Rishi Mallik, Chief Growth Officer at Workato: “Sell how you would want to be sold to”

When it comes to return on investment for AI, and technology as a whole, we can’t think of a better example than one given to us by Rishi Mallik, Chief Growth Officer at Workato in this interview. We’re sure you go to trade shows. You may even use them to garner leads. But how often do those on-floor chats turn into meetings?

“Our data showed a large drop off from badge scan to meeting in the end, leading to low ROI for trade shows,” Rishi told us. Rather than go through that manual process, the Workato employee now arranges a time there and then, before sending a calendar invite from the showfloor. Then comes the clever bit.

“There is an email alias in the event invite that triggers an automation that will create an opportunity for that lead in our CRM,” he explained. “We can input notes from the conversation into the invite that will sync directly with our systems so we don’t lose track of what was discussed. It has been game-changing for our trade show ROI.”

This solves what Rishi describes as “the last mile of getting actionable data to the right folks at the right time to take action where the rubber hits the road”. And that idea runs through this interview.

Our thanks to Rishi Mallik, who joined Workato a decade ago and now serves as the Chief Growth Office. Before that, he was part of the founding Team at Qi, which was later acquired by Skype for $150 million – before Skype itself was acquired by Microsoft for a cool $8.5 billion. Little wonder that Rishi has so much wisdom to impart!

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Can you give an example of a complex problem in sales that you – or your company – have been involved in tackling with technology?

We had a challenging issue where our sellers were bogged down with too much admin work in Salesforce after each customer meeting. The expectation is clear: Salesforce notes need to be updated after every call and follow-up emails need to go out promptly. But when you’re in back-to-back meetings with plenty of other priorities, it’s tough to stay on top of it. Even worse is that bad meeting notes lead to bad Salesforce data which can quickly spread and cause larger issues.

So, we streamlined the process with technology. Now, after a call we automatically pull the transcript from Gong or Zoom and pipe it through AI to 1) tailor and summarise notes based on our MEDDPIC criteria 2) ask AI questions that map to our Salesforce fields 3) surface a draft of the Salesforce meeting notes in Slack for the rep and 4) also surface a draft of a next-steps email to be sent off once the rep has reviewed or revised.

This accelerated our deal progression because of the faster, more consistent follow-up emails, all while freeing up more time for our reps to sell. Not to mention, the accuracy and completeness of the meeting data going into the CRM.

We’re fortunate to be able to have a tool like Workato to connect our app stack and orchestrate powerful workflows like this quickly.

In your view, how has the role of CRM software evolved over the last decade or so? What major breakthroughs stand out for you?

Despite new features, interfaces, add-ons, etc in the world of CRMs, the essential role of the CRM hasn’t changed much – it continues to be the source of truth for the customer relationship. 

What has changed is the growing need for flexibility in how and where this data is used and actioned. Because of this, there has been an explosion of sales and marketing vendors and the landscape around CRMs has become an increasingly over-optimised set of narrow-point solutions for every step of the user journey. Scott Brinker’s 2024 MartechMap cataloged over 14,000 vendors, up 28% YoY! And these point solutions have only led to more spend and silos instead of productivity and gain.

The major breakthrough modern GTM teams are having is moving away from buying more and more point solutions, and instead leveraging an integration platform that can connect their stack and run these workflows across systems to help remove app silos and unlock new possibilities for pipeline and revenue. These workflows take the place of the point solutions while also being more flexible and extensible than an app which is essentially a black box. Keeping your stack simple (CRM, sales engagement/prospecting tool, intent and enrichment data) and leveraging an integration platform to orchestrate workflows between these systems is a great unlock for gains at every step of the user journey.

Most sales and marketing orgs know what they need to do and the strategic moves they need to make. It’s solving the last mile of getting actionable data to the right folks at the right time to take action where the rubber hits the road. More tools make this worse. A single platform makes this better.

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What is one sales tool you or your team can’t live without? And why is it so important?

There are three pieces that solve the technology prospecting puzzle: the signals you are looking for, accurate data on how to reach someone with that signal, and a tool to take action.

We already have the ability to take action on campaigns and reach out to prospects and customers. However, knowing the prospects and accounts with the highest propensity to buy (intent signals) and how to reach out to them (enrichment data) is critical.

