Reshaping Traditional Roles Using AI, with Maha Pula [Episode 1137]

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In this week’s episode, Alastair and Howard are once again joined by sales leader Maha Pula, the VP of Global Pre-sales at Cloudflare, to explore the evolution of sales roles in the era of AI and automation. They delve into the transformation of traditional functions like business development and customer success, emphasizing the shift from pushing sales to sparking exploration and adding value to customers throughout their journey with the help of AI.

Podcast Transcript:

Speaker

00:00:00:09 – 00:00:27:10

Speaker

Yeah, if I survive this and I’ll get killed by my BDR friends (laughs) and my son, who ends up is a BDR, he’s going to call me right now. I don’t know. I think you charted his future for him, to be honest. Welcome back, everybody, to this week’s Sales Strategy and Enabement podcast. I’m Alastair Woolcock, Chief Strategy & Revenue Officer here at Revenue.io.

 

00:00:27:10 – 00:00:57:06

Speaker

I’m joined by my infamous co-host, founder, guru and all things revenue science, Howard Brown. And today we are thrilled to have Maha Pula back with part two on sales 3.0 and where we are headed in this market. And for context, 70 Moher is a phenomenal leader. Vice President Global Sales at Cloudflare has been part of Ignite Stage two Capital, a long, storied history of building awesome sales organizations around the world.

 

00:00:57:06 – 00:01:33:22

Speaker

Maha, great to have you back. Thank you. Unendurable. If I may say with that, let’s dive right in. And as you know, we always love to start with some recent news. And just on August 3rd, there is a recent report that Gardner made. And I read you a statement and it says that generative AI is going to lead to a 20 to 30% reduction of customer success and service agents, but is going to create new jobs in that area.

 

00:01:34:00 – 00:02:00:02

Speaker

Now, in a way, I don’t know that that’s overly provocative, but it’s really interesting they’re putting that out there to say what it is and I in Howard, I want to dive into where we left off from last episode. And that’s the notion that a lot of these functions are changing rapidly. But I would suggest they’re going to increase in scope, they’re going to increase in volume, but the job is going to be different.

 

00:02:00:02 – 00:02:20:23

Speaker

And how we grow our company isn’t just acquisition, but it’s also growing what we have. You know. So Howard, I know you had some initial thoughts on this and you know where we’re going. Maybe I’ll start with you this week and just, you know, let’s dive into that transition and then I’d love to get your thoughts on where these roles are headed.

 

00:02:21:01 – 00:03:05:03

Speaker

Yeah. Thanks. Alister Maher last week was talking about how the buyer is at the center of everything and how we need to stop pushing and really help the buyer make those buying decisions. And I think one of the things that Martha brought up was not to throw you on there, you know, throw you out to the lions here, but how the role of the air steward needs to change and how a lot of that outbound motion is really starting to change and that people who are in those roles and the leaders around those roles need to think about how to add value to the customers, how to add value to the buyers.

 

00:03:05:05 – 00:03:33:03

Speaker

And I think the notion that systems customer success, that is a huge opportunity. It is for all of us to think about our customers and how we continue to add value to them, how we continue to service our customers so one, they can grow their business and get the most value from our products and service and to help our companies grow sustainable revenue and customers for the long haul.

 

00:03:33:08 – 00:04:03:04

Speaker

There is a huge opportunity to retool a lot of the SDR and PDR roles, which is typically thought of as top of funnel to how do we add value to the customer further down. Once they are a customer, once they already start to use our product and service, we are now the expert, not just in our product, but how to help them get more value, grow their business, enhance the value of their company.

 

00:04:03:04 – 00:04:35:06

Speaker

And so if you think about all the ways generative today has started to help people, how how it’s optimized using processes, one of the things we’re seeing at Revenue Daddy-O, is we’re seeing people move from thinking about engagement platforms as just not top of funnel, constant top of funnel, but how do we use these interactions that we have with our customers, all the data that we have on our customers and their utilization to be even more helpful.

 

00:04:35:11 – 00:05:14:15

Speaker

So engaging our customers in a helpful way as opposed to spammy customers or just more and more, more. And I see that as a really positive trend. I’d love your thoughts, Molly. You said all of the things that were going on in my head around this value added BTR, right? The concept of the business development function as being sort of a pilot of the solution to someone who is going to continue to be with you on the journey in some form or manner, reminding you about all the additional value that you can gain from this engagement vendor.

