MMS #76 - Sell More, Suck Less with Dale Dupree

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Mastering Modern Selling Relationships

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Social and AI in the buyer-centric age.

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Join host Brandon Lee, founder of Fist Bump, alongside

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Microsoft's number one social seller Carson V Heddy and Tom

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Burton, author of the Revenue Zone and co-founder of Leet

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Smart, as we explore the strategies and stories behind

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successful executives and sales professionals.

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Dive in to business growth, personal development and the

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pursuit of excellence with industry leaders.

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Whether you're a seasoned executive or an aspiring leader,

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this podcast is your backstage pass to today's business

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landscape.

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This is Mastering Modern Selling, brought to you by Fist

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Bump.

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Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to episode number 76, Mastering

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Modern Selling.

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We're all back.

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The technology is working, life is good.

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Speaker 3: It is all good.

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Speaker 2: It is all good.

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Hey, I had a number of people ask me that if you guys threw me

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off the show because I haven't been around for the last three

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weeks, Did you tell them?

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Speaker 3: not yet?

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Speaker 2: Not yet.

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Well, I told them that I was in the middle of contract

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negotiations.

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Speaker 4: It was a fierce standoff.

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You know, he was a holdout in training camp.

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This year it got nasty.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's from Unionized too, and that threw

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another layer into it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and after Brandon's deal that he got

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earlier I had to hold out.

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I mean, it's just, I don't know .

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Anyway we're all settled out, it's all good, everything's

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working again and we have a great guest today, dale Dupre,

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you're welcome, what's?

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Speaker 5: up guys.

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Speaker 3: Dale's sitting there wondering what the heck he got

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himself into now with these clowns.

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Speaker 4: Well, we told him to be fair.

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We told him in the green room expect bad jokes and just corny

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wet-as-things.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, if this is how it starts, I'm excited

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to see where it goes, beautiful.

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Speaker 4: He hasn't left us yet .

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 4: Well, if he makes any technical difficulties.

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We'll know why.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, no kidding.

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Yeah, Dale's gonna be going and then he's just gonna disappear

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and run and hide.

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But hey, welcome everybody on the podcast too.

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Thank you so much for joining us, and if you love what we talk

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about, we'd really appreciate a review man Snap a picture of on

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your phone, send it with somebody that could listen and

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enjoy us as well, and then to the live LinkedIn and YouTube

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and wherever else we are Facebook, X, whatever Appreciate

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you being here and, as always, we'd love to know who you are.

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Join the conversation.

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Please Throw in your comments, ask questions, tell us we're

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crazy, tell us we're right, whatever, I think we're gonna

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have some fun today.

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So, Tom, let's get going off to you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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So, dale, welcome again.

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Why don't we start off?

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Tell everybody a little bit about yourself, your background,

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why you're the rebel leader, and, yeah, we have some good

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topics today.

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Speaker 5: Sure, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about

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myself.

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Everybody's favorite thing to do, right?

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Speaker 2: So my name's Dale DePri.

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We've done a lot here, so you're right at home.

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Yeah.

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Speaker 5: My name's Dale DePri my friends.

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They call me the copier warrior .

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Not everybody knows that.

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It's a little known fact about me, but I spent 13 years in the

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copier industry selling you guessed it copy machines.

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Are you guys bored yet?

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Should I keep going at this point?

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Speaker 4: So is this the one after Larry Levine Cause I know

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there's a lot of people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say isn't that.

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Larry Levine's background as well.

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Speaker 5: Well, I think Larry like people would refer to Larry

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who was one of my mentors as ancient and I'm still young, so

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I know there's like some white in my beard, but Thank you for

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the donation.

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He definitely beat me to copy your sales for sure.

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He got there first, without a doubt.

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So actually you can find the copier warrior featured in

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selling from the heart as well too.

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Larry put it right up on me on there.

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God bless him.

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But my story really starts before the copier space doubled

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me alive.

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It starts back in the early days of me being born into the

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copier industry, if you will, with toner running through my

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veins, because in 1984, my father actually, who was a

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copier salesman, he decided to quit his corporate job working

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for the man, the big box store, and set off on a journey, on a

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pilgrimage to change the freaking game inside of the

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copier space and in doing so, like there's lots of details to

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this.

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Some of my favorite are that my father was an incredible

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football player and had scholarships to some of the

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greatest universities you've ever heard of in your life.

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This is the part where I make a joke about like Valencia

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Community College, but that would be bad.

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And then the service to my father, because we're talking

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like LSU, auburn, florida State, alabama.

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I mean, my dad was the goat to be.

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Tom Brady got lucky.

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You know what I'm saying.

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So unfortunately, my father got hurt in the process of all this.

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He was injured Like he had a neck injury to this day, like I

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still don't know how he lived with it and most doctors don't.

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I remember he got into a fender bender and went to a

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chiropractor and they did a scan of his neck and the guy came

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out like sweating and shaking, like you know, something

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happened here, and my dad's like yeah, it's a college football

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injury that I've had my whole life.

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You know what a crazy thought, right?

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So my dad really has, like he's been through the ringer, he was

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put through things.

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Ultimately that cost him pain his entire life, suffering his

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entire life.

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But he was always the most grateful person that you ever

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met.

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So here he is in this position where he can stay in school and

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kind of just like graduate and do his thing and kind of get

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through, you know, with his sports you know in the

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background of things because he'd sit on the bench or he

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could grab one of his friends convertibles from back in

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Orlando and drive down from East Tennessee and look for a job,

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which is exactly what he did.

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He became a copier salesman.

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He just started selling papers.

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So my dad is the original Dwight Shrut for anybody that's

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wondering.

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And then the process of that he graduated it to the bigger

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products became absolutely incredible at what it was that

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he did and just moved his way to the very top.

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And then, in the process of that experience, everything that

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all of us experienced the heartache, the hardship, sales

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isn't easy, you know, no matter where you're doing it, it's not

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easy kind of period.

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But when you're doing it inside of a culture where line is

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acceptable, and not just like in business but in like your

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personal life as well too, my dad had to do some things that

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he was never really proud of, and or he said no to things that

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he didn't want to do in the first place.

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And so for him it was hey look, either I go and start my own

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business or I suffer through, you know, being the top rep in

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an organization that I don't believe in at all.

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So he did what anybody would do already started his own

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business.

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Now what's cool about my father , too, is the integrity of this

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man was absolutely incredible, and you know, it's not just

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because he's my dad I'm saying these things, it's really

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because, like he was who we said that he was, and I'll get to

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that as we go.

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But he went to the, pulled up the map and went to the area

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like right on the edge of his non compete, which was a little

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county called Brevard, and he crossed over at a couple miles

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and he opened a business.

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Now, he didn't have a lot of relationships in this area.

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He did live in Ormond Beach.

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If any of my fellow Floridians out there are listening, my dad

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had his office in Titusville and he lived with my mom up in

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Ormond Beach but eventually relocated back into Orlando,

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which is where his original territory was and where his job,

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you know, kept him and and Belutia County was also his

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territory right, but he stayed out of it, just went straight

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into Brevard, like this unknown area, and so I'm going to sell

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coffee machines and, as you can imagine, everybody and their mom

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came after him.

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You know non compete cease and desist, and my dad's like cool,

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like I don't understand.

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I did everything I was supposed to do that you guys told me to

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do.

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I've acted with integrity, so I'm going to keep going my thing

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29 years.

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My dad ran that company and in the early stages, you know,

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because, again, I was born into this so in 1985, boom, I'm in

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the world.

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My dad brought us to work and treated work as if it was part

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of the just the progression of life.

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You know he looked at his employees as family and I know a

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lot of people hate that because they say, yeah well, my family

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fired me and left me up to dry.

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Like my dad was the guy that you wanted to work for.

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He wasn't the person that was out slashing departments and

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telling people they had two weeks left at their job out of

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nowhere.

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He just did a fantastic job of being something much more

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appropriate and when it comes to the way that he lived his

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business life and he lived his personal life, there was no

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skeletons and there was no differences.

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So I grew up wandering the halls of this company.

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I would sit with, like the finance people probably not the

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most like compliant or smartest thing to do to have, like your

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six year old son, like writing the checks, you know that are

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going out, but you know, here, sign these for your dad.

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We'll just say it was your dad.

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It was good times.

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I remember those, those memories specifically very

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vividly because it felt as if I was being welcomed into

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something and that I was never, you know, being told that this

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is off limits, or maybe when you're older, whatever the case,

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right.

