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Have you ever heard from prospective clients who seem clueless about what you do? Perhaps you paint portraits, but people ask you to paint their houses. Or maybe you write blog posts but get questions about handling social media.

When your business offerings are unclear, you waste lots of time fielding off-base queries. Worse, you might accept a gig only to discover that you and the client are not on the same page. Or you might fail to reach customers that could be a great fit.

 helps prevent this by highlighting exactly what sets you apart and which services you provide—and which you don’t.

A capabilities deck is a document or presentation that businesses use to explain what makes them unique and attract clients. The best capabilities decks introduce your brand, values, and offerings. They showcase your background and make a case for why clients would want to work with you.

A robust capabilities deck can help you secure new opportunities and manage expectations while promoting your business. Marketing and creative agencies often employ these decks, but any client-facing business would benefit from using them. Some entrepreneurs use a general capabilities deck for all clients, but many tailor decks to a specific audience. Either way, it’s worth putting the time in to get this critical resource right.


What should a capabilities deck include?

Your capabilities deck will vary based on your industry and target audience, but most include these core elements:

Define the core goals and principles that guide your work.

Identify the target market that you primarily serve.

Share your bio and, if relevant, an overview of your company’s history.

Be specific about what you offer to clients.

Help potential clients understand your working process.

 Include case studies, testimonials, or a portfolio to highlight successful projects.

 Let clients know what service packages you offer (including pricing is optional), and clarify what they should do if they’re interested (e.g., set up a free consultation).

Share your website, email, phone number, and social media handles so people can get in touch.

Tips for creating a capabilities deck that wins clients

Courtney Mays, founder and principal stylist at The Parker Mays Collective, helps clients—mainly athletes—define their personal style and amplify their impact. She uses a capabilities deck to convey her unique approach. “It’s important that consumers know exactly what services you’re providing,” she said. “I want to support people using fashion as a platform, not help them get that sneaker that five people have.”

Here are some of Mays’ tips for how to make a capabilities deck:

Text only goes so far. For most entrepreneurs — especially in creative fields—including photos, videos, and other imagery is crucial to getting their message across. In her capabilities deck, Mays includes mood boards, a portfolio of past clients, and headshots showcasing her own style. “I work in a visual space, so a visual document makes it much easier to have conversations with new and existing clients,” she said.

All aspects of your capabilities deck should reflect your brand identity, including format, colors, and tone. “My business card and website are both white with black writing, and it was important that my capabilities deck feel like part of a total package,” Mays said.

Including a surprising element in your deck can help you stand out. For Mays, that meant sharing a copy of a personal style questionnaire as an icebreaker.

Courtney Mays

Founder & Principle Stylist, The Parker Mays Collective

Common mistakes to avoid when creating a capabilities deck

Be as clear as possible when explaining your services and how you stand out from competitors. And dig deep in exploring your mission and values. “It’s easy to talk about creative jobs in an evasive way,” Mays said. “It’s important to be specific and tell your story in a way that feels authentic.

Unlike static websites, decks can be bespoke. While you can have a common starting point, it’s key to customize presentations based on your target audience. “I want to make sure I’m creating a deck that’s specific to my audience in order to reach them better,” Mays said. For her, that might mean spending more time on sustainability in one deck or on gender-neutral clothing in another.

. Visuals are important, but they’re not enough. “Pictures can give an illusion of what we do, and you need to remember to explain yourself,” Mays said. Yet too much text can be overwhelming—striking a balance is key.

When your capabilities deck is peppered with links, clients can easily get distracted with multiple tabs or ignore the content altogether. With Tome, you can embed scrollable web pages or other media — such as videos or GIFs — directly into the presentation. “I’m obsessed with the embedding tool — it’s magical,” said Mays, who embeds clips of media coverage and visual references for clients. “It has changed the way I communicate with clients.”

Tome’s AI features can save you hours by helping you source images and refine text. Mays was surprised by how quickly she found useful visuals by typing in a phrase like “beautiful aesthetic basketball court” and how the tools helped take her writing to the next level. “I was a little prideful because I enjoy writing, but I realized the AI technology actually helped inspire my thoughts.”

Most creatives operate collaboratively. Tome makes it easy to work with your team or external partners in a single document to make the deck the best it can be. “I love that it’s so collaborative, with multiple people working in the same, easy-to-use interface,” Mays said. “And being able to share with one click is extremely valuable.”

