RISE UP is Andy Byrne’s (CEO, Clari) bi-weekly newsletter. Every other Friday, he’ll share one tip for reaching your potential and building a legendary revenue career.

You hear a lot of stories about successful startups going from nothing to multi-billion dollar status and transforming the world.

And a popular question people ask is: What opportunity did the entrepreneur see?

For me when starting Clari, it was that revenue is not just a quarterly outcome — it’s the most important business process. And the realization that (at the time) there wasn’t an enterprise-grade system that was purpose-built to run the entire process from start to finish.

That was 10 years ago, and we’re still on that mission. But there’s been a new addition: AI.

Clari has always worked with AI and ML – we recently even introduced RevGPT, a generative AI solution build into the Clari Revenue Platform that uses ChatGPT to give companies answers to the most critical revenue questions and take answers.

The challenge is there’s so much chatter around AI but also so much unknown, which is why revenue leaders are constantly asking me how they can use AI to build a well-oiled revenue machine that runs with precision.

That’s why today I’m going to talk about three ways AI is changing the way companies run revenue:

#1 Make accurate predictions

Using AI for accurate predictions involves several steps – collecting and analyzing historical data, training AI algorithms on it, and making predictions based on current and future inputs.

Before AI, we relied on manual methods that were time-consuming and error-filled. It was so easy to underestimate variables and also fail to account for market changes when projecting revenue.

Once you embrace AI, you gain the ability to process and read data quicker, find hidden relationships and blindspots within the data, and course correct faster than ever.

In order to run revenue like a pro, you need to use the help of AI to help you make informed data-driven decisions, optimize pricing strategies, allocate resources effectively, and identify growth opportunities.

This leads to increased revenue and profitability ($$$), gives you a competitive edge when launching new products/services or expanding into new markets, and keeps your customers satisfied as you look for growth opportunities.

Finding those leaks in your revenue process will help you reach your full revenue potential.

I’m talking about getting within 100K accuracy on a $1.6B forecast number which is what revenue precision looks like. That’s all done by more than just combing through data.

#2 Reduce your time to revenue

But how do you reduce your TTR?

As a refresher, time to revenue is the time your company spends collecting revenue-critical signals, analyzing them, and acting on them to see a lift in revenue.

It’s things like how long does it take a rep to update their deal? Or how long does it take a manager to look and track the deal? Especially when you’ve got 10 reps and they each have 10 deals.

Generative AI lets you look at all those conversations, the relationships, and the process that they’re running and helps you reduce the time it takes to assess where they have risk and where they have opportunities.

Now your meetings are more efficient, your reps are more productive, and you can spot revenue risk before it’s too late.

#3 Look at historical trends

It’s not very helpful if you learn with two days left in the quarter that you’re going to miss by 20%. Whereas if you’re heading into the quarter with this information, you have 90 days to do something about it.

With AI you can see those historical trends and make informed decisions based on them – for example, if you know you’re going to crush the next quarter, you have extra cash to spend on new hires, R&D, etc.

Predicting that you will have extra capital and knowing what to do with it really plays into the ability to be growing even faster since it compounds over time.

And on the reverse, if you’re falling behind then you’ll know exactly what to do to get as close to your number as you can.

AI is not going away. The sooner you embrace the change and start using AI to make accurate predictions, reduce your time to revenue, and start looking at historical data, that’s where you’ll see the largest return.

And how you’ll build a legendary revenue career.

Until next time,

Andy Byrne

CEO & Prime Minister of Revenue, Clari

New podcasts and playbooks for running revenue

Playbook: Capture every drop of revenue with our new Revenue Cadence Playbook – you’ll learn how to identify and master revenue moments that matter most to turn revenue leak into precision.

Podcast: Tune into the latest episode of Run Revenue with Matt Dixon, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, on how to overcome customer indecision to close more revenue.

Article: Read the three key revenue categories you need to master to navigate an economic downturn successfully and keep your revenue process running smoothly.