The deals you're losing have nothing to do with AI

Good Morning {{first_name}}!

It’s Monday - and that means it’s time for your CRM Dispatch - an issue where we talk about your CRM in such wonderful detail that you feel so excited to dig into it… right? RIGHT?!

Okay, in all seriousness, the talk of the week - just like most other weeks, really - is AI. I keep stumbling upon this meme of CEOs yelling they want AI now, but with no real plan, implementation or solution. Just AI for the sake of AI.

I truly believe that AI can do wonderful things. But AI can also be widely misleading in terms of what it’s actually good at. And the misunderstanding of what AI is compared to automation is super common.

The number of calls I sit on where people talk about AI - without truly understanding AI other than ChatGPT and that it “should be able to do that” - is … a lot.

This week, we skip the AI conversation entirely and go straight to the five functions already built that would close more deals than any agent will.

Let’s dive in.

Here’s an interesting fact about HubSpot: they ship close to 100 updates every quarter. Sometimes more.

It can be really overwhelming to stay on top of everything they are updating. It can be minor tweaks here and there, but it can also be huge updates that change the way you do business.

But here’s the kicker. Most companies don’t stay on top of these updates. They invest time in increasing their spend by implementing solutions that they may already be paying for.

Most teams evaluating an AI sales agent right now already have lifecycle automation, lead scoring, and re-engagement workflows sitting dormant in the same portal they're about to add a new tool to. They just need to be used.

Here’s the deal: AI doesn’t sell for you, especially in B2B.

While AI may have had its moment to shine, people are smart. They can tell when it’s a real person vs. AI. Adding more AI in a trust recession isn’t going to fix whatever sales problem you’re dealing with.

If deals are sitting in your pipeline right now that haven’t moved in weeks or months, investing in AI to move them down the pipeline isn’t the right move. In fact, HubSpot has follow-up triggers, automations, built-in AI features and lead scoring that could empower the reps to close more deals.

HubSpot already has its own AI built into the platform. And while you may be spending your marketing budget on net-new acquisitions, wondering if you should shift to AI to close the deals, you may already be sitting on all the tools you need.

Here’s something to consider: lifecycle automation that actually moves contacts instead of sitting static (you already have this), lead scoring that's been recalibrated since your product changed (whoops - you already have this feature), deal rotting alerts (you already know this feature exists - you just don’t use it), and a re-engagement workflow that either wins a cold contact back or removes them before they start hurting your deliverability (this is what the big price tag is for Marketing Hub Pro).

None of that needs AI. A good audit could catch and fix these issues and get things flowing again.

Small teams don't have time to stitch together five tools and hope it works.

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Two things you should do…

Things have been busy inside of 44fjord! We’ve started preparing for the Q2 Signals Report, which is slated to be released mid-July! June has been fully in growth mode!

TL;DR

Here’s the thing about AI - it doesn’t fix the foundations. In fact, it probably just escalates the gaps and exposes the issues you already had. And often with a hefty price tag. That said, I do think every team eventually uses an AI agent somewhere in the funnel.

Audit first, then implement.