 

00:05:14:19 – 00:05:43:00

Speaker

So really becoming a copilot and can take you through this journey with this vendor, right? So what do we mean by that? There is sort of a way in which the BTR can over the lifecycle of that customer, your mind, the customer over, you know, in a in a periodic in of roles, maybe even touch base with them and sort of grow into a sort of a hybrid customer success person.

 

00:05:43:05 – 00:06:04:06

Speaker

Right. A few we talked about in the previous episode, we talked about what happens to a BTR. They just go away, they don’t, but it sort of merges into the customer journey and we all know a BTR does not stay in the role for no more than two max. Three years is what we get out of a BTR before they go into a kind of a role, a sales role, right?

 

00:06:04:08 – 00:06:31:18

Speaker

So in the 2 to 3 years, there are possibilities for them to be doing other things as well. Like a their journey. They could go in a customer success. They know how the customer buys. What is it that motivated the customer to engage with the vendor in the first place and then take that one and take it forward and talk about some of the signals that they may be leveraging from the customer to take the customer further down the buyer journey and so they can transition into as a as a great career path into customer success.

 

00:06:31:20 – 00:07:03:21

Speaker

But to your point, as you said, you know, even customer success roles could be impacted by AI solutions and automation, but they’re never going to go away. Customers are always going to need assistance in their adoption journey. So there are possibilities. There are other things that disfunction can be doing over the course. And that’s like, you know, in our last episode, I’m going to paraphrase it all down to this statement that I think our partially said as well, which is it was not just about helping sellers sell us, about helping buyers buy.

 

00:07:03:23 – 00:07:27:08

Speaker

Yeah, that that’s the world that is fundamentally was shifting in the world of sales right now. And when you think about now the customer success world, what I would suggest is is absolutely one of the most key aspects of growth in a company today. Without you, you have to have good investments there, arguably creeping up to as much as you may have in sales.

 

00:07:27:10 – 00:07:50:04

Speaker

Now, the evolution of that is customer success isn’t any more just about making the customer is successful with what you’ve sold them. Customer success is now about sparking exploration. And when I think of as I think buy a SaaS, I think of sales teams, what a good sales sales teams are usually good at. Hey, Howard, here’s an idea.

 

00:07:50:06 – 00:08:16:23

Speaker

Here’s something I’ve seen. Here’s what I think is possible in your company to solve X, Y, Z problem. And I got an idea that I think is going to shift that forward for you. People want to listen. They want to know what others are doing, where that’s going. And this is this now, this world of sparking exploration, not selling, sparking exploration that shows how they can help transform their customers organizations.

 

00:08:16:23 – 00:08:41:08

Speaker

And I think if our sellers are helping buyers buy and our systems are sparking exploration, that’s a huge step forwards. I think, for most of these organizations. And that’s where generative I can fill the gap and could augment all of these resources today with the content and the queries and the large language models they need to supplement that acumen.

 

00:08:41:10 – 00:08:59:05

Speaker

Absolutely. I’m looking at some tools that are out there to help my own team get to the information that they need faster and in the language of their choice. I mean, I have a global team. I’m not going to be able to work with a generative tool that is just going to give me the responses in English language.

 

00:08:59:05 – 00:09:17:11

Speaker

It has to be in all the languages where my teams are and the more remote my teams, the more important it is that they have access to the information in the language that they need it because they are in a different time zone. They don’t have access to the to the people and or resources that have this information with them.

 

00:09:17:11 – 00:09:37:19

Speaker

So these sources of information have become so critical for us to integrate into the selling team or the customer facing teams, let’s call them, because not everybody is selling somebody actively engaged in adoption. Somebody is actively engaged in exploration, like you said, or sparking interest. So not everybody is selling, even though that’s that outcome you want to drive to.

 

00:09:37:23 – 00:09:55:21

Speaker

But it’s not the intent with which you engage with the customer. So the intent is giving the customer information when they need it, how they need it in the language they they need it. You can give them, you know, a whole lot of information saying you go figure how you want to get this one translated. So we are looking at generative AI.

 

00:09:55:22 – 00:10:15:14

Speaker

So that specific reason is looking at the solutions that may be able to provide access to the information to my team as quickly as possible, you know, in the language that they can get to so they can serve their customers better. Again, customer centered the universe and they can give the customer access to the information that they need in the shortest possible time.