Tome makes it easy to create a modern, professional capabilities deck. Start with a pitch deck or capabilities deck 

 you can customize to fit your business. 

 GIFs, videos, and web pages right in the presentation, and use Tome’s 

 capabilities to source images and polish your prose. Once you’re done, you can easily collaborate with others, update the deck, and share a link with new clients.

How to Create a Capabilities Deck

As important as inspiration or enthusiasm are impactful marketing strategies, they are supported by far simpler practices: planning and documentation. Compiling details into a single source of truth allows all that inspiration and enthusiasm to be expressed exactly as you’ve intended.

The best way to do that is to write a marketing brief, a key touchpoint for marketing teams and their collaborators.

A marketing brief is a document that provides an overview of the various components and deadlines within a marketing campaign. Marketing teams write marketing briefs usually to serve a dual purpose:

 Briefs are an essential roadmap that provides the foundation for a campaign, keeping the marketing team grounded and working harmoniously to the benefit of the campaign itself, and avoiding the need to make major decisions midstream.

 Briefs serve as a reference for internal team members involved in the campaign, as well as any executive stakeholders or external clients who may not be involved in the day-to-day execution but require visibility.

Marketing briefs and creative briefs are close cousins, but they focus on different things and usually have different audiences. Creative briefs guide the development of creative assets—imagery, videos, and the like—while marketing briefs detail the deployment plan for those creative assets within a campaign.

What distinguishes a marketing brief from a glorified checklist? A combination of details, insight, and timing. In essence, good storytelling. Many of the elements in a standard brief are technical—capturing where and when certain pieces will be put into play—but the overall effect is a symphonic view of all the working parts.


Your marketing brief should include the following seven items.

Will the right name help kickstart your creative flow? Absolutely—but a campaign title is about more than a catchy moniker: it keeps your team on the same page and prevents confusion for anyone who might need to refer to the campaign during its various phases. Titles can be straightforward (“Spring/Summer Capsule 2023”) or cheeky (“World Domination”), and in most cases are for internal use only. When it’s time to share the campaign with the world, you’ll have another chance to give it an externally-facing name for media outlets to reference.


If your campaign is being created for an external stakeholder such as a client, this is a good place to provide background about their brand, especially as it relates to the campaign. Is this the first time your company, or your client, is doing something like this? If so, why? What is the overarching concept or story behind the campaign? Was it inspired by, or in response to, notable events or trends in your industry? Try to capture these contextual details around the product or service at the center of your campaign in a concise paragraph or bulleted list.

Next, identify the agreed-upon goals and objectives behind the campaign. Campaign objectives can be broad (“increase brand awareness”) as well as specific (“increase engagement by 10%), and elements of the campaign should tie back to these goals. Aim to provide a concise summary for each stated goal, along with any anticipated key performance indicators (KPIs) you plan to track. You’ll cover these in more detail in the final performance-related pages of your brief.

Stakeholders, those internal team members who are intimately involved in the campaign or will have final sign-off, are a critical piece of any marketing brief. Reserve a spot in your document to list any appropriate names alongside their position, contact information, and project roles and responsibilities.

Your campaign strategy should include an overview of your target audience and target market, that captures their demographic information, buying habits, and pain points, as well as the value propositions that address them. You’ll also want to outline the feelings you hope to elicit from your target audience, and the actions you want them to take as a result. These should map back to the objectives you established in the previous section.


Strategy in a marketing brief also contains messaging-specific dos and don’ts, like a list of key takeaways and talking points. If you’re launching a new product, which features do you plan to spotlight? Outlining these priorities, as well as any other considerations or guidelines, like style notes or press embargoes, also means your messaging stays consistent across the team. This may become important if multiple people will be sourcing talent or connections from their own networks.

Channel strategy is all about the “where” of your campaign, mapping how it will be distributed across multiple channels. This breakdown should include owned channels, like on-site blog posts and social media pages, as well as digital channels, broadcast channels like TV, podcasts, and radio, in-person events, along with device targeting or prioritization. 

Don’t worry about detailing out individual social media posts, here; the goal is to provide an overview of your guiding strategy for each channel, and the key moments that will serve as anchors throughout the campaign.

Next, chart any major deliverables, budget parameters, and flight dates on a timeline for at-a-glance alignment, listing project managers and teams responsible for each piece.

