Pocus hosts “Ask Me Anything” sessions with GTM experts to share best practices, frameworks, and insights on this emerging category. These AMAs are an opportunity to ask leaders any question — ranging from hiring to sales compensation to tech stack — in a low-key, casual environment.
AMAs are for members of Pocus’ 10x Go-To-Market Community. The 10x GTM community is on a mission to help sellers become experts in emerging AI tools and the latest playbooks/tactics so you can stay ahead of the curve.
Interested in joining? Apply to join the next cohort here.
Meet Kieran Flanagan, SVP, Marketing at HubSpot 👋
Kieran Flanagan, a self-described “failed developer turned marketer,” has a proven track record of driving growth for notable tech companies. He was previously the CMO at Zapier and currently is the SVP of Marketing at HubSpot. He's also an angel investor and an advisor to SaaS businesses such as Miro and Ramp.
Kieran is passionate about all things AI, growth marketing, and GTM, and regularly shares his insights on the podcast Marketing Against The Grain.
We recently talked with Kieran about:
- Why now is the time to adopt AI
- AI’s impact on companies, teams, and employees
- The future of AI
Prefer to watch instead of read? Catch the full conversation.
The time to invest in AI is yesterday
AI is disrupting GTM operations – sites are losing traffic, and email, along with many other channels, is becoming saturated.
This shift leaves go-to-market leaders with two choices: adapt or get left behind. If you’re not already investing in AI to help you improve your go-to-market operations, “you’re behind the curve,” shares Kieran.
People who actively incorporate AI into their day-to-day workflows now will benefit from the first-mover advantage.
Getting started with AI
Kieran shared his advice on building a winning AI strategy. Here are some of his top tips:
- Build your AI strategy in quarterly increments. The space is changing quickly, making it challenging to create longer-term plans. Testing in shorter cycles enables you to stay nimble and try new use cases as they arise.
- Don't wait to take advantage of popular AI use cases. Now is the time to adopt AI to improve customer support, inbound sales, content creation, and prospecting. Many GTM teams are leveraging AI to automate low-complexity support and sales operations, enabling them to accelerate revenue without increasing headcount.
- Make AI work for your business. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to using AI. “When thinking about AI use cases, it depends on what your goal is as a company,” says Kieran. High-growth tech companies are transforming their workflows with AI, while some organizations outside of tech are using AI to automate routine tasks.
While AI priorities may vary from company to company, there are some common reasons why revenue teams at SaaS organizations are using the technology.
AI increases productivity and improves the customer experience
AI is changing how GTM teams work, enabling them to be more productive and efficient. Many organizations are using AI to do more with less. They’re figuring out ways to be more cost-efficient and generate more revenue while reducing the need for significant capital investments.
But, AI isn’t only an efficiency power-up – it’s also a way to level up your customer experience.
Kieran encourages marketing leaders to use AI to enhance customer engagement and elevate the buyer’s journey. After all, “the job of a company is to make customers happy, first and foremost,” shares Kieran.
“Today, AI is a really great way to serve the customer and can provide an equivalent or better experience.”
The human element: AI’s impact on people
Increases in efficiency and productivity are beneficial for businesses, but what does it mean for employees?
Many folks are fearful of AI replacing their jobs, and that fear isn’t entirely unwarranted.
“It’s a tough subject to talk about because if you’re in those roles, you’re not just a number on a board, but if you’re speaking in reality, I don’t see how AI isn’t disruptive for teams in B2B today.”
Replacing vs. enabling employees
Customer support and sales are two teams that are being impacted by the advances in AI. Using AI, Klarna reduced their customer support headcount by 700, and they're not the only ones. Many companies are following suit, looking for ways they can use AI to cut costs and roles.
“AI is going to disrupt headcount for the majority of businesses.”
But, Kieran believes AI doesn’t have to completely replace employees. You can use AI to free up employees’ time to work on more meaningful and impactful projects.
For example, expediting the customer support process allows CS professionals to find other ways to delight customers. Teams can invest in support services that only humans can provide and drive more expansion deals. Another example is in engineering – companies aren’t getting rid of coders, they're just shipping more features.
Ultimately, AI can help you boost efficiency while using your existing headcount to accelerate revenue.
AI-literacy and hiring
To make the most of AI, organizations need the right teams in place.
Kieran emphasized the importance of building a team that is excited and willing to learn about AI. A team that isn’t well-versed in AI can be a hindrance to your business.
“It will be hard to have people on certain teams that are not AI competent because if they aren’t AI competent, they're likely 10 times less productive than the people who are. AI is transforming the way knowledge workers work.”
When hiring for roles like sales, support, and marketing, look for folks who are:
- Curious and proactive: You want to hire team members who are excited to learn, evolve, and explore new technologies.
- Interested in AI: Candidates don’t need extensive AI work samples and portfolios, but they should be able to discuss how they’ve used AI and how it can help improve their role.
"If someone hasn’t thought clearly about how AI is disruptive for their role, that’s a blocker for me moving ahead with those people."
Scaling AI adoption
All the onus isn’t on employees, it’s also on leadership to create structures that enable folks to effectively use AI in their day-to-day jobs.
Leaders must make the technology accessible to employees and provide clear guidance on how it can be used to drive impact.
"You need top-down company goals and an environment where employees can use AI day-to-day."
Kieran shared his "do" and "deliberate" framework for successfully rolling out new AI initiatives.
Step 1: Deliberate
- Set strategic priorities: Identify the areas you think AI will have the biggest impact on, and why. Then, choose your AI investments accordingly.
- Define measurable KPIs and goals: Are you looking to increase efficiency or improve the customer experience? Pinpoint the metrics and business areas you expect to impact by implementing AI.
- Schedule check-ins: Regularly monitor results, so you can iterate and make changes as necessary.
- Run AI like a growth agile project, not an IT project: Always have a clear goal, milestones, and tracking in place.
Step 2: Do
- Equip team members with the right training and tools: Make it easy for your team to incorporate AI into their day-to-day work.
- Train your AI models: Ensure that the AI technology you've selected works in harmony with your GTM teams.
- Host internal hackathons: Boost AI literacy by providing access to engaging learning opportunities.
Looking to the future: AI will become ubiquitous
Eventually, AI will be so embedded in our day-to-day tools and workflows we won’t even know it’s AI. AI personal assistants, in both B2B and B2C, will be integrated into hardware like your phone and laptop and use the internet for you.
“AI will have mass adoption when people don’t call it AI – it’s just like how we interact with the internet.”
The concept may sound far off now, but we’re excited to see how the technology progresses. To learn more about AI from GTM experts, join our community!
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