WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.680 Somebody posted a rule this month. Before your AI sales rep sends its first thousand emails, a person reads every one of them. 00:00:07.680 --> 00:00:08.960 A thousand. 00:00:08.960 --> 00:00:11.360 Not spot checks. Every one. 00:00:11.360 --> 00:00:17.040 Wait. Your AI sales rep. The thing you bought so you'd have less email to deal with. 00:00:17.040 --> 00:00:17.680 That one. 00:00:17.680 --> 00:00:20.960 So you hired a robot and got homework. 00:00:20.960 --> 00:00:23.840 Hired a robot, got a very long first week. 00:00:23.840 --> 00:00:27.280 A week? Who reads a thousand emails in a week? 00:00:27.280 --> 00:00:31.360 Okay, a long first few weeks. I was rounding in the robot's favor. 00:00:31.360 --> 00:00:33.040 And if I don't read them? 00:00:33.040 --> 00:00:37.840 Then it's still sending them. To real people, every day, with your name at the bottom. 00:00:37.840 --> 00:00:38.880 Great. 00:00:50.665 --> 00:01:01.305 This is After the Demo. I'm John Arndt. I run about fifteen small software products out of Sacramento, most of them built and run with AI agents, plus an AI consulting practice. 00:01:01.305 --> 00:01:12.105 And I'm Kate. So say your sales team, or a vendor you already pay, wants to switch on one of these AI sales reps this quarter. It finds the leads and it writes the emails. 00:01:12.105 --> 00:01:19.145 That's the pitch, pretty much everywhere. Salesforce, Apollo and Gong all announced AI agents for sales teams this fall. 00:01:19.145 --> 00:01:24.425 So if that's my company, first thing I want to know. How much do I have to babysit it? 00:01:24.425 --> 00:01:25.065 Some. 00:01:25.065 --> 00:01:30.505 Some. And does the babysitting last, or does it quietly go away next year? 00:01:30.505 --> 00:01:34.745 And one you didn't ask. What happened when one company sent a lot more. 00:01:34.745 --> 00:01:35.545 Did it work? 00:01:35.545 --> 00:01:36.905 Hold that. We'll get there. 00:01:36.905 --> 00:01:39.545 He does this. He holds things. 00:01:39.545 --> 00:01:40.905 I do hold things. 00:01:40.905 --> 00:01:45.305 And when he says it depends, my job is to make him say on what. 00:01:45.305 --> 00:01:50.425 That's fair. Start with the guy who says read all of them, because he's not wrong. 00:01:53.685 --> 00:02:03.525 So the rule's from Jason Lemkin. He posted it earlier this month. Never let an AI sales rep send its first thousand emails unless a person has read every single one. 00:02:03.525 --> 00:02:06.485 You said that already. I was hoping it'd shrink. 00:02:06.485 --> 00:02:12.565 It doesn't shrink. And after the first thousand, he says twenty to thirty minutes of spot checks a day is enough. 00:02:12.565 --> 00:02:14.645 Does anybody actually do that? 00:02:14.645 --> 00:02:17.685 I'd guess not many. That's probably why he posted it. 00:02:17.685 --> 00:02:20.325 I'd quit at email forty. 00:02:20.325 --> 00:02:21.045 Forty. 00:02:21.045 --> 00:02:26.485 Forty. I'm out at forty. By forty they all sound the same and I'm just clicking next. 00:02:26.485 --> 00:02:36.965 Then let's do some of your forty together, and see what you'd miss. Say you sell scheduling software to dental offices. Your new AI sales rep wrote its first batch overnight. Open email one. 00:02:36.965 --> 00:02:43.525 Email one. Hi, I noticed your practice is growing. Fine. A little greasy, but fine. 00:02:43.525 --> 00:02:44.485 Read to the bottom. 00:02:44.485 --> 00:02:51.365 And if you book a call this week, I can get you a special discount on your first year. Wait. Do we do that? 00:02:51.365 --> 00:02:53.925 You tell me. Did anybody approve a discount? 00:02:53.925 --> 00:02:56.085 No. I'd remember approving that. 00:02:56.085 --> 00:03:01.845 That's one Lemkin says you'll catch. Pricing that gets aggressive. It offered a deal you never signed off on. 00:03:01.845 --> 00:03:04.005 And it sounded so sure about it. 00:03:04.005 --> 00:03:06.405 They always sound sure. Keep going. 00:03:06.405 --> 00:03:18.005 Email six. Dear Doctor, I hope this message finds you well. Very polite. Email seven. Doc! Quick one. You're leaving money on the table and I can fix that by Friday. 00:03:18.005 --> 00:03:21.125 He's got that one too. The tone that swings around. 