You already established campaign objectives and the high-level KPIs you’ll use as assess, but this is where you dive into the details of how you’ll measure campaign performance. If the goal is total sales, this will be relatively straightforward, but if the goal is brand awareness, how do you plan to measure it? Outline what you (or your client) should expect to see once the campaign has ended, or what analysis you plan to do post-mortem.

Marketing Campaign Brief

How to write an effective marketing brief in 5 essential steps

You’ve ironed out all the details of your great idea, and now it’s time to create a marketing brief that can be shared team-wide. The goal of a marketing brief, as stated above, is alignment, but it is also about efficiency: a well-written brief ideally eliminates repetitive questions about the campaign or its stages from team members with varying degrees of involvement.


This doesn’t mean your brief needs to be an exhaustive cache of answers, but it should give anyone reading it a strong sense of the impulses behind the campaign as well as the activation.


Here’s a step-by-step guide to building an effective, well-rounded marketing brief:

The first step to any marketing exercise is understanding your target audience, and with good reason: identifying who exactly you’re trying to reach will inform how and where you reach them.


Crafting buyer personas can be an effective way to condense all the relevant information like age, purchasing personality, income, and values into short, digestible paragraphs perfect for a brief format. Buyer personas are also easier to visualize for many people, and can help to communicate the reach of your campaign quicker and with less uncertainty.

Once you have a handle on your audience, it’s time to assess your positioning in the competitive landscape. What are the differentiating factors, and how can you use them to your advantage throughout your campaign? This strategic exercise may inform which creative content or channels you prioritize, and you should be prepared to speak to those decisions in your brief.

A great marketing strategy illuminates the connection between a problem and its proposed solution, and this relationship should be woven throughout your marketing brief, from the project description all the way through to how you plan to assess your results. Make sure to incorporate the creative strategy and details about asset usage into your brief, and gather input from all necessary stakeholders.

Once the plan has been greenlit, it’s time to compile a timeline for launch. This will require coordinating between various contributors to establish a realistic schedule of deliverables and necessary rounds of approval behind each component. For example, if you plan to go live with an announcement video on social media by a certain date, establish a work back schedule to identify the ideal deadlines for any creative components of the announcement.

Even if you only plan to share your marketing brief internally, it should align with brand voice and tone. Imbue your copy with humor or expertise or passion when appropriate; doing so will infuse all the details and mechanics with meaning, and make for a more compelling document to refer back to.


 allows you to chart every aspect of your marketing campaign in an elegant, easy-to-navigate interface designed for collaboration. With dynamic, customizable layouts and responsive tables and trackers, you can keep things high-level or dive into the minutia without sacrificing the flow of information. Tap into Tome’s AI-powered narrative guidance to tighten up project descriptions and talking points.

How to Write an Effective Marketing Brief

“A picture is worth a thousand words” is a cliché because it’s true. There’s a reason people need maps, blueprints, and storyboards — not just text — to grasp ideas. We’re visual thinkers, and that’s especially true when it comes to understanding design.


Whether someone is crafting a building, product, or piece of furniture, a design proposal can help creators convey their vision to clients in an engaging way. These visual documents help designers win business and keep everyone involved on the same page.

A design proposal is a document or presentation that creatives use to share an idea with clients. Graphic designers, architects, 

, and product designers are among the professionals who craft design proposals for projects.


Designers use this visual resource to align internal teams around a vision, close deals with prospective clients, or share a concept with existing clients. Design proposals use a combination of text, images, and sometimes other media to relay a concept and lay out a plan for execution. The best design proposals typically respond directly to the client’s needs and parameters for the project.

Sharing creative ideas is critical for Ben Uyeda, an architect, designer, and social media influencer who designs everything from furniture to hotels. He frequently creates design proposals for clients, including a recent presentation outlining his vision for an outdoor sofa.

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Design proposals differ based on the industry, project, and client expectations. But most contain the following key components:

Summarize the objectives of the design challenge and guidelines you’re working within. You may want to note the target audience or consumer.

Whether through a mood board or citing antecedents, give the client a sense of your design inspiration and the tone and feel you’re going for. Uyeda’s proposal cited the minimalist work of artist Donald Judd.

Describe elements that set your design solution apart. Include visuals — such as photos, sketches, or videos — to bring your idea to life.

Focus on design features that solve your client’s problems.

Share how much the final project will cost. Uyeda broke down the cost of the sofa frames and cushions separately.

