MV #010: Generative AI 101 and why SEs always complain about discovery.
Every startup builder should dig into generative AI. The way we sell will fundamentally change with generative AI.
Read time: 8 min
👋 Hi there, happy Sunday!
What a week. Generative AI is taking off. Lots of sales teams closed out Q3. And seemingly, there’s nothing more relevant in the world than Elon Musk starting his new role at Twitter as Chief Twit.
Let’s dive into it.
🥞 Generative AI? Generative What? AI? Yes!
What is generative AI?
Generative AI is a topic that has been in the news lately. It is a subfield of machine learning that focuses on generating content.
This can mean anything from generating images, music, or text to generating video games. It can generate new content by learning from data and then creating new insights, images, videos and other content based on the data it has learned from.
It can create new forms of art, music, and even real-life objects. It's the kind of thing that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago, but now it's become a reality.
What’s the potential?
The potential for Generative AI is huge.
Generative AI can help businesses get closer to meeting their customers' needs by creating new content on demand—and this opens up lots of opportunities for founders who want to take advantage of the technology without having to spend a fortune on engineering resources or finding experts in AI programming.
Three risks of generative AI
Generative AI also has some risks associated with it.
First of all, there's the issue of creating fake content—there are already examples of people using generative AI to make fake news articles or even fake celebrity photos.
Second, there's the risk that people might not like what comes out of your generative AI system because it doesn't look like anything they've seen before (or maybe even because it looks too much like something else).
And lastly, there's the possibility that someone might try to use your generative AI system against you somehow—maybe by using it against other companies or even governments!
How about generative AI’s impact on Sales & Marketing?
In the world of sales and marketing, machine learning is an exciting way to increase efficiency and effectiveness in the sales process.
Generative AI can be used to create new customer personas, product ideas, and messaging strategies, which can then be tested against real data to see if they work.
You don't have to spend time designing them yourself—instead, they come out of thin air! You don't have to worry about whether or not they'll sell—they're already proven! And if they don't sell well, you can always change them later without having to start from scratch.
Generative AI will also change traditional marketing methods by allowing companies to use their existing customer data in new ways.
For example: if you know that customers who like chocolate are likely to buy chocolate, then you could use generative AI technology to start writing articles about how great chocolate is for weight loss or something else entirely related to your audience's interests.
Generative AI will help you create highly personalized, relevant content that captivates your users and drives them to take action—whether that's clicking on a link, filling out a form, or making a purchase. Generative AI has the ability to analyze your data and understand what makes your audience tick. It can then generate the perfect content for you on demand.
This means that no matter what type of content you need—from emails that encourage customers to buy something right away to FAQs and product descriptions—you'll have access to it in seconds, not hours or days.
That’s how you can unlock more value with generative AI!
BTW: the entire section above was created by generative AI using copy.ai
Who are the players?
Sequoia recently published a generative AI market map. This is a great starting point to review the key players.
You can see that most industries will be impacted by generative AI. I’m only just starting to read up on it, but I can see the beginning of the next big revolution in tech.
🧐 Will AI take over the world this time?
Probably not. But it will definitely transform the space massively. Below is a beautiful image generated by AI when asked to draw salmon swimming in a river. (Source: Reddit)
👉 My top sources to learn be basics
🤔 Still don’t believe me?
Listen to Joe Rogan interviewing Steve Jobs. A conversation entirely created by AI.
And now tell me this won’t transform every industry.
🔑 Dear Salespeople Qualification ≠ Discovery
This is probably one of the most critical mistakes sales teams make.
They think because there’s a budget and a key person at the prospect that, anyone - most of the time the Sales Engineering team - is ready to come in and smash the pitch with a strong proposition, demo and illustration of time to value.
That’s wrong. Qualification is only the start.
Sales Engineers must do discovery to make a pitch a success. That’s why many complain when they’re asked to show up and throw up a demo.
You will get more value from your sales teams and the AE/SE partnership if you distinguish qualification from discovery. If you ensure both are done during the cycle, you will increase your win chances, make deals bigger and keep teams happier.
What is qualification?
Qualification is about finding out if the prospect is a good fit for your product or service. Do they have a Budget? Authority? Need? And a Timeline for addressing what your solution solves for (aka BANT).
Qualification and discovery are two different things. If anything, it overlaps slightly with the Need part of BANT.
Qualification is critical to ensure neither you nor the prospect is wasting time. Sales teams have so much on their plates, every hour wasted on an unqualified deal means an hour you were not able to build pipeline, progress deals and close business.
What is discovery?
Discovery is going to the next level.
Going deeper into processes and challenges. Then it's about aligning how your product or service will deliver more value than anything else to achieve the prospects' strategic goals.
There can be pain, but if you don’t conduct discovery into the people, processes and technology, you will fall short when you make your pitch and propose a solution.
Basic discovery questions you can steal
Discovery can take many forms depending on the type of product that you’re selling. Ultimately, it’s all about understanding the prospects’ business as deeply as possible.
You have to ask questions. Continue to ask questions. And go as deep as you can to see the underlying problems.
Once you have that, proceed to identify the gaps for the prospect to achieve their goals. Finally, you bring it all together and propose how your solution can help them get from where they are today to where they want to be in the future.
Here are a few great examples of discovery questions.
What goal is your business trying to achieve in the next year?
How does your business process work today?
Which specific areas are you looking to change to improve your business?
What is keeping you from achieving that goal today?
What else is stopping you from reaching that goal?
How did you try to solve the roadblock stopping you from reaching your goal?
How long does it take for you to decide [X]?
What is at stake if your company doesn’t reach this goal?
What drove you to consider our product?
What would make this project a success?
What have you tried before, and what worked or didn’t work with that?
Does Discovery matter more than Qualification?
Both are really important for the success of a deal. But in my opinion, qualification is more important than discovery.
All discovery can be for nothing if you don’t have someone who has money to spend.
Either way, it’s essential to know that both these things can be slightly fluid in reality. You might not have identified a clear timeline, but you will conduct some discovery to surface pain and drive urgency.
You might demo a basic version of the art of the possible without having BANT or any discovery.
That’s ok. The world is not black and white. But as you invest time and continue in the sales cycle, it’s critical to complete BANT and conduct proper discovery.
So, when you win the account, you will know precisely what has to be done to unlock the most value during the implementation of a project.
TL;DR
Qualification is not discovery. If you want to unlock MORE VALUE: Start with qualification. Then do discovery.
🗞️ In other news
💪 Inspiration for a new week
🙏 That’s it. Have a great Sunday!
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🤓 Don’t know me? Here’s the about section.
My name is Semir Jahic.
More Value is my newsletter with lessons, stories, observations and analyses from my experience building a VC-backed B2B software startup and leading a high-performing sales engineering team.
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