00:03:21.125 --> 00:03:25.205 Email six is your uncle at a wedding. Email seven is a car lot. 00:03:25.205 --> 00:03:27.205 Same tool. Same afternoon. 00:03:27.205 --> 00:03:31.805 Okay, but that one I'd catch. That's funny. I'd be wide awake for that. 00:03:31.805 --> 00:03:35.218 You'd catch it at email seven. Would you catch it at email thirty-eight? 00:03:35.218 --> 00:03:38.005 At thirty-eight I'm two emails from quitting. 00:03:38.005 --> 00:03:40.405 Right. Next one. Email twelve. 00:03:40.405 --> 00:03:47.805 Our software syncs directly with your insurance billing, so your front desk never has to touch a claim again. Ooh. Does it? 00:03:47.805 --> 00:03:48.405 Does it? 00:03:48.405 --> 00:03:50.885 I don't know, it's your pretend software. 00:03:50.885 --> 00:03:59.148 It doesn't. And that's on his list. A feature it made up. It wrote the exact sentence a dental office wants to hear, and it isn't true. 00:03:59.148 --> 00:04:02.765 Hang on. How would I even catch that? I'm not the product person. 00:04:02.765 --> 00:04:09.165 You'd ask. That's part of the reading. Whoever reads them has to know what the product actually does, or go find out. 00:04:09.165 --> 00:04:11.405 So it's homework with a pop quiz. 00:04:11.405 --> 00:04:17.725 Kind of, yeah. And the last one on his list is my favorite. The email that almost went to the wrong group. 00:04:17.725 --> 00:04:18.245 Almost? 00:04:18.245 --> 00:04:22.165 Almost. Because somebody read it first. That's the whole point. 00:04:22.165 --> 00:04:27.045 Like what, the pitch for brand new practices going to dentists who already pay you? 00:04:27.045 --> 00:04:35.125 That kind of thing. They get an email saying, have you considered trying us. They have. They're paying you. Now they're wondering who's running the place. 00:04:35.125 --> 00:04:36.805 And they forward it to somebody. 00:04:36.805 --> 00:04:39.125 To everybody. With a question mark. 00:04:39.125 --> 00:04:45.125 Why can't I just spot check from day one? Read every tenth one. Same idea, way less time. 00:04:45.125 --> 00:04:47.365 Because you don't know what to spot check for yet. 00:04:47.365 --> 00:04:49.525 I know what a bad email looks like. 00:04:49.525 --> 00:04:57.845 You know what a bad email from a person looks like. This thing goes wrong in its own ways. The discount nobody approved. The tone that swings around after 00:04:57.845 --> 00:05:00.645 After lunch. Yeah. Okay. 00:05:00.645 --> 00:05:04.085 And you didn't know either of those was on the list until you read the batch. 00:05:04.085 --> 00:05:08.045 So the first thousand is how I find out what the list even is. 00:05:08.045 --> 00:05:22.325 The first thousand is how you learn the tool. Lemkin says it pretty plainly. After a thousand, his words, you'll truly understand your AI agent. Then the twenty to thirty minutes a day is maintenance. You know where it breaks, so you know where to look. 00:05:22.325 --> 00:05:28.605 Okay, but who has that kind of time? Honestly. Who's sitting there reading a thousand of anything? 00:05:28.605 --> 00:05:32.725 Who has the time to call a dental office and apologize for a discount you don't offer? 00:05:32.725 --> 00:05:34.565 That's a cheap shot. 00:05:34.565 --> 00:05:35.685 It's a little cheap. 00:05:35.685 --> 00:05:38.525 It worked, though. That's the annoying part. 00:05:38.525 --> 00:05:40.365 So where are we on forty? 00:05:40.365 --> 00:05:42.445 Fine. Sixty. If they're short. 00:05:42.445 --> 00:05:43.725 We're making progress. 00:05:43.725 --> 00:05:46.205 Don't push it. I said if they're short. 00:05:46.205 --> 00:05:52.805 And he ends the post on this, which I like. Quote. But you have to do the first thousand yourself. All of them. 00:05:52.805 --> 00:05:54.845 He really wanted that one to land. 00:05:54.845 --> 00:05:57.125 He's not leaving you a loophole. 00:05:57.125 --> 00:06:02.605 Which, fine, I get why. If you skip the reading, you never find out it's offering discounts. 00:06:02.605 --> 00:06:05.005 You find out when a customer asks for one. 00:06:05.005 --> 00:06:09.205 Okay, but the vendors have an approve button now. Isn't that the reading? 00:06:14.024 --> 00:06:26.024 Sort of. And the optimistic case is real. Apollo, the sales software company, put out three AI agents this fall that live inside its new Slack app. One finds leads that match the customer you're after 00:06:26.024 --> 00:06:29.544 In Slack. Where I already ignore everything. 