Walk your client through next steps and milestones. For Uyeda, that included a focus group and prototype testing.

Tell your audience a bit about you, your team, or your firm, highlighting credentials and experience that make you attractive to them.

Share examples of past work, focusing on similar or notable projects.

Tips for creating a winning design proposal

Avoid cookie-cutter presentations. Instead, highlight the features and past experience that matter most to this particular client and project. Uyeda spoke to his client’s desire for a cost-effective piece in a modern minimalist style.

 As a designer, every visual document you share represents your brand. When conceiving your 

, use everything from color choice to font to tell a cohesive story that communicates your brand identity. Uyeda’s tome stuck to clean, neutral fonts and layouts that reflected his design aesthetic.

Be precise when describing scope, materials, timeline, and other factors to avoid miscommunication or surprises down the line. Uyeda attached specific months to his milestones.

Common mistakes to avoid when creating a proposal

Make sure you have sufficient information from your client about their goals and guidelines for the project. Otherwise, the design proposal could be off base, sending you back to the drawing board. And do your own thorough research to back up the proposal.

Questions always arise, but ensure your proposal provides the key information and visuals clients need to understand your idea and its components.

Offering a range of options when it comes to design and price can increase the chances that clients choose to work with you. Uyeda offered to increase the height of the frame or the thickness of the cushions and specified the associated cost.

Here are some of Uyeda’s tips for making the most of design proposals:

, customizing it with project-specific details and neutral colors that reflect his design sensibility. For him, having a starting point offers a productivity boost. “Starting with easy wins is always good for kicking off. It’s important to build that momentum,” he said.

Try professionally designed Tome templates

Project Proposal

RFP Response

Product Design Portfolio

Work Portfolio

Partnership Proposal Deck

 to source images for mood boards or other parts of the presentation. “AI generation is especially great for maintaining flow and building placeholders as you’re thinking, as well as in a collaborative meeting where you’re brainstorming. You don’t have to stop to search around the internet,” he said. “Often, AI generation is not about trying to create the perfect image; it's trying to shape the presentation so that people make better decisions.”

Ben Uyeda

Designer and Co-founder of HomeMade Modern

3. Replace meetings with recorded commentary.

, Uyeda can embed a video of himself on each page to walk his audience through the presentation. Instead of scheduling time-consuming meetings, he provides context and engages clients asynchronously. “Record narration literally changes a presentation deck into the meeting itself,” he said. “I can spend less time on scheduling and meetings and more time creating.”

Instead of circulating a static document, sharing a link to a tome allows Uyeda to gather feedback from stakeholders in one place. Once he adjusts the proposal, everyone can view edits in real time. “It’s not just a PDF that gets saved on someone’s hard drive and dies,” he said. “It’s an editable, live file where people can give all their feedback, write notes, or add a page with their own suggestions.”

Your designs showcase your creativity, but that doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch. Tome can help you craft an engaging design proposal that conveys your vision and stands out from the pack. Use Tome’s generative AI to populate 

 and collect design inspiration, and try the video narration tool in place of time-consuming meetings. Once you’re done, you can easily share a link with clients and collect feedback right in the tome.

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How to Create a Compelling Design Proposal

As an entrepreneur, there's no better feeling than having a firm grasp on who you are and what you're out to do in the world. Once this happens—and people have begun to notice—it helps to have a readily available resource that not only communicates that passion and expertise, but presents opportunities for collaboration.


For marketers, founders, and independent creators, a media kit is an indispensable tool in your quest for partnerships and quality press coverage. Here’s how to make one that stands out.

A media kit is a collection of promotional brand materials intended as a resource for those looking to learn more about what you do, or what your organization does. While media outlets are the most common target audience, that list can include potential brand partners, investors, and event organizers, too.


The purpose of a media kit is two-fold: to ensure an accurate and consistent portrayal of your brand wherever it appears, and to act as an abbreviated portfolio for you or your brand’s output. The specific end goal for a media kit may vary based on who’s making it—a 

, a nonprofit, or even an influencer. Here are a few scenarios in which a media kit can be useful:


For anyone in a marketing function at a company or organization (whether you’re a founder or a marketer), a media kit may be used to:

Provide details to potential investors during fundraising efforts

Secure brand partnerships or placement at an event

Provide examples of content capabilities for potential new clients

Media Kit

Media kit vs. press kit: Are they different?

