AI SDRs & New Pricing Models Might Destroy Outbound Sales

In episode #2860, Eric Siu and Neil Patel explore how AI-driven sales reps and new pricing models are transforming the game, from increased efficiency to potential disruption. Discover what this means for the future of sales! Don’t forget to help us grow by subscribing and liking on YouTube! Check out more of Eric’s content (Leveling UP YT) and Neil’s videos (Neil Patel YT) TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: (00:00) The Rise of AI in Sales (03:14) Disruptive Pricing Models in AI (04:39) That’s it for today! Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe! Go to https://www.marketingschool.io to learn more! Leave Some Feedback: What should we talk about next? Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review. Connect with Us: Single Grain << Eric’s ad agency NP Digital << Neil’s ad agency X @neilpatel X @ericosiu

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:39Speaker 00

  This is actually, there's a startup called Runway. And they're like a finance startup. But they basically created these AI SDRs to help with the prospecting. And basically, it's costing them around $10,000 a month, resource-wise, to run these AI SDRs. But it's generating them a lot more pipeline. And they don't necessarily need to fire anyone, but they don't need to hire more people, right? And so I think we're going to see a lot more of this trend upwards. And related to this, I wanted to talk about the most disruptive AI pricing model so far. Because we're talking about these AI SDRs, and there's actually a couple of AI SDR companies. And they're charging differently versus like SaaS. Because usually with SaaS, you would charge on a per-seat basis, right? And you charge monthly for that.

• 1:24Speaker 00

  Things are changing now. We're like Intercom, for example. They're like, you know, they were a chat, they're a conversational intelligence tool, right? And they now charge you 99 cents per resolved ticket. So they've changed up their pricing, I believe. And then Salesforce, I think they're changing to like a, on a usage basis, too. And so I think we might start to see more of that. And the ones that pioneered this, maybe like, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago, is actually Zapier, right? Zapier, they charge you based on the number of tasks that you're running. I think we're going to see the models change. And I'm trying to pull this up right now. It's not pulling up. There's a nice little graph from Kyle Poyar from Growth Unhinged. And it actually shows you the new pricing models for AI. And I think, you know, we're going to see more efficiencies come from these AI workers.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  But we're also going to see pricing efficiencies as well.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  I also think going back to the Gary Tan tweet or post on X, I do agree that, you know, and he's just talking about what one of his friends said. He said, "A friend of mine told me that AASDRs might actually make outbound sales stop working entirely in the coming years." And then he has the looking eyes, "I got a curiosity." I think an issue you're going to have with AI is people are going to use it maliciously and they're going to scale this out like crazy. So instead of 10 calls a day or 50 calls a day, they now do 5,000 calls a day or whatever they can get away with. I do believe that is going to cause not necessarily channels like outbound sales to stop working entirely. I think they're just going to be less effective because people are going to be fed up with it.

• 2:55Speaker 00

  And whoever can build something on the AI side to defend against this will probably make good money.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  Yes, just like on Apple does it, "Hey, spam call."

• 3:04Speaker 00

  Oh, it's so good. It automatically just shuts it off.

• 3:07Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. All right. So I wanted to take a second to tell you about the Agency Owners Association. So this is an agency peer group ran by my podcast co-host Neil Patel and myself, Eric Su. And these were nine and eight-figure agency owners respectively. And what I will say is, at the end of the day, you want to learn from people that have been there, done that. If you want to grow your agency to seven figures, eight figures and beyond, this is the group for you. And we bring in other agency owners to speak as well. And it's a great peer group where you can help each other out. And you're going to learn how to acquire more clients. You're going to learn how to take yourself out of the day-to-day and to build the business of your dreams. And the cool thing, till November 30th, we are holding a special price and you can apply at marketingschool.io/agency. And the great thing about it as well, if you try to get into a group, there's a seven-day free trial, right? So, once November 30th hits, we're going to increase the

• 3:52Speaker 00

  price by $200 per month. So right now, you're getting it at the lowest price possible. So go to marketingschool.io/agency to learn more and we'll see you inside. By the way, I think there's, there's a lot of AI security things that people aren't like, you look at Delta suing CrowdStrike, right? For 500 million or so? I think it's 500 million, right?

• 4:10Speaker 01

  It's something large.

• 4:12Speaker 00

  It's something big. But point is, there are, there's a dearth of security solutions out there right now. So if that's something that you wanted to go build, now's a good time to go do it. And then, you know, Gary Tan talking about destroying outbound sales, like, I just think... What is it? There's about 700,000 people in the United States that are basically in a SDR type of role. And there's about 1.3 million people that are in some type of sales role, I believe. Maybe more than that. I just read this stat like earlier this week.

• 4:42Speaker 00

  And so what's going to happen? I think sales, low-quality salespeople are going to get replaced. Okay, you see there's a trend here. Low-quality customer service people are going to get replaced. Low-quality anything probably going to be replaced. And they're just going to have to move into a different job. That's all. And this will help people find something that they genuinely want to do, and they'll be happier.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I don't know if they're all going to be replaced. I think you're going to have politics come into play, and then people are saved in some aspect or another.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  People are always saved. All right, so that is it for today, guys. Go to marketingschool.io/agency to learn more about the Agency Owners Association, where we help agency owners grow. And that being said, we'll see you tomorrow.