4 Ways I’m Using AI in My Sales Process Right Now | Donald C. Kelly - 2048

A year ago, I thought AI was mostly a research tool. That assumption didn't age well. In this solo episode, I walk through the four places AI actually earns a spot in my sales process today and where I still insist on doing the work myself.

Finding the Right Prospects Without Guessing

I use a tool called Zenith to research prospects on LinkedIn through Sales Navigator, pull up what they've recently posted, and queue up a relevant comment or connection request based on that content.A human still has to approve every message before it goes out. I'm not letting this run unsupervised, and I edit plenty of what it drafts before it reaches anyone.This process alone books around three appointments a week for me, and the difference comes from how relevant the outreach is, not just how much of it there is.

Building Sharper Prospect Lists With AI Research

I connect Claude to data platforms like Apollo and Lusha to build and enrich prospect lists for email campaigns with a level of precision that used to take hours of manual digging.A real example is finding publishers in a specific state who have a set number of books releasing this year and a newly hired director over content. That's the kind of narrow, specific research AI handles well.AI can find better prospects, but it isn't sending the emails or doing the relationship work on its own. The research has to be precise and relevant, and that precision is what actually moves the needle.

Meeting Recaps, Follow-Ups, and Prep Emails

Fathom joins my calls and takes the notes, then Claude turns those notes into a meeting recap with clear next steps that I can send straight to the prospect.That same process updates our in-house CRM automatically, logging notes and creating follow-up tasks on the account without me touching a keyboard.Before the next call, I can also get a prep email drafted that references the last meeting's action items and asks the prospect to confirm or add to the agenda, which saves a meaningful chunk of prep time.

Drafting Proposals From Discovery Call Notes

I can take the notes and conversation from a discovery call and have our AI agent draft a full proposal based on what was actually discussed, following our standard template.AI drafts it, then my team or I review and refine it before anything goes out, since it isn't perfect every time and can misstate an address or an offering if the original prompt wasn't clear enough.Human judgment is still required on scope and pricing specifically. AI has h