 

00:10:15:16 – 00:10:58:09

Speaker

How hard I feel like that is a Howard Brown moment here. The media is inadvertently set up. Yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, but let’s just give some context there a little bit that makes sense. Well, I think what Martha is speaking about is, again, the mission that hopefully we are all on, which is delivering the most value to our buyers and customers and using whatever technology we have to empower them as well as and a lot of people forget about this empowering our own teams because we try and bring on people and turn them into experts and we don’t tool them, right?

 

00:10:58:09 – 00:11:22:08

Speaker

We throw a bunch of information at them, we throw them in training and we expect them to just go sell or deliver value and they’re not equipped to do it. So where have we focused? We have focused on the moments that matter when people are engaging with their customers, they care to know everything the customer knows about the customer’s business.

 

00:11:22:10 – 00:11:54:12

Speaker

They can’t know everything about the business acumen they need, about their product that they’re selling, about all the competitors, enabling our sellers, our customer success reps with the information they need in the moment, in the language, in the localization that they need to address that buyer and that customer. That’s what we’re all about. It’s real time in the moment, not after the fact, not a monday morning quarterback sitting and telling you what they should have done.

 

00:11:54:16 – 00:12:17:12

Speaker

I work the audible in my ear. I want my reps to have the information available the minute their customer asks about a competitor or a value or a problem. That is what we are building. That’s what we all should be thinking. Absolutely. Is that does that address the moment? Alister Well matter. What do you think? Like you’re, you’re in there, you’re doing the global rollout.

 

00:12:17:12 – 00:12:49:00

Speaker

Yeah, you’re, you’re interfacing with these companies and you’re about to write the book on sales. 3.0 Thoughts? Yes, we are, mate. Already, You know, customers are moving faster than we are able to catch up because we are so mired in how we are set up internally. Our processes are centered around the people and the functions and this vertical silos that we’ve built, we’re unable to get out of our own way to think horizontally in terms of serving customers.

 

00:12:49:00 – 00:13:16:19

Speaker

Right. And so it is going to take time and organizations are not going to just break down all these silos and say, Oh, yeah, all right, let’s go create pods of different functions that’s going to go and address a particular customer segment because it’s just not going to happen. It’s not going to happen overnight. But what can happen is bring access to the information repositories that sits across these various functions using generative.

 

00:13:16:19 – 00:13:39:07

Speaker

I like tools that can then will mind the data needed to give a seller or a customer facing person the information they need quickly while people are all trying to figure it out otherwise and all the process, the lack of this is I send an email out or I create a ticket or I create a case study or I go into JIRA, I go into another tool like, you know, I have to send it to send a request, and then I’ll wait for the response.

 

00:13:39:07 – 00:13:59:13

Speaker

Why the customer’s out there chomping at the bit to get response to the answers. What I can do now is go in and look at it as a good solution and say, Go look up all my repositories and not a search engine. Go look at all my repositories and get paid to me with the most intelligent response I can give back to the customer.

 

00:13:59:15 – 00:14:18:03

Speaker

Why can I go and buy some time to go research this information? But it has to be authoritative sources that will be authentic and authoritative sources that I can go in and rely on this information of course, deployment of these tools are not so easy because sometimes information that is sitting even within corporate systems are dated and are not the most recent.

 

00:14:18:03 – 00:14:38:06

Speaker

So authoritative systems can be integrated together intelligently To provide me a customer facing individual the information I need to provide to that customer. Why would I not one if I was ahead of sales or I was head of customer success or I was a CEO or CFO, why would I not want to have something like this within my within my solution?

 

00:14:38:06 – 00:14:59:09

Speaker

I would love something like that today or yesterday so that I can get more out of my team’s time when they are customer facing. It’s precious. Well, you and I are spending 20 minutes together, maybe 30 minutes together or face to face. I’ve got two captive audience. Why would I lose and waste any moment by not giving you exactly what you need?

 

00:14:59:09 – 00:15:19:15

Speaker

Your time is just as precious as mine is, and so I want to be able to make this valuable for you. The more value, though, you treat a customer’s time and their engagement with us, the more they’re going to respect you for it, because they know that you haven’t wasted their time trying to put them through some sort of mundane process that they don’t even understand and are not familiar with.

 

00:15:19:17 – 00:15:38:01

Speaker

I have a final question for you both on this. You said something interesting, and that is companies in particular, a global enterprises, can’t just go in and start creating pods and, you know, change all the roles and do all of these things. But we all agree we need to be outside. And, you know, we’re looking at the changes it generated.

