AI Tip of the Week
This week’s tip may surprise you: Know when to call it off. (Use another tool, that’s NOT AI).
As many of you know, our basic framework for “prompt engineering” is “prompt, iterate, & validate.” That’s exactly what Jeremiah did, the other day. He’d downloaded a bunch of data from the internet, and he wanted to reformat it into an excel spreadsheet.
Jeremiah tried SEVEN DIFFERENT SESSIONS (about 30 different user prompts in total) to try to get his data in order. He tried ChatGPT (4o), Claude Sonnet (3.7), and Microsoft Copilot. All failed. He got everything from empty spreadsheets, to totally made-up data, to the first 10 rows exactly what he wanted – followed by 421 more rows of gibberish.
Finally, Jeremiah skipped AI & just used Excel to reformat everything. (He knows Excel super well.) It took him about five minutes to get everything the way he wanted it.
Moral of the story?
Try AI out. It may work! And, if it doesn’t, just use another tool. 🙂
3/3/2025
Hello fellow rodeo-ers! This week, let’s have a look at how Gen AI can help folks in the sales discipline.
Why would you care about sales, if your title isn’t salesperson? Well, it’s the sort of thing where nearly everyone – regardless of their actual job title or industry – ends up doing “salesy” tasks.
Literally everyone in the world needs to prepare to meet people for the first time, get ready for meetings, seek common ground, and respond promptly to emails. So even though we call this one “sales,” many of us can benefit from using AI to help us out.
Our friend Ian Martinez is a great example of this. Ian will tell you he’s in partner enablement. Let’s be honest—he’s in sales. And like any good sales pro (fine, Ian, “partner enabler”), he knows that the key to winning isn’t just working harder; it’s working smarter.
So Ian uses AI.
Lead Scoring
Ian doesn’t have time to chase every potential partner who fills out a form. He uses AI to analyze who’s actually worth his time. He uses AI to crunch historical data (when he’s got it), look at company size, engagement patterns, and deal velocity to surface the most promising leads. He’s also been around the block a few times – so he uses our “prompt, iterate, and validate” framework to make sure that the math maths.
PROMPT:
“Looking at <this data on past deals>, analyze our past successful partnerships and identify key attributes of high-value partners. Based on that, score <data on new prospects> and rank them. Explain why they rank high or low. Cite sources from the raw data.”
Personalization
Ian could send the same email to every partner, but he read somewhere that sounds like spam. So instead he uses AI to tailor his outreach (based on company, industry, notes from past conversations, and LinkedIn posts). AI helps with the draft, but Ian finishes it up before sending it out. Nice, Ian!
PROMPT:
“Draft a personalized email for [Partner Name] at [Company], highlighting <their recent LinkedIn post> about [Topic] and connecting it to how our partnership can support their goals using <this uploaded marketing doc>.”
Objection Handling
When a partner says, “We’re happy with our current solution,” Ian could sigh and move on. But HOW WOULD HE SLEEP AT NIGHT?! Instead, Ian uses AI to dig into past objections and successful responses. He doesn’t win them all, but he wins a lot more of them these days!
PROMPT:
“What are the most common objections from partners in [Industry]? Provide strong, data-backed rebuttals <from our company’s website & sales docs> for each.”
Competitive Insights
Ian doesn’t operate in a vacuum—his partners are always evaluating other options. Rather than spending hours researching competitors by hand + a few Google Alerts, instead Ian has AI summarize the latest market trends, pricing updates, and key differentiators. Many of the AI providers now let people schedule these!
PROMPT:
“Summarize the latest news about <list of our competitor> and highlight any opportunities we can leverage to differentiate our offering in partner conversations.”
Proposal and Quote Generation
Instead of spending hours drafting partner agreements and pricing proposals, Ian lets AI handle the heavy lifting. He can pull in past deal structures, partner needs, and industry norms to generate a polished first draft—leaving Ian with more time to strategize (or, let’s be real, recite slam poetry to his chickens & cute son). Oh. Also, Ian validates everything before he sends it up the chain or out the door. Ask him why, sometime.
PROMPT:
“Generate a partnership proposal for [Company], including pricing details, expected ROI, and key benefits based on our past deals with similar partners.”
Training & Coaching
Even though Ian’s quite seasoned (to Ian’s manager – this does NOT mean that he’s slightly jaded), he’s always looking to sharpen his game. He uses AI as his personal coach, especially in advance of important conversations – he uploads his emails, calls, and past deals to grab insights on what’s working—and where he can improve.
PROMPT:
“Analyze <these transcripts of my last five sales calls> and provide feedback on areas for improvement, including talk-to-listen ratio, objection handling, and persuasive techniques.”
We get it. Ian is NOT in sales.. Err- sure. But thanks to GenAI, he’s going gangbusters into closing deals, enabling partners, and making himself look like a very cool cucumber. Be like Ian! Use AI!
(Thanks for being a good sport about it, buddy! – J)
<3 Dona & Jeremiah
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