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So my dad really ran a family business because of that, but,

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as the prodigal son which is what I call myself sometimes, I

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turned the business down at 17 years old.

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I turned my.

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I had my own sports scholarships.

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I turned this down to and I came to my parents and said, hey

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, I'm going to start a band and tour the United States and get

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signed to a record label.

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And they said we love you, good luck, and we got your back

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which most parents don't say and this is why I point that out

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Never got pushed back from them.

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I never got told hey, man, you got all these scholarships,

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though, like, what's the point?

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You know and doing that too.

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So instead I was adamantly supported by my, my, my father

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and my mother.

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After 52 days on the on the road , I learned some of the greatest

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sales lessons of my career, and I didn't really apply, you know

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, the identity of what sales was at that point in time.

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But as I started to learn the B2B space, I realized, man, I've

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been sales most of my all.

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My career, quite frankly, outside of sales, even in that

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like life, is sales, which is part of the rebellion's creed

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and, ultimately, our founding principles.

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So in this process of going and playing music, I actually ended

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up getting signed to a record label.

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I've got albums all over the world.

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You know I'm living the literal dream that most people want to

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live, except for the fact that music is not what people tell

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you and you can be on the Billboard 100 and be broke as a

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drum.

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It's kind of the bottom line right.

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So even though I was, I was saving money, we were making

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money.

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Things seemed to be going in the right direction.

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I was also on the road a lot.

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There's a lot of promiscuity on the on the road, lots of issues

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around like drug and alcohol abuse.

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You know most musicians will tell you these things and

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ultimately it was.

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It was the drug side of things and somebody in my band that

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really started to open my eyes to like I don't want to live

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this kind of life.

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And the prodigal son returned.

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I came crawling back to my father and said don't get a

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degree, I didn't go for any of my scholarships and now here I

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am, five years later, going what are we going to do with my life

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?

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And so I wrote my dad a seven page like dissertation about why

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he should hire me.

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And he came back to me and said yeah, you can work here, but

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you can get a pick from two jobs .

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You can be the janitor, you can be in sales, but you have to

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start at the bottom.

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And now to him, you know, was like the way to work yourself up

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inside of the organization.

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So you know, as fate would would have it, I chose sales.

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The janitor thing sounded awesome.

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Quite frankly, I just wasn't that into it, so I chose sales

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instead.

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And the rest is history.

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I spent 13 years in the copier space.

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Like I said earlier, by the time that 2019 had rolled around

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, I had earned every accolade in the book, had done more than I

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ever thought I would do.

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I had clients all over the world international clients,

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local clients.

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I had kind of experienced business on another level that

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most people don't, and because of that, I started to get the

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vision of entrepreneurialism and , you know, living out my

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father's footsteps.

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So I took the leap and I started a sales training company

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.

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But I had the vision, ultimately , of this idea of building a

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community and a movement, and what I mean by that is that when

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I founded the sales rebellion, it wasn't like, hey, we're going

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to coach and train people.

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I founded the sales rebellion and said, hey, we're going to go

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find the silent majority of the people that don't really have a

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home because of the principles and, ultimately, the ethics that

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we lead with, and that they're not very popular.

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What's popular is the Wolf of Wall Street, right.

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What's popular is this completely different identity of

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sales in most cases, that I wanted to bring something

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different to the world that I had experienced, not just

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through my father and the way that he sold and mentored me,

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but also the way that I had created my own success to build

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up my own legacy just the same.

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So I founded the rebellion in 2019.

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It's been a wild ride.

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Our five-year anniversary was this month on the first, so

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we're officially at the mark.

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I think 60% of businesses fail at this point, so I've at least

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made it this far.

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So maybe I've become a statistic a little bit later,

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but right now I'm doing good.

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Things are great.

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So hey, and really please go ahead.

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Speaker 2: I just quick question .

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Going back to your music days, you had mentioned something

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about being a great sales experience.

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What would you say is like the key sales takeaway you grabbed

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from your rockstar days?

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Speaker 5: So if you can imagine that every night you're playing

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in a new place, especially when it's your first couple of times

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through these major cities or small cities, even at that, no

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matter what, you're a stranger to these communities.

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And so every night you're literally cold calling.

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You show up to an event slash venue and nobody knows who you

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are.

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Maybe they bought your CDs and they know who you are to some

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capacity, but they really don't know you.

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All right, and maybe they're there to be convinced of

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something, or yeah, let's go check these guys out and see if

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they're any good.

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But no matter how you look at it, you're kind of like in a

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room with a bunch of strangers.

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So in the early stages, when we were nobody at all, those first

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52 days that I spent on the road we're actually with, we

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convinced right is probably the best word to use, which you know

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is a sales topic right to some capacity these other two bands

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that go on tour with us even better than that.

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Here's another.

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Just look into how good I am at sales, without being too

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statistical right now.

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We convinced these guys also when they got to the first show

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to let us ride in their tour vans, because we didn't have one

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, we had a pickup truck.

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And so, like the night, the first night in Orlando after our

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show, with like 500, 600 people , and these guys were on like

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cloud nine, like oh, it's gonna be a great tour, and we're like,

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hey, can we put two guys in your van?

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And two guys?

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I mean, it was like it was a moment and we convinced them and

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they said yes, and then we hit the road right.

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But so there was a lot of, ultimately, a lot of lessons.

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But the thing that to me feels the most like familiar for

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people listening is that I'd walk into a room with a bunch of

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strange people that I had to engage.

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So I'd walk up to them with a backpack on a bunch of burned

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CDs for those of you that can remember those days in my

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backpack and these little like sleeves that were red and pink

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and blue and orange that we bought it best by right.

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And I would walk up to people with a literal Walkman and

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headphones and say, hey, we're playing tonight.

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My name's Dale.

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I would introduce myself where'd you guys come from?

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Do you live here?

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Try to get to know people.

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I'd ask them if they would listen to the music before we

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played and if they liked it, I'd say, hey, I can sell you a CD

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right now for five bucks, and I got these stickers with them too

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.

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And so I was literally engaging people selling to them like

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complete strangers and hoping ultimately, that they'd stick

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around and watch us play at the same time too.

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So there was a lot of strategy ultimately in like building

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community because of that, and not just being there like to

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push a product or to sell something, but ultimately to

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like pull at the heartstrings of people, connect with them

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emotionally, create impact and ultimately give them an

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experience that they've never had before.

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No, that was the key learning for me from a sales perspective.

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Speaker 4: Tom.

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The other big similarity between the music business and

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sales is that, if you believe the Wolf of Wall Street, there's

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a lot of promiscuity and drugs and alcohol in sales too.

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I do want to jump in, dale on the sales rebellion and really

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get at the heart of what sets the sales rebellion apart.

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I love the web design.

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The website design hashtag choose legendary Like.

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What's the approach and what have you learned over the last

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five years Engaging with people and teams?

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Speaker 5: Great question.

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So for me, it kind of started with this identity of okay, cool

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, so as the copy your warrior, where did my success really come

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from?

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Did it come from just like slamming the metrics, so making

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like thousands of calls every day, or did it come from the

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status quo style of selling?

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Or where did it ultimately really come from?

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And as I started to build that out, even in my own mind, as I

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was just like literally experimenting as a copy your

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sales person, I recognized some things like, number one being

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that I created a personal brand Like.

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So when I said that my friends call me the copier warrior, I

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mean it that I literally had, and you can check it out

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copierwarriorcom.

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I still have the old website up from so many years ago.

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I had my own personal brand, I had my own TV commercial, I had

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everything you could possibly imagine from a marketing and

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advertising and branding standpoint, and I was super

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creative.

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So nothing about what I did was mediocre, vanilla or status quo

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at all.

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I wore my heart on my sleeve.

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The same Dale Dupree that was out on tour in his band was the

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same Dale Dupree that was rocking the streets and knocking

00:17:49
doors down, as they like to say , and meeting people.

00:17:52
But ultimately my big goal which is another piece of what

00:17:56
sets the sales rebellion apart was to build community.

00:17:58
Like.

00:17:58
I'm not in sales to be transactional.

00:18:00
I'm in sales to leave a legacy.

00:18:01
I'm in sales to build something that's worth more than money to

00:18:05
myself.