00:06:29.544 --> 00:06:42.664 In Slack. One finds leads, one proposes whole email sequences, and one watches the ones already running and suggests fixes. And every one of them needs a person to approve it. That's the part I like. 00:06:42.664 --> 00:06:45.464 Okay. That's better than I expected, honestly. 00:06:45.464 --> 00:06:58.744 And it's not only Apollo. In September, Anthropic put out a beta built with Salesforce. It's called Salesforce in Claude. And Anthropic says by default, Claude asks the seller to approve each proposed change before it's written. 00:06:58.744 --> 00:06:59.944 By default. 00:06:59.944 --> 00:07:12.384 Yeah. And Salesforce described what it calls long-horizon agents. You give one a goal. Their example is, re-engage my at-risk deals. And it works on that for days, weeks, even months. 00:07:12.384 --> 00:07:15.064 That's a long time to leave something alone. 00:07:15.064 --> 00:07:22.424 It checks in for your approval, based on guardrails you define. That's in pilot, and Salesforce says it's generally available in November. 00:07:22.424 --> 00:07:26.824 A robot that won't let your dead deals die. For a whole quarter. 00:07:26.824 --> 00:07:33.624 With check-ins. So my point is, the big vendors put a human in the loop. I think that's good news. 00:07:33.624 --> 00:07:35.864 Can I read you Apollo's own sentence? 00:07:35.864 --> 00:07:36.424 Sure. 00:07:36.424 --> 00:07:46.904 Quote. By design, every agent requires that approval today as we want to earn your trust before we take the human out of the process entirely in future iterations. 00:07:46.904 --> 00:07:49.064 Yeah. 00:07:49.064 --> 00:07:56.664 Today. Earn your trust. Take the human out entirely. So your seatbelt comes with a countdown. 00:07:56.664 --> 00:07:57.864 They didn't say when. 00:07:57.864 --> 00:08:01.064 They didn't have to say when. They told you which direction. 00:08:01.064 --> 00:08:12.344 Okay, but come on. Approval on every single email doesn't scale either. Nobody's approving a thousand a day forever. Lemkin himself says after the first thousand, you move to spot checks. 00:08:12.344 --> 00:08:15.984 Spot checks by a person. That's not the same as nobody. 00:08:15.984 --> 00:08:21.624 Okay. Fewer checks is fine. Nobody checking at all is what you watch for. 00:08:21.624 --> 00:08:24.264 And if the approve button turns into a sample? 00:08:24.264 --> 00:08:28.984 If a named person still reads the sample, fine. That's what Lemkin's describing. 00:08:28.984 --> 00:08:33.704 Fine. We split that one. What's the other thing? Because you've got a face. 00:08:33.704 --> 00:08:48.664 Permissions. What the agent can actually reach. There was a post this month I loved. Danielle Morrill posted that her Claude Code setup has reached the point where she doesn't do the data entry around passwords and logins anymore. Her words, it is glorious. 00:08:48.664 --> 00:08:52.424 I believe her. Nobody likes typing passwords. 00:08:52.424 --> 00:09:06.744 And she clearly thought hard about it. She had her agents write up how it works. Each of her computers gets its own read-only, limited account in her password manager, and she can shut them off one machine at a time. And her rules don't let the agents print secrets. 00:09:06.744 --> 00:09:10.024 Let me be the IT person at a credit union for a second. 00:09:10.024 --> 00:09:11.144 Oh, no. 00:09:11.144 --> 00:09:13.464 Hi. Who holds the keys? 00:09:13.464 --> 00:09:17.464 Each machine has its own limited access, and a person can shut it off. 00:09:17.464 --> 00:09:18.904 What can the agent touch? 00:09:18.904 --> 00:09:22.824 Whatever that machine's access reaches. It's read-only, and it's limited. 00:09:22.824 --> 00:09:25.064 And when that laptop walks out of the building? 00:09:25.064 --> 00:09:27.064 You shut that one machine off. 00:09:27.064 --> 00:09:28.904 After you notice it walked out. 00:09:28.904 --> 00:09:30.264 After you notice. 00:09:30.264 --> 00:09:40.904 Out of character now. Her own write-up says there's no approval prompt each time a password gets used. Anything running as her on that machine can read them until she revokes the access. 00:09:40.904 --> 00:09:42.904 She does say that. Plainly. 00:09:42.904 --> 00:09:47.704 And she says that's the right trade for her, because the machines are hers and the access is limited. 