Rebecca Gonzalez
September 30th, 5:45 AM. A form submission lands in my inbox. It's from a hurricane protection company. They want HubSpot Starter. The source: ChatGPT.
Wait—ChatGPT?
Yep. HubSpot’s new AI Referral property confirmed it. This prospect didn’t come from Google, paid ads, or social. They came straight from a large language model.
By 6:15 AM, I was walking my dogs, watching this buyer interact with our site in real-time. By 6:24, he emailed to ask if he was even our ideal customer profile.
At 6:26, I did something that would make any Sales Manager twitch: I skipped the formal process and wrote, “Want to talk right now?”
He said yes.
At 6:27 AM, my phone rang. Ten minutes later, I realized this wasn’t a $50 Starter Plan deal. It was Marketing Pro + Sales Pro, and by 6:37 PM, it was closed.
That was the moment our inbound sales officially changed for me.
When a Lead Finds You Through AI, Everything Changes
Lesson #1: LLM-Sourced Leads Are Built Different
This buyer didn’t need a nurturing sequence. He’d already talked to HubSpot Sales the day before and used ChatGPT to evaluate every relevant HubSpot Partner. When we met, he wasn’t looking for validation. He was looking for execution.
Later, he shared his actual ChatGPT conversation with me and I saw how the AI had walked him through a mini discovery process, from budget, features, value alignment, and timeline, all before he ever filled out a form.
And here’s the kicker: he found us because ChatGPT recommended Orange Marketing by name.
It’s official. ChatGPT is your new SDR.
Lesson #2: Process Slows Down Fast Buyers
Everything about this deal looked small. Starter Plan. Early morning inquiry. Polite email. Traditional logic would’ve said: “Book it, prep it, pitch it later.”
Wrong.
When a buyer’s that fast, that responsive, and that clear, your play isn’t process: it’s speed.
I broke every rule, and it paid off big. The old inbound playbooks weren’t written for LLM-qualified buyers who already know what they want.
Sharon Spooler from Surgo Advisors said it perfectly in the comments on my LinkedIn post:
“Companies can lament the loss of traditional SEO traffic, or get busy preparing for the new world of AI-referred, AI-informed, bottom-of-funnel prospects who are ready to move fast. The sales process starts with prospect conversations with AI which is serving as a hybrid version of your website and your SDR team.”
Exactly. The AI is the top of the funnel now. The conversation starts long before you’re even aware of it.
Lesson #3: Founder-Led Sales Means Breaking the Rules
That 6:27 AM phone call? No prep, no deck, no Zoom. Just curiosity and instinct.
It worked because I didn’t waste time qualifying someone the old-fashioned way. I met the buyer where they were. He wasn’t in “exploration mode.” He was in “decision mode.”
The deal closed the same day. Kickoff started five business days later. Try doing that with a cold call.
HubSpot’s own data backs this up. At INBOUND Partner Day in September, they reported to us that traffic from LLMs converts three times faster, in less time, and at significantly higher deal value. The buyers have already adapted, the question is whether our sales process has.
The Broader Picture: B2B Sales Is Already Morphing
Matt Green from Sales Assembly recently shared some eye-opening data from HubSpot that stopped me in my tracks: overall deal creation is trending downward, yet win rates are climbing, and total pipeline value is holding firm.
In plain English? According to Green: buyers aren’t window shopping anymore. They’re doing their due diligence behind the scenes (reading peer reviews, watching demos on double speed, and asking ChatGPT which vendors make the cut) long before a form submission ever hits your inbox.
By the time they book a meeting, they’ve already eliminated most of the field and confirmed you’re worth serious consideration. You’re not meeting them at awareness; you’re meeting them at decision. And most of the time, you’ll never even know which competitors didn’t make it that far.
So What Needs to Change?
Most organizations are still staffed for volume in a world that’s moved to velocity.
Here’s what that means (again, paraphrasing Green's post):
- Redefine “qualified.” If a buyer books time in 2025, they’re already qualified. No one’s wasting 30 minutes unless they’ve done the research, confirmed the budget, and narrowed you to their top contenders.
- Shift your headcount model. You don’t need more SDRs. You need fewer, better AEs who can close consultatively and quickly.
- Rethink productivity metrics. Stop tracking call volume. Start measuring how fast qualified buyers move through your funnel.
- Rebuild comp plans for speed and quality. Reward reps for closing velocity and customer success, not just activity count.
Paraphrasing Green, three years from now, B2B sales orgs will look leaner, more senior, and more velocity-focused. You can get there ahead of the curve, or get dragged there after missing four straight quarters.
The New Reality of Inbound: Move Fast or Miss Out
Buyers are already adapting to the AI-assisted era of decision-making. They’re starting their research in ChatGPT, not Google. They’re qualifying themselves before they ever hit your form. And when they do, they’re ready to talk now.
So here’s the real question: When AI sends your next lead, which is already researched, budget-approved, and ready to buy, will you route it to an SDR queue, or will you pick up the phone?
Sometimes, the fastest path to revenue is still the oldest one.
6:27 AM never felt so good.
Next Step: Learn How to Market to AI
That 6:27 AM call wasn’t a fluke. It was a preview of where inbound is headed. Your next buyer won’t find you through search; they’ll ask an AI to recommend you.
If your content, site, and brand aren’t optimized for that, you’ll never even enter the conversation.
That’s why we wrote Marketing to AI: Your New Audience, our playbook for showing up where AIs make recommendations, structuring your content so models can read and rank it, and future-proofing your inbound strategy.
👉 Read the ebook: Marketing to AI: Your New Audience