00:18:06
I'm in sales to allow other people to also ultimately

00:18:10
prosper because I have something for them that they don't know

00:18:13
about because of my ingenuity, because of my tenacity, because

00:18:17
of the way that I see the sale and the first place so

00:18:20
differently than everybody else that you know, like, if sales is

00:18:23
linear, it's like follow these five steps.

00:18:26
You know, you could call me.

00:18:27
You wouldn't even be able to say that I'm abstract.

00:18:30
I'm probably beyond that.

00:18:31
Whatever word describes something beyond that.

00:18:34
Because to me it's meeting people where they are.

00:18:36
To me it's putting people over products.

00:18:38
To me it's putting community over commission checks.

00:18:41
To me it's why would I ever pitch somebody when I can give

00:18:44
them an experience, something tangible, something they can

00:18:47
hold on to, something they can believe in, something that

00:18:48
disrupts what sales people typically do to them, so they

00:18:52
see the authenticity of Dale and they buy into that ultimately

00:18:55
themselves.

00:18:56
I'm not selling them anything.

00:18:57
When that happens, it's them doing the selling in those

00:19:00
moments.

00:19:00
So that'd be it in a nutshell, if I could say I think, great

00:19:04
sellers.

00:19:05
Speaker 4: it's like musicians it is an art and I love the way

00:19:08
that you approach your craft.

00:19:10
I got to ask from a musician perspective, what instrument or

00:19:14
instruments do you play and what's your favorite song or

00:19:17
style to play?

00:19:20
Speaker 5: So the band was heavy metal.

00:19:22
For anybody that is curious, you can just type in my name in

00:19:25
Imperial like Star Wars, and you'll find the music.

00:19:30
We're still out there.

00:19:31
Brothers owned us, so they have all my well, I have my

00:19:34
publishing rights.

00:19:35
If you're out there and you're a musician, own your publishing

00:19:38
rights.

00:19:38
When you're on your publishing rights, everything changes,

00:19:42
everything is better.

00:19:42
But I digress.

00:19:44
The idea of metal kind of derives from this identity of

00:19:49
emotion.

00:19:50
So metalism like people look at metal as this loud, crazy thing

00:19:53
.

00:19:53
Like metal is like its own rebellion against the traditions

00:19:58
.

00:19:58
It is a place that people go because they're tormented.

00:20:01
It's a place that people go because they don't fit in.

00:20:03
It's a place that people go because their mom told them that

00:20:06
they had to stop smoking cigarettes.

00:20:09
You're like whatever the case.

00:20:10
But again, it's like a nontraditional place that people

00:20:13
meet and find each other ultimately, and so I was

00:20:16
attracted to the community side of it.

00:20:18
And some of the community side of it is that there's gangs and

00:20:21
violence.

00:20:21
It gets a little intense right.

00:20:23
But when I learned the derivative, when I learned, like

00:20:26
, really where metal derives from, I should say it comes from

00:20:30
this even deeper place.

00:20:32
Blues is really where, like, this whole idea of metal comes

00:20:36
from, which starts as the blues turns into shock rock Maybe some

00:20:40
of you have heard of Screamin' Jay Hawkins or Alice Cooper is a

00:20:43
good one as well too that kind of took this traditional way of

00:20:47
doing something like the blues or jazz, even at that, and

00:20:51
taking scales and notes and patterns and making them just

00:20:55
like a little angrier.

00:20:56
This is a back process and really going out and getting in

00:21:00
people's face with what they're doing so that people will listen

00:21:03
and that people would absorb and people would get involved

00:21:06
with the message.

00:21:07
So that's my like super philosophical outlook on music.

00:21:10
I sang for the band.

00:21:11
I would tell you that I play pretty much every instrument.

00:21:15
Am I good at them?

00:21:16
Like?

00:21:16
Nah, not.

00:21:17
Like.

00:21:17
I'm pretty good at the guitar I was pretty good at drums at one

00:21:20
point.

00:21:21
It's pretty good at a couple of things, but you know I've

00:21:23
picked anything up and tried it, at least you know.

00:21:26
And occasionally when somebody was like too high or too drunk

00:21:29
to record something, I would do it for them, right.

00:21:32
But for the most part it was mostly just vocals on my end,

00:21:36
and that's really where my passion is Cool.

00:21:39
Speaker 2: I have a quick comment and, brandon, I know you

00:21:40
have a question I wanna jump in with, but what I heard you say,

00:21:44
dale, going back to what you were talking about about, you

00:21:47
know, sales, rebellion and what you're doing with sales is and

00:21:51
correct me if I'm hearing this wrong is you're really trying to

00:21:54
give purpose to sales.

00:21:57
I think a lot of people look at sales as a job, right, or

00:22:01
something that I do, but I really like the way to make

00:22:05
money.

00:22:05
But what I heard you say is sales can be a real purpose, a

00:22:09
real passion, not just because I'm trying to sell something and

00:22:12
make money, but you're really improving somebody's life.

00:22:15
You're improving, creating an experience.

00:22:17
You know, obviously nothing starts until somebody buys

00:22:20
something, right, so you're kind of creating that.

00:22:24
Am I hearing you right?

00:22:25
Is that really a kind of a key premise or framework behind the

00:22:29
rebellion approach?

00:22:31
Speaker 5: Yeah, without a doubt .

00:22:32
So, even when Carson was asking about like some of the language

00:22:34
that we use, so I'd come up with the concept of like,

00:22:36
choosing legendary as the idea of allowing people to kind of

00:22:40
lean into, ultimately, this concept of what is your legacy

00:22:44
and that's your leaving on a daily basis.

00:22:46
So if I'm to choose legendary, I'm choosing to impact people

00:22:50
beyond just a transaction and, ultimately, I'm choosing to

00:22:53
build a legacy for myself that other people don't just

00:22:56
experience, like they are influenced by to an extent where

00:22:59
they look at us.

00:23:01
And this can tie back pretty easily to my father real quick

00:23:04
that I can just kind of like get back to the point that I was

00:23:06
making earlier about who he was and his integrity and how he

00:23:09
impacted people.

00:23:10
But fortunately, I lost my father in 2016 to cancer and at

00:23:14
his funeral I was the person that gave the eulogy of the sun.

00:23:17
So I was tired to do that.

00:23:18
It was pretty difficult.

00:23:19
My dad was my best friend.

00:23:20
He still is, you know, in my heart.

00:23:22
He was my best friend.

00:23:23
He's the reason that I am everything that I am today.

00:23:26
There's no other person that both have been like my father,

00:23:30
and standing up on that stage was probably one of the most

00:23:33
intimidating moments of my life.

00:23:34
But I was like ready to do it and prior to I sit in the front

00:23:38
of the crowd of the audience and just like dialed in for hours,

00:23:43
like I got there hours early and just like sat down and just

00:23:46
chilled would be a good way to put it and and just thought you

00:23:50
know what am I going to say, how am I going to say it?

00:23:52
I wrote most of it down and and just went through that process

00:23:55
over and over in my head until the pastor said Dale, come on up

00:23:59
on stage.

00:23:59
And I walked up on stage and I'm telling you I've never seen

00:24:03
something so impactful in my life with my own two eyes.

00:24:06
I looked out on what you know.

00:24:09
I had heard the commotion, but I looked out on for the first

00:24:13
time what was just like a literal sea of people.

00:24:15
There was like thousands of people in this room so to pay

00:24:19
respects and homage to a guy that sold copy machines, right,

00:24:23
that was like what he was.

00:24:25
He wasn't a politician, he wasn't you know some big fancy

00:24:28
name in the community, but like to those people he absolutely

00:24:32
was.

00:24:32
And and at first I even thought like we're having some kind of

00:24:35
like wedding crashers thing happen here, like these people

00:24:37
are in the wrong place, so they're just here for the free

00:24:39
food or something right, like.

00:24:40
But people for for hours, for like literally seven, six, seven

00:24:44
hours straight after the funeral.

00:24:47
We stuck around and listened to story after story and people

00:24:50
saying things like that your father was an awesome person.

00:24:53
He sold me my first copy machine.

00:24:55
You know I met you when you were this young.

00:24:57
You know that lots of great stories but people didn't, you

00:24:59
know, follow that up with.

00:25:00
Like your dad changed my life.

00:25:02
He made me think about things differently.

00:25:04
His compassion, the way that he carried himself, he prayed for

00:25:08
me one time because I was having a hard day.

00:25:10
I got diagnosed with cancer and told your father and his

00:25:14
reaction was incredible and he was so supportive of me and you

00:25:17
know, he brought us dinner one night.