00:09:47.704 --> 00:09:48.504 Which is fair. 00:09:48.504 --> 00:09:58.424 It is. But if you need a check every time a password gets used, like a fingerprint prompt, she says this isn't that. So even she says it depends whose machine it is. 00:09:58.424 --> 00:10:02.344 Yeah. You got me there. Convenience isn't an access policy. 00:10:02.344 --> 00:10:03.704 Can I get that in writing? 00:10:03.704 --> 00:10:10.584 For her own machines, it's her call, and she made it carefully. For a company, somebody signs off on what the agent can reach. 00:10:10.584 --> 00:10:12.024 Somebody with a name. 00:10:12.024 --> 00:10:13.624 Right. Not the team. 00:10:13.624 --> 00:10:16.264 Because the team is how nobody does it. 00:10:16.264 --> 00:10:27.464 So, more homework, since you've got some anyway. Find the approve setting in whatever tool you run. Write down the one person who owns it. And while you're in there, write down what the agent's allowed to reach. 00:10:27.464 --> 00:10:30.984 And for the record, the approve button doesn't change my forty. 00:10:30.984 --> 00:10:31.704 Sixty. 00:10:31.704 --> 00:10:34.664 Sixty. Short ones. 00:10:34.664 --> 00:10:43.624 What bugs me is where Apollo says it's headed. Eventually, the human comes out. And if nobody can read all this, that sounds like the answer. There's another one. 00:10:43.624 --> 00:10:44.704 Send less. 00:10:44.704 --> 00:10:45.317 Hold that. 00:10:45.317 --> 00:10:47.224 He's holding things again. 00:10:47.108 --> 00:10:49.188 Let me show you somebody who sent more. 00:10:54.115 --> 00:11:03.635 Okay, I'll be the brochure for a minute. The point is scale. A small team can't hand-write every email. One rep with an agent reaches a lot more people. 00:11:03.635 --> 00:11:06.195 And honestly? I'd buy that brochure. 00:11:06.195 --> 00:11:19.475 So here's a company that scaled up and wrote it down. Voiso. Andreas Gregoras, who runs brand and PR there, wrote in October about their own sales development team. These are their own numbers, self-reported, so take them that way. 00:11:19.475 --> 00:11:20.195 Noted. 00:11:20.195 --> 00:11:29.875 Through twenty twenty-five, that team put out two to four campaigns a month. Since February of this year, the same team launches eight to sixteen. No new hires. 00:11:29.875 --> 00:11:33.315 That's about four times as many. And nobody quit? 00:11:33.315 --> 00:11:35.315 Not that he says. Same people. 00:11:35.315 --> 00:11:37.795 Huh. So the brochure was right. 00:11:37.795 --> 00:11:47.315 Separately, he looked at the replies. Over the past twelve months they sorted three thousand seven hundred four replies. Direct meeting requests were roughly one percent of those. 00:11:47.315 --> 00:11:50.435 Wait. Of the replies. Not the emails. 00:11:50.435 --> 00:11:55.355 Right. People who actually wrote back. Roughly one in a hundred of them asked for a meeting. 00:11:55.355 --> 00:11:57.475 I was rooting for them. 00:11:57.475 --> 00:12:03.595 So was I. And he tested the other thing everybody wonders about. What happens when you just send more? 00:12:03.595 --> 00:12:04.835 Nothing good, I bet. 00:12:04.835 --> 00:12:17.555 He says when everybody's inbox started filling up with competent AI email, they tested what he calls the obvious response, and raised their sending volume a lot. And in his words, the number of replies did not scale with it. 00:12:17.555 --> 00:12:20.595 They turned the hose way up and the bucket didn't fill. 00:12:20.595 --> 00:12:21.715 That's how he tells it. 00:12:21.715 --> 00:12:23.115 One company, though. 00:12:23.115 --> 00:12:27.075 One company, their own numbers. I'm not calling it a law of nature. 00:12:27.075 --> 00:12:31.875 Then what were all the other replies? If only one percent was somebody saying let's meet. 00:12:31.875 --> 00:12:34.995 He says the rest came back as a question or an objection. 00:12:34.995 --> 00:12:37.515 That's it? Question or objection? 00:12:37.515 --> 00:12:47.275 Or somebody asking for more detail, or pointing you at somebody else. And his line on that is, each of those has to be answered by a person who knows what is actually true. 00:12:47.275 --> 00:12:50.875 Great. The sending scales, and a person still has to answer. 