Scaling a new go-to-market without scaling the team
Gladly was undergoing a massive strategic shift. After building a successful omnichannel customer support platform over 10 years, they made a bold decision: to offer their AI layer as a standalone product, separate from their core platform. This opened enormous growth opportunities — but also created new go-to-market challenges.
The company needed to scale sales motions across new verticals and segments without linearly scaling their Solutions Engineering team. Their new SMB sales team needed to move quickly — closing 10–20 deals per week — but didn't have dedicated SE support. If sellers had complex product questions, their instinct was to disqualify the deal rather than spend time researching.
"We need to scale go-to-market motions without linearly scaling the SE team. The opportunity is: how do we empower sellers to be more independent?"
Training Hero like onboarding a new team member
Gladly deployed Hero as an AI teammate who could provide SE-level expertise without requiring an SE on every deal. The key insight was that Hero's value came not just from its capabilities, but from its ability to be trained with rich context — about products, brand narrative, and messaging — in a natural, conversational way.
Christian and his revenue leadership team spent about 8 hours doing a "brain dump" — uploading documentation, explaining why it mattered, and shaping how Hero should apply that knowledge to real sales situations. This wasn't just throwing PDFs at an AI; it was strategic knowledge transfer, similar to onboarding a new team member.
"What helped us accelerate and drive value faster was the ability to just sit down for a couple of hours and brain dump. We shaped it into how it actually applies to products, gave product architecture context. Out of maybe 8 hours of my time, Hero was good enough to answer an RFP."
Three ways Hero changed how Gladly operates
By deploying Hero strategically, Gladly achieved measurable efficiency gains while empowering their sales team to operate more independently in a rapidly evolving AI market.
Automated Sales Handoff
Hero generates comprehensive sales handoff documentation automatically, saving the Professional Services team approximately 4 hours of manual work per closed deal — translating to $1,000–$1,500 in labor savings per deal.
- Teams no longer manually comb through account notes and recordings
- Consistent, high-quality handoff documentation for every deal
- Faster time to value for new customers
Seller Independence
Hero exposes SE-level expertise to SMB sellers without requiring an SE on every deal. Sellers get help with product information, responding to RFIs, and preparing for forecasting calls — keeping them focused on what matters most.
- Saves sellers hours per week on prep and research
- Helps validate missing data and target the right personas
- Sellers can complete RFPs and answer technical questions independently
Leadership Deal Prep
Christian uses Hero to prepare for deal strategy meetings by quickly surfacing who they're talking to, what was said on the last call, and what the value map looks like — without manually reviewing recordings or digging through multiple systems.
- Key deal context surfaces automatically
- Quick access to engagement history and stakeholder information
- Leaders can prepare for strategy sessions in minutes, not hours
"Customer-centric, brand-centric AI only works when you give it the right context. Being able to inform it with brand context, teach it, query it, and evolve with it over time is really valuable. I've not seen other tools that really lean into that as much."
What Gladly learned about AI adoption in sales
Christian's experience deploying Hero revealed three principles that shaped how Gladly thinks about AI-driven transformation.
Flexibility drives adoption
The sellers who adopt AI fastest aren't defined by age — they're defined by their willingness to learn and try new approaches. They wake up every day wanting to learn something new.
Context is everything
Hero's ability to be trained with pre-existing context — brand narrative, product architecture, messaging — makes it uniquely powerful. AI that understands your narrative delivers outcomes generic tools simply can't match.
Choose tools that shave time
If AI adds complexity to a process, that's the opposite of what you need. The sweet spot is getting to a fast, educated, contextual outcome — ideally shaving time off every interaction, not adding to it.
Expanding to mid-market and beyond
Gladly plans to expand Hero to their mid-market team, where SEs are being leaned on too heavily. The goal is to continue scaling go-to-market motions without linearly scaling headcount — while maintaining the consultative, strategic approach that defines their sales process.
As Christian puts it: "This is a moment to be bold. Lean into the ambiguity. Test things out. Find those partners who will hop on a call and walk you through it. Position AI as helping your teams run faster and earn back time for the more impactful work they want to be doing anyway."
