How to Provide Value and Fairness Through Sales

Adam Vazquez 0:06
Alright, alright. Alright, we’re back Content Is for Closers. Another great episode of Dale Dupree. Carlton, what’s going on? What’d you think?

Carlton Riffel 0:12
It’s a good episode, man, good to be back here in the chair in front of the microphone. We’ve got Dale Dupree on the episode today. So he’s got an interesting background. And it’s another sales episode. So for those of you who maybe got the reference of our show, the Content Is for Closers, and you’re in the sales world. And that’s kind of how you put two and two together. Maybe this one will be good for you.

Adam Vazquez 0:34
This one’s for you. Can I describe to you the industry that Dale is in?

Carlton Riffel 0:39
Absolutely, yeah.

Adam Vazquez 0:40
Okay. I have a great story for this because— I didn’t work in it, but I have some friends who did. So Dale comes from the printer copier industry originally. And if you think about it, printer copiers is kind of a tough industry, especially in the market era. Back in the day, it was huge because every organization needed a commercial printer or any type of way to make copies and things.

Carlton Riffel 1:06
So you’ve got multiple printers.

Adam Vazquez 1:07
Yeah, exactly. And we’re not talking about—just for anyone young enough—we’re not talking about HP sitting on your desk, we’re talking about huge, half of a room type printers that like you could sit on top of and, and get photocopies of your face and stuff like that. That’s what we used to do in high school. Anyway, that’s the industry that he started off. And when we graduated, when I graduated in 2011, I had a friend who we both got, I won’t say his name, but he’s one of my best friends in the world. And we both got sales jobs. And we both were offered to work at a printer copier business. And I was like, No, I don’t think it’s for me, he went ahead and did it. And it was an outside sales role. And so the way that industry works is it’s really kind of crazy. They just throw a bunch of people every year out of every graduating class at a board and are like, okay, literally, like, alright, we’re hired 20 or 30 people for this small region, and one of them will stick after like six months. Yeah, so the turnover. Yeah, it’s survival of the fittest, there’s very little training, there’s very little support. And it’s like, Alright, go get in your car and drive around and try to get piano to buy from, like, insane stuff. So I saw the effect of what this did to my friend because I was out working, and it was visiting a client or something like this. And I saw him, I saw him in his car. And I was like, “Oh, I’m gonna mess with him. It’s my buddy.” And so I pulled behind him on the road and kind of like was tailgating him a little bit. And he was pulling into different parking lots trying to get people to, knocking on doors. And he pulled back onto the road and I got behind him. And just, I thought he knew it was me because I had been, and I just sort of like, just kept beeping very lightly on my horn. And I had no reason to because he was in the far right lane. So like, there was no reason that I should even be behind him in the normal traffic pattern. And so I just kind of like lightly kept beeping, all the sudden, I see him almost kind of like swerve to the side, his arm comes out the air and the bird is flying out the window. And I like pulled over behind him and like stuck my head out. I was like it to me. He was laughing instantly. But he was like man, I was about to I thought I was about to go post on somebody. And that is the environment. That’s the sales environment that these people aren’t experiencing. They’re having they’re facing in real-life rejection. For hours every day. It’s the boiler pot of just kind of like anxiety, you have to make sales or you lose your job. And it’s really, really difficult. It’s I don’t envy anyone who has to be in that space. Which is why today’s guest is so interesting. Because Dale comes from a legacy of printer copier salesman, his father did it and chose to do it in a different way than what I just described. And Dale took the lessons that he learned from his dad, and is now started. He did it himself. He worked in the industry a little bit. But now does the sales rebellion, which is a coaching and content platform for sales professionals. So it’s a pretty cool evolution. But I feel like knowing that context of what that industry is even adds more teeth to it.