00:12:50.875 --> 00:12:53.075 Every reply that isn't a meeting, yeah. 00:12:53.075 --> 00:12:55.035 Which is ninety-nine percent of them. 00:12:55.035 --> 00:13:04.515 Roughly. But I'm not giving up scale that easily. A small team can't compete without it. I'd say reviewing is a phase. You read a lot early, and then you grow 00:13:04.515 --> 00:13:10.275 No. Wait. Flip it. If no person can read what it sends, it's sending too much. 00:13:10.275 --> 00:13:11.795 That's a strong rule. 00:13:11.795 --> 00:13:18.555 It's a simple rule. Cut the volume down to what somebody can actually read, and Lemkin's thousand fits in your mornings. 00:13:18.555 --> 00:13:21.155 A thousand emails fits in my mornings? 00:13:21.155 --> 00:13:27.395 Fifty does. Fifty a day is a thousand in four working weeks. I can do fifty. I'd make it. 00:13:27.395 --> 00:13:29.875 So it's a very long first month. 00:13:29.875 --> 00:13:35.075 It's a normal first month. With coffee. The homework gets smaller when the pile gets smaller. 00:13:35.075 --> 00:13:37.795 Okay, that's annoyingly good. 00:13:37.795 --> 00:13:40.595 And the guy who wrote the article agrees with me. Doesn't he? 00:13:40.595 --> 00:13:49.075 Partly, yeah. He wrote that, quote, a precise offer for a narrow segment will outperform a general offer sent to a larger audience. 00:13:49.075 --> 00:13:52.115 Narrow means fewer people. I'll take partly. 00:13:52.115 --> 00:14:05.075 And he wrote that writing that's recognizably human became, his words, unusual again. So when everybody's inbox fills up with competent machine email, the one that stands out is the one that sounds like a person wrote it for you. 00:14:05.075 --> 00:14:07.955 Which is hard to do at sixteen campaigns a month. 00:14:07.955 --> 00:14:11.155 It's hard to do and also read every one, yeah. 00:14:11.155 --> 00:14:16.195 And let me guess, he also says a great email to the wrong person still goes nowhere. 00:14:16.195 --> 00:14:20.995 Almost word for word. A good sentence sent to the wrong person still fails. 00:14:20.995 --> 00:14:24.515 So you could write the perfect email to the wrong thousand people. 00:14:24.515 --> 00:14:27.395 And nobody books anything. Very politely. 00:14:27.395 --> 00:14:28.195 So. 00:14:28.195 --> 00:14:35.315 So you win that one. I was treating review as a phase you grow out of. The rule only works if you cut the volume first. 00:14:35.315 --> 00:14:36.515 Say it slower. 00:14:36.515 --> 00:14:40.435 You. Win. That. One. 00:14:40.435 --> 00:14:42.595 That's two. I'm keeping a list. 00:14:42.595 --> 00:14:53.155 And to be fair to him, he's not saying the job goes away. He expects fewer sales development roles, filled by people who are paid more. His words, the role has not disappeared. 00:14:53.155 --> 00:14:58.195 Fewer of them, paid more. I can live with that. Mostly the paid more part. 00:14:58.195 --> 00:14:59.635 Of course it is. 00:14:59.635 --> 00:15:03.075 So if your sending went up this year and your meetings didn't? 00:15:03.075 --> 00:15:08.995 Stop adding volume. Pick the slice of accounts a person can actually read for, and send to those. 00:15:08.995 --> 00:15:12.675 Okay. I'm reading fifty a day. What am I reading them as? 00:15:12.675 --> 00:15:17.155 As the person who gets them. I learned that one the expensive way. Almost. 00:15:22.037 --> 00:15:24.437 Almost expensive. Go on. 00:15:24.437 --> 00:15:30.997 So, late August. I decided to buy every plan on seven of my own products, the way a customer would. 00:15:30.997 --> 00:15:32.517 Your own products? 00:15:32.517 --> 00:15:33.237 My own. 00:15:33.237 --> 00:15:37.797 Why would you need to buy your own stuff? You built it. You know where everything is. 00:15:37.797 --> 00:15:44.077 You'd think. That's the trap. Knowing where everything is isn't the same as buying it like somebody who doesn't. 00:15:44.077 --> 00:15:45.477 In through the front door, then. 00:15:45.477 --> 00:15:50.117 Yep. Pick a plan, pay for it, see what shows up after. Every plan. 00:15:50.117 --> 00:15:50.917 And? 00:15:50.917 --> 00:15:57.957 And it caught real bugs. Before any customer did. Including a checkout that would have let someone subscribe for zero dollars. 00:15:57.957 --> 00:15:59.717 Zero. 00:15:59.717 --> 00:16:00.437 Zero. 00:16:00.437 --> 00:16:02.517 So for a while, it was free? 00:16:02.517 --> 00:16:10.637 It would have been. I caught it first. But it was my mistake, it was sitting right there, and the only reason I found it is I tried to buy my own thing. 