It’s widely acknowledged that the sales landscape is challenging, with increasing customer expectations and budget limitations. In such a scenario, sales teams need to find ways to differentiate themselves and succeed in winning business opportunities.

Generative AI has gained significant attention lately due to its potential to enhance employee productivity and improve customer experiences. Salesforce is an example of a technology platform that has embraced generative AI with its Einstein GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) model. This integration enables Salesforce users to leverage AI capabilities to generate natural language text, automate tasks, and improve overall efficiency.

The use of generative AI in sales holds great promise for the future. It can assist sales teams in various ways, including generating personalized sales pitches, automating routine tasks, providing real-time customer insights, and improving sales forecasting accuracy. By harnessing the power of generative AI, organizations can empower their sales teams to work more intelligently, deliver exceptional customer experiences, and drive business growth.

Although it’s true that the sales industry faces challenges in achieving quota targets, the utilization of AI and data to automate mundane tasks can greatly enhance sales efficiency. This allows sellers to focus on more meaningful and personalized interactions, maximizing the impact of each customer moment.

Salesforce’s Sales Cloud continues to evolve with new advancements to address these needs. By staying up-to-date with the latest developments, sales teams can leverage the ever-evolving Sales Cloud to improve their efficiency, accelerate toward their quotas, and ultimately achieve better sales results.

A.  Sales Cloud (+ Data Cloud + Einstein AI)

One of Salesforce’s groundbreaking innovations is the combination of Salesforce Data Cloud (formerly Genie) and Einstein AI, which offers significant benefits to sales teams. This integration expands the use of the Data Cloud beyond traditional marketing applications, making it relevant for sales teams as well.

The combination of Data Cloud and Einstein AI provides several capabilities for sellers, including:

1. Generative AI-powered emails: Sellers can now auto-generate highly personalized and relevant prospect emails using CRM data. This feature reduces the time spent on writing emails, allowing sellers to focus more on selling.
2. Qualified leads: Einstein Bots for Sales automates lead conversion by pre-qualifying web visitors. This ensures that sellers engage with the right people at the right time, improving the efficiency of their sales conversations.
3. Conversational AI-driven sales coaching: Einstein Conversation Insights now offers transcription and conversational AI analysis in 14 additional languages, such as Japanese, German, Spanish, and Hindi. This expansion enables sellers to leverage real-time insights and coaching across a more diverse range of interactions.

The shift in B2B selling from intuition-based approaches to data-driven strategies and from episodic sales stages to connected customer journeys is facilitated by generative AI. With the integration of AI technologies, such as autonomous prospecting, real-time insights, and task automation, AI becomes the new user interface (UI) for every seller.

“According to Ketan Karkhanis, the EVP and GM of Sales Cloud, this advancement signifies the transformation of B2B selling, empowering sellers with AI-driven tools to enhance their productivity and improve customer experiences.”

B.  Activity 360

Activity 360, previously known as Einstein Activity Capture, is a Salesforce feature that facilitates the capture and reporting of sales activities from third-party platforms. While the initial offering focused on syncing data between Gmail and Outlook, the relaunched Activity 360 expands its capabilities by making the captured activity data fully reportable using standard Salesforce reports.

Previously, sales activities from external platforms could not be easily included in Salesforce reports, limiting the ability to analyze and gain insights from this data. However, with Activity 360, users can now generate reports that include the sales activities recorded from third-party platforms, providing a comprehensive view of sales efforts, and enabling better analysis and decision-making.

Since its initial launch, Activity 360 has undergone several enhancements, improving its functionality and usability. These enhancements offer additional features and benefits that users can explore to further optimize their sales processes and leverage the power of activity data captured from various sources.

By utilizing Activity 360, sales teams can benefit from a more comprehensive and unified view of their sales activities, enabling them to better track progress, identify trends, and make informed decisions to drive sales success.

C.  Deal Manager

The Deal Manager is a feature designed to support sales teams in effectively managing complex deals. It offers a unified workspace that serves as a centralized hub for deal-related activities.

With the Deal Manager, sales reps can collaborate seamlessly, allowing for efficient tracking of deal progress. The feature provides visibility into key deal milestones, enabling sales teams to stay updated on the status of each deal and take necessary actions.

In addition, the Deal Manager allows sales reps to access relevant documents and resources directly from the workspace. This easy access to information ensures that all stakeholders have the necessary materials to move the deal forward smoothly.

By centralizing deal management, the Deal Manager enhances transparency throughout the sales cycle. Sales teams can easily monitor deal activities, identify potential bottlenecks, and address any issues promptly. The collaborative nature of the workspace encourages effective communication and coordination among team members and stakeholders involved in the deal.

The Deal Manager streamlines deal management processes, improves team collaboration, and enhances overall efficiency. It empowers sales teams to effectively navigate complex deals and work together towards successful outcomes.

D.  Sales Planning

Sales Planning, which is expected to be available in June 2023, is a powerful feature native to Sales Cloud that simplifies the process of planning sales territories. With the abundance of data stored in Salesforce, Sales Planning makes it effortless to create comprehensive sales plans that are fueled by CRM data.

Sales Planning serves as a centralized command center for sales managers and sales operations teams. It offers enhanced territory planning capabilities, allowing users to efficiently allocate resources such as capacity, territories, quotas, and compensation. The feature also enables users to run what-if scenarios, analyze data from different angles, and gain valuable insights.

By leveraging Sales Planning, sales teams can drive new growth by making informed decisions based on real-time data and AI-powered insights. The integration of data and AI within Salesforce empowers organizations to gather and utilize information from various countries and territories, providing their teams with the right information at the right time. This, in turn, enhances the overall customer experience.

“Tom Mazzaferro, Chief Data & Innovation Officer of Western Union, emphasizes the importance of data and AI in driving growth. Salesforce’s ability to gather and harness data from 200 countries and territories supports Western Union’s teams in delivering optimal experiences to their customers.”

With Sales Planning, organizations can optimize their sales processes, align resources effectively, and leverage data-driven insights to achieve their sales goals and drive business success.

E.  Revenue Operations Insights:

Revenue Operations Insights leverages data analytics to provide actionable insights into sales performance and revenue generation. By consolidating data from various sources, such as CRM systems and financial platforms, this innovation offers comprehensive analytics and reporting. Sales leaders can gain a holistic view of revenue drivers, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions to optimize sales operations. Revenue Operations Insights enables sales teams to stay informed, track progress, and proactively address areas for improvement. With its analytical capabilities, this innovation empowers sales leaders to drive revenue growth and maximize sales effectiveness.

Chinmay Bonde
Marketing Operations Manager

As a Marketing Operations Manager at Cloudalyze, I take care of content marketing, digital marketing, & graphic design. I also have the opportunity to collaborate cross-departmentally to improve internal marketing processes, create marketing enablement strategies, and weigh in on our go-to-market strategy. My life at Cloudalyze allows me to do a variety of things but being able to grow in a Salesforce Partner organization with the best talent and a revolutionary solution is what makes this a labor of love for me. As an operations manager at Cloudalyze, some of the things I look for in my work here is a belief, curiosity, creativity, tenacity, a strong work ethic, provocative thinker, and a strong personality.