#087: Using AI to Automate Processes

Simple way to get started using AI and automation tools

Author

Harrison Waid
June 02, 2025

Read time: 5 minutes

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How to Get Started Using AI to Automate Sales Processes

Most sales reps and teams are still running 2021 playbooks in a 2025 world.

There are 3 types of reps we see most commonly.

  1. Not sure how to even get started using AI

  2. “Using AI” every now and then by asking ChatGPT questions

  3. Going all in to figure out how to get a competitive advantage using AI

I don’t believe AI will replace sales people, but I do believe that reps who use AI will be able to spend more time selling and will be more effective in their jobs than those who don’t.

We’re talking about sales teams getting 5–10x more efficient and effective by using AI and automation as an invisible team member. One that handles all the non-human necessary tasks. Prepare for meetings, write outreach, analyze replies, and log updates automatically.

We’re writing this because too many great salespeople still haven’t started fully embracing what’s possible.

You don’t need to “learn AI.”
You don’t need to be technical.
You just need to start.

This guide gives you the mindset, examples, tools, and step-by-step instructions to do exactly that.

What Does “AI + Automation in Sales” Actually Mean?

Let’s break it down:

  • AI helps you think faster: write better emails, summarize research, create messaging variations, generate ideas, and answer questions. Think of it as your really really smart assistant who doesn’t argue and can work 24/7.

  • Automation helps you act without touching things twice: updates, notifications, routing, reporting, and syncing across tools.

Put them together, and you can:

  • Get meeting prep sent to you before every call

  • Personalize messages at scale

  • Help with follow-up messages

  • Track and analyze what’s working

  • Eliminate dozens of manual steps you do every week

This isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a real advantage, and it’s accessible right now.

By the end of this article, you’ll know:

  • How to identify the right sales processes to automate

  • How to think in systems (inputs → processing → output)

  • How to use GPT to build, troubleshoot, and improve automations

  • How to wire AI into your workflow using tools like Zapier or n8n

  • What to build first (we’ll walk through a real example)

  • What advanced workflows you can grow into later

Real Example: Meeting Prep Automation

Let’s start with a powerful, real-world automation.

The Goal:

Every morning at 8AM, you get a Slack or email that summarizes:

  • Who you’re meeting today

  • What their company does

  • What their role likely cares about

  • Recent company or LinkedIn activity

  • Suggested talking points and CTA

You didn’t write it. You didn’t research it.
It just shows up—thanks to AI + automation.

How to Build It Step-by-Step

Step 1: Think in Systems

Every automation has 3 parts:

  1. Trigger – What starts this?

    • A time-based trigger (every morning at 8AM)

  2. Input – What data do I have?

    • Today’s calendar events → Attendee names → Company names

  3. Output – What do I want?

    • A clean summary with research and suggestions, delivered to Slack or email

Step 2: Ask GPT to Help You Architect the Automation

Prompt: “I want to pull my Google Calendar meetings for today, extract attendee names and companies, research them using GPT, and send me a summary at 8AM every day in Slack. Walk me through how to do this using Zapier.”

Zapier is a simple-to-use (and affordable) automation tool that connect to 100s of different tools to automate pretty much anything you can imagine.

n8n is an incredibly powerful automation tool that is much more advanced. If you’re just getting started, stick to Zapier.

Ask GPT to:

  • Help you filter out internal/team-only meetings

  • Suggest enrichment steps if you only have emails

  • Write a prompt to send to GPT that returns:

    • Company summary

    • Role context

    • Recent news or posts

    • Suggested question and CTA

Step 3: Build It in Zapier

  1. Trigger: Every day at 8AM

  2. Action: Search calendar events

  3. Action: Filter out internal or irrelevant ones

  4. Action: Extract attendee email → Enrich with company

  5. Action: Call OpenAI with prompt

  6. Action: Send Slack message with formatted prep

Result:

  • Clean, focused prep before every call.

  • Personalized insights.

  • Zero effort.

Step 4: Test, Tweak, and Scale

This is your first automation. Monitor it each morning to see the response outputs. Then improve it by updating your prompts and tweaking it to get the desired results.