A media kit may also be referred to as a 

, so don’t let it throw you off if you encounter either in the wild. Press kits get their name from the newsrooms in which they originated; these “kits” were ready-made packets of information and images that gave writers everything they needed to file a story. In modern parlance, the two are interchangeable: both serve as a comprehensive reference point for any earned media coverage or partnership compliance.

Media kits can be lengthy and comprehensive, or short and to-the-point, depending on the scope of your brand and what you’re hoping to achieve.


Short media kits may be one or two pages and function like a jumping-off point: they provide the basics, but require writers or potential partners to reach out for a follow-up. Lengthier and more in-depth media kits may cover all the bases so well that a reporter might feel comfortable generating content straight from the information presented. 

, for example, usually list everything a potential brand partner would want to know, like follower count and demographics, in a single infographic—which is what you might expect given their native platforms.


If you prefer to speak to any media outlet interested in covering your business, a shorter kit may allow for that, while providing a more comprehensive view of your company may lead to a higher quantity of published content, since writers will in most cases already have what they need.

A great media kit is one that manages to distill years of hustle and realization into impactful sound bites and images. It requires both reflection and a clear-eyed sense of your key takeaways. This is your chance to establish the narrative.


A media kit opens with the basics: who you are, what you do, and—if you can condense it into a tight sentence or two—why you do it. Aim for a short “about” section that tells your founding story, a high-level list of product features, awards, or recognition, and end with contact information: not just your email, address, and phone contact details, but where you can be found on various social media platforms as well.

Next, visuals. Ideally, this is a selection of high-resolution product imagery, founder, or team photos that a media outlet could plug into any potential coverage.

What you include depends on the type of business you’re showcasing. A start-up or foundation’s media kit might feature a brand video or product demos paired with a short supporting sentence or two, while an influencer’s selection might include recent hyperlinked campaigns that best represent their style and abilities.


If you can, include variations that give the recipient options; that might mean a simple product still as well as a few lifestyle shots. (And don’t forget to credit the photographers where appropriate—this will minimize any back-and-forth come press time.)

Brand assets, like your company logo or wordmark, should be included in editable file formats (.svg or .eps) for easy resizing. You may also want to include an official brand color palette, especially if you prefer that your assets only appear in certain shades in any promotional material.


Some brands also choose to provide the backstory behind their logo design, or an explainer on their typography choices and use cases, but it’s not a must-have.

Finally, highlight just how impactful your product is with social proof like reviews, testimonials, and social media engagement rates, or more in-depth call-outs like case studies and proprietary data. This makes it easy for writers to sing your praises—and showcase your best features.

If there’s a timely development you’re hoping to highlight, such as a product launch, new initiative, or event, your media kit may include press releases with the relevant information. Add it on as an addendum, then remove it when the event has passed.

How to make a media kit in four essential steps

The best thing about creating a media kit is that you’ve already done the hardest part of it: building something worthy of media attention. Putting together your kit is simply about curating a highlight reel. 

If the prospect of starting with a blank page seems overwhelming, think about leveraging AI for support. Tome's AI is designed to expedite your journey to a first draft. With prompts, you can effortlessly generate pages, text blocks, and visuals within seconds. Should you encounter writer's block, Tome’s narrative assistance can help the words flow faster.

Once you choose your creation tool, follow these four essential steps to create your media kit.

Make sure all logos and wordmarks are up to date and in the correct formats. If you have a robust asset library, choose the strongest option from each category. Founders: if you haven’t taken an updated headshot in a while, this is a good opportunity to do so!

How you format a media kit is just as important as what you include in it. Design is an important piece of how effective your media kit will be, and using media kit templates is the best way to ensure all the information is easy to read, and to navigate. Tome’s 

 begins with a fact sheet, followed by visuals, and ends with space for recent press coverage or testimonials.

Try these professionally designed Tome templates

Press Kit

Creator Media Kit

One Page Website

One-Page Elevator Pitch

Your media kit may be a collection of disparate materials, but it still needs to tell a story. Whether or not they’re aware of it, your readers will be looking for a narrative to follow. Think back to your brand’s inception, or the moment you struck out on your own: what first drew you to the work you do? Rather than hewing to a strict timeline that charts every twist and turn in your story, expand from your “why.” What gap in the market did you want to fill? Which perspective did you want to represent? Everything that follows—like press clippings, testimonials, and visuals—should underscore that initial impulse.

