Today we are talking about an awesome topic how AI is revolutionizing lead generation in marketing and we have an amazing guest to help us talk through this. She is the CEO of Zebra Marketing smarter marketing and wild results. Laura, welcome to the show.
Laura Kamrath:Hey Eric, thanks for having me on, it's a pleasure.
Eric Eden :I appreciate you being here. Let's jump right in. Why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Laura Kamrath:All right, so my name's Laura Camera. I'm CEO of Zebra Smarter Marketing Wild Result. You know I help companies to double their sales with the power of AI and automation. So I'm a high-level agency, I'm a Keep certified partner and I'm also a digital marketer certified partner. They're one of the top training and strategy companies in digital marketing and with that, I help companies with their marketing strategy to get more out of their marketing and also help them implement AI and automation all the new stuff that can help them just really skyrocket their sales and grow their business.
Eric Eden :Awesome. Well, I think you have a wild story for us about some of the most remarkable marketing you've done.
Laura Kamrath:We're ready to be inspired oh yeah, so, um, so I have built this, uh, really crazy borbot system. So, uh, I'm sure this might be familiar to people, but um, forbes even said that 71 of internet leads are never followed up with. Can Can you imagine that? You know we're all, as business owners, we're spending money to generate leads and then we're just not following up with I guess that's two thirds of them. You know we're not following up and you know maybe we follow up one time we have a conversation and then the ball gets dropped. And you know we're all human and you know things happen. But you know, plus, you know salespeople. We have life. You know life happens leads for you and can even close the sale job titles and location and even by schools and majors. And you know it's just very granular what you get, the kind of data that you can get in a search. And then you can actually use AI to do some research on those leads and make some qualified, targeted messages to them that you know you're not having to go out there and do the research, it does it for you. And then you can pull those leads over to your CRM and send them cold email or give them a phone call and add them to your sales pipeline and track them all the way through to the sales process, track them through the sales process to a close. The other thing that you can do if you are sending closed email is the next step is, if somebody responds, it can pull that person into a chatbot and into a tech chatbot where all that research that you had the AI do initially with the initial tool is now being carried over into the bot conversation that your AI assistant is having, and so it's not just a cold conversation. You know the AI assistant knows something about that person and their company and what that company is known for, what they've been awarded for that type of thing, and maybe they are nurtured through to a small purchase. If they make that purchase, then the voice AI can immediately give them a call with an upsell to your core offer or to a higher level offer. So, essentially, or you know the voice AI can give them a call and book them into a call with your sales team. So you know.
Laura Kamrath:The other problem is with leads is you know our attention span as human beings is very short, and so when you've got I don't know you're generating leads online somehow and then you schedule a call with your salesperson and that call doesn't happen for a couple days until that salesperson is available. By the time that person who booked the call gets into the call, they've totally forgotten they even booked it. And so then you know show rates can decline, and you know show rates can decline. So by decreasing the amount of time between that person responding and that person being carried through the sales process, you're, you know, just keeping there. You're getting to them when their attention is hot, you know they're currently paying attention and you're interacting with them at the time when they're paying attention. You're not like waiting till now they're taking their kid to soccer practice or they're doing something else and oh no, I booked a meeting but I don't really have time for that right now, and then they don't show up.
Laura Kamrath:This system runs. The system I've built runs off GoHighLevel but can be interacted with other CRMs if you're already using something. But I think it's just. It's a completely new way of thinking about marketing lead generation, lead follow-up to a sale. I think a lot of people some 60% of marketers have started using AI for marketing in the past year, but a lot of us are using it for content generation, writing blog posts, social media posts, emails. We are using it and that's a great usage. I have a mastermind called Jumpstart your Marketing and I show people how to use AI in that way for content generation. But this is a new way, very revolutionary way that I think is just going to be game-changing.
Eric Eden :So this is wild, because I think this is moving from AI just being a research buddy of generative AI for content and other marketing tasks to almost being an agent that can run a smart campaign and can then also be an agent that acts as a business development rep the work that they would do, having AI handle that in a much more sophisticated way because it has access to all the data and it's a automation.
Eric Eden :It's not a, it's not a human, and I so I think, like all the things you said are true is is that there's a disconnect between sales and marketing.
Eric Eden :So marketing sends a bunch of leads into a CRM, it doesn't get assigned with the rules properly, or people are busy, like you were saying, and there's hundreds of leads sometimes sitting there that don't get called or, worse, they don't get called for a significant period of time and then people forgot, like you said, they even filled out the form.
Eric Eden :So if it's immediate, like there's all these studies that have been done saying if you call people within minutes or if you respond within minutes to someone sending in a lead, then you know it's dramatically better results because people want on demand sort of interaction and that's what AI can deliver and I think the results will probably be even better than double, like you're saying. They will probably be dramatically better results because people just thrive on that. And what's really interesting is I think that AI right now is on the brink of being able to completely automate what sales development reps have done for the last 10, 15 years and I have a lot of SDRs that I've worked with that I think have done a great job. But I think that a lot of people in sales have said AI will never automate sales. But I think it is and it's going to do it better.
