Among the ~25 sales calls we’ve done so far this month, two operators stood out for their AI knowledge.

“Our highest token user is a sales guy who generates custom webpages and sends prospects a link... it took him a weekend to do the first one and now it’s down to 20 minutes each.”

- Founder & CEO, PE-Backed Automotive Business

“We just won’t spend dollars on 1% operational efficiency AI projects. It’s only worth it for us to focus on client retention, new client selection, or other growth areas.”

- CEO, Family-Owned Retailer

This might sound counterintuitive because the concepts like automation, productivity, and efficiency are commonly associated with AI. It’s true. These types of AI efforts decrease cost. However, confining the scope to cost-cutting only scratches the surface.

Decreasing costs through AI is the low-hanging fruit of opportunities. Our clients like to begin there because it’s often easier, faster, and more quantifiable than revenue initiatives. But how many more times can you play that card? Consider two AI projects:

1. Finance Automation: get AI to match cash to billing system data, so that you no longer need your finance analyst. Impact: ~$50,000 in salary savings.

2. Finance Agent: build an AI tool that, along with matching cash to sales data, generates revenue analysis on command. Impact: revenue uplift TBD.

Option 1 saves $50,000 immediately. Option 2 keeps the finance analyst employed to draw insights from the infinite revenue analyses that the AI creates. What are the chances that those insights lead to more than $50,000? 

We’re still waiting to learn the answer. We built Option 1 for a client the first month we worked together and then built Option 2 the next month. Stopping halfway with the easy to capture, easy to measure cost savings felt incomplete. 

Both of those executives quoted above stood out because they understood the game they're playing: the big opportunity for AI isn’t cost-cutting, it’s a revenue game. In a world of finite resources, we think it's better to use AI to maximize existing resources (employees, data, knowledge) than to shrink. 

So here’s the game plan:  

• List out 10 processes in your team, department, or company that you think can be automated and estimate the hours that each would save. Next to each process write out the best use of someone’s time with those free hours to grow the business.

It’s perfectly fine to begin with automations, but don’t forget that there’s always another level.