00:25:19
I mean there's just all kinds of stories.

00:25:21
Ultimately that came out of that and I like to say it's my

00:25:24
big fish moment.

00:25:25
I know you all mentioned movies earlier so maybe you've seen

00:25:27
that movie where I didn't like have a disbelief in the, in the

00:25:32
idea that my dad had done these incredible things through his

00:25:34
sales.

00:25:34
I never really missed or seen them, because my father believed

00:25:38
that you know, in his version of choosing legendary, that all

00:25:43
things in life that he decided to do, whether personal, private

00:25:46
or public, that they would all kind of be in a way that that

00:25:51
reflected a servant leadership mindset where he didn't need any

00:25:55
kind of you know, praise or or his status to be changed because

00:26:03
of his actions.

00:26:03
He needed zero gratification through the process of people

00:26:08
even saying thank you.

00:26:08
Like my dad did so much for the community in a way that he

00:26:13
never wanted to take a drop of the credit, so that it to the

00:26:19
extent that it just had literally changed people's lives

00:26:21
.

00:26:21
And again, like we never heard the stories because he didn't

00:26:25
come home like, hey, what I just did for these people.

00:26:28
So being in that room in that moment at his funeral, seeing

00:26:31
the evidence of his life, was powerful and it changed the way

00:26:36
I thought about sales.

00:26:37
That day, that moment, I already thought sales was the

00:26:39
greatest job in the world, but after that I knew it was the

00:26:42
greatest job.

00:26:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what I really I mean.

00:26:44
First of all, dale, thank you for sharing that personal story

00:26:48
and your personal journey, and you know what I'm hearing you

00:26:51
say and for salespeople out there is that you know yourself

00:26:57
and you've led yourself and I like that phrase that you're

00:27:01
selling the way you choose to show up as you're human and

00:27:06
sales is your vocation, but you're showing up as Dale and

00:27:10
then you're applying it into sales and I think you know as we

00:27:14
, as we're moving more and more into this chaos and change in

00:27:18
the sales industry.

00:27:19
You know, we just came out of the predictive revenue model

00:27:22
where everything was more Wolf of Wall Street pound the phone

00:27:25
and hit your numbers and all that.

00:27:27
I think we're moving into this more relationship building, this

00:27:33
building rapport, staying top of mind with people is we talk

00:27:39
about.

00:27:39
You know how do we attract and retain attention and being in

00:27:43
front of people and being genuine.

00:27:45
I think what you're talking about is a great model for

00:27:50
people to know yourself so you know how to show up in sales,

00:27:54
because if you don't know yourself, you don't know how you

00:27:57
want to show up in sales.

00:27:58
You're just going to follow whatever the latest five step

00:28:00
program is and go pound away at the phones.

00:28:05
So I really appreciate that.

00:28:07
Tell us a little bit, like I think you laid a really strong

00:28:10
foundation.

00:28:11
You've got a strong why you saw your father's legacy.

00:28:15
How are you leading either sales professionals or sales

00:28:20
teams to actually be able to do this in a world where there's so

00:28:24
much pressure to hit your 30 day goals and hit your quote of

00:28:29
outreach for the day and all those other things?

00:28:31
And you're saying you're going.

00:28:32
I created a personal brand and then I became, you know, the

00:28:37
copier warrior and all this stuff.

00:28:39
How do you get people to be able to come to peace with this

00:28:44
way of doing sales?

00:28:47
Speaker 5: But it's quite simple .

00:28:49
We literally just teach them to rebel.

00:28:52
We teach them to look at the way that the world is telling

00:28:54
them to hold the sales standard flag and run with it, you know,

00:28:58
into traffic, basically, and we say drop it.

00:29:01
Like, get rid of that, stop running in that direction, stop

00:29:04
doing what other people tell you to do, that they think is right

00:29:06
for you, and start doing exactly what it is that you know

00:29:09
in your heart that you're supposed to be doing in the

00:29:11
first place.

00:29:12
Sales leaders hate us.

00:29:13
Like if I can be candid about it like they because they love

00:29:16
our message.

00:29:16
Like who doesn't love the message of ultimately being

00:29:19
having purpose in your life and being something that rises above

00:29:23
the fray?

00:29:23
Like I think that the rebellion speaks to a lot of people, but

00:29:26
at the same time, those same people, they turn around and

00:29:29
they go.

00:29:29
Yeah, but I could never let my people do this because I'd take

00:29:32
too much time on LinkedIn writing content and you know

00:29:36
whatever like a curmudgeon thing that might come out of their

00:29:38
mouths.

00:29:39
But but I'll tell you right now that the ones that do commit to

00:29:42
us, they commit to us because they care about their people,

00:29:45
because they want their people to be better, because they

00:29:47
ultimately understand that they're playing a short game,

00:29:50
one that's ruled by the, the, the identity of, of the metric

00:29:55
right, which is now this thing that you know.

00:29:57
People are pretending like they have a grass one, but they

00:30:00
don't, and they haven't.

00:30:01
Since 2020, to be quite right, people have been been going like

00:30:05
, yeah, things are, things got crazy and really good, and then,

00:30:08
all of a sudden, one year later , and they're like I don't know

00:30:11
what's happening.

00:30:11
We just fired 17% of our workforce.

00:30:14
Like, it is a literal roller coaster right now based on this

00:30:17
thing like the metric, inside of again the identity of the

00:30:21
status quo of sales, and because of it, it's ruining everything.

00:30:25
Like you have more turnover with sales departments that

00:30:28
you've ever seen before, just because of like we don't have

00:30:31
the money, or or we're not getting the results right, like

00:30:35
and and to me, like that's a travesty and a shame ultimately,

00:30:38
but for the reps, like they don't have to live under that

00:30:41
standard.

00:30:41
There's plenty of leaders out there that think like this and,

00:30:44
ultimately, if a rep takes control of their own life in the

00:30:46
process and they're over here, like obeying the metric to some

00:30:50
extent to make sure that the boss is satisfied and happy.

00:30:54
What we do and what we teach them over here to be so

00:30:56
different, to use creativity and their approach to connect with

00:31:00
people on a completely different level, to rebel actually gets

00:31:04
them results pretty quickly too.

00:31:05
In most cases we don't guarantee that.

00:31:07
I hate saying it because we don't want people to think that

00:31:10
it happens quick.

00:31:10
Some it happens in six months, some it happens in six days.

00:31:13
I mean, it's really different for everybody, Right, but what

00:31:16
happens is is their boss is like yo, what are you doing?

00:31:18
Great job.

00:31:19
You know, keep pounding the, keep pounding the phone and then

00:31:21
on the in the meantime, you know back with us and like our

00:31:25
secret rebel hideaway, it's like the truth comes out and it's

00:31:27
like I didn't get jacked from the phone.

00:31:29
I didn't get jacked from those emails.

00:31:30
I got everything from sending a crumpled letter or a cutting

00:31:34
board.

00:31:35
You know with the person's.

00:31:36
You know company, like etched into the whole thing with like a

00:31:40
little note that says hey just wanted to see if we can carve

00:31:43
out some time and build a relationship, and you know these

00:31:46
are the types of things that people ultimately connect with

00:31:49
and because of that we're seeing things like, you know, a rep

00:31:52
all the way from like Betty Crocker or like the Flying J gas

00:31:56
stations, right?

00:31:57
Or you know the the big, like Walmart brand, tyson brand type

00:32:03
organizations taking meetings with companies they never would

00:32:06
have taken before, ever period.

00:32:09
Right, we're watching that kind of success happen for reps all

00:32:12
over the place, all the way down to reps just winning like they

00:32:16
should be right, like walking into a small family practice

00:32:19
that's like a law firm or a doctor's office and and meeting,

00:32:24
you know, in the midst of 12 people, meeting the decision

00:32:27
maker more effectively, more efficiently and in a prosperous

00:32:30
way, instead of it being this game that we're all playing and

00:32:34
fighting against each other and wanting to like keep our job as

00:32:36
salespeople right.

00:32:37
So I know it was a little bit of a tie right there.

00:32:39
But again, just going back to the identity ultimately of how

00:32:42
we help people do it is that we say like, hey, everything you're

00:32:45
doing now it sucks and we'll teach you how to do it different

00:32:50
and rebel, but you have to be committed to that.

