Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Gabe Larsen, VP of InsideSales Labs (Part 4)

Gabe Larsen: When we look at the data, one of the things that makes really great sellers is the ability to accurately predict forecasts. In forecasting, you hear about happy years or people sandbagging. One of my favorite things is where you have a deal and you fall in love with the deal. It moves from stage to stage almost without your knowing it. We can analyze some of the happenings of an opportunity.

In real-time, we can start to say, “The likelihood of this closing is 80% but because of the associated activities that have happened, it’s a 60% chance.” We’re hovering more on 80% to 90% accuracy range. That’s just a game-changing number.

Sramana Mitra: Great. Very interesting. That’s really cool. Let’s switch gears and look around at your industry – the sales management space. What are other people doing that you find interesting? Where are the open problems where AI could really take things to the next level that are not being done yet?

Gabe Larsen: One is this concept of prioritization. It’s taking it one step deeper. What an ideal prospect looks like in my mind has the following two attributes. We’re only beginning this journey. One is looking at the account and the characteristics of who’s most likely to buy from me? Let’s say I have a list of a thousand and out of this thousand, I have a hundred accounts who are people who can buy from me based on these characteristics.

What takes it to the next level is this vast amount of intent data you can potentially pull in. What if I can go deep and say, “Somebody was just reading a Forbes article about AI in sales and it happened to be someone from one of your 100 top accounts.” Not only do I know that they have the capability to buy, I know they’re thinking about me. That intent data with the optimal profile or scoring data could be very powerful.

Sramana Mitra: Intent is really hard though to identify. If you double-click down on how to find intent, what have you learned in heuristics that determine intent? Do you have ideas about heuristics that are good to determine intent?

Gabe Larsen: You have to start at the basic level. Some of the things we’ve played with is what if they visit your website. That’s a basic action. At the moment, we’ve been tracking action and activity. If we can partner with someone like Forbes and we cookie someone who comes into Forbes, and we match that with somebody’s ideal profile and use that, that is interest. That’s where my mind has been going.

Sramana Mitra: Any other last thoughts on industry trends that we should keep our eyes on?

Gabe Larsen: There’s many more. One of the industry problems in sales is the training space. It’s such a lagging concept. As a sales rep, I have my day-to-day actions. We’re lacking the real-time individualized coaching that AI could potentially provide. You’re on a live phone call with somebody. It’s actually not that difficult to analyze both you and them and figure out what their personality is and what your personality is, and provide real-time coaching. I love getting into the live coaching concept. I’m a passionate learner. It’s so sad that we’ve not brought AI more fully into that.

Sramana Mitra:  Great talking to you. Thank your for your time.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Gabe Larsen, VP of InsideSales Labs
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