00:16:10.637 --> 00:16:11.557 Which product? 00:16:11.557 --> 00:16:12.530 I'm not saying. 00:16:12.530 --> 00:16:14.357 It's the good one, isn't it. 00:16:14.357 --> 00:16:16.237 Moving on. 00:16:16.237 --> 00:16:19.117 No, wait. You must've been furious. 00:16:19.117 --> 00:16:24.530 Mostly embarrassed. Nobody had hit it, so nothing broke. But I'd have sworn that checkout was fine. 00:16:24.530 --> 00:16:27.317 Everybody would swear that about their own checkout. 00:16:27.317 --> 00:16:31.037 That's the problem. You don't look at your own checkout as the person paying. 00:16:31.037 --> 00:16:34.237 And now there's a rule. I can see it on your face. 00:16:34.237 --> 00:16:37.717 Test the path the money takes, as a customer, on a schedule. 00:16:37.717 --> 00:16:40.597 Meaning somebody who's never seen the inside. 00:16:40.597 --> 00:16:46.197 Right. From the inside, everything looks fine. You know what the button's supposed to do, so you see it doing that. 00:16:46.197 --> 00:16:49.317 What does that have to do with emails? That's a checkout. 00:16:49.317 --> 00:16:59.157 The AI sales rep is the front of that same path. It's the first thing a lot of prospects ever see from you. Reading its emails as the person getting them is the same test. 00:16:59.157 --> 00:17:01.357 Oh. The made-up feature. 00:17:01.357 --> 00:17:12.077 Yes. The insurance billing thing. That's the email version of the zero-dollar checkout. To whoever wrote it, it looks fine. It's a nice sentence. It only breaks when the dentist reads it and believes it. 00:17:12.077 --> 00:17:14.077 And then calls you asking for it. 00:17:14.077 --> 00:17:17.637 And then you get to explain why your email promised something you don't sell. 00:17:17.637 --> 00:17:19.797 When I read them, I'm the dentist. 00:17:19.797 --> 00:17:24.597 Exactly. You don't know what the product does. You only know what the email told you. 00:17:24.597 --> 00:17:28.917 Okay, but I know too much. How do I read it like a stranger? 00:17:28.917 --> 00:17:34.197 Every promise in it, you ask one question. If I paid today, could I actually get this? 00:17:34.197 --> 00:17:35.597 And if the answer's no? 00:17:35.597 --> 00:17:40.677 Then that sentence doesn't go out. Same as the checkout. You don't ship it and hope somebody notices. 00:17:40.677 --> 00:17:45.357 Say I test my checkout once. It works. Done. Why a schedule? 00:17:45.357 --> 00:17:49.477 Because the thing changes underneath you. Every release is a new checkout. 00:17:49.477 --> 00:17:51.397 Like Apollo's next version. 00:17:51.397 --> 00:17:59.637 Like any of them. Remember the approval sentence. Approval today. The tool you checked in October might not be the tool you're running in March. 00:17:59.637 --> 00:18:02.837 Great. March me has homework too. 00:18:02.837 --> 00:18:05.797 March you has a calendar reminder. That's lighter. 00:18:05.797 --> 00:18:08.597 Then I reread every time they ship something. 00:18:08.597 --> 00:18:13.317 At least then. And on a calendar, so it doesn't depend on you noticing a release note. 00:18:13.317 --> 00:18:15.477 How often, though? Give me a number. 00:18:15.477 --> 00:18:20.597 Pick one you'll actually keep. The point is it lives on the calendar, so you don't have to remember. 00:18:20.597 --> 00:18:21.877 That's a dodge. 00:18:21.877 --> 00:18:26.997 It's a little bit of a dodge. A schedule you skip is worse than a slower one you keep. 00:18:26.997 --> 00:18:30.677 Fine. Monthly. Because I don't read release notes either. 00:18:30.677 --> 00:18:34.277 Nobody reads release notes. Which is kind of this whole episode. 00:18:34.277 --> 00:18:38.997 Then explain the guy whose agent built a whole business while he was on a date. 00:18:38.997 --> 00:18:47.197 Alex Finn. He posted that his AI agent built and launched a whole business for him. The website, a newsletter, and reaching out to sponsors. 00:18:47.197 --> 00:18:48.277 Was the date good? 00:18:48.277 --> 00:18:59.197 He didn't say. His post says that in the fifteen hours after launch, the site had twenty thousand visitors and fifteen hundred email signups. No sponsor yet. He says one will be found shortly. 00:18:59.197 --> 00:19:00.597 By his count. 