Jordan Ledwein: Optimizing Sales Through AI

You are listening to the Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese. Hi everyone, it's Nancy Calabrese and it's time again for Conversational Selling, the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what's going on in sales and marketing today and it's always starting with the human conversation. Today, we're speaking with Jordan Ledwine, a Sandler sales trainer and coach, as well as a co-founder at Sales Lift, a sales technology enablement agency. He focuses on helping companies and sales teams improve their efficiency and effectiveness through proven systems, processes, and technology.

He's been at the forefront of integrating AI into sales, inspired by the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. From his popular LinkedIn newsletter, The AI Sales Guide, to global webinars and his new agency, Sell Smarter, Jordan's mission is clear. Blend traditional sales tactics with next-gen tech to help teams sell smarter. Welcome to the show, Jordan.

I am so excited to have you here. Hey, Nancy. Yeah, thanks for having me on. I've been looking forward to this and diving into this conversation.

I think we'll have a lot of fun, especially with your focus on sales and marketing and how all this kind of plays together here. Yeah, really. And so for everyone out there, I saw Jordan speak at the Sandler Summit this past year. And what he has shared with the audience there is eye opening.

So, look, it's all about AI these days. Why is that? You know, I think it's an exciting topic. I think there's a lot of curiosity around it.

Everyone's still trying to figure out what's going on. And, you know, with that, there's a lot of cool things happening. There's a lot of misconceptions and everywhere in between. So I think the world's kind of just trying to figure it all out and figure out, you know, how does this apply in what I'm doing, whether it's in a personal or professional setting.

And I think that there's a lot of companies who have been able to kind of use some of this new technology to do some pretty creative, some pretty creative things. So it's been fun to keep up with, but I do still think it's still early. So there's plenty left to see happen and unfold in front of us. So I'm excited to see what that looks like.

Yeah. How did you get involved with it? You know, it's funny. I always talk about one of my first experiences with AI was with just a Google Home and having it in my apartment and being able to turn on my lights with it or just do simple things around my house.

So it was on a very just personal setting. I just enjoyed playing around with it and used a couple of different sales tools early on even before chat GPT was released that incorporated some AI into it and was just amazed with how they saved me time and how they just improve my workflow and what I was doing from an efficiency standpoint. And then when I, when I saw chat GPT get released, I think it was probably the week after it came out, I just really realized like, this is, this is where it's going.

And I kind of went all in on the, the AI front and really started to understand and, and create ways to use AI in my own sales process and really just tried to explain that to the people in my network on LinkedIn and our clients in different contexts I have professionally to help them kind of understand it as well. Wow. So how do you apply AI to sales? The million dollar question.

You know, it's funny because I have people call to me after I give a talk and they say, you know, Jordan, how do I, how do I do this? Or where do I start? Is usually the first question. Where do I start?

And people aren't going to like this, but my answer is typically, I have no idea. Not for you specifically, because the problem is there's not a silver bullet or, you know, a one size fits all solution. I think it gets very specific to each company because we're all selling different things. We all have different customers.

We all have different companies that we're working with. So, you know, with the amount of AI applications out there and AI software and all of that, it can get very, very niched down to where you may use one tool and it saves you a ton of time, but the company right next to you uses a different one and it saves them a ton of time. So I think a lot of it just comes down to really understanding, okay, where am I spending maybe an excessive amount of time or energy in my current sales process?

What's taking up my time and where can I start to apply AI or even just other automation or general technology to help that process? Right. And that's what I'm kind of trying to get across is you can apply any AI tool to your process, but if your process isn't built to be giving good results, then you're just going to get poor results faster, right? So you got to build the process and then figure out how to use AI and other technology to really make it as efficient as possible.

So can you give us an example? For instance AI and identifying maybe disk profiles any or another example that might make sense to the audience Yeah Yeah Happy to So I think there a lot And for those of us in the Sandler world and in the sales world, disk is something we use all the time, right? Similar to Myers-Briggs for those who are unfamiliar with it, but understanding what's the personality or communication style of someone else. And from a Sandler perspective, we've tried to do that for 40 or 50 years.