00:32:52
You have to understand that you will most likely be told that

00:32:55
what you're doing is dumb, like I was.

00:32:57
You will most likely be made fun of.

00:32:58
You will be told by your peers like I would never try that,

00:33:01
like that's exactly why you should do it, because without

00:33:04
risk there is no great reward and ultimately living in comfort

00:33:07
gets you absolutely nowhere in life.

00:33:10
Speaker 4: And I feel like I need to listen to this in the

00:33:12
mornings to get myself pumped up .

00:33:15
I've been a sales rebel for a long time too.

00:33:17
You know I've always done things very differently than the

00:33:20
norm and the fold and I've always tried to take a step back

00:33:23
and really prioritize people and process and resources and

00:33:27
really understand, like, what's the total addressable market

00:33:30
here and how can I like, be bold and go out and get it right.

00:33:33
Go meet the right people, say the right things, but build

00:33:37
relationships at the heart of it .

00:33:38
What would you say?

00:33:40
You know, because you basically everything that you just summed

00:33:42
up, like I feel like every seller needs to hear.

00:33:44
What are sellers today doing that you that we collectively

00:33:48
need to get them to stop doing, like people listening, watching

00:33:51
right now.

00:33:52
What do they need to stop doing and do instead?

00:33:57
Speaker 5: So if I like, if I'm going to hone in and like,

00:33:58
really double down on something right now which I do quite often

00:34:01
I would say the first thing is, like, the way that we prospect

00:34:03
it sucks.

00:34:04
It's terrible that this idea of like let's go to this big data

00:34:08
company and buy this list of saturated leads or people that,

00:34:12
like, don't even exist at these companies anymore, and then like

00:34:15
and now and this is where we we literally put people into

00:34:18
positions to fail right?

00:34:19
This is where we really fail people as leaders.

00:34:21
And the first place like oh no, here's your, here's your list.

00:34:24
Call on these people.

00:34:25
I swear the data is good.

00:34:27
You know it's like well, we haven't paid.

00:34:28
You know we paid 15 grand for it five years ago and, and

00:34:31
everybody's going, we got to get our return office thing.

00:34:34
You know, like there's no realistic perspective here,

00:34:36
right?

00:34:36
So if we again like, there's a lot of components to why we do

00:34:39
it wrong, but I think the biggest issue is that so many

00:34:42
people are like do 100 calls today?

00:34:43
Here's a great success story.

00:34:44
I can't wait for this kid to have more success with this as

00:34:47
well, too, and come out and tell the world what he's done at his

00:34:50
organization.

00:34:51
He works at a startup.

00:34:52
These guys, basically, when they brought him in, they said,

00:34:54
okay, and he's never been in sales before, by the way, it's

00:34:57
been a ministry, all these other things.

00:34:58
That would be like the literal opposite of what you would think

00:35:01
you would pull into a startup.

00:35:02
So I applauded them for hiring him in the first place.

00:35:05
That's a great way to take a risk on a person.

00:35:06
But he comes through our system thinking like I'm going to like

00:35:09
learn how to make my 100 calls a day better.

00:35:12
And we and when we he gets there, day one we're like nah,

00:35:16
dude, that's, we don't even do 100 calls a day.

00:35:18
Like we're going to do a total of 100 people that you're going

00:35:22
to get in front of, like that's how we look at it.

00:35:24
And, of course, like at first his bosses were like it's a

00:35:27
little crazy.

00:35:28
That's not how we've always done it, you know.

00:35:31
So this is uncomfortable for us , but what he has proven in a

00:35:36
very short amount of time six weeks, I think is that so he

00:35:41
started.

00:35:41
We have a as an example, we have a product called the crumpled

00:35:45
letter.

00:35:45
You can go to crumpled lettercom if you want to check

00:35:47
it out.

00:35:47
It's a very minimal investment for a rep to make to basically

00:35:52
set themselves apart inside of the industry.

00:35:54
And we do it on purpose.

00:35:55
You know like we want to provide reps an opportunity to

00:35:58
basically say like you know, what I'm doing sucks or it's not

00:36:01
working the way I want it to for myself.

00:36:03
Stop worrying about what your leader thinks In the first place

00:36:05
.

00:36:05
Like start with you.

00:36:06
Like, if you're not filling up your cup, then how can we be the

00:36:09
best in the first place?

00:36:10
So if you have somebody telling you like do 100 dollars every

00:36:13
day and you're just literally allowing that to saturate your

00:36:16
passion, your outlook on life, your sales walk, that sucks and

00:36:19
you should get away from that.

00:36:20
Right.

00:36:20
But but I digress, coming back to the crumpled letter, we use

00:36:24
these.

00:36:24
We take 100 people as an example and we have a whole

00:36:27
sequence that we put them through.

00:36:28
We have up to seven total letters.

00:36:30
The crumbled letter is just one of them and essentially we put

00:36:33
people through an experiential motion, right.

00:36:35
And the questions that we get on this is like, how are you

00:36:38
sending the crumbled letter to people?

00:36:39
We use their addresses, well.

00:36:40
What about people that work from home?

00:36:41
Well, we send them to their houses or we send it to their

00:36:45
office and it gets forward to their house.

00:36:46
Like there's all kind of there's digitizing mail, there's all

00:36:48
these different rules that, like , people just don't know about,

00:36:52
right, in the first place.

00:36:53
So there's like there's a big picture of perspective here that

00:36:56
a lot of people are missing because they're doing it the

00:36:58
same way they've always done it, they're comfortable with that.

00:37:00
They don't even know what's happening outside of their own

00:37:04
little bubble in the first place , right.

00:37:06
But again, like I digress back to this story, this rap, he

00:37:08
starts sending out these letters to I think he started with 70

00:37:12
people to get to get going.

00:37:13
He starts making his first round of calls, get somebody on

00:37:16
the phone, has a response on like anything that the company

00:37:19
has ever heard before, where, basically and this is the best

00:37:23
part the data that they had on the organization was wrong,

00:37:26
completely wrong.

00:37:27
Right, it was completely unqualified.

00:37:29
But this person had such a good experience through getting this

00:37:35
letter in the mail, opening it and going through this little

00:37:38
adventure that he created for them.

00:37:40
But by the time he called, this guy was waiting for him.

00:37:42
It was hard and had ideas already of like hey, in our

00:37:46
network, here's some people I can hook you up with you know,

00:37:49
like he was already ready for this, and imagine that you were

00:37:52
to send it to somebody that was qualified.

00:37:54
It's kind of the thought process and that as well too,

00:37:56
and it really it is a complete disruption to the typical way

00:38:00
that we do prospecting.

00:38:01
Now that hurts a lot of people's feelings when we say

00:38:04
this kind of thing.

00:38:05
You know especially all of our friends out there that do a lot

00:38:07
of cold calling.

00:38:08
We love you guys, we respect you guys, but ultimately you got

00:38:11
to start thinking bigger in the way that we approach life and

00:38:15
the way that we approach business and how things are

00:38:17
evolving in 2024.

00:38:18
If we don't get back to this identity of building community,

00:38:20
building networks, building sustainability, and we just keep

00:38:23
burning through 10 people a month because that's what we've

00:38:27
always done, we will burn our businesses down in the process.

00:38:31
Speaker 3: Well, you're going to burn your people down in the

00:38:33
process, right, which is what's happening a lot, why burnout is

00:38:37
so high and all that.

00:38:39
And I love that, dale.

00:38:40
I'm sorry, carson, I know you were going to ask something, I

00:38:42
just couldn't help myself.

00:38:44
Speaker 2: No you're good, I was actually going to echo what

00:38:47
Dale just said.

00:38:48
Speaker 4: You know I ran a call center years ago and I mean I

00:38:50
had people that were patting themselves on the back for

00:38:52
making 400 dials in a day.

00:38:53
My best rep made 12, you know, because she got everyone to

00:38:57
answer, she closed multiple deals a day because she was

00:39:01
having the best conversations.

00:39:02
I couldn't care less about total number of dials.

00:39:04
It's all about quality of relationship and quality of

00:39:07
message.

00:39:08
And you know, I think the other element is when I started doing

00:39:11
social selling and leveraging it to create relationships with

00:39:14
line of business leaders that nobody in my company was talking

00:39:17
about, my manager was brand new and didn't get it and actually

00:39:21
went after me because I wasn't doing things like everybody else

00:39:24
was doing.

00:39:24
And then, thankfully, I got a better manager and won every

00:39:27
award that was humanly possible in the company.

