011: Why Sales Reps Need Personal Brands, Plus Challenging the Predictable Revenue Model with Jake Dunlap

November 14, 2018
Podcast

 

In this episode, Jake Dunlap joins us for 42-minutes talking about what it takes to succeed as a modern sales org. He is a LinkedIn influencer and CEO of Skaled, which is a Modern B2B Sales Consulting firm.

Jake validates why junior sales reps and VPs of Sales alike need to be building personal brands by positioning themselves as industry experts. Why? Because the state of the internet allows us to do this, and customers don’t want to be sold to anymore. We use LinkedIn as an the example of a platform to do this.

As well, we hit on some fundamentals. We discuss the mindset needed to be a good of a sales rep, regardless of a year. We also talk about buying-in to your company’s sales process if you’re wasting cycles inventing your own way.

Are you an Apple user? Go to episode 011 with Jake Dunlap on iTunes.

Show highlights:

  • 04:00 – Jake Dunlap CEO of Skaled meeting Gary Vaynerchuck and working with the Vayner Media team.
  • 06:30 – Background sales and cold calling in 2003, working in Sports and HR to learn cold calling. Working in Sports and sales.
  • 09:40 – Grown up sales process and machine at career builder, don’t do it your own way but rather follow process company gives. Do the best practices! Don’t get creative when you don’t have to.
  • 13:15 – Executives having challenges with looking at new KPIs to match the new cadences and social selling aspects to building the “new sales org of the future”.
  • 15:30 – Book “Predictable Revenue” by Aaron Ross creating after affect of KPIs in Sales and Marketing. Amazing book for early 2000s (x-activities to x-leads equals x-revenue). We are still building our leading indicators based on “make more calls” and that world has changed. Channel agnostic is the play, not finding magic bullet.
  • 21:45 – “Quantity, quality, and channels that you have to triangulate for your biz.” Data driven with right-sized activity, in newer channels.
  • 23:00 – In B2B talking about Account Based Marketing most companies just have named accounts that we’re calling multiple people in, but it’s the sales and marketing alignment on content. Customized strategies to specific accounts. Hard to measure and predict, leaders snap back to calls.
  • 27:45 – Sales folks at B2B companies building their personal brands. “Building your modern Rolodex, same as 20 years ago”, companies enabling sales team to build personal brands. Next 2-4 years, email will die due to filters. Then, people will spam on LinkedIn. Salesperson investing in building network now.
  • 30:55 – LinkedIn profile workshop, best practices, narrow down buyer, get specific on problem you solve. Free, organic workshops. Buyers on LinkedIn. Next 2 years, every sales person will write to look like industry expert versus read as a resume.
  • 36:00- Customer video testimonials tons of organic engagement. Customers talking about you, for you, versus shouting from your megaphone. Check out https://firstcut.io/ and Jorge Soto for affordable B2B customer video resource.
  • 38:45 – Jake tells us what Skaled is, strategy, tactical support and tech implementation of marketing automation, sales automation and cadences, how to modernize. Where to find Jake Dunlap.

Find Jake Dunlap and Skaled Sales Consulting online:

Personal:

Skaled Sales Consulting: