Peter Juhasz, co-founder and CEO of Syrvi AI
Cold calling isn’t dead, despite what a lot of people like to say. For some businesses, it still works, but for a lot of SMEs, it definitely is becoming harder to rely on. Buyers do their homework before they ever even speak to a salesperson, inboxes are overflowing with not a lot of time to answer salespeople, and most people don’t answer unknown numbers anymore anyway.
The good news is you don’t have to build a sales pipeline the same way you did five or ten years ago. We all know that AI is changing how businesses find new customers. Instead of working through endless lists of prospects and hoping someone happens to be interested, you can spend more time speaking to people who are already showing signs that they might actually need what you offer. That’s a much better use of everyone’s time. This works particularly well as part of an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy, where high-value prospects are warmed up through relevant content before outreach even begins, turning cold conversations into much warmer ones, much earlier.
It’s also worth thinking about what happens after that first touchpoint. Buyers will often do their own research before replying or taking a meeting, so making sure your business shows up in AI search results is becoming increasingly important. Things like Answer Engine Optimisation and Generative Engine Optimisation can help make sure your company is more visible and more likely to be recommended by AI tools when prospects are looking for solutions. When you combine this with an ABM approach, you’re not just reaching the right people through outbound, you’re also making it easier for them to find and trust your business when they start looking into their options.
For smaller businesses, especially, that’s important. Most SMEs don’t have huge sales teams so every hour counts, meaning wasting half the day chasing people who were never going to buy isn’t exactly a great strategy. Here are three ways AI is helping businesses bring in better opportunities without relying so heavily on cold calls.
It helps you find people at the right time
One of the hardest parts of sales has always been timing. You can have the right product, the right price and speak to exactly the right person, but if they’re not looking for a solution yet, the conversation usually goes nowhere.
AI can assist with giving you a much better idea of who’s actually in the market. It can pull together all sorts of signals that are easy to miss on your own. Maybe a key company has started hiring rapidly or they’ve just raised funding. Maybe key clients have been looking at certain pages on your website or engaging with content around a particular problem.
None of those things guarantee they’ll become a customer, but when you put those signals together, you get a much clearer picture of who’s worth spending time on.
That means sales teams can stop guessing quite so much. Instead of reaching out because someone’s name appeared on a spreadsheet, you’re starting conversations with businesses that already have a reason to listen.
It cuts out hours of research
Sales involves far more research than people often realise. Before you even send an email, you’ve probably looked at someone’s website, checked their LinkedIn, searched for company news and tried to work out whether they’re actually the person who makes decisions.
Do that twenty or thirty times a week, and you’ve lost a lot of time before you’ve even spoken to anyone. AI can take care of a lot of that groundwork.
It can pull together company information, summarise what’s been happening recently, highlight likely challenges and give you a decent starting point before you begin writing an email.
That doesn’t mean you stop doing your own homework or double checking. It just means you’re not starting from scratch every single time. For SMEs, that’s a major deal. If you’ve only got one or two people responsible for sales, getting even an extra hour or two back every day makes a noticeable difference.
It makes outreach feel more relevant
Nobody likes receiving the same generic sales email that’s clearly been sent over and over again to another five hundred people. People expect businesses to understand at least a little bit about who they’re talking to. AI can make that much easier.
It can suggest specific messaging based on the prospect, highlight the services they’re most likely to care about and help tailor outreach without adding hours of extra work researching. The important bit is that AI shouldn’t be writing your relationships for you. Combined with buying signals and personalisation, this approach can increase response rates by more than 25%.
People still buy from people. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon. What AI does is help you walk into conversations knowing a bit more about the business on the other end. That usually leads to better discussions because you’re talking about something that actually matters to them.
Better leads are better than more leads
One thing I think gets lost in conversations about AI is that it isn’t really about replacing salespeople. It’s about helping them spend more of their week doing the part of the job that actually matters. AI is most effective when it’s built on strong go-to-market strategy. Research, positioning and planning still come first, with AI helping bring every stage together before execution.
Most sales teams don’t need more names to contact, they need better opportunities and they need a clearer idea of who’s worth speaking to and why.
That’s where AI is making the biggest difference. For SMEs, that’s a real opportunity. You don’t need the biggest sales team in your industry to build a strong pipeline anymore. If you’re spending your time on the right conversations, you’re already a step ahead.