00:39:30
So it just goes to show that you've got to buck the system

00:39:33
sometimes while you're building that reputation.

00:39:36
Now people will let me do whatever I want from a

00:39:39
prospecting perspective, but I had to earn my way there to be a

00:39:43
respected rebel.

00:39:45
Speaker 2: But what I like about the rebel though you know we

00:39:49
talk a lot about, right, the buyer is different.

00:39:51
The buyer journey is different.

00:39:53
What you're talking about, Dale , and what certainly what we

00:39:57
talk about being rebels is actually way better for the

00:40:01
customer and the buyer too.

00:40:02
Right, it's not only better for the salesperson, but the fact

00:40:06
is that's what the customer or the prospect of the buyer really

00:40:08
wants.

00:40:09
They don't want the cold calls, they don't want the emails,

00:40:11
they don't.

00:40:12
None of us want all that stuff is buyers.

00:40:15
So we're actually doing a service not only to ourselves,

00:40:18
the salespeople, but we're doing a service to our customers and

00:40:21
our prospects and our buyers.

00:40:24
Speaker 3: But you know go ahead , Brandon.

00:40:26
Well, I was going to say we have the comment in LinkedIn

00:40:29
before LinkedIn went down.

00:40:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, we must have crashed their servers is the

00:40:32
only thing I can think of.

00:40:34
Speaker 3: That sense of community is something that

00:40:37
people love and that's what you're building.

00:40:41
That's what you're you're promoting with sellers is to

00:40:44
think differently.

00:40:45
You did it when you were the warrior, the copier warrior.

00:40:48
Like you, you've called it a personal brand, but really you

00:40:51
built a community, you've.

00:40:53
You built a sense of belonging and people wanted to be a part

00:40:57
of that.

00:40:57
I mean, you were selling a commodity, you were selling a

00:41:00
printer and toner, but they wanted to be a part of this

00:41:04
world, this experience that you were creating, and more so now

00:41:09
than ever.

00:41:09
The buyer and experience from soup to nuts is what's important

00:41:15
, because sales has become a commodity.

00:41:17
There's so much competition out there.

00:41:19
How do you give them an experience and help them feel

00:41:23
like they want to be a part of something?

00:41:29
Speaker 5: Yeah, I, when I, when I think about the word

00:41:32
experience, I think the first thing that comes to mind is is

00:41:34
that most people they in general , I should say we hear words and

00:41:40
we kind of put our own meaning to them and like so this is.

00:41:44
I loved what Tom was saying because the first thing that I

00:41:48
sat down and thought about was what I was selling copiers was.

00:41:51
You know not what's going to give me more appointments and

00:41:54
make people buy.

00:41:54
But the first thing I thought about was what are the negative

00:41:58
stereotypes of my industry?

00:41:59
Like, when people hear the word copier, company or salesman,

00:42:03
what do they think?

00:42:04
And in the negative sense.

00:42:06
And then what do they think in the positive sense.

00:42:08
So some of the first places that I like to go from a

00:42:10
foundational standpoint, because I personally believe that

00:42:13
everybody hates sales and I stand behind that, no matter

00:42:17
what people say.

00:42:17
Like I stand behind that statement because I can like

00:42:21
drill into it enough that you'll admit it too, Because listen to

00:42:24
anybody that's watching right now.

00:42:26
That's like I love sales, Okay, cool.

00:42:28
So the next time you get a call at 625 pm, at in the evening,

00:42:33
when you're sitting with your family having dinner by yourself

00:42:36
, watching Netflix or whatever the case, and on the other line

00:42:38
is a young, bright, strapping gentleman or lady that says, hey

00:42:42
, you know, have this great opportunity for you to buy a

00:42:45
timeshare or go on a cruise.

00:42:46
Or you know, hey, the car dealership down the street

00:42:49
having a great sale this weekend .

00:42:51
Entertain that call, right, Because who does like?

00:42:54
How many people get a call from a cruise line?

00:42:56
They're like oh, like in middle of biting a sandwich.

00:42:59
Hold on Everybody, leave the room.

00:43:02
I need to take this sales call.

00:43:04
Kids be quiet for 20 minutes.

00:43:06
And they're like nobody does that.

00:43:07
So inherently, we all hate sales because, ultimately,

00:43:10
what's how we look at sales and perceive sales is negative.

00:43:13
You see it as a place where people come to interrupt us.

00:43:17
We see it as as something that's very self serving for the

00:43:21
individual on the other side and I know that there's a

00:43:22
difference between, like selling us an HR SaaS product and

00:43:26
selling, you know, a cruise down in Miami.

00:43:29
Right, I know there's a difference between that, but

00:43:31
ultimately, again, these things all they crash together.

00:43:34
So, even if I'm, if I'm selling something different than the

00:43:37
cruise, because of this inherent nature of people not liking

00:43:40
sales and the experience that they've had at some point in

00:43:45
their life for the salesperson.

00:43:46
They will project it on you and you tell them what you do

00:43:50
Period, Right.

00:43:50
So if we can start in those places, then it's easier to

00:43:53
overcome them.

00:43:54
So I said, okay, a sales person walks in this front door and the

00:43:57
experience they give is hi, I'm with this company.

00:44:01
Take me to your leader.

00:44:02
I'd like to set 15 minutes and discuss your leases.

00:44:06
You know, this is like a literal way that every single

00:44:09
cell and they got the site seller in hand.

00:44:12
They open it up and pull some stuff out and they grab a card

00:44:16
and like this was and sure, people are listening to this

00:44:18
like wow, you're old.

00:44:19
Like yeah, this was like literally like five years ago.

00:44:22
People did this, you know, like it's been around for a hot

00:44:25
minute, right.

00:44:26
But again, like in my industry, I found the stereotypes back in

00:44:29
2009, 2010, when I was like in my prime and had been in the

00:44:33
industry for a couple of years and said, cool, so what if I

00:44:35
walked in with a crumpled up piece of paper that looked like

00:44:37
trash and I handed it to somebody and I said, hey, I know

00:44:40
you throw sales marketing stuff away.

00:44:42
You know when you get handed it .

00:44:44
So I pre crumpled this one to make it easier for you and and

00:44:48
people loved it and they said, oh, that speaks to me.

00:44:51
All that that hits a literal nerve and it helps me to feel a

00:44:55
familiarity and that you get it and that proactive approach

00:44:58
around understanding how I feel makes me think that I'm

00:45:03
important to you.

00:45:04
Now you got to prove that right .

00:45:05
You got to prove and you know, earn that trust and credibility.

00:45:08
But this is a great starting point.

00:45:10
And so when I say the word experience, a lot of people

00:45:11
think like Disney, or they think you know on the opposite

00:45:17
spectrum, that they think calling the 1-800 number and

00:45:20
like having to sit through hours of hole just to talk to 17

00:45:23
people to finally get what you want right.

00:45:26
There's a lot of people here.

00:45:27
That word a lot of different ways, but ultimately a good

00:45:30
experience puts the, the receiver, at the forefront of

00:45:37
what's happening.

00:45:38
So whoever is experiencing what's happening is the most

00:45:42
important part.

00:45:42
So, like when we design experiences in the rebellion,

00:45:45
that's how we do it we sit back and say cool.

00:45:48
So if I was getting a wallet in the mail, I was like what is

00:45:52
this?

00:45:52
What's going to make me curious , what's going to make it feel

00:45:55
familiar.

00:45:56
What's going to cause me to be done with this wallet and go?

00:45:59
This is the most clever, authentic thing that I've ever

00:46:02
seen in my life, and I need to call this person.

00:46:06
What is that formula?

00:46:08
And that formula again, like from an experiential standpoint

00:46:10
it puts the other person first, which is what we try to do in

00:46:14
the rebellion, that's what we try to teach rebels in the first

00:46:17
place.

00:46:17
But ultimately it's going back to what Tom was saying, that

00:46:21
we're here to serve people the way we would want to be served.

00:46:25
If I can't, if I read an email before I send it and ask myself

00:46:29
would I reply to this?

00:46:30
It's a great lesson, right, Because if I make a cold call

00:46:33
and I go, how would I respond to this?

00:46:35
I can put myself in that person's shoes.

00:46:38
It's just, to some extent, I can put myself in that person's

00:46:40
shoes, right.

00:46:40
But then what I think like?

00:46:41
Well, what if my mom is on the other side?