The easier it is for media outlets to find what they need, the easier it is for them to write about you. While some brands prefer to distribute their media kits upon request, many others choose to host a downloadable media kit on their website. This makes it readily accessible to anyone looking for it, eliminating any potential barriers to coverage.


If you don’t have a website yet, posting a link to your media kit to your social media bios is another option.

Crafting a modern media kit is less about shoehorning talking points into a stale template, and more about showcasing your organization’s (or your life’s) work on your own terms. Here are two examples from the Tome creator community.

, founded by WBNA player Layshia Clarendon, provides financial assistance, support, and resources to transgender and gender-nonconforming people, through community outreach, housing programs, and more.

In this case, the “who” is directly tied with the “why” of the foundation: the kit opens with a responsive video message from Layshia…

…directly followed by an embedded press release from an external (fully browsable) website that establishes the impact the foundation seeks to make.

In a departure from a more traditional brand media kit, the foundation presents the details of the various things they do as a call to action for the viewer, as befits a foundation looking to encourage a shift in the culture. Instead of static images or headshots, they’ve included value-driven graphics intended for social media sharing.


Contact details are preceded by a donation form—an example of how a media kit may cater to an audience beyond traditional media outlets, and function as a portfolio and condensed website in one.

Self-described “multi-passionate creative” Megan Batoon takes a more intimate approach in 

, with first person narration that leads the viewer through an infinite scroll of career highlights and general outlook—useful insights for any potential brand partner or media outlet who might consider featuring her.

Batoon’s kit also opens with a video; in this case, a compelling example of past brand work.

Media Kit Examples and How to Make One

High-performing sales teams are almost twice as likely to use artificial intelligence (AI) than underperforming sales teams. Why do high-performing teams love AI technology?


AI is a powerful lever for unlocking scale: by automating routine tasks and offering a jumpstart on generative work like writing emails or creating materials, AI allows sales reps to spend more time focused on what they do best—selling. 


Despite its potential, only one-third of respondents in a 

 reported their organization used generative AI—meaning there’s still time to get ahead of the curve. Still feeling like a newcomer and not sure where to get started? Below, we’ll walk through what AI for sales includes, and some of the best ways to use artificial intelligence in sales.

What is artificial intelligence (AI) in sales?

AI in sales is the application of artificial intelligence within the sales process to improve quality and efficiency. Different branches of AI include 

 (gen AI), machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP). Sales teams use each branch of AI in a variety of ways: to handle time-consuming data entry or data analysis, to create forecasts, to summarize data, to generate first drafts of communications, and even for onboarding and ongoing sales training. Because AI mimics human intelligence, it can automate certain tasks that would otherwise be done by a human, like creating a sales call recap with action items.

A common example of AI for sales is AI-enabled call recording software that accurately transcribes sales calls using natural language processing. Generative AI can then create a summary of what was said and provide feedback on your sales reps’ performance on the call. It could then aggregate data across many sales calls and provide insights about competitor mentions or keywords that signal higher quality leads.

The number one way AI can benefit sales teams is simple and impactful: it can increase revenue. It’s 

 that 84% of salespeople using generative AI say it increases sales by improving and accelerating customer interactions. McKinsey's research backs this up: companies that invest in AI see a 3–15% increase in revenue. 

Here’s how AI can contribute to the bottom line:

 As customers do increasing amounts of research before ever talking to a salesperson, sellers need to provide tailored insights, not just product information the customer has likely already seen online. With its ability to quickly analyze customer data, AI allows sales reps to quickly provide customers with personalized insights that would have otherwise taken hours of research.

 Predicting future revenue is a necessary but perennially difficult task for sales teams. Sales forecasts based on intuition are often incorrect, but forecasting using large amounts of data can be incredibly time-consuming. AI models are built to quickly ingest and analyze large datasets, so they can deliver data-driven forecasts in a fraction of the time it would take a human analyst.

 No sales rep wants to waste time going after leads that will never close. New AI-driven sales tech provides data-driven lead scoring with algorithms that factor in hundreds of customer data points to tell your reps exactly who to prioritize.

