[Speaker 2]
This is Inside B.S. Show number 772, and I'm Dave Lorenzo. Today's conversation is with Hema Day. Hema is an expert on AI-generated business development.

She has a proprietary process called SEO to sales that helps her generate leads for her clients and then work with her clients to convert those leads into paying customers. Our conversation today covers the context within which AI helps enable the sales process. So in this eight-minute clip from the hour-long conversation that Hema and I recently had, we talk about the lead generation process from AI online and how AI impacts what the client is searching for all the way through to conversion where the person who is originally searching becomes a client.

We cover a lot of ground in this eight-plus-minute conversation, but it is probably the best perspective I've seen so far on how AI can influence the business development process. Join me as I have an in-depth conversation with Hema Day on AI, SEO, marketing, and sales and how they all work together. Okay, so we get a question that we know our ideal clients have.

We write the content to answer the question, so we're in good shape there. And is there a way to write that will surface the content if somebody's searching using ChatGPT, Gemini, or one of these other AI engines, or do you just write like you would normally write?

[Speaker 1]
No, you need to... Okay, you can use AI as a guide. AI is very good as a guide to give you ideas on what to write and how people are thinking.

Take it with a grain of salt, whatever you wanna do. You have to also be intuitive and apply critical thinking to the data that you get back from AI, okay? So the first thing I do is sometimes I go into AI and every client, I write special prompts for it to give me what are the true problems people have in that particular arena.

So for example, I'll give you another example. Let's say it's a law firm that deals with mergers and acquisitions, okay? I love that kind of work because now you have multiple players to think about, okay?

Multiple players, who's merging and who's acquiring, who are the two parties, how many players there are in each camp, right? The influencer, influencing the influencer and who are the decision makers. So we need to really think in that 360 view how those people think.

Now, in light of macroeconomics right now where tariff is coming into conversations on the media, USMCA is at risk. So how do you actually play all of this into content generation with the help of AI and yourself? You've got to really understand current affairs to be able to write.

So I would say, go find out what are the true problems people are having. Let's say you're trying to buy a company in Mexico but all of a sudden now there's a risk factor around tariffs. There's a risk factor around USMCA being terminated.

These are issues that if you don't show that you're up to play with as a voice of the author, that trust currency with the prospect is not gonna be there. So addressing it in real time with what's going on is number one. Number two, create blogs.

Create blogs and long videos. Those are the two things, two elements of content that are getting the highest conversions to leads, especially in B2B for law firms, for medical practices, for manufacturers. Now, I'm not saying don't do short videos.

The short video algorithm is absolutely critical but think of it as that those are hooks to get you in to them wanting to learn more about the long videos and blogs and to go to your website. Or to even ask you more questions. So, number three, cater those into palatable pieces.

Break it up into chapters, pieces of information that the buyers can actually absorb in under three seconds and say, oh, I just saw that, I want more of that. And then breadcrumb them in to a consultation with the attorney in this case, yeah? I think you cannot sit and say, oh, I don't really care about what's happening on the news.

You've got to have that applied science as to what's going on and how to mitigate the risk. Again, going back to the, I'm speaking specifically about M&A right now. So, mitigating that, adapting fast and pivoting your content.

Don't say, I planned this six months ago, I wrote it already, I don't have time to change it. Don't expect engagement.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, that's great advice. I think that's great. And the case study is excellent.

So, thank you for that. Hema, what do you, when you go in and you look at the marketing that a business is doing, what do you find they're doing that probably is a waste, maybe of time, of their effort? What are some of the things that are most common wastes of time, wastes of money in marketing?

[Speaker 1]
Okay, let's tackle this from the strategic standpoint first. Strategically, I think people are trying, have you heard of the saying in Economics 101, I learned this paradox of thrift?

[Speaker 2]
Where you think- Tell me, explain, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
The paradox of thrift is people think that by hiring a junior, yes, it will net result as you pay lower. And they think that it can just be done very quickly and efficiently. The truth is that you need to do your time, especially in, if you're selling lipsticks, handbags, and shoes, maybe it's a different story, but I'm more interested in law firms and manufacturers that are doing like water regulating valves, for example.

[Speaker 2]
Okay, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Or M&A attorneys, for example. So, it's really important that you have a team that you're paying the right skillset for and not keep spinning and spinning and spinning and blaming that person for not doing well when the leads don't come in. So, I think the investment in human capital still stands and the skillset and applied science using AI is really important.

So, they need to have that warmth to AI. The second thing that I think from a time perspective that I see is that the he said, she said, you said needs to stop right now. Sales cannot blame marketing.

Marketing cannot blame sales. You're in this together. If you're gonna adapt your stories and your content strategies, you need to do it fast.

And marketers, listen to your sales teams. I wear a marketing hat and a sales hat. Listen to your sales team.

They're in the front line and they're giving you the exact content you need to be working on. They see all the problems in the marketplace. So, don't ignore the sales guy.

Don't ignore the CSRs. They have the golden nuggets on what content matters. Dreaming about what content to write is yesterday's news.

Get to the core, get to the front line. From a technical standpoint, I think when they're doing Google AdWords or any kind of advertising right now, it's very expensive deal. It can bleed a company dry very quickly.

So, focus on how to optimize that Look at your cost per click. Cost per click, CPC, and the other one is ROAS, return on ad spend. Look at this on a regular basis.

Don't say, I've just set it up and I'll look at it in six months. Look at it monthly, weekly, until you unlock what's working and not working. That's the beauty of AI.

You don't have to wait.

[Speaker 2]
So, the people who are closest to the customer understand what the customer's thinking, what they're asking for, and what they're saying.

[Speaker 1]
Yes.

[Speaker 2]
And when they bring that back, so sales is about conversion, marketing is about driving traffic. So, when the salespeople go to marketing and they say, all of our messaging is targeting this, but the customer really wants this, the salespeople are saying that because that's what the customer is asking them for. So, working from a customer's perspective backwards and creating your messaging based on what the customer is asking for makes total sense.

And that will ideally make the salesperson's job easier because marketing is supposed to create the shortest path to the sale. Correct. And then the salesperson just follows that path right to the customer and says, you engaged with us to try and develop a relationship.

Do you have this problem? Customer says, yes. The salesperson says, would you like help solving that problem?

Customer says, yes. Salesperson explains the solution, deal's done.