On the intent side, tools like Demandbase or 6sense give us first-party and third-party intent data along with insights into which of those new accounts look like our existing customers – something which is key in bringing precision to our outbound activity. Essentially turning cold outbound to warm outbound by only reaching out to prospects that are engaging with us or our space and also look like our ICP.

Once we know who we want to go after, having accurate enrichment data from tools like ZoomInfo or LeadIQ makes the outreach possible.

What are some examples of AI being used in sales that stand out to you?

AI is great, but using it effectively can be difficult. We’ve found it to be most effective when enhancing (not replacing) the human element of our outreach. There are a few examples that I’ve found particularly impactful:

• Automated follow-ups: We’ve all been on the receiving end of an automated email or text, and we can tell when it’s robotic. This is why leveraging AI for keeping the human-in-the-loop is crucial. For example, we use Workato to trigger automated follow-ups after a customer meeting. AI handles the heavy lifting to draft a personalised message based on the conversation and surfaces it up to the rep to give it that human touch to avoid sounding like every other automated email out there.
• AI to accurately summarise meeting notes: Asking AI our MEDDPICC questions as well as questions relating to fields in our CRM based on the call transcript has helped free up reps’ time, ensured a follow-up email was sent in a timely fashion, and improved our Salesforce data accuracy. All while still keeping the rep in the loop.
• Pre-call research: One of my favourite use cases is AI-driven pre-call research. Analysing massive amounts of data like intent signals, company news, recent hires, and funding rounds takes hours if not days for a new account. Now we use AI to do the analysis and consolidate this in a dossier for our reps. Imagine walking into a call already knowing the latest challenges your prospect’s company is facing or who just joined their executive team. It’s a game-changer.
• Reviving closed lost deals: By analysing closed lost reasons, AI can time outreach and craft emails for when circumstances have changed. For example, if a deal was lost because of budget issues last quarter, AI can resurface the opportunity after a set period and draft an email to re-engage the prospect once they’ve had time to reassess their budget.

At the end of the day, it’s about using AI as a powerful assist, while still focusing on the buyer’s experience.

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Thinking of data, can you share some specific examples of it being impactful in driving revenue?

Data comes in all shapes and sizes. We use data to inform our revenue strategy but also act on real-time data to activate certain campaigns and outreach to drive pipeline. Here are some examples:

Speed to lead. According to data from a Harvard Business Review study, getting back to inbound leads in less than five mins leads to an exponentially higher response rate. This matched up with our internal data and also logically makes sense given the impact of engaging with a lead while your product/service is still top of mind. We built an automation to bring all relevant data from CRM, enrichment, intent and the web into a dossier for our sales development team to take action on in Slack so they can act quickly without context-switching across platforms. This allowed us to achieve a target of a five-minute response time for our inbound leads. 

It’s easier to farm than to hunt. We leverage the product usage data of our customers to inform triggers that initiate sales and marketing outreach depending on certain thresholds of activity within an account. We are better informed to take action with our existing customers and this use of product data has been key to our expansion revenue.

Event meetings on the trade show floor. The badge scan process at trade shows is fundamentally broken. It is a long and iterative process to take the leads from the conference, scrub them, pass them into your CRM/database, attribute them, and assign them to the proper reps. Our data showed a large drop off from badge scan to meeting in the end, leading to low ROI for trade shows. The data helped us reframe the problem and think of a way to bypass this antiquated process.

Now, once we are done chatting with a prospect on the show floor, we ask them about a convenient time the following week to meet and send them a calendar invite right there and then. There is an email alias in the event invite that triggers an automation that will create an opportunity for that lead in our CRM while sending them a confirmation immediately. We can input notes from the conversation into the invite that will sync directly with our systems so we don’t lose track of what was discussed. It has been game-changing for our trade show ROI.

What advice do you have for those wanting to start a career in sales?

Sell how you would want to be sold to.

The most underutilised tool in sales is putting yourself in the shoes of your prospect. Asking questions like “How would I respond to this email?” or “Would I attend this type of event if a vendor invited me?” This filter is the single most powerful tool we have in GTM and it’s free!

Sales folk early in their career are so eager to get the word out about their product features and campaigns or are eager to launch off an array of discovery questions. They sometimes forget that their prospects are day-to-day people like them and this purchase is not their sole focus. When was the last time you enjoyed a salesperson asking you 20 questions?

If you have never been through a buying cycle as a buyer, I would highly recommend shadowing one. Attempting to sell without ever being a buyer is like trying to teach without ever being a student.