And we've had to do that by talking and understanding and saying, do they fit into this category or that category or what traits or tendencies do they show? And you can figure that out eventually, but it takes some practice and some time. And now there are AI tools available like Humantic AI and even a couple others in that category that will actually predict someone's personality style from LinkedIn and just give you an idea. And it might not be perfect yet.

I think it's getting closer, but I think it helps us apply some of this methodology, right? Another one is in the lead gen front, right? There's a tool called Clay that's making a ton of noise with just the functionality and features that it has to incorporate AI right into a process. And Clay is essentially to break it down as simplistically as possible.

It's almost like Excel, but you can power it with AI and integrate a ton of different things into it. So you can, you know, quickly look through a list of 50 or a hundred people and see if it fits your ideal client profile or, you know, use their, um, their LinkedIn summary to create a one sentence opener or a lot of different things. And you can do this at scale to where you can have a one sentence opener for an email for 50 or a hundred people in a matter of a couple of minutes.

so you can do personalization at scale. And there's a lot of different things like that, that can be applied in a lot of different ways. Even as simple as some of these, these AI note takers that people are adding to calls. I talk about those a lot just because of the impact it made on, on my sales process.

I mean, I'm saving hundreds of hours, if not more a year just by that, that one category of tools. So I think you just got to figure out what are you doing? What are you doing a lot? and where can AI really be applied here?

Wow. Now, you said earlier there were misconceptions. What are some of the misconceptions? Yeah, no, that's a good question.

I think there's a lot of different types out there, and I think we're all learning a lot about it as time goes on, right? So things that we thought weren't true six months ago, we're finding out are today. So it's very fluid. But I think that people want AI to be the easy button, right?

Or the, hey, let me just let the AI do it and I can kind of sit back and relax or go on vacation or whatever it might be that they're doing. But I think instead of thinking about it from that perspective, I like to think of it as how can it make me twice as efficient, right? So this hour I'm spending, instead of doing, you know, five emails or five whatever, I can do 10. Or instead of spending, you know, two hours doing this, I can spend one hour doing it.

and I think it's about how do we make ourselves as efficient as possible and it might not be that it completely does this task for us but it just makes it that much easier to do so I think of it that way to where it's assisting what we're doing not replacing what we're doing wow is there a story that the audience would find interesting as it relates to your experience with AI? Yeah, there's probably a couple of different ones. But I think one that people would find quite interesting is that, you know, it doesn't happen overnight, it happens one tool at a time, right?

And so there's, when you when it comes to building an AI powered process, typically, once you get to the end, and you're like, okay, this is where I want to be, when you look back, it's not like you can say, Oh, this is when it happened, or that's when it happened. I think it just happens gradually or over time, right? So one of the companies that we're building some different tools and processes for, one of them is HubSpot. They kind of started from nothing.

It was a $15 million company in the construction industry, and they're running mainly on Excel and email and very manual processes, right? And so when we were able to just go and install something as simple as HubSpot and some of the tools that HubSpot has, and for those of you who are unfamiliar to a CRM platform, as well as a lot of different things, but it helped them get their quotes out. They said 40% faster. And just because of how much easier it was to sign their quotes through this process, they said they probably had 20% higher acceptance of quotes or signing of quotes than before they had these systems, right?

And that's not even talking about AI. That's really just simple technology and just making the process easier, not only for the company, but also for the clients that you're working with to make it easier for them to buy your products or services. Because that's, I think, really what it's about at the end of the day. Wow.

You know, I want to go back to AI and Sandler. Any specific, we talked about DISC, but how else do you apply AI to Sandler methodology? Yeah, good question. A couple of different ways, and I'll actually be doing a webinar for Sandler.

