How to futureproof your sales and marketing team

Tech disruption is a constant for sales and marketing teams, especially with the rise of AI.

As these innovations take hold in every corner of the sales funnel, firms can choose to either embrace new technologies or reject them and risk holding their business, revenue and team members back.

In this article, we share strategies we’ve seen businesses adopt to help their sales and marketing teams cope with the ever-changing digital landscape and propel their businesses into the future.

Internal AI tools

In the last two years, sales and marketing functions have been inundated with products delivering custom, AI-generated support. Amid this flurry of paid services, some organizations have opted to create their own in-house AI platforms to have a more customized approach.

In fact, some of the world’s largest consulting and accounting firms have invested billions of dollars into AI chatbots. This includes the big-four accounting firm PwC, which developed a custom bot for its workers to streamline tasks, ChatPwC. Since rolling out the platform, participating team members have reported a 20-40% increase in productivity.

Continuous training programs

When organizations invest in innovation, it’s equally important to invest in the people running it. For example, if your business is adopting a new CRM, it’s likely that your sales and marketing teams will require training to get the system up and running.

Organizations seeking to go a step beyond will encourage team members to attend ongoing training, which many AI-powered business tools offer as part of their service.

Salesforce, one of the largest and most popular CRM platforms, offers an annual conference, Dreamforce, for users to attend and learn about any new developments being offered through the service.

Organizations that invest in sending their people to these kinds of events and training differentiate themselves as innovation leaders.

Team-backed decisions on product roll outs

Senior leadership teams are often quicker to see the value of innovative new technologies than the people running them. One way to ensure you have your team’s full support is to include them in any major decisions.

Read: Three traits hiring managers look for in senior sales leaders

If your sales and marketing team backs upper management on the kinds of technologies being rolled out, they will be more apt to use them to their full advantage.

Also, once you’ve assigned an individual or team to oversee these tools, trust them with making large calls or day-to-day decisions. If they’re truly the right person to serve in this capacity, you must treat them as the subject matter expert.

The takeaway

With the AI boom in full effect, sales and marketing teams must learn to navigate constant changes and innovation to the ways they produce content and garner leads.

Firms that embrace these changes will be well equipped to operate in a more technologically savvy future, especially when they invest in innovations internally, involve their team members in new product rollouts and assign subject matter experts to run these products day to day.

To learn more, contact Greg Harper at (336) 217-9123 or greg.harper@charlesaris.com.