Eric Eden :I've tried it with a number of different services that are using SDRs and I hate to say it, but it's actually better than a lot of humans that I've worked with Exactly, and it not only has all the data, but AI.
Laura Kamrath:It doesn't get picked off, it doesn't have a bad day, it doesn't judge people, you know. It just does its job and it represents your business professionally, every single interaction. You know. It has all the answers. If you train it with the answers, you know. So it can do FAQs, it can do customer service, it can be a receptionist, you know. So. It's not just failed either, like you know, say you know I work with a lot of IT companies and MSPs, cybersecurity businesses. You know, when they're busy and they're out working on somebody's computer or something, they can't answer the phone. Well, what happens if they don't answer the phone? Well, now, the customer gets upset. So what if somebody always answers the phone and for less than it costs to hire an employee to do that, an AI can answer the phone like 90 times a minute and have a conversation. That's like having like 90 employees, so it's just yeah.
Eric Eden :So it's just yeah, and I mean the thing that's exciting about it is that it also relies on the data, so it can be an expert on your products and services. And I'm not arguing that it's perfect, because it does make mistakes and hallucinate good things wrong, but a lot less than humans do. So the training issue particularly depending on the products or service you're selling, how technical it is the training issue of so entry-level sales reps trying to set appointments and not really being able to answer any questions has been a major frustration of buyers for years. But I'm going to make another bold statement is that the buyer experience is actually better. If I'm a buyer and I have questions and I want answers to some questions before I'm qualified and before I get a demo, just give me some information.
Eric Eden :I think AI can do that use case really well. I would even argue for some businesses definitely not all, but for a lot of businesses AI will move up in the agent food chain and they will be able to do most of the job of a direct seller. For a lot of companies as well, because they will be able to demo, ai will be able to do most of the job of a direct seller for a lot of companies as well, because they will be able to demo. Ai will be able to demo better and provide more information and more accurate information than a lot of direct sales reps in time, and I'm sure that's going to be very controversial At the end of the day.
Eric Eden :I think before someone signs an agreement, I think someone will have to look it over and verify with a customer that everything is accurate and the understanding is accurate. But that's very different than the argument historically that, oh, sales is all about like building the relationship with the customer, because it's really not Like when I'm buying things as a CMO, for the last 25 years I haven't really been building relationships with salespeople. I'm just trying to get the information, I'm trying to get the right information, I'm trying to make the right decision and it's not about building relationship. And so I really think that people have not expected that AI is going to take over a lot of the functions within sales, but I think it will Not all of them, but I think in a shorter time period than most people expect, it'll take up a lot of the administrative tasks within sales. What do you think?
Laura Kamrath:Yeah, absolutely, and you're right, you can. I mean, you can train AI with everything about your company anticipate every possible question. Of course, yeah, sometimes there might be a question that somebody asks that is not you know. You didn't anticipate. You know in that case, like the AI would do the best job it can to answer the question, or you could train it. If you don't know the answer, please direct it to a third person.
Eric Eden :You know something like I ask those people questions all the time on purpose that they don't know the answers to and they'll get back to you so that's no different. I mean, if you just program the AI to do that, I'm like I don't know that one, but we'll get it back to you. I think people would rather err on getting immediate information and being able to make a decision faster because, like 80% of the buyer journey today is people doing research on their own before they even talk to a sales rep.
Laura Kamrath:I don't see why that doesn't get to like 95, 97%. I don't think it would be 100% for a lot of businesses, but I think people can get pretty far. And so, for example, somebody called in and they, you know the ai asked well, you know, how much is your average customer worth to you? And it was like oh, like forty thousand dollars annual. Then the ai went through and made the offer. And then you know, our, our offer is like a $97 a month lead duration tool.
Laura Kamrath:The human lead, you know the prospective cuts, were balked at the $97 a month price and was like oh, you know, I don't think I want to spend money like that on something right now. And then the AI was like well, you know, you said that your annual customer value was $40,000 and you're worried about a $97 a month lead tool that could potentially bring more $40,000 annual customers through your door. Doesn't that make sense to spend the money on something like that? And you know, the human buyer was like oh, yeah, actually that does make sense, you know. And so it's reasoning it like it went back to the previous conversation, pulled out information and said hey, based on what you said before, wouldn't it make more sense Blah, blah, blah blah.
Laura Kamrath:So I don't know how much our listeners here have checked out chat GPT 4.0, but you know it has reasoning capability, it can tell dad jokes, it speaks very naturally like a human and you know like you can tell it's a bot.