I don even know if I mentioned this to you Nancy but I be doing a webinar later in August of this year I not sure if this will get up before or after that but for Sandler and how we using AI to kind of bridge the gap is what we saying between the methodology and the technology Okay. And, you know, the disk portion is one way that we're doing it. Another big way is through HubSpot, right? So what we're doing at SalesLift, a lot of that is building Sandler's methodology into HubSpot in the form of tools, in the form of playbooks, in the form of processes and sequences and properties and all these different things.

Oh, wow. That's one thing that we're doing that's been pretty successful and it's exciting to see how that has grown over the last year or two. But we're also adding in other tools, right? So another tool is Attention AI that we're starting to use.

And Attention AI is another note taker similar to Fathom or Sybil or Otter or whatever it is that people are using nowadays. Right. But we've taken attention and customized that to Sandler's methodology. So it talks about, you know, what are the pains, the investment criteria and the decision making process that we talked about on this call.

Okay. And for those of you who are familiar with Sandler, you know, those are the three pieces that we look for to qualify an opportunity. so what attention does is it actually takes that exact um transcript it pulls out any of those pieces out of the call and then when we build a hub spot that's kind of sandler optimized it has those same exact properties in hub spot so we can actually use attention and it pushes that deal information right into hub spot so that reps that are using both don't even have to actually update their deals.

These tools are doing it for them. So it's making Sandler, you know, in the flow of work is kind of the terminology that we're using, but also just making it so the tools can easily help us apply this process and just really power everything. Wow. So is the, I guess, integration with Sandler and HubSpot, is that live?

And if so, how do you access that? yeah i have hubspot yeah good question so sales lift what what we do there is that integration essentially right so we have kind of templated versions of hubspot that we can implement for companies that are some of the basic tools and things that we talk about at sandler but a lot of what we also do is more of the custom implementations of hubspot for companies some of them are new to hubspot some of them have had hubspot for a while and i just feel like they to be getting more out of the platform because it's hard with a tool like HubSpot to really feel like you understand it because there's so much you can do with it.

Oh my God. Yeah. It's growing every day too. So we kind of take it and what we do is we help a company, essentially wireframe build out their sales process, right?

So what process do you use to take someone from a new lead all the way to a closed deal? And then what are the steps in that process? And we help companies build that together with some of our sales expertise and background as well as knowledge on HubSpot. And then we can help create reports and dashboards, right?

So something as simple as creating a property that says lead source, and then you start to track all the deals that you're getting by the lead source. And then at the end of the year, you can say, Hey, I got 15 new deals from lead source A, but lead source B, I only got five new deals, right? Maybe I should spend more time and money on resource A or lead source A, right? So So you can really start to make strategic decisions about it.

And your sales process becomes that much more effective and easier to follow when it's in the technology that you're using. So that's some of the stuff that we're doing. And if anyone has more questions about that, they're more than welcome to reach out to me via LinkedIn or email or whatever makes sense. Sure.

Tell us about Sell Smarter. Yeah, so Sell Smarter is kind of the brand, really, that ties together Sales Lift and Sandler. And that's where I focus a lot of my AI stuff on, like the AI sales guy and different things there. And it's more of a brand than anything that I'm just trying to figure out how to take this concept of AI and really break it down and simplify it.

And I think it's a linkage between the technology that we're using at SalesLift and that we're seeing in the world today with AI, as well as kind of the psychology of sales and just humans in general. Right. what's the gap between those and how do we connect those two to understand how do people buy? How should we sell?

And how can we use technology to help us accomplish those things? So that's a lot of just the newsletters I put out on a regular basis and the content that I create and the talks that I do and the different things there to just kind of try and help people understand what's going on currently with AI as well as learn myself, you know, what's on the cutting edge so I can stay there and help others get there. Yeah. So how do we access your newsletter?

So if you go on LinkedIn, that's a great way to find me and see kind of the stuff that I put out. You can also go to the AISalesGuide.com and that'll redirect you to a bunch of different links that I put together. And I think the top one on that page is my LinkedIn newsletter.