00:46:43
What if my best friend is on the other side?

00:46:45
What if this person, that's, my neighbor, who, like hates

00:46:47
people, is on the other side?

00:46:49
What would they say?

00:46:49
To those moments too?

00:46:51
And the more that we could be aware, the better our

00:46:53
experiences become.

00:46:55
Speaker 3: That makes me think of one of the questions that

00:46:57
we've stumbled upon and we like to ask, especially when we're

00:47:00
talking to C-suite is, you know, based on your behavior as a

00:47:06
buyer and your team's behavior as sellers, would you ever talk

00:47:13
to one of your own salespeople?

00:47:14
Basically, would you buy from your own company and I did it

00:47:21
today with somebody in a C-suite and he goes that's really

00:47:24
interesting.

00:47:25
I could honestly say no, I would not.

00:47:27
Why are you doing it?

00:47:30
Why is your sales team sell that way?

00:47:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just because the status quo right.

00:47:39
It's what we've been taught to do, so we assume that is the

00:47:44
status quo of what is we're supposed to do, even though we

00:47:48
know very well it's not going to work or the chances of it

00:47:51
working are very low.

00:47:53
Speaker 3: Hey Carson, I'm curious how would Dale's

00:47:58
approach and model work inside of Microsoft and I know you're

00:48:03
unique within Microsoft, but what Dale's talking about is

00:48:06
pretty rebellious, it's pretty extreme.

00:48:08
Would that work?

00:48:09
Would that play, would it even would you get fired?

00:48:14
Speaker 4: It would totally depend and I'm going to say a

00:48:16
broad statement about just large companies or cloud companies or

00:48:20
however you want to say it but it does work because I've

00:48:27
leveraged some of the things that I know Dale does and talks

00:48:30
about, and I know that doing things that are radically

00:48:34
different can absolutely work.

00:48:37
But to your to kind of the earlier talk track, I also know

00:48:40
what it has taken to develop a reputation and a platform that I

00:48:45
now have within tech and cloud that has that level of

00:48:50
credibility, like it's kind of one of those things that people

00:48:52
probably would say like yeah, I mean, if Carson says it works in

00:48:56
this space, it works.

00:48:58
But there's a lot of times where I will train and coach and show

00:49:01
some of these unorthodox ways to go out and create net

00:49:04
relationships to do exactly what Dale said earlier, and this is

00:49:07
something that really resonated Look at the reasons why a

00:49:11
customer or a prospect won't take the meeting or don't want

00:49:15
to meet with you or dislike salespeople and take a counter

00:49:18
intuitive approach to that.

00:49:20
That is exactly what I tried to construct 10 years ago when I

00:49:23
started working here, was I listened to the reasons that

00:49:26
people didn't want to meet with me and I infused that into the

00:49:30
ways and the reason and the value and the resources that I

00:49:33
showed up with, and that is how I started being able to get the

00:49:36
meetings that I wanted and needed.

00:49:37
So in pockets.

00:49:39
Yes, it absolutely will work, but it requires people to

00:49:42
actually have an open mind.

00:49:43
It requires people to be sick of the status quo or the bad

00:49:48
results that they're not satisfied with, in order to make

00:49:50
a radical change and to end a bet on a process that could make

00:49:54
their results better.

00:49:56
A lot of decisions are very metric driven.

00:49:59
You know Dale touched on this too there's a lot of very metric

00:50:02
driven decisions, but you've got to get us in these old ways

00:50:07
of going after the metric and buy into a new way of doing it.

00:50:15
Speaker 2: As we kind of wrap up here, Dale, kind of a final

00:50:18
question for you Are there any industries in particular and

00:50:21
maybe this kind of ties into what you were asking, Brandon

00:50:24
Are there any industries that you're seeing that are becoming

00:50:28
a bit more rebellious faster and some that are kind of really

00:50:33
pushing hard and pushing back against some of the rebellious

00:50:36
sort of approaches that you're that you bring to the table?

00:50:46
Speaker 5: I thought at first you were asking Carson again.

00:50:48
I was like I'm really interested to hear his answer.

00:50:53
Speaker 2: Whoever wants to answer it's totally fine.

00:50:57
Speaker 5: If I can start, though, with this, that, just

00:51:02
based on, like, what I was hearing Carson saying to, I

00:51:05
elatched to it pretty heavily and it had been like cycling it

00:51:08
through my head.

00:51:09
We have a rep that came through our program.

00:51:12
We allow individual contributors come to our program

00:51:14
.

00:51:14
It's one thing we do a little bit different than most of the

00:51:16
other groups out there too, that a lot of folks don't want to

00:51:19
take on individual contributors because it's and I'd say it can

00:51:21
be a lot, it can be very time consuming, it's not very

00:51:24
profitable, it's kind of the ultimate thought of like we put

00:51:27
people over product and profit, right, so for us it's a mission,

00:51:30
and so we had an individual contributor come through and he

00:51:34
represented Google.

00:51:35
Everybody's started Google, right, that's a big company, and

00:51:39
like what he did was so ingenious that you know his team

00:51:44
of 10 plus people on the enterprise side, his boss, his

00:51:48
boss's boss.

00:51:49
Everybody sat back and was like , wow, this is really great,

00:51:55
this is really cool.

00:51:56
You're getting responses from people that we never got, and

00:51:58
these are people that like every for anybody listening that

00:52:00
doesn't understand how enterprise works inside of

00:52:02
something like Google, these are people that, every eight to 12

00:52:05
months, their literal account list gets, like, taken from them

00:52:08
and they get a new one Like well, it's been a year, here's

00:52:12
your new assignments of accounts .

00:52:14
So it's hard to do.

00:52:15
What we're talking about, even and this would be like where are

00:52:19
the experiences that we design differentiate in a way that even

00:52:22
, like, if you're in that kind of position, it's valuable for

00:52:26
you, especially if, ultimately, your goal is to impact people

00:52:30
and to build a legacy for yourself, because, like, imagine

00:52:33
priming somebody up so well through the nurturing

00:52:36
experiences, the sequencing, through the way that you make

00:52:41
somebody the center of attention , as we'd like to say that, when

00:52:45
the next rep comes along, that they're actually kind of excited

00:52:48
to hear from somebody at that like, oh, what's up?

00:52:51
You know, unfortunately, like it might be a little bit of a

00:52:55
let down over time when they realize you're not sending them

00:52:58
really cool stuff, like this last person did, or being more

00:53:02
of a of a rebellious spirit inside of the relationship that

00:53:05
you're creating with them.

00:53:06
But you know, what's interesting about that statement

00:53:09
, though, too, is that we've also seen, at big companies like

00:53:11
Amazon and Google, where we've trained reps, we've seen those

00:53:15
new reps come to the last rep and go what did you do here?

00:53:19
These people are like way different than anybody else on

00:53:24
the list that I've ever inherited.

00:53:26
Like this is awesome.

00:53:28
Can you teach me and really like that's to me?

00:53:31
That's how we, we create better outcomes for everybody.

00:53:34
Because whether or not, like the boss is buying in, whether or

00:53:36
not the company is is is all about it, right, whether or not

00:53:41
there's there is a what's the word permission like to do these

00:53:46
things right, no matter what it's what's right, it's really

00:53:51
the, the kind of the bottom line and like what's right is what's

00:53:53
hard.

00:53:54
What's hard is is typically, you know, the thing that we

00:53:57
wanna try and we wanna do.

00:53:59
But you know we tend to, even when we try at once, we tend to

00:54:02
kind of walk away from it.

00:54:03
So it's commitment, you know like.

00:54:04
So I would say you know, from the perspective again of even

00:54:08
like what I'm so latched to what cars were saying.

00:54:10
So it was just poignant and perfect, right, like it's

00:54:13
exactly what we deal with on a daily basis.

00:54:15
From the perspective of again like why should people do this

00:54:19
and and and will it work with their organization?

00:54:21
Like it comes down to nobody cares as much as you Like,

00:54:26
period, nobody cares as much as you.

00:54:29
So so, being caught up in this idea of, like, what kind of

00:54:33
experience should I give, and should I tell my boss about the

00:54:36
experience I'm giving, and do I need permission in the first

00:54:39
place?

00:54:39
Like I would just simply tell people to rebel, I would simply

00:54:42
tell people that, yes, you need accountability in this process,

00:54:45
and I'm not telling you that, like, you should get fired from

00:54:47
your job because you did something they told you not to

00:54:49
do.