How sales teams can use AI: 7 applications of AI for sales

AI technology is transforming virtually every aspect of sales, . Here are seven applications that are saving leading sales teams time, effort, and headache:

A common example of AI for sales is lead generation. Arnie Gullov-Singh, fractional CRO at The Revenue Architect, uses generative AI to transform his prospecting spreadsheets into a custom database that he can query with natural language. “I like to use the GPT plug-in for Google Sheets,” Gullov-Singh says. “You can plug in a bunch of leads and have it tell you: what does this company do, what category are they in? Or you can give it a bunch of job titles and say, ‘What level are these people at?’”


In addition to data extraction and summarization, Gullov-Singh notes customization as a benefit of AI. “The cool thing about AI is that you can tell it which categories to use and then it will force-fit everything into your category tree, versus trying to use some third-party taxonomy that doesn’t make sense for your business.”

2. Customer relationship management (CRM)

Your customer relationship management (CRM) software should function as a gold mine of customer data, but it doesn’t always live up to its potential.


New AI features promise to solve some of the most common problems sales leaders have with their CRM: keeping the CRM up-to-date, and easily analyzing data within the CRM system.

Keeping the CRM updated is so time consuming it either cuts into the time sales reps could spend prospecting, or reps skip it altogether. One solution is AI-powered call tracking software, which automatically logs calls in your CRM database and provides a brief summary and action plan for each call.


Additionally, predictive lead scoring tools use machine learning to analyze customer data from your CRM plus other data points like company size and website and social media visits to predict how likely a lead is to close. The software then organizes your contacts into tiers of contact priority accordingly, helping you know which leads to prioritize.

Many sales teams use an information hub like Notion or Google Workspace to store documentation, but these tools can quickly lead to information overload, and reps may struggle to find the information they need when they need it. AI can quickly pull, summarize, and organize relevant data, so it makes sense to integrate the technology into your knowledge hub.

Tools like Notion and Coda now offer AI assistants. With Notion, you can ask the AI assistant to summarize, generate a meeting agenda, or find action items based on the contents of a page. You can also add an AI column to an existing table to generate output based on the information in each row. For example, your AI column prompt could be “Next steps based on initial sales pitch.” You could then use those AI results to draft your follow-up emails.

4. Writing assistant for high-volume outreach

he main way salespeople used generative AI. An AI writing assistant can save reps time by quickly generating copy for emails and other communications. For those tasked with a high volume of outreach, writing assistants can help them save time drafting and personalizing content.


, a large language model (LLM) trained by OpenAI to work in a dialogue with the user. Because it’s designed to work conversationally, you can ask ChatGPT to write a sales email and then provide feedback like “make it more formal” or “add a statistic from this report.”

Sales quotas are based on forecasts, but forecasting—predicting how much revenue your team will bring in each quarter—is a perennial challenge in sales, which can lead to a lack of confidence in team performance. 

Part of the problem is that quotas based on gut instinct often miss the mark, while data-based forecasting can take an incredible amount of human time and effort. AI sales forecasting tools can help you achieve a more accurate outlook and set more realistic goals in less time.


AI excels in processing and distilling large amounts of data. AI-powered revenue platform Clari uses historical data from your CRM to forecast revenue each week, month, and quarter. Clari also tracks individual deals, flagging those that may be at risk when they deviate from the characteristics of your company’s closed deals.

Elegant and eye-catching sales materials are integral to your go to market (GTM) motion. Potential customers want to see presentations, custom proposals, case studies, and more as they consider, but creating and personalizing these assets for prospects takes time.


 allows you to apply the power of a writing assistant to a multimedia presentation. 

Reps can prompt Tome’s AI to create a page, an image, or text in seconds, and pull from the branding on your website to customize the presentation.

 Materials don’t have to fit neatly into a traditional slide deck format, as Tome blends the page-flipping, visual format of a slide deck with the infinite scroll capability of a web page—and optimizes for mobile viewing.


 are also available for everything from a capabilities overview to a one-sheeter, allowing you to make the most of the tool’s innovative medium.

 process from onboarding to ongoing development by helping leaders provide coaching, role playing opportunities, and materials to their team—benefitting new hires and veteran reps alike.


AI sales coaches can provide real-time feedback and talking points during a sales call. That’s the premise of Dialpad’s Real-Time Assist feature, which transcribes calls as you speak and drops notes like “You’re speaking too fast, slow down!” throughout the call. It also shares relevant information when triggered by key phrases. Dialpad’s AI-assist feature is available with Premium sales center plans, which run $150/month when billed annually.

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Craft your next great idea.