Carlton Riffel 4:30
Yeah, absolutely. He’s talked a lot about just humanizing the sales experience, and making it an experience that people will remember and be attracted to, which has a lot of great takeaways for our audience. And then I think, too, yeah, we talked about this, the sales environment, how it can be a little cutthroat, like if you’re trying to get the copies down to the cents. Like, they’d give me for 26 cents and you’re in this competitive nature. He talks a lot about just kind of removing that competitiveness and getting back to what is the purpose of you as a salesperson. It’s a very human experience. You’re offering something to them of value, and just kind of enforcing that that idea was really important to me. So think about your service, think about your product, you’re providing value for a fair cost. And that is what will make people at the end of the day buy what you’re offering. So the more people that can find out about that through your content through what you’re doing to market in your marketing efforts. That’s how people will find out and then buy your goods. So just some interesting takeaways from the episode today. But let’s jump into it with Dale Dupree.

Intro 5:43
Put that content down. Content. The close is over. What’s your name? Content. That’s my name. You know why, mister? Because you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight. I drove an $80,000 BMW. That’s my name. Content Is for Closers.

Adam Vazquez 6:06
Alright, we’re back on Content Is for Closers. This episode, we’ve got Dale Dupree, the co-founder of The Sales Rebellion. Dale, thanks for taking time to talk to us.

Dale Dupree 6:15
Yeah, Adam. Thanks for having me on, man. I’m grateful to be here and appreciate you extending the invite.

Adam Vazquez 6:20
I gotta say, we got off on a rocky start. Obviously, you’ve got the Orlando hat on. I’m wearing a Philly hat. And unfortunately for me, Dale shared that, although he’s a magic fan, he did derive some joy from the magic when they got to play the Sixers, which is my team because it’s the one team that they had success again, so good for you, I guess.

Dale Dupree 6:39
I appreciate your humility.

Adam Vazquez 6:41
You have to be when you’re a Philly fan. So Dale, you’ve come up as a salesperson, I want to get into some of your backstory. But I thought something that would be kind of fun, as you’re known as this sales guy is. You know the famous scene “sell me this pen?” Obviously, you don’t need to sell the pen, but I was just curious if you were a salesperson, or you were developing a sales program for the Pilot G 210 and it’s up to Dale, what does that look like? How do you begin to think about that? Or conceptually, what are some of the things that people should think about when they’re coming to market a new product like that?

Dale Dupree 7:22
So the number one thing that I would lean into based on the question is the experience that we give people when we’re trying to sell them something, right. So I think a lot of the time marketing kind of tees up salespeople to go and quote unquote, sell some point, when really, what we need to be cueing salespeople to do is allowing the buyer to learn about what it fixes and salespeople to be serving. So if we can give people a really unique experience, and how they’re interacting with the pen, what their experiences before they ever even talk to anybody, it’s it’s really a rebellion mindset that we lean into. And so this is a good question too, because actually, we have a direct mail campaign that we use, where we actually we send a book, I’m not gonna say much more than that, but we send a book out to people that just literally explodes with curiosity. And once they’re done, go into the book, whether they hit the sales rep up again or not, we send them a pen. The pen actually has, again, like I don’t want to give away too much, because these are very exclusive things that we do for clients. But I’m just gonna like kind of screw up here a little bit and say that the pen obviously has a message that goes back to the book, the book has blank pages, but the pen what’s really fun is that the pen gives an experience and I think it’s good for this conversation right now where’s you get the pen that it has a little note with it. But there’s more to the pen than meets the eye. The pen actually, either they there’s two things one is their lid either have a button on it, that you can shine a light off the pan at the end of the wall. And that’s not a lie, there’s an actual image and the image is a QR code. So then you’re looking at this wall and this QR code at the end of the span you’re like what and godson then so now you’re like holding your phone and holding a pen-like right scanning the QR code and that’s a little more it has a like a micro USB drive at the end that you can just pop right into your laptop we find that sometimes that the mic or the USB stuff because it’s coming from a random person, you have no idea what’s on it that can be a little sketchy and that the QR codes are a little bit easier for people to digest. But so if we go back to this identity of like the pen and the experience we give, so we shouldn’t be trying to sell anything we should be giving people a journey to go down where they’re the hero and the pen becomes their weapon in the process. It becomes something that enlightens them and influences them to make the decision to bring you on board as a partner to help them grow their business whatever capacity that you provide through products and services.

I love it obviously such a unique and mature view of the sales process of putting your customer at the center of that process and their experience. Maybe take us back a little bit before you were as evolved as current Dale. How did you get started in the industry? I know it’s been a lifelong endeavor for you, so tell us that story.