00:54:50
What I'm telling you is that no one has ever come to you and

00:54:52
said, no, you can't send a crumpled letter.

00:54:54
They'll come to you later when they find out you're sending

00:54:56
them and be like, what are you doing?

00:54:57
But nobody comes to you preemptively and says that.

00:55:01
So, like, take the risk, watch the fruit of that risk as well

00:55:05
too.

00:55:05
Enjoy it, bask and bathe in it and remind yourself why you're

00:55:09
in sales through that process.

00:55:11
Because what this does is it opens a door to what sales

00:55:15
ultimately and truly is.

00:55:17
It is the greatest job in the freaking world hands down.

00:55:20
And if you already feel that way about it in the first place,

00:55:24
imagine what happens when you let this into your life to begin

00:55:29
with.

00:55:29
And so if you're out there and you're thinking about what Tom

00:55:32
is asking, about what Brandon and Carson are saying about this

00:55:34
whole dialogue like take the risk, rebel, choose the

00:55:37
legendary, create a sense of wonder for those who seek to

00:55:40
serve and stop being a monotonous, robotic sales room.

00:55:44
That's all there is to it.

00:55:46
Speaker 2: I feel you need the good Wilson Breakfast Club

00:55:49
moment.

00:55:52
Speaker 4: That's it right there Pow.

00:55:55
Speaker 2: No, I mean this has been Dale, very, to me very

00:55:59
inspiring If I look back Carson and Brandon, to what we're 76

00:56:04
episodes in we started with social selling and I don't know

00:56:08
how we're going to get different changes we've had in social

00:56:12
selling.

00:56:13
All of that, from the beginning, has been doing stuff different.

00:56:15
It's been rebelling against the process.

00:56:18
We've certainly had a lot of comments pro-encon over the

00:56:23
months on this, but it's been really inspiring, dale, to

00:56:27
listen to your passion of this and how you're bringing it to

00:56:31
the people and you're really slapping them upside the head a

00:56:35
few times and going, all right, look at the world different.

00:56:38
And again, thank you, it's been very inspiring and very, very

00:56:42
insightful.

00:56:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what it's made me think of and I know

00:56:46
we're going over, but in 2016, I spoke at Sales 2.0 Conference

00:56:54
I think it was and I got laughed at on stage because of what I

00:56:59
was talking about and I backed down.

00:57:03
I had one person that tweeted Brandon, something like Brandon

00:57:08
pissing off the audience.

00:57:09
You know we speak in truth because the audience is

00:57:12
rebelling, but I let it back me down.

00:57:15
I thought, oh my gosh, I must be wrong, I'm not fitting in or

00:57:19
whatever, and I backed down and it took me years to get back on

00:57:23
that horse.

00:57:24
It was end of 2020 where I went .

00:57:28
I know this works because there's real human beings on the

00:57:32
other end and we stopped treating people on the other

00:57:35
side like they were real human beings.

00:57:37
And so kudos to you for, first of all, what a blessing to have

00:57:42
the family you had to give you that foundation.

00:57:45
What I hear is a man who knows himself and is comfortable with

00:57:49
living within it.

00:57:50
And now you're going in and you're influencing sales people.

00:57:54
It's their vocation, but really what you're doing is teaching

00:57:58
them how to embrace who they are and leave a legacy, because

00:58:03
they're embracing it better and that, my friend, was worth

00:58:07
everything having you on the show.

00:58:10
Speaker 4: Powerful Good stuff.

00:58:12
Somewhere some bad manager is watching this and saying you

00:58:15
rebel, scum.

00:58:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, he stopped watching us about 30 minutes ago

00:58:20
.

00:58:21
Speaker 2: Maybe that's how LinkedIn crashed.

00:58:22
We had too many people protesting.

00:58:25
Speaker 4: And to slide in the Star Wars reference, it was low

00:58:28
hanging fruit.

00:58:30
Speaker 5: It was and it also is literally how I came up with

00:58:34
the name For the companies.

00:58:35
Speaker 4: I love it.

00:58:36
Speaker 5: I love Star.

00:58:37
Speaker 4: Wars.

00:58:37
It's my favorite Star Wars film , Dale.

00:58:40
Speaker 5: That's a loaded question because I grew up on

00:58:44
the EWALK movies that I used to go down to College Park video

00:58:49
right around the corner from Blockbuster and check out and

00:58:52
rent like myself, with my allowance money and I'd watch

00:58:55
them for five days straight the caravan of courage and the

00:58:59
battle for indoor and then I would take them back and I'd

00:59:01
save my money of it and I'd do it again and again.

00:59:03
But I found that EWALK movies because of the first three films

00:59:07
and Return of the Jedi.

00:59:09
I loved Return of the Jedi so much.

00:59:11
I definitely think that Empire Strikes Back.

00:59:15
Look at us.

00:59:15
I definitely think that Empire Strikes Back is a really

00:59:18
beautiful film and definitely one of the best cinematic

00:59:21
stories ever told.

00:59:22
But Return of the Jedi is all the right stuff.

00:59:25
It's the right amount of sci-fi , it's the right amount of

00:59:29
battling, space battles, the whole nine yards lightsaber

00:59:33
fight between Luke and Darth Vader.

00:59:35
That's way better than the Empire fight.

00:59:37
I mean it's just got a lot of great elements.

00:59:39
But Rogue One came out and when Rogue One came out I literally

00:59:44
I'm in the theater with all my family and all my friends

00:59:47
because Star Wars is like.

00:59:48
My mom showed me Star Wars, she loves Star Wars.

00:59:50
So to go to the movie.

00:59:52
I watched Episode 1, 2, and 3 in the theaters with her.

00:59:54
They're all right in movies.

00:59:56
I was a teenager when they came out so it was like these are

00:59:59
cool, but this is kind of strange, right?

01:00:01
But when Rogue One came out, after we had just got done

01:00:05
watching this brand new story of Rey and all these people, that

01:00:08
made it feel like the original film, but with much better

01:00:11
quality.

01:00:11
Right?

01:00:12
When I watched Rogue One, dude, I sat in the theater crying at

01:00:17
the end of this movie, just like it was everything I dreamed a

01:00:21
Star Wars movie could potentially become.

01:00:23
So that long, long long long, long, long, long long.

01:00:26
Speaker 3: I thought it was I love it, I love it.

01:00:27
Tom, you better, Carson, you better check us out.

01:00:31
This is our longest episode.

01:00:33
Speaker 2: Before we go.

01:00:33
Dale, if someone wants to learn more about what you do and the

01:00:37
rebellion, where should they go?

01:00:38
Where should they find more about you?

01:00:41
Speaker 5: Yeah, they can head over to salesrebellioncom.

01:00:43
If you want to see a bunch of my almost 500 guest podcasts at

01:00:48
this point, you just Google by name and the sales rebellion as

01:00:51
well, too.

01:00:52
And if you want to see my content feeds, go to any social

01:00:55
platform.

01:00:56
I'm LinkedIn, it's LinkedIncom, backslash.

01:00:58
I in backslash copy or warrior.

01:01:00
On the other platforms it's at Dale Rebel Leader, twitter, I

01:01:04
guess it's called Xnow, instagram, facebook, tiktok.

01:01:08
I'm freaking out here.

01:01:09
Ladies and gentlemen, come find us Also.

01:01:11
We have a secret rebel hangout that we do once a month, called

01:01:14
the Rebel Hideaway.

01:01:15
It's free for all salespeople that identify as rebels.

01:01:17
You don't even have to identify as a rebel, though, guys.

01:01:20
You can just come, and then we have our free Slack channel as

01:01:22
well, too.

01:01:22
So come find the Slack channel, come join up, come get some

01:01:25
creative, fun, purposeful ideas for your sales walk, and I

01:01:28
appreciate you guys having me.

01:01:29
I'm letting me promote myself, no problem.

01:01:32
Speaker 2: Thank you All right, good stuff, Carson.

01:01:36
Any final thoughts?

01:01:36
You want to take us home?

01:01:37
I'm just ready to join the rebellion.

01:01:40
Speaker 4: Dale, thank you, audience, thank you and until

01:01:42
next time happy modern selling.

01:01:45
Thanks everyone.

01:01:47
Speaker 3: Bye everybody.

01:01:54
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us today on Mastering Modern

01:01:56
Selling.

01:01:57
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01:02:03
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