Laura Kamrath:But at the same time, like you talk to it like a human, it responds to you like a human and it can be trained with all your company information. Whereas you know if you hired like a $15 an hour minimum wage employee, that would cost you probably $30,000 a year in salary. Plus you know health care and 401k and all the stuff that goes with business expenses for an employee, 401k and all the stuff that goes with business expenses for an employee and at the end of the day, is a $15 an hour employee going to understand your business enough to do a good job in selling it to customers, especially if you have a more complex business like IT or cybersecurity, or you know more technical products or something like that. You know in AI, you can train it with everything and it almost. You know more technical products or something like that. You know in AI, you can train it with everything and it almost. You know pretty much instantaneously, then knows all the details about your products and services and how they're offered, your Q&As, everything so pretty incredible stuff.
Eric Eden :I have to say something that I'm sure is controversial, but it is becoming a reality. I have to say something that I'm sure is controversial, but it is becoming a reality With ChatGPT 4.0, particularly the voice version of it, the demos that I've seen. When you use the voice version of ChatGPT 4.0 to answer inquiries, it is amazing at doing exactly the example you gave. It can talk to people in a conversational tone, it can reason and it can probably do it better than most of the recent college graduates that become SDRs or BDRs, like it just can. It's like that good and it's amazing.
Eric Eden :I don't think, unless people are doing some of the things that you're doing and they put together you know four different bots to work together. That's how you get an agent. So I don't think you can just use chat GPT 4.0 only. Otherwise, like the process you described doesn't work. But if you use the right combination of things, like I think you've done, I think that most companies will not need long-term to have this SDR function.
Eric Eden :And I think that's okay because let me tell you something for 20 years I had companies I worked at that had SDRs and BDRs and let me just tell you, no one wanted that job and they only wanted it if they really needed a paycheck, but they would only want to do it for like three months, six months. They're like that'd make me a direct seller. It was like who wants to have a job that's just setting appointments for a more senior salesperson? That is like not a job that sales leaders invented because salespeople didn't want to do that. So I don't feel bad that AI is automating that job. We just need to teach salespeople to go into direct selling faster and you don't need to learn that by setting appointments. Like that's not the only path to get there right. So I think this is a very positive thing. Actually, when you think about it, I think it's jarring for a lot of people, because a lot of people who haven't been following ai would probably be like what's happening well, and I think that's a really good point.
Laura Kamrath:You know there's a lot of people who are worried about AI coming for their jobs. And yeah, I think AI is coming for some jobs, but I think those are the jobs that most human beings don't really want to do anyway. And you know, it's taking those mundane tasks off of our plate, it's taking those undesirable jobs off of our plate so that it frees up the humans to do higher level work. You know, I kind of, when I talk about AI with my customers, I always sort of compare it to the dishwasher. You know, before the dishwasher we were standing in the kitchen scrubbing every dish by hand, and I'm sure some people still do that, but I would rather not do that.
Eric Eden :And when we got that? Yeah, because the thing is as a buyer. The secret is is that buyers never wanted to talk to SDRs. Who wants to get on a call and be qualified?
Eric Eden :I mean that's the worst. I'm like I don't ever want to do another qualification call in my life. Like, if you don't think I'm qualified enough, that just means your process isn't good enough. And it's weird and I've always hated it, and it's embarrassing and it's awkward and I don't even know why this was even invented. So having AI make that better. I'm okay talking to an AI bot if I'm going to buy something and saying here's my information. If you really think this product isn't for me, just tell me. But I don't necessarily want to like have to get on a call with a human and then like spend time talking about the weather and where are you located?
Eric Eden :I mean, I'm not going to become their best friend, like that was never the case. So I just think these are jobs that were created that weren't really great jobs to begin with and, exactly as you said, people can do higher level, more strategic things.
Eric Eden :Even right out of college. People can learn to do better things, and I think that's where this is going and I think what you've done is you've started this train towards that, but it does one more thing I just wanted to comment on. Done is you've started this train towards that, but it does. One more thing I just wanted to comment on you can tell me if I'm right or wrong Is this issue of sales and marketing alignment and them not working well together.
Eric Eden :It's so bizarre because over the last 20 years, people talking past each other and the issue that you're solving is marketing runs a campaign, generates leads, drives them into the CRM, but something's wrong with the CRM and it doesn't get assigned to the salespeople or doesn't get assigned in a timely way because of the workflows or the custom logic flows they had or because of territory conflicts or issues on the sales side, like all that is gone with this and it's like there was so much brain damage in that over the last 20 years. I don't even know what to say. I mean it was, it was horrific. It's like watching a horror movie.
Laura Kamrath:Yeah, I think so. I mean, first of all. Well, I mean, the other thing I was going to say, actually, which just came to mind, is the other advantage of using AI in the sales process or for qualifying leads is that people actually tend to be a lot more truthful with AI as a dent than they are with real humans. So because they know it's an AI and that the AI is not going to judge them, you know they're willing to actually be a lot more truthful with them, which is kind of a surprising side effect. But, yeah, when it comes to sales, I think it just helps salespeople do their job better.