So really, I have to go back to the beginning of the story, which is in 1984, when my father decided to leave his existing business, and started out, and the motivation behind that was that there was a lot of things that I just want to repeat on this podcast that he was dealing with in regards to like, the human interaction with his boss, for example, and just how poor some of those instances were, it didn’t drive him or motivate him to be with the organization, but also the experience that was being given to his clients. Imagine that you have a coffee machine, and that it’s like the lifeblood of your company, especially at this point in time in the 70s. And you need a toner for it. And imagine that the service team or department or the fulfillment Department says, hey, it’s gonna be like five to 10 dates. And you say, well, not right now. And they say, Okay, it’s gonna be five to 10 days, these were the types of standards inside of the industry. Because it was very exclusive or very elite, to an extent it was like 50 grand for a copier. And there was only one version to two versions at the time, right, so so my dad broke away from that mediocrity and said, I’m going to do this on my own, we’re gonna get better service, we’re going to ignite a new gold standard inside of the industry in my own little way, and right here in my own little territory. And then he had me a year later, so I was one with toner running through my veins, because my dad basically was, unfortunately stuck. By starting a copier company. Like that’s what happens, you get stuck with that copier company forever. And you’ll it’s crazy good. I got older I found this out, right. But as I started meeting other copier companies across the United States do 90% of privately held organizations are typically run by mom or dad. And the kids are the uncles, the aunts, or the cousins or the kids. BI, they’re all involved in some capacity. So copier companies are actually family owned and operated in most cases. They’re all it’s also one of the hardest things to sell. And one of the Sharky is industries, right? So it’s kind of crazy that when you put it all together, but here’s my dad tried to build something very unique, very customer-facing, and in regards to the experience has been given the outcomes that he’s creating, and not like, Hey, we’re gonna get rich, make a million dollars and sell this thing, right. But he was creating and developing something that was much more legacy-minded. And that’s where I got my start man wandering the halls of my father’s business, and learning sales in every unique form possible because my dad taught us that sales is life and life is sales, right? So it’s not just a department, such as the thing that we do to make money. It’s a mindset, it’s a daily activity. It’s a habit, right in regards to the way that we treat people in regards to the way that the experiences that we give to people and the outcomes that come from those things. So, so I’ve been doing it since I can remember since I was breathing.

Adam Vazquez 12:54
Wow. Yeah, that’s I forgot about the connection there. My dad is a paper salesman, has been his entire career. Think like Michael Scott, but bigger. So weirdly, you grew up with toner, I grew up with understanding the weights of paper and the brightness and stuff like that, which I’m sure you probably have some familiarity with, too.

Dale Dupree 13:13
Our dads are literally the same person. My dad started selling paper brands, I got copiers.

Adam Vazquez 13:18
There you go.

Dale Dupree 13:19
So your dad can be Michael Scott. Mine will be do I true to that case? There’ll be no spots. It’ll be good times.

Adam Vazquez 13:25
Yeah. So obviously that industry specifically, the copier industry isn’t notorious. You use the word Sharky, I had a buddy who we both got graduated school. When you first graduated school, unless you’re just more evolved than we were, you get a sales job, right? Like that was the at least at the time. And so for him, he went and worked for one of the big printer copier companies. And the job was crazy. It was like, you had to knock on whatever, 40-50 business doors a day, and you’re trying to sell these people and there was no real sales support or sales leadership, when he was describing it to me. And now looking back in hindsight, I’m like, Man, that is the worst possible, I guess, in some ways, it was the best possible sales training. Because if you survive, like you’re an incredible salesperson, but it’s also in some ways, the worst environment to actually learn sales. It’s so for you, how did you— because obviously, now you have this very customer-centric view of sales and selling, how did that transformation happen? From that industry to where you are today?

