AI Didn’t Replace Sales Research. It Raised the Bar.

Several years ago I was working with a team of smart outbounders.

They had already mastered efficient research before I got there. This was pre-AI.

One of them, Holly Dunne, was a first-time BDR at the time. 

She had already developed specific search criteria that served up:

1. Whether the company matched those attributes.
2. The exact page or report where the evidence lived.
3. The keywords that told her what she needed to know.

Within three minutes, she usually had three useful pieces of information.

(See Steve Richard’s 3x3)

Today, AI can do most of that work faster.

But here’s the thing I’m seeing. Ops or the reps wielding the AI don’t (often) know what they’re looking for. 

They collect large amounts of information. It’s not laser focused. It’s rich in information but overwhelming. 

Holly was a BDR but she knew her sh*t. She had a Master’s in the subject. She knew what to look for, what it meant, and how to use it.

Most BDRs don’t. Most Ops teams don’t. And it’s not really their job to know it out of the gate.

But if you’re leading this team, it is YOUR job to know this and teach the ops teams or BDRs EXACTLY what to search for and why. And it needs to be tight. 

A massive dump of information is not going to help open a cold call or progress a deal.

The key is focus and simplicity.

I keep spouting off in posts like this about building a Playbook (I wrote a book on it). 

It’s not the actual Playbook that matters, it's the thinking and discipline that goes into it that does.