensive strategies, such as investing in stable companies with strong fundamentals, while in a bull market, investors may be more willing to take on higher risk investments in search of higher returns.

Asset Allocation: Interest rates and the current economy can also impact asset allocation strategies. For example, in a low-interest-rate environment, investors may be more likely to allocate a larger portion of their portfolio to equities, while in a high-interest-rate environment, investors may be more likely to allocate a larger portion of their portfolio to fixed income investments.

Risk Management: Finally, the current economic climate can impact risk management strategies. For example, in a volatile market, investors may be more likely to diversify their portfolio across a range of asset classes to help manage risk. They may also be more likely to seek out investments that offer downside protection or hedging strategies to help protect their portfolio from losses.

Again, good business school stuff…. but, how does this help our sellers engage our customers?

It didn’t and couldn’t address these things that are important to the customers of investment banking sellers:

• Rising interest rates, inflation, and getting access to capital is getting tougher.
• Inflation diverting spending to food, fuel, other things, away from investments.
• Increased market volatility and risk, and inevitable customer concern with those funds they are allocating for investment.

The tragic thing is this vendor’s product (which is very good) provides it’s customers the ability to bring some of these insights to their customers. These are the issues sales executives are concerned about and would create a compelling need to buy the product….

But instead, we continue to invest in self centered prospecting crap, not outreaches that can have impact on our customers, and help us sell more!

ChatGPT is very powerful, if used properly. At the same time, it enables us to create crap at the speed of light. Our thinking about prospecting and customer engagement is, too often, about our interests, and not about what customers care about.

ChatGPT is powerful and has a great sense of humor. As we have all learned, the real power of Chat is in the prompts. And using the prompts smartly, drilling down, tweaking, and refining them can help us develop ideas, content, and approaches that are more impactful to our customers. But to do this, you have to have the skills and knowledge to engage Chat in these prompts.

“Oh no, Dave. Are you getting back on your business/customer acumen soapbox again? We need to make our quotas!!!”

As I’ve used Chat and studied those using Chat well, they have deep knowledge about the areas in which they are using the tool. They are using it to refine, reframe their thinking. They use it to tweak and explore slightly different ideas. But if they don’t have that deep knowledge, they will never get those ideas.

And those people know the limitations of Chat. Currently, it will seldom get beyond Grad School level answers. It cannot cite specific data or analysis that may be relevant to our customers today. Our sellers have to be knowledgeable enough to understand how to leverage this and engage their customers in business relevant conversations.

And sadly, for both of the examples I mentioned, those organizations have products that help sellers provide those deep business relevant insights and they chose not to demonstrate that in their prospecting outreach.

ChatGPT does not prevent dumb, it amplifies it!

Tools like ChatGPT offer great power, if you are smart enough and care enough to exploit that power.

Currently, I see few people/organizations doing this. I suspect there are some, but perhaps keeping it quiet because it’s a competitive differentiator.

Most implementations are just jumping on the “cool kids” bandwagons, but as we see too often, cool kids sometimes don’t have much depth…….

We have to stop being “Blinded by the Hype!”

Sorry for my diatribe….. I feel better…. I’m pumped up, I need a song…..