Clear the way: How AI can help teams build resilience + remove hurdles

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Let humans be humans. Sellers do their best work out in the world, building relationships, not when they’re creating spreadsheets. Outreach’s AI agents help revenue teams reduce manual tasks, like updating next steps and preparing for meetings, so sellers can get back to what they do best. Learn more.

From economic shifts to career-changing innovations like AI, today’s market changes on a dime, and teams need to build resilience to last.

In the AI age, resilience looks a little different. From eliminating manual notetaking and account recording to finding new efficiencies, AI can help teams find their way through rough patches in the market by giving them time back.

Revenue Brew’s Siri Cosper sat down with Outreach’s Paul Rosen during Revenue Brew’s Reimagining Revenue: Building Growth Through Resilience event. They chatted about what it takes to build resilience in a changing marketplace, and how AI can help steady the ship. Here’s a peek at their conversation.

Friction-free

In his role as director of enterprise sales at Outreach, Rosen’s work focuses primarily on connecting with revenue leaders strategizing their organization’s next big move. From scaling enterprise sales teams to building organizations from scratch, Rosen has seen it all.

He spoke to Cosper about what it means to build resilience within an organization. Spoiler alert: It’s not as simple as having a continuously replenished pipeline.

“When you take a step back and think of resiliency, it really comes down to the emotions that are consistently felt in a go-to-market org,” said Rosen. “That’s [what creates] drive. But how do you [build] that mindset?”

It’s all about removing friction from as many processes as possible so sellers can maintain their momentum. When sellers are tripped up by everyday tasks, it impacts how they feel about their work and how they bounce back.

“You can’t run through a wall if you’re getting stopped by a boulder,” said Rosen.

To remove the obstacles slowing down your team, Rosen suggested that leaders start by removing the mundane, manual tasks. Think:

• updating next steps
• tracking and logging events in CRMs
• preparing + researching for meetings

“Remove the basics from a seller’s day-to-day,” said Rosen. “Where do they spend most of their time? Whether you automate or create workflows [to simplify their work], you can make sure [sellers] work in a single pane of glass instead of jumping between 15 different systems.”

Let humans do human things

One of the most consistent struggles for sellers? Balancing paperwork with what they’re best at: talking to people and building relationships.

“So much of a seller’s time is spent doing that admin work,” said Cosper. “If you can enable your human sellers to be out connecting with more humans, the workforce grows more productive, [and there are] better outcomes for everyone.”

That’s where AI can help do the most good immediately. When your teams have time to sell, it fuels their drive to close deals. And for those worried about AI replacing them in the workforce, Rosen shared reassurances.

“[Outreach’s AI agents] are not here to replace the humans,” said Rosen. “We’re replacing the work that they don’t really want to do in the first place. [Sellers] want to talk to people. They’re in sales for a reason; they’re not here to pull spreadsheets.”

Rosen’s biggest advice to sellers still unsure of how they can work alongside AI? Dabble.

“Start [experimenting with AI] somewhere, just pick something,” said Rosen. “Start with one specific use case to build out in an agentic way. You gotta start somewhere, because this landscape is moving fast, and folks who aren’t adopting it into their everyday workflow could be significantly behind in a couple of years.”

Ready to grow?

Organizations looking to thrive in the next era don’t just need to up their AI game today, they need to think long term about how AI will impact business and their teams over the next few years.

The possibilities and use cases for AI in revenue organizations are virtually endless, from enterprises to SMBs. But it’s impossible to make the most of AI if your data is siloed.

“If a company has news available but we can’t see that, an AI agent can’t communicate about it,” said Rosen. “We don’t have access to that data. If you are an enterprise organization and you are trying to ensure that you’re staying on top of all your MPS scores and the context within them, if that data lives in a siloed location, you can’t access the data to run on it. If you’re an SMB and you have all of your inbound leads…without context behind them, an [AI agent can’t run on it].”

Setting yourself up for what tomorrow holds starts with working from the right data today. With AI, data and knowledge compound: You use today’s (accurate!) data to learn something about your business. Tomorrow, you can use that knowledge to extrapolate more insight, and so on, and so on.

Ready to get your data in order and build an AI-powered revenue strategy? Learn more about Outreach.