00:19:00.597 --> 00:19:09.077 Right. And readers added a note under the post. It says he announced the site himself the day before, already live, and later set up a bot to maintain it. 00:19:09.077 --> 00:19:11.757 So the timeline's a little fuzzier. 00:19:11.757 --> 00:19:16.597 Maybe. Either way, I don't think the launch is the interesting part. Launching got cheap. 00:19:16.597 --> 00:19:18.624 Great. Who reads it on day two? 00:19:18.624 --> 00:19:23.797 That's the whole job now. Somebody reading what goes out under your name, every day. 00:19:23.797 --> 00:19:27.930 Fifteen hundred signups, and somebody has to read what goes to them. 00:19:27.930 --> 00:19:31.477 Fifteen hundred people who each think a person wrote to them. 00:19:31.477 --> 00:19:32.997 And if nobody reads it? 00:19:32.997 --> 00:19:36.117 Then you find out the way I almost did. From a customer. 00:19:40.787 --> 00:19:48.227 Okay. One of the big vendors says AI wins deals for you now. I have questions, and you're answering them fast. 00:19:48.227 --> 00:19:49.347 I can do fast. 00:19:49.347 --> 00:19:53.187 Rapid fire. Short answers. You're bad at short answers. 00:19:53.187 --> 00:19:54.147 I'm working on it. 00:19:54.147 --> 00:19:59.427 Five questions. I'm timing you. Question one. Does AI win deals now? 00:19:59.427 --> 00:20:09.027 Gong's CEO, Amit Bendov, said this at their September event. Quote. For years, AI told you how to win. Now, AI wins deals for you. 00:20:09.027 --> 00:20:12.387 Or it loses one, a made-up feature at a time. 00:20:12.387 --> 00:20:24.547 Fair. They also announced Gong Activate, which they say will use always-on agents that keep evaluating every account and deal. And an Agent Builder, for custom agents that run on triggers you define. 00:20:24.547 --> 00:20:28.867 Triggers you define. So somebody still has to define them. 00:20:28.867 --> 00:20:30.067 Somebody with a name. 00:20:30.067 --> 00:20:35.107 I knew that was coming. Also, I stopped the timer. That was not short. 00:20:35.107 --> 00:20:39.027 Then here's the short half. Separately, Gartner predicts that by twenty twenty-eight 00:20:39.027 --> 00:20:40.467 Is this the short half? 00:20:40.467 --> 00:20:48.947 This is the short half. AI agents will outnumber sellers ten to one, and fewer than forty percent of sellers will say the agents improved their productivity. 00:20:48.947 --> 00:20:52.787 Ten agents for every seller, and most of the sellers shrug. 00:20:52.787 --> 00:21:00.547 Yeah. And Gartner's analyst, Dan Gottlieb, had a line I liked. If those systems are fragmented, the agents will scale the fragmentation. 00:21:00.547 --> 00:21:01.627 In English. 00:21:01.627 --> 00:21:05.187 If your stuff's a mess, the agents make more mess, faster. 00:21:05.187 --> 00:21:06.587 Now that was short. 00:21:06.587 --> 00:21:07.867 I've been practicing. 00:21:07.867 --> 00:21:10.627 Question two. Do I still need salespeople? 00:21:10.627 --> 00:21:25.907 Someone posted a clip quoting Elon Musk on why his company went after Cursor, the coding tool. He gives a few reasons. Coding data. Talented people. And then, from the post's transcript, that good enterprise sales team with relationships with thousands of companies. 00:21:25.907 --> 00:21:27.707 Hang on. Where's the clip from? 00:21:27.707 --> 00:21:31.547 It's somebody's post. I can't check the clip myself, so treat it that way. 00:21:31.547 --> 00:21:35.387 If that quote's right, even the AI company wanted the salespeople. 00:21:35.387 --> 00:21:45.707 If it's right. And the relationship is exactly what a bad email spends. One weird discount email to a customer you've had for years, and you're spending something you can't buy back quickly. 00:21:45.707 --> 00:21:47.299 Not even with a discount. 00:21:47.299 --> 00:21:50.227 Especially not with the discount nobody approved. 00:21:50.227 --> 00:21:57.747 Question three, and this one's mine. Is there a version where the human never leaves the loop? No countdown. No homework. 00:21:57.747 --> 00:22:11.587 One of mine, Intakra, works that way. It watches public sources, things like job posts and filings, for the companies a team already sells to, and when one of them starts something the team could help with, it emails the team a heads-up with the proof. 00:22:11.587 --> 00:22:13.027 And then it writes to them? 00:22:13.027 --> 00:22:18.867 It doesn't write to those companies or send them anything. A person on the team decides whether to reach out, and writes it. 00:22:18.867 --> 00:22:20.867 So it's homework too. 00:22:20.867 --> 00:22:23.827 Short homework. It's a few a week, on purpose. 