Laura Kamrath:First of all, again, you don't have to hire an appointment setter, which I mean, say you're having to pay, like I don't know, you're paying them on commission 10% of every sale or something going to your appointment setter and all they're doing is just setting an appointment. But and you can avoid all of that, you know, with an AI assistant, yeah, you're going to pay for the AI functionality, but you're not going to have to pay them a portion of every sale, no, and then just getting those leads qualified, maybe teaching them in that initial interaction a little bit about the product or service so that they're a warm lead by the time they get to a human. And if they're not qualified, then they don't ever get to a human. If they're not the right person for you Like if you're looking for IT service providers and somebody calls you and they're a plumber, then they don't ever make it to a human and you're not wasting the time of your human salespeople. So, or yourself, if you're the one doing the sales.
Eric Eden :Yeah, I mean to put a number on it. The tech companies I've worked for over the years have easily spent $50,000 a year to hire appointment setters right out of college to work full time to do this, and they would often need to hire something like you know 10, 15 of them, and so you're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on appointment setting when you can just have a tool do that.
Eric Eden :I mean this is a big deal. Like this is a really big deal. And one other thing that I want to call out is is that on the marketing side of running the smart campaigns that you mentioned at the very beginning the marketing teams that I've had when we've had to run campaigns we've spent many, many hours and an equal amount of wasted money with marketing associates paid $40,000, $50,000 a year, something in that range. You know, buying sheets of data, of contact information and then manually massaging it to try to guess who are the right people for this campaign. So many hours of importing and exporting data and reviewing the data and trying to see are these people qualified, should we send them this email or not, and just hundreds, thousands of hours of that. And that also is the worst work for a marketing person to do. They're just like kill me now. Like can I do anything?
Laura Kamrath:else. Well, and now?
Laura Kamrath:So the fact that doesn't mean automated is also, like with zebra leads, you could take that, that excel spreadsheet or whatever you have of prospective customers or people out of your crm or cold leads or whatever it is. You can drop it into the tool and do data enrichments and so it will actually find those contacts and pull all their details, like you can have it. Do AI summaries, you can have it to find their websites, find their social media profiles, like find all of that stuff that you might want to know about them so that you know if it's the right type of person or not, without you having to go poke all over the internet and figure that out yourself. Um, so yeah, even for that process, I think it would just make somebody's life a lot easier. Um, you know, with the help of ai and automation there yeah, I mean.
Eric Eden :the thing is, is that all of this AI technology, the bots that you're using to build this? It's moving very fast. Chatgpt 4.0 and the voice version of it just came out in September user challenges with this process of any sort? I am almost positive that in 90 days, six months, there's going to be new things out. It'll be even better. A lot of those things will get sorted out. So I highly recommend people start trying it today, because denying it and saying that this isn't going to happen is pretty unlikely at this point. I think there are some things that have to be sorted out. Like that aren't deal breakers. Like I think people need to know when they're talking to an AI agent. That's fine.
Laura Kamrath:We talked to automated telephone systems for 10 years now, right, Like, yeah, I, I, yeah, I believe in being transparent about that and I really don't think that that hinders people. You know, I don't think that people are going to say, oh well, if it's an AI agent, I'm not going to talk to it. Like, surprisingly, people especially right now, because it's new people are surprisingly willing and curious to talk to AI-tailed people.
Eric Eden :And even like, if you just think through the practical use case, every time I fly in United, every time I call United for something, they always try to send me to a chatbot via text immediately to deflect the call.
Eric Eden :And if I have something really simple that I believe that a bot can handle, I'll do it because I don't want to wait, but if it's something complex, I'll just say give me a human and I think, like things like that in the process can get sorted out pretty easily is all I'm saying, and so I think that this is no longer like a distant dream, like this is a close reality and these issues will sort of get worked out. So I highly encourage people to jump in and start testing some of this stuff in a smart way. Don't do dumb things with AI, as I like to say, but start testing it in a smart way and evaluate it so that when it's there in a very short amount of time, like you'll be ready and I think you have an offer for people if they want to try out what you've done. Can you share?
Laura Kamrath:that? Yeah, it's Zebra Leads and I have a $50 off coupon at the top of the page that they can take advantage of.
Eric Eden :Awesome. I'll link to that in the show notes so people can easily get to it as long as, and I'll also link to your LinkedIn so that if people want to learn more get in touch with you, they can do that. These are exciting times for sales and marketers to take things to the next level with AI and, laura, thank you for being with us today. Appreciate you sharing your story, all your great insights in AI and being on the show.
Laura Kamrath:Thank you so much, eric, it was a pleasure.