So that's a great place to go and kind of see my newsletter or webinars I've done or podcasts I'm going to do and different things there So tell me something that you believe is true that almost nobody agrees with you Mon Hmm This could be an interesting one. So I think, and this is going to be a prediction, so I might come back and recant this in two months, but I think what's coming with Apple intelligence is going to be probably the biggest improvement we've seen with AI since chat GPT is released.

Okay. I say that because I think it's going to make it that much more accessible for the average person. And I think that's a lot about, or a lot of what this is about is just accessibility, right? AI has been around for 10 or 20 years.

Right. Or more, right? But what chat GPT, what chat GPT did was made it more accessible for the average person. And I think with Apple and iOS 18 and the releases they're planning with Siri, they're just making chat GPT and a more powerful version of Siri that much more accessible.

And so we're talking about simple things, but complex things to where you could get a text from a family member that says, hey, my flight's landing at this time. And what they're saying Siri is going to be able to do is you can just say, hey, Siri, what time is my brother landing? Right. And it's going to go and search the text from your brother.

Right. It's going to take the flight information and look it up online. You're going to say, hey, is it early on time delayed? And it's going to send you the flight information.

Simple things like that, but just making things that much easier for us to accomplish. So are we living in the world of the Jetsons? without watching the all of the the episodes required to know the answer or not um i'd say maybe i'd say maybe we're getting closer that's for sure i i think a lot of the things that were probably portrayed on that show we we've already had actually for a few years and we could get in the next couple of years but what i will say is um it's it's happening quickly Yeah, the only thing that we don't have are the flying cars.

Yeah, I'm not going to make a prediction on when that's happening, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that either. No, no, no, no. I'll take my time. So look, this has just been fascinating.

And I told you it would be and that we would go with the flow. I guess two questions. What is the one takeaway you want to leave the audience with? I think the one thing I've been saying, and I think I can still say it for now, is that it's still really early with AI.

And I know a lot of people are a little bit hesitant to the idea, and I don't blame them for that, honestly. I can be a little bit hesitant to the idea myself. But I'd rather understand how to use it, and I can understand how not to use it, use it effectively, use it safely, use it ethically, all of those things. Right.

I think just starting somewhere to learn how to use it is the best thing that you can do. Yeah. It could be chat GPT or one of these, these simple AI programs to where it's just helping you create recipes for dinner or, um, you know, create a procedure or document or something like that. I mean, it doesn't have to be that complex, but I think the better you understand how to use it, the more setup you're going to be for the future, both professionally and personally.

So just start somewhere. Wow. Yeah. I guess that's really a great advice.

Just start, do something about it. Last question. I know you mentioned this before, but let's just repeat it. How can my people find you?

Yeah. So again, you can connect with me on LinkedIn, pretty active on there. I promise I'll get back to you if you send me a message. It just might not be too immediate because I can get a it bogged down.

Um, but you can also reach out to me, um, via my email, which is Jordan.ledwine, L E D as in David, W E I N said Jordan.ledwine at Sandler.com.

Like Adam Sandler, completely unrelated though. Um, so LinkedIn or that, that resource would probably be a good way to find me. Awesome. Folks, um, take advantage of his, uh, knowledge because I, that's the way of the world, That's going to be the future in everything that we do.

And Jordan, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. I know I learned a lot and I'm going to talk to you about a couple of things you recommended. And people, again, reach out to Jordan. He's a wealth of knowledge for the future.

and until we see you again or you hear us again, have an awesome sales day and do something with AI. We'll see you next time. The Conversational Selling Podcast is sponsored by One of a Kind Sales. If you are frustrated that you don't have enough leads or your sales team complains that they just don't have enough time to prospect, we can help.

To work with Nancy and her team to help you manage your sales team, install her proven outbound sales process, and create more bottom line results, email her now at nancy at oneofakindsales.com. To learn more about Nancy and her outbound sales secrets, grab your free copy of her book, The Inside Sales Solution, at oneofakindsales.com forward slash book.