Should you fully automate your processes with AI?

What is a guidance system?

Let's take outreach as an example. Trying to acquire new customers is something every business has to do, not just new businesses. And one of the big questions is: where do your leads come from? If you look at the whole process, there is lead identification, contacting the leads, keeping up with the leads, putting things in the CRM system, and then following up after the first messages.

A guidance system takes the parts of this that can be automated very well, but then interacts with you and serves as an assistant to you. It's a little bit like Iron Man and Jarvis. He's not letting Jarvis do all the things. He's giving input, getting things done on the other side, getting changes. It's an interaction. And I think this is the big strength of AI.

Why does fully automated outreach feel inhuman?

The majority of people who build AI systems for outreach try to automate the whole journey. And this leads to the whole thing feeling inhuman and not personal on the other side. There are a lot of things in this long process that can be automated, and then there are a few steps that shouldn't be.

When I talk to medium-sized companies, trust with their customers is immensely important, and so is the personal brand. AI tends to go towards an average, the average of its training data. So if you sound like AI, you sound like everyone else. You want to sound like yourself, so people have a reason to buy from you.

What does a guidance system do in outreach?

First, it helps you ideate. Where could you find customers? Who are they? What are good opportunities to find them, especially when you've found everyone in one place and need new places? That's a co-creation session at the beginning. Then it automates the work of actually finding the people.

In my own outreach I look at market signals that show me which people are currently struggling with outreach, sales and follow-up. AI finds the people based on these signals and hands me the context: who is this person, what have the signals been, their LinkedIn profile or a search link for it, and a proposed message based on how I usually write.

Then I look at the person and give it a human perspective. I look at it from who I am, catch errors the AI may have made, and decide whether to use the suggested approach or alter it a little. I send it and tell the system what I actually sent, not what it suggested. From there it does all the CRM and follow-up logic on its own.

How much time does that save?

I have clients that took one to two hours per lead. A guidance system shrinks that to a few minutes, but it doesn't fully automate it. And that's totally OK. If a task that used to take you half an hour, an hour or two hours takes three or five minutes, and in these three minutes you put in all the human connection and the brand and what makes you unique, then that's a great system.

Why do easy tasks get done more often?

Once things become easy, they are done more often. If they are difficult, complicated, involve a lot of steps and vary a lot in success rate, people tend not to do them. And if you own a company, you want your salespeople to actually do what they're supposed to do.

That's the beauty of guidance systems. They present everything that can be automated right to you, so you have everything at hand, can interact with it efficiently and save the information back into the system easily. So you can fully focus on your main value-driving activity.

Should you buy or build an assistance system?

Bigger companies often have these assistance systems, but they are very expensive. AI enables us to build ones that match our own processes, that work exactly like we want to work, and that are still way cheaper than buying solutions from big providers.

So look at your processes and think how they could be easier if AI took the hard work away and left the human work to you. I think you will see a lot of potential for AI in your company.