The AI SDR Bubble

Good Morning and Happy National Sports Day! Many sales leaders say that former athletes make the best sales reps, but what if sales was the sport? We could make the 100-dial sprint, the 1,000 cold email dash, and the objection handling hurdles. Or maybe we just stick to mini-putt in the office. ⛳️ 

And a special thanks to lemlist for sponsoring today’s newsletter and allowing us to bring you this content. More on lemlist’s all-in-one outbound tool below.

In today’s Follow Up:

• The AI SDR startup bubble 🤯 

• Stay out of the spam folder 👀 

• A word to avoid in your sales pitch 🗣️ 

• How to steal customers from competitors 🔎 

• Sales jobs, LinkedIn & a meme 😂

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The AI SDR Bubble

AI SDR startups are popping up left and right, raising millions of dollars, and promising to replace the activity of an outbound sales rep.

But not everyone is buying it…

According to a recent TechCrunch article, many VCs are skeptical of these sales agent startups and their ability to stick around.

The Funding Craze and Growth

Within the last 12 months, AI SDR startups have been a hot topic in the VC world, which has led to an influx of cash. Like Artisan, who raised a $7.3M seed round, and Regie AI who raised a $6M series A.

And it makes sense why these startups are getting this funding…

According to the TechCrunch article, one VC firm found that several of the AI SDR startups had reached $1 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) within less than a year.

With this growth, some are questioning whether this trend is sustainable.

Real BDRs vs AI SDRs

Let’s be real. There will always be a human element of sales and business.

Take a customer service line for example… How many times have you called a 1-800-help line, only to be routed through a series of automated prompts until you’re finally yelling “SPEAK WITH AN AGENT” into the phone? (We’ve all been there).

So let's compare:

Let's talk dollars…

According to RepVue, the median salary for a human BDR is $55K, with an $85K OTE. Add in another 15% for benefits, and the total cost of a human BDR is right around $97.5K per year.

As for AI SDRs, most companies require you to contact their sales team for pricing. However, a Reddit post suggests that one AI SDR costs around $1,000 per month, or $12K per year (no benefits necessary).

That’s an average savings of $85,500 per year.

From a company's perspective, it’s easy to see why replacing a human SDR with an AI SDR seems appealing. But it's not quite that simple.

Are Companies Really Using Them?

AI is a topic of discussion for almost every business this year, yet a recent McKinsey study found that only ~10% of companies are using AI at scale.

However, with multiple AI SDR startups reaching $1M ARR in under a year, it's clear that some companies are using these AI tools.

We took to Reddit to see how it's going:

Yikes…

However, as reviews go, the customers who are most likely to leave reviews are those with bad experiences, not those with good ones.

What About the Big Players?

It's hard to imagine that giants like Salesforce, ZoomInfo, or HubSpot won't replicate or improve upon AI sales agents, leveraging their massive customer bases and data pools. After all, AI sales agents are only as good as the data they’re fed.

The CEO of venture firm SignalFire said if larger firms "offered bots that let their customers tap into their own data, such bots could be more effective."

Zoominfo released their AI-powered co-pilot earlier this year, and Salesforce continues to make updates to their AI-powered Einstein.

The race to build the AI sales co-pilot or SDR is far from over.

The all-in-one outreach tool to reach your sales quota & drive revenue

Thousands of sales heads, managers, & reps used lemlist to generate $118,641,000 in the last 30 days.

This is how lemlist helps sales teams:

• Build the perfect lead list with verified email addresses

• Personalize your emails and LinkedIn messages at scale

• Automate multi-channel outreach in a human way

• Stay out of the spam folder

Plus, it integrates seamlessly with your current suite of tools.

"It's just kind of having all of the tools under one roof" - Dave Shillingford, Sales Manager at RightMarket who achieved 10x meetings booked with lemlist.

Sales Around The Web 🗞️

🧠 The 3 rules of emotional intelligence that will make you really good at sales.

👀 SaaStr’s guide to stealing customers from your biggest competitors with the 3 P’s.

🚛 A moving company salesman held customers’ items hostage and demanded they pay him to get their items back. The sales rep stole over $800K from 800 customers and was just sentenced to 2 years in prison.

🗣️ A sales rep who is on a PIP was invited to be a guest speaker at an event that motivates people to get into tech sales.

Checking In On The Job Market

Sounds like this job may involve some cold calling… 😂 

Sales Meme of the Day