Ask GPT to help you:

  • Clean up formatting

  • Add edge-case handling (e.g., no data found)

  • Integrate LinkedIn scraping for more context

  • Give it more context by telling it to search for 10K, press releases, etc…

  • Adjust tone to match your style

Other Use Cases You Can Build with This Process

  • Reply classification → Use GPT to tag replies (interested, objection, not now) and trigger next steps

  • “Not now” follow-up → Schedule a future email with context when a lead says “follow up in 2 months”

  • Lead enrichment → When a lead is added, pull LinkedIn bio, company funding, recent activity

  • Campaign analysis → At the end of every week, GPT summarizes what’s working in your outbound

You build them the same way:

  1. Define the inputs

  2. Ask GPT to help build and write prompts

  3. Use Zapier/n8n to connect and automate

  4. Refine based on feedback

How to Think Like an AI-First Sales Operator

Build this habit:

  1. Document every repetitive task you or your team do

  2. Each week, ask GPT: “Here are 5 things I did this week. Which could be automated or improved with AI or tools like Zapier/n8n?”

  3. For each one, write:

    • What triggers it?

    • What data is needed?

    • What’s the ideal result?

  4. Ask GPT to help you build it.

You’re starting to design a machine that handles all your repetitive tasks for you. This ins’t “replacing” you. It’s giving you more time to focus on the human parts of selling. It will help you be more effective as well. If you’re better prepared, you’ll close more deals.

Advanced Workflows to Inspire You

Once you’ve built 3–5 of these automations, you’ll start to think differently. Here's where it can go next:

1: Automate lead scoring to find your best prospects in your CRM

2: Automated email finding and validation to keep your lists clean

3: Set up chatbots for first customer touchpoints trained on all your data

4: Identify website visitors and score them and enrich with contact details to trigger outreach

5: Listen for relevant signals in the market and personalize outreach based on those insights

6: Automate account research before scheduled calls to better prepare reps

7: Listen for social media posts and comments about topics relevant to your prospects

8: Scrape data from publications, abstracts, posters, etc and use that to draft hyper-personalized messaging

9: Track competitor activity with AI tools and deep research

10: Build out your complete total addressable market with enriched data on companies and people

11: Automate data entry into your CRM

12: Segment customer lists for focused messaging

13: Automate the long tail outreach to funnel up leads for your sales team so they start each day with meetings on their calendar

14: Search through job descriptions to see what companies are hiring people for the roles your product or service solves for

15: Prioritize tasks for your sales team each morning so they focus on the most important activities without having to sift through 5 different tools

16 Add virtual technical assistants to help your reps answer complex technical questions

17: Monitor when your customers leave and go to a new company so you can reach out to them

18: Score all your sales conversations to know what reps need specific training to help them get better

19: Score and rank all of the accounts in your TAM so you can prioritize your sales team on the best fit accounts

20: Automate all the mundane tasks of follow-up, quote generation, legal review, RFP updates, etc...

You Just Need Curiosity & Action

You don’t need:

  • A dev team

  • A giant AI platform

  • A 6-month roadmap

  • A lot of experience using AI

You need:

  • 1 process you do every week

  • 1 AI prompt

  • 1 automation built with GPT helping you think through it

Block an hour each week to tinker and automate something you do each week.

After a few weeks you’ll already have your own little army of AI agents getting stuff done for you!

The only way to learn this is to build something real.

  1. Lead Generation: We’ll build target lists, write scientifically relevant messaging, and send messages on your behalf to book qualified sales meetings with biotech and pharma companies.

  2. Training for Reps: A skill development platform for life science sales reps who want to improve their sales skills, exceed their quota, and take the next step in their career.

  3. Training for Teams: If you want to upskill your team around prospecting, driving to close, key account management, AI, or any other topic, we can put together a training plan specific to your organization’s needs.

  4. Strategy Call: Need more than training? Want help implementing and executing your sales strategy? In a 30-minute call, we will assess your company’s current situation and identify growth opportunities.

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