An Australian company says business leaders are drowning in AI-generated emails, automated LinkedIn messages and screen-based meetings, and that the answer is to go back to something technology cannot copy, which is sitting across a table from another person.
DCMG, which stands for Dot Com Marketing Group, runs invitation-only executive roundtables that connect businesses with senior decision makers. Cofounder Nicholas Stavroulakis says companies are communicating more than ever while building fewer meaningful relationships.
Communicating at scale, connecting less
Stavroulakis and fellow cofounder Michael Galatoula argue that the next stage of business development involves going backwards. The firm is already running its roundtables internationally.
“We have AI writing the email, automation sending it, software deciding who receives it and another piece of technology following them up, then businesses wonder why nobody responds,” Stavroulakis said.
“We have become incredibly good at communicating at scale and increasingly bad at actually connecting with people. The future of business development may look surprisingly like 1950. You get the right people around a table, look them in the eye, listen to what they have to say and build a relationship.”
When everyone can send 100 personalised emails
Generative AI has sped up the production of emails, proposals and social posts, but Stavroulakis says efficiency has created its own problem. “When everyone can generate 100 personalised emails in minutes, receiving a personalised email doesn’t necessarily make somebody feel particularly special,” he said.
“People know that beautifully written message arriving in their inbox may have taken somebody 20 seconds to produce. We are generating more communication than ever, but more communication doesn’t automatically create more trust.”
Galatoula says senior executives are especially hard to reach with conventional digital sales approaches because they are already overwhelmed. “A CEO, CIO, CTO or senior executive doesn’t need another generic LinkedIn message saying somebody would love to connect and explore synergies,” he said. “They need a reason to give you their time, and once you have their time, you need to create a genuine relationship.”
Ten conversations over 1,000 leads
DCMG was founded after the pair grew frustrated with conventional events and lead generation that produced huge volumes of contacts without meaningful commercial relationships. Instead of big conferences or thousands of leads at the top of a sales funnel, the company runs smaller, closed-door sessions with carefully selected decision makers.
The company says around 80% of its revenue comes from repeat or referred customers. In one recent case, it says a client closed a deal within two months of an executive engagement, reportedly returning 25 times the investment.
“Businesses have become obsessed with numbers because numbers look impressive on dashboards. However, if none of those people genuinely wants to speak with you, what have you actually achieved,” Galatoula said.
“We would rather put a business around a table with ten relevant decision makers than give them a spreadsheet containing 1,000 people who don’t care.”
Not anti-AI
Stavroulakis stresses that DCMG is not against technology, noting that much of its client work is with technology companies across AI, software development, cloud security and enterprise solutions. His point is about what technology cannot replace.
“AI can identify a prospect, research a company, analyse a market and help you prepare for a meeting, but ultimately somebody still has to trust you enough to do business with you,” he said.
Galatoula believes the flood of automated messages could make genuine human interaction more valuable. “If your competitor sends 500 AI generated messages and you spend two hours having a meaningful conversation with the right ten people, which interaction is going to be remembered?” he said.
“Human attention is becoming scarce and scarcity creates value. The companies that understand this will stop asking how many people they can reach and start asking who they actually need to build a relationship with.”
Headquartered in Sydney, DCMG says on its website that it has worked across 8 countries and 25 major cities.