00:22:23.827 --> 00:22:29.827 Fine. I'll allow it. Question four. Say I want an agent anyway. Where do I start? 00:22:29.827 --> 00:22:32.627 Inbound. Where somebody already raised their hand. 00:22:32.627 --> 00:22:33.507 Why there? 00:22:33.507 --> 00:22:40.307 Because they came to you. They asked a question. Answering a question is a smaller job than starting a conversation with a stranger. 00:22:40.307 --> 00:22:42.427 So the robot gets the easy ones. 00:22:42.427 --> 00:23:01.381 The ones with a hand already up. Salesforce describes one called Piper that works around the clock on inbound prospects. It answers questions over text, voice or video, qualifies the leads, and books meetings. They describe it as available now. They list another one, Hunter, for November, and trade coverage calls that the outbound one. 00:23:01.381 --> 00:23:03.347 And you'd wait for Hunter? 00:23:03.347 --> 00:23:08.507 My opinion, not a fact. I'd start with the people who came to you before the people who didn't. 00:23:08.507 --> 00:23:11.267 And somebody still reads what it says. 00:23:11.267 --> 00:23:11.667 Yes. 00:23:11.667 --> 00:23:14.387 Even inbound? They already like you. 00:23:14.387 --> 00:23:18.627 That's why. They already like you, and one bad answer is how they stop. 00:23:18.627 --> 00:23:21.107 Huh. I had that backwards. 00:23:21.107 --> 00:23:25.227 Inbound feels safe because it's friendly. That's my opinion, anyway. 00:23:25.227 --> 00:23:27.427 Okay. That's actually worse. 00:23:27.427 --> 00:23:29.867 Right. Somebody asked a real question. 00:23:29.867 --> 00:23:30.747 Same rule, then. 00:23:30.747 --> 00:23:35.187 The answer had better be true. That's the made-up feature problem again, just faster. 00:23:35.187 --> 00:23:37.987 That one was actually short. Timer's back on. 00:23:37.987 --> 00:23:39.187 For one question? 00:23:39.187 --> 00:23:43.827 Last one. What do I do this week? And I want two things. Not five. 00:23:43.827 --> 00:23:49.907 Two. Pull the last fifty emails your tool sent, and read every one as the person getting them. Like testing your checkout. 00:23:49.907 --> 00:23:50.787 That's one. 00:23:50.787 --> 00:23:55.387 And name the one person who reads what it proposes. A name, not the team. 00:23:55.387 --> 00:23:57.587 Two. Done. Don't add a third. 00:23:57.587 --> 00:23:58.787 I wasn't going to. 00:23:58.787 --> 00:24:00.547 You were. You took a breath. 00:24:00.547 --> 00:24:02.387 I was going to. 00:24:02.387 --> 00:24:04.267 See? You can stop at two. 00:24:04.267 --> 00:24:06.067 It was physically difficult. 00:24:05.956 --> 00:24:12.356 I could tell. Now squeeze it. Give me the one thing. The one I'll actually do. 00:24:12.596 --> 00:24:22.836 The one thing. Pull the last fifty emails your AI sales tool sent. Read every one as if you were the person getting it, and circle anything you wouldn't have signed yourself. 00:24:22.836 --> 00:24:24.596 And if it hasn't sent anything yet? 00:24:24.596 --> 00:24:26.996 Then read its first fifty before it does. 00:24:26.996 --> 00:24:30.676 And put one name, not a team, next to the approve button. 00:24:30.676 --> 00:24:31.956 That's two things. 00:24:31.956 --> 00:24:34.196 It's one thing with a name on it. 00:24:34.196 --> 00:24:35.876 I'll allow it. 00:24:35.876 --> 00:24:37.636 Read it like you'd test your checkout. 00:24:37.636 --> 00:24:39.716 As a customer. On a schedule. 00:24:39.716 --> 00:24:45.796 And since you've been counting all episode, final number. I'd make the thousand. At fifty a day. 00:24:45.796 --> 00:24:48.516 From forty to a thousand in one episode. 00:24:48.516 --> 00:24:49.716 Don't make it a thing. 00:24:49.716 --> 00:24:51.316 It's a little bit of a thing. 00:24:51.316 --> 00:24:56.756 Send this to whoever just switched on the AI sales rep. Before it sends anything else in your name. 00:24:56.756 --> 00:25:02.276 Links are in the show notes. Jason Lemkin's post, the Voiso article, and the vendor announcements we talked about. 00:25:02.276 --> 00:25:04.916 So you hired a robot and got homework. 00:25:04.916 --> 00:25:08.996 Fifty emails of it. One morning. That's After the Demo. 00:25:08.996 --> 00:25:10.196 Go read your fifty.