Dale Dupree 14:30
So it’s an interesting question, right. So this is how I think the best way to kind of answer the question from my own perspective, is it really like just to create a dialogue around it is that I think a lot of the time and when we look at sales, we look at it as like a lesser position inside of an organization to some extent. And maybe like there’s probably people out there listening for sure that are like that’s not the truth or that’s not the case. And so I’m sure there’s always going to be different perspectives on those types. Two things, right? There’s always gonna be people that feel one way about it and others that don’t. But like Scott Lee says it best: “Sales is the trashcan of jobs.” I heard him say that when I was with him a long time ago, I think it’s one of his books too. But when he said it I was just like, that’s it, right? So for me, like, when I first started to look at sales back in the day, because I was an artist, so I came from a creative background. I was a musician. That was my art. And so when I looked at sales, I thought, wow, I’m really jumping ship on creativity and art here and going into something very boring, very stale was a suit and tie. And so I again, I think that there’s this perception when we come out of something and go into sales. Some people do it at 35 because they decide they don’t want to teach anymore. They’re tired of making $65,000 a year and the promise of getting a raise or a promotion, that is never going to happen, right. So so again, I think sales is like an outlet for people to an extent. And for me, like the evolution of going from selling a copier, to running a sales training firm. Everything in between there, from the first day to the day that I started this company, is the evolution of how I got to where I am. Every single day, every single moment, there was not like one specific spot where it was like, “Oh, it all clicks now,” and you’re never really in a place when you’re in sales. And you’re focused on being the best in sales, you’re never really in a place where you have perfected the craft. And if you ever feel that you are like, I would challenge you to that, to get out of that mediocre space and sit back and say like, Okay, you might have prevented it up into the year 2022. But next year is going to be even crazier. Right? So, so even like the transition of going from selling copiers to doing sales, shredding, and I sold copiers for 13 years, I have to always think about that just because it’s such a crazy thought that I stayed in that industry for so long with the same company for the majority of it, and then with one for a couple of years. But I digress. To me, the passion, the things I learned, just the general sense of like what sales is, right, it was developed moment to moment and it’s never stopped, like I haven’t gotten to a place where I’ve said, I’m just so good at this, I’m gonna go start a sales training company, I got to a place where I said, I see that, that I’m able to affect the lives of people through what I’m selling, in a local community here, like this knit tight community. And I love that. I think it’s amazing. I think that’s where everybody should start from a sales perspective. But I also like I had this passion, at that point in time outside of sales, even on my career, to be able to affect the lives of people on a larger scale, global, national, however you want to look at that. So for me, it was the evolution of like going from then to here is natural. And honestly I like I look at my career and my sales path. And I think always have your eyes opened and your mind open to what’s next, as well, too. And how we’re going to be changing the sales landscape or how we’re going to be changing internally inside of our organization, how we structure sales or everything that’s inside of that book, right? I don’t think me, I don’t think I’ve done by any means like evolving. What I where I came from and where I am today, I don’t think that the learning is over. By any means. I think that every day I get to learn something new and whether it’s in failure or success, or whatever the case may be right from that perspective. So yeah, I mean, like, I know that that probably rabbit hole a little bit, but my brain went in that direction.

Adam Vazquez 18:51
I want to get more to The Sales Rebellion itself and what you all are doing, but what something you said kind of triggered a question, which is, why do you so I agree. 100%, like, my first job was out of school also was inside selling. And today, I love sales. Like it’s it’s my favorite thing I do. It’s the favorite my favorite part of running a company. But at the time, it was almost like, if you can’t if you don’t know what else to do, if you can’t do anything else, well, here’s some sales job. And just like from an organization or from the organizations that you work with, why is that the case? Because to me, sales is the most important role in a business. So why do you think it is that it can be thrown to the side or, like you said, just viewed as the trashcan of jobs or the role that menial role in an organization?