 

00:15:38:01 – 00:15:59:01

Speaker

We see it impacting the roles. So how slow can these leaders be today and still be successful? Because we’re making all the excuses in the world of why they can’t. So how slow can they be versus their competition right now and still still survive? Boy, is that a T ball or what? I think it was. So you should go first out.

 

00:15:59:03 – 00:16:32:08

Speaker

You can’t go slow, period. The days of going slow are gone. Go to LinkedIn. Anything. Look on the news. Generative is taking over quickly. If you’re not adapting to this incredibly fast moving world, which, by the way, is so exciting, embrace it, try it, get involved, then you’re going to miss it because the companies that deliver that better customer experience that better buying experience, that consistency of value are going to blow the doors off of the competitors.

 

00:16:32:13 – 00:17:04:01

Speaker

So you either get with it and you get with it quickly, or you’re going to be explaining to boards or investors why you missed it. Absolutely. You will be held accountable for the outcomes of not moving fast enough. Absolutely. Anyone with the ability to influence or the ability to make a decision on process optimization within their own organization, irrespective of whether it is a selling process, a buying process, a success or a customer support process.

 

00:17:04:01 – 00:17:28:13

Speaker

It doesn’t matter anything that interacts with a customer billing, billing cycles, you know, think about that. Legal areas like anything that is there to serve a customer, pretty much everything that is out there to serve a customer should be considering this in some form or manner. Otherwise they will be left behind. So no, they cannot go slow. It’s only a how fast can you go.

 

00:17:28:17 – 00:17:47:16

Speaker

Obviously security and all of those things are into intelligence organization is really key. But how safely fast can you go is going to be the question not how slow can you go slow as should not even be the vocabulary of any of the leaders. It was a challenging question because of how he asked it, but I think we got to the answer to that.

 

00:17:47:18 – 00:18:26:14

Speaker

I think, though. Do I think so, too? Why? With, as I said, we are we are getting to time again and my and our you know, what a absolutely scintillating conversation. Right. But we think about where this is going, the market and the sheer speed and change that is there. And also, you know, I like the fact that while we see the SDR, our eyes are in these functions and see us all rapidly changing and the predictions often are about, oh, these jobs are going away, jobs evolve, let’s revolutionize it and rapidly help these people understand how to use the tools, because that’s a competitive edge.

 

00:18:26:19 – 00:19:01:17

Speaker

And I’m big on job creation, not job deconstruction. Now, final trivia there for you. We only have one more to go. No, but this market performance is a current one this time, unlike last week’s episode. So I’m going to read it off to you. So a recent Forbes article titled Embracing the Future How AI is Revolutionizing Sales and Marketing, asked a question about what roles that A.I. gender rated salespeople are predicted to excel in over the next seven years.

 

00:19:01:19 – 00:19:30:12

Speaker

So these are AI generated salespeople over the next seven years. One is a lead generation and data analysis. Two is a product demos and customer engagement. Three is a writing emails to different segments or industries, which is the top one predicted to be most influenced by AI generated salespeople. Okay, You said product demos. Yeah, yeah. Email and lead generation.

 

00:19:30:14 – 00:19:51:16

Speaker

Is there like a D, all of the above or I was going to ask that. Is that all of the above? Yeah. I think I’m going to go with you two and say all of the above. The answer is actually lead generation is the number one predicted area, but I think you both are absolutely bang on. We’re talking percentages of difference here.

 

00:19:51:16 – 00:20:17:11

Speaker

All areas are going to be fundamentally impacted and augmented by this. And to Howard’s point, if you are experimenting today, you’re already being left behind by. Thank you so much for joining us. It’s been an absolute pleasure having you on and we hope to have you back in the very near future. Yeah, if I survive this and not get killed by my BDR friends (laughs) and my son, who ends up is a BDR, he’s going to call me right now!

 

00:20:17:13 – 00:20:35:06

Speaker

I don’t know. I think you charted his future for him to be honest right now, but thank you so much for having me on the call. It was a lot of fun. I have everybody listening and please don’t forget to like and subscribe. And as always, submit your questions to Howard and I will do our best to address them on a future episode.

 

00:20:35:08 – 00:20:43:05

Speaker

Thank you. Our thank you, everyone. We’ll see you next Thursday. Maha, thank you so much. You rocked and thank you.