Welcome back to the Five-Minute Friday episode of the SuperDataScience Podcast!
This week, Jon welcomes special guest Chief A.I. Strategist of DataRobot, Ben Taylor live in-person from New York for a three-part Five-Minute Friday series of episodes.
In this first episode, Ben discusses how to sell a multi-million dollar A.I. contract–no easy feat! And as we find out, there is no easy answer, either! “There is no trick,” Ben admits. “To sell contracts that large they typically have to be attached to some clear value, and you are selling at the C-suite.”
The process involves getting access to the C-suite and gaining their trust. Be prepared to answer why you’re the right partner and route yourself into the business to identify a problem worth $100 million and up. If you can execute on this quickly (within two to four weeks), you should be able to “discuss a wider rollout.”
Finally, Ben recommends “leading with a proof of value” to facilitate every single step of the sales process.
Tune in to Episode 592 for more from Ben, and return next week to hear his thoughts on why CEOs care about A.I. so much more than other technologies.
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Podcast Transcript
Jon Krohn: 00:05
This is Five-Minute Friday on how to sell a multimillion dollar AI contract.
For Five-Minute Friday this week, we have a special guest. So Ben Taylor is here live with me in person in New York. If you’re watching the video recording, then you get to see us together having a great time. It has been wonderful having Ben visit. And I thought it would be great to ask him a few questions for Five-Minute Friday. So usually Five-Minute Fridays are just me, but now you get to have somebody who knows what he’s talking about on Five-Minute Fridays for a change.
So Ben, one topic that you know very well is selling huge AI contracts. So you have experience selling multimillion dollar AI contracts. Not many people have that kind of experience. What’s the trick? How do you pull something like that off?
For Five-Minute Friday this week, we have a special guest. So Ben Taylor is here live with me in person in New York. If you’re watching the video recording, then you get to see us together having a great time. It has been wonderful having Ben visit. And I thought it would be great to ask him a few questions for Five-Minute Friday. So usually Five-Minute Fridays are just me, but now you get to have somebody who knows what he’s talking about on Five-Minute Fridays for a change.
So Ben, one topic that you know very well is selling huge AI contracts. So you have experience selling multimillion dollar AI contracts. Not many people have that kind of experience. What’s the trick? How do you pull something like that off?
Ben Taylor: 01:02
So the trick is there is no trick. The trick is to sell contracts that large, they typically have to be attached to some clear value and you are selling it to C-suite. So it’s quite rare that a VP of data science or an IT director could write multimillion dollar checks. And so the process typically is to get access to the C-suite and for them it’s more about trust. What experience do you have? Are you the right partner? It might be harder for a smaller startup to convince them that they are the right partner, because there’s always a lot of liabilities attached to smaller companies. Are you even going to be around in a year or two?
And so if you can convince them with the trust element and then you can get routed into the business to find problems, there are problems out there, single AI problems that are worth a hundred million dollars and up if you can find the right one. So if you can find that, execute on it quickly two to four weeks, then you can discuss like a wider rollout.
So hub-and-spoke, Center of excellence, if you found this win, you should be able to find other wins.
So hub-and-spoke, Center of excellence, if you found this win, you should be able to find other wins.
And this reminded me early on in my career, I had my own company. And I remember when it was time to show you the pricing, which is usually at the end of the PowerPoint, I would feel anxious. I’d feel embarrassed. And I’d try to read your face on what do you think about this quarter million dollar price that I’m showing you? And going back, the reason I was feeling anxious and embarrassed is the value wasn’t clear. I hope you’ll get value. I hope you won’t regret this platform agreement. So I think leading with finding value, leading with a proof of value, which we like to call it is that is the way that you succeed.
Jon Krohn: 02:52
Nice. That was a really good explanation. Thank you for that.
Ben Taylor: 02:56
Yep.
Jon Krohn: 02:57
All right. That’s it for today’s episode, we’ll be back with Ben Taylor next week to ask him why CEOs care about AI so much more than other technologies. In the meantime, keep on rocking it out there folks and I’m looking forward to enjoying another round of the Super Data Science podcast with you very soon.
