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The secret sauce to your sales success? It's what happens before the sale. It's the pre-sales. And it's more than demo automation. It's the work that goes on to connect technology and people in a really thoughtful way. If you want strong revenue, high retention, and shorter sales cycles, pre-work centered around the human that makes the dream work, but you already know that.
The Unexpected Lever is your partner in growing revenue by doing what you already do best—combining your technical skills with your strategic insights. Brought to you by Vivun, this show highlights the people and peers behind the brands who understand what it takes to grow revenue. You're not just preparing for the sale—you're unlocking potential.
Join us as we share stories of sales engineers who make a difference, their challenges, their successes, and the human connections that drive us all, one solution at a time.
Jarod Greene [00:00:00]:
Hey, everyone, and welcome to V5, where we spend exactly five minutes getting on our soapbox on some of the hottest topics and hottest takes in all of B2B sales. I have the distinct pleasure today of being joined by Blue Bowen, who is a Research Principal with a focus on sales tech at G2. Blue's got a hot take. I'm not going to spoil it. So, Blue, take it away. What's the take? What do we need to know?
Blue Bowen [00:00:27]:
Yeah, thanks so much. My hot take for today is AI SDRs. Those focus on inbound, not the ones that are potentially blowing up. Your mailbox and email deliverability are going to change the game, providing the best buying experience, supporting buyer enablement, which I think in this competitive market is really about successful companies putting the buyer first.
Jarod Greene [00:00:48]:
Awesome. But what do you say to the folks who may be on the fence about it? I don't want to know. I don't know if I want to turn that over. That's my tip of the spear function. That's my face and voice. What do you say to folks who may be a little hesitant to go down that path?
Blue Bowen [00:01:00]:
You know, I think there's a difference between autonomous and kind of copiloting. So if you're cautious, I think it's important to understand your level of risk that you're okay with. Um, it's also important to know that, you know, humans make mistakes, too. So we should have a little leniency with bots as well. But I think when we're looking at the inbound, especially inbound leads are kind of your low, lowest hanging fruit. They've already shown intent. We see so many tools out there in the outbound world, but are looking at intent to time the right message at the right time. Well, you know, these inbound leads have already kind of given you that intent.
Blue Bowen [00:01:31]:
So it's really important that you nail the basics and that you provide kind of a seamless buying experience for those inbound leads.
Jarod Greene [00:01:36]:
Yeah, totally. So for the folks coming on in, open the door, make sure there's a positive experience in beginning. I certainly see the value and acceleration. The marketer me gets it. Where do folks get started if they wanted to think about exploring these processes, these tools, these opportunities? What's the, what's the recommended path say you?
Blue Bowen [00:01:53]:
I'd be remiss if I didn't say, check out g2.com. Definitely a lot more research coming out as it relates to AI SCR's both inbound and outbound and just the whole genic force as a whole. So I would say G2 is a great place to start. We even have our own kind of AI SDR in Monty who has done some incredible results so far. I would say look at G2, look at your system, look at your inbound process currently, seeing if there's any gaps there or if there's any kind of easy wins, kind of improve the experience.
Jarod Greene [00:02:24]:
Definitely. And Blue, you said in a pretty deceit and you get to see the explosion of where we've been in the last kind of 12 to 18. How would you encapsulate candidates this rise of the agentic workforce?
Blue Bowen [00:02:36]:
We're seeing kind of a plethora of tools, even the major incumbent salesforce launching our whole agent force. And I thought it was particularly interesting that when Salesforce launched their SDR they are focused on inbound leads, are focusing on lead enrichment, lead nurturing and the inbound leads rather than the spray and pray approach that's just more automated now than it even was with sales engagement platforms. It's a total boom, but more focused on how is going. Everybody's focused on productivity for their employees. I would say it's equally as important to focus on how AI can help your buyers in their experience just as it is in helping your seller sell.
Jarod Greene [00:03:15]:
Definitely. And I can certainly see the edge in creating for the productivity internally as well as improving the buyer experience. Certainly. It's one thing I've seen over my career is that the company that tends to provide the best buyer experience is going to win. I mean the tech makes sense, you got to meet technical requirements, you got to fit the commercial bit. But I've seen a lot of win loss analysis where I've seen a buyer say the experience made the difference. I felt a certain kind of way through the process. I could definitely see where you say the right use case for the AI SCR for inbound as a buyer experience lever will make a ton of sense for a lot of companies.
Blue Bowen [00:03:52]:
Yeah, certainly its not always the best product that wins. At the end of the day sales. At the end of the day solo is a relationship game. So the relationship you have with your prospects and the experience you provide for them of the most importance. If you have an inbound lead thats waiting three days to hear back they probably reach out to your competition by then. It's important to meet them where they are, answer their questions, whether that be a bot, an agent or a person. I think timeliness and effective communication are most important.
Jarod Greene [00:04:20]:
Totally. Yeah. Speak kills. You give me something to think about even as my own kind of use cases, someone who leads an SDR team. So I got some work to do. I'm gonna hit the G2 grid in just a second, so. Hey, thanks for the time today, blue. Appreciate that.
Blue Bowen [00:04:33]:
Yeah, thank you so much. Pleasure being on there. Speech with you about it.
Jarod Greene [00:04:36]:
You got it. So you guys heard. If this is a topic you want to hear, blue share some more insights on. If this is a V5 you want to see extended into a V15, you know what to do. Let us know in the comments, and we'll upvote accordingly. Thanks a lot, everybody.