Dale Dupree 19:40
Yeah, when I think deeply about that, I think it comes down to that we as humans are very selfish. And I think that in most cases, people look at sales because it is such a grind. I hate to even use that word. But it’s something that you kind of do 24/7 and even not just like for the perspective of how I see sales is that it’s just a natural part of life. But the rule itself, that you’re always in sales, you’re always in this battle. The battle for quota, the battle for the customer that you keep losing, the battle for the one that you’re the incumbent of that somebody’s in trying to steal from you, right? There’s just the battle, right. So from my perspective, I think what it comes down to is that a lot of people don’t experience that battle. They do other things inside of the organization to build an organization and they see their own worth and not the worth of sales because of that. So if somebody is on the finance side, and they end up becoming the CEO of the company, and there’s somebody that doesn’t really have a lot of respect for the sales side of things, that was culture, right, by thinking that what’s most important is the financial side of things right? In the finance department, or the accounting department, or whatever the case may be right. And I hopefully, I’m not muddying the water there when I say all that, but by being that if you’ve not been in sales, it’s hard to look at it as something that’s that you respect in the first place. And the other side of it is this bro, imagine like how many sales calls people that are outside of sales get daily basis on a weekly basis on a monthly basis? Even if it’s just like two or three times a year, you have to deal with a salesperson? It’s a, it’s rolling dice almost every time like, what kind of experience will I have? Will it be favorable will be something that I want to do again, and I think also to like the majority of people’s interactions with salespeople are things like cars, like buying new cars sucks. It’s a nightmare. Right? In most cases, right, and RainShadow the car salespeople out there that are doing their thing, and trying to make a living, but at the same time, like how many car salespeople are thinking about their legacy? Alright, when somebody comes in to buy a car, right? Not a lot. So because of that, I think there’s just a bad taste in people’s mouth in general around what it looks like to be in sales and to have a sales department.

Adam Vazquez 21:58
Yeah. 100%. So you had this experience growing up, you had this experience in your own career, and obviously are very familiar with the potholes, with the problems that salespeople and sales organizations face. And so then tell us, how did The Sales Rebellion come to be? What is it? How did that all happen?

Dale Dupree 22:19
I really, truly believe that it started back in 2009/2010, when I kind of stepped outside of my own shell, if you will, and started to say, I’ve been in this long enough now to understand that. If I keep doing what I’m doing, I’m not necessarily gonna get the results I desire. And I’m playing the game the way that everybody plays it. And also, like, that’s a terrible thought write that somehow sales is a game. It’s not. I’m not a big fan of that phrase.

Adam Vazquez 22:50
Interesting. Why is that?

Dale Dupree 22:51
Because I think that we look at things like a game as less serious, or we look at it as something that has moves or tricks or techniques tied to it when sales naturally is basic human behavior and basic human communication at its finest, right. And so I think a lot of the time when we say things like playing the sales game, that we put ourselves in a position to ultimately fail because we’re trying to checkmate the other guy, or girl. And I hate that. I can’t stand that. I think that salespeople should be willing to lose. I think that comes with the territory and should be part of the process. I think that salespeople should be willing to serve instead of constantly selling all the time. And so I think that the whole game mentality creates a problem there.

So again, I stepped out of that typical box, and I developed a personal brand called “the copier warrior.” And I developed assets around that brand like general assets, like let’s just say business cards or non-traditional ones even. And those things evolved like crazy as well, too. So it for me, it was like how do I get an image of what it is that I do out to people like for anybody that might be watching the video that we’re on right now, if there is video, this is one of those cards is four by six. So it’s like bigger than your traditional business card. It’s a shot of me finding a copy machine, and it’s got some video game ask concepts to it. And it’s great with some dates a very clean design at the end of the day as well, too. But it speaks to the psychology of the buyer that I’m trying to speak to as well too. So for instance, that typically went to IT personnel, and a majority of IT personnel live in the gaming world. And it’s just part of their MO, which I love. By the way, I’m a huge gamer. So that side of me was it was easy to connect to people like I started to think, Hey, I’m going in with a suit and a tie. And these people don’t really come from that kind of culture and a look at a suit and a tie is like, Oh, I have a meeting with my boss today. And that’s like extremely unfavorable moment. So why would I be trying to look like an unfavorable moment in their life? So just smile things like that where I started to really humanize all those perspectives in the process of how we go to market and sell people. And that’s when the rebellion was truly formed. Because I started putting people first I started creating experiences instead of pitching, I stopped worrying so much about selling a product. And instead of selling the value of the copy of a warrior, as somebody that could fix and help prevent issues that were stereotypes and like standards, for most folks that didn’t have to be. And so stepping into that role, which evolved immensely, I came up with concepts like my reason theory, which is to radically educate and share one’s narrative, which is a storytelling methodology inside of the way that you quote unquote, pitch people by using also mediums like a crumpled letter, for example, which is something that we’ve developed over the sales rebellion and helped hundreds of and 1000s of sales reps, you know, set appointments with billion-dollar organizations, right, just a simple experience that we provide for people, or even like my living pipeline concept, or just anything that the Rebellion has essentially crafted from the mind of the copier warrior, what deal degree was building at some point and the rebellion, like I want to be a little bit concise, or I just gonna want to be clear about the weather rebellion is this not deal to pre-sales training, right at the end of the day. So what we developed and the rebellion was based off of the copier warrior, that’s how we look at it, right? This entity that existed inside of a an organization and a community that caused massive change, and had a huge effect on the local marketplace and how it interacted the ecosystem of buyers how they interacted with people that sold copiers, I changed the entire game, inside of a small community in Central Florida, so not that small. But by doing that, you know, I recognize that this isn’t about Dale, this is about the copier warrior, and it’s about other copier warriors. And it’s about the termite warrior out there, or the paint the commercial paint warrior out there, or the SaaS warrior out there. And so we sat back and said, me and my business partner and co-founder, Jeff Viega, as we sat back and said, How do we take these concepts and make them more universal, make them principled, and allow people to buy into them as their own identity. And thus, The Sales Rebellion was born.

Adam Vazquez 27:22
I love it. I love the story that you tell, that you talked about, you mentioned hero’s journey at the beginning. But there’s a very clear narrative here where you went through your own journey, and we’re able to, if you don’t, if you aren’t familiar, like copier sales is notorious in the sales world. So the fact that someone is coming out of that, with this human first very evolved and I would imagine has to be effective to right like on top of everything else being as humane as possible and serving as possible. If it wasn’t effective, you wouldn’t still be able to do it. So that’s an important element as well. And being able to do that from the copier industry speaks to who you are and the journey that you’ve been on. So then tell us what it is. You said it’s not sales training from Dale Dupree today, but I believe that it there’s a content element to it and then some type of training. Is that right?

Dale Dupree 28:19
You’re correct. It’s teams and individuals, right. So we actually, when we founded the company, we found it in on both concepts because we wanted to. There are a lot of sales training companies out there that if I’m Joe Schmo, and I work for ABC organization, and I’m in the sales bullpen as a bizdev representative or I’m ops or I’m an AE, or I’m an SDR, whatever the case is like there’s not really other than going online and, and downloading for 200 bucks say a guide or watching a bunch of videos where 90% of them don’t even pertain to what you do or sell or are just cloudy, again, techniques or moves that don’t necessarily they disconnect you right? They don’t necessarily connect you with humans, they disconnect you from that process, and they put you in this weird sales bubble. I believe that a lot of the failure of salespeople comes from this movement of gurus and trainers out there that have essentially just like loaded people up with garbage quite frankly, which again, is part of the whole process of understanding that we need to rebellion and sales we need to buck the system there are some good people out there don’t get me wrong, but there’s just the majority are doing it that in a way that again, like accommodates marketing said it’s everybody looks at and goes how do we make money? How do we make a ton of money? How do we make so much money, that our lives are wonderful, and who really cares about our consumer as long as they did a couple of things that worked and then one day they were just like, “I guess I’m not made out for sales.” We don’t want people to feel in power grids and having a one-on-one coaching program is that’s our heart. It goes beyond strategy and really like at the end of the day, I think be been available for just an individual contributor on a level where they could sit with a coach inside of our organization, right, because we have rebel certified rebel coaches on top of getting someone like Dale to free to help you as well too. And they teach the rebel way, right. So they teach the way the copier warrior and what it translated and translated to into the sales rebellion, just the same as if your boss for 25, have you hired us to come in and do a six-month training agreement with you? Right, you can now you get the same type of training, right, but it doesn’t cost as much. So it’s a great outlet from that one-on-one, for sure. It’s a great outlet for sellers, especially sellers that are trying to get to that next level, and then maintain that status as well, too, because we’re not just teaching people how to do things when we’re teaching people how to create lifestyles out of rebellion, and to play the long game, and to have a much different outlook from that perspective. So the products are groups and it’s individuals. And I think it’ll always be for us, it’ll always be very focused around that because it’s about people or than anything else. So we don’t want a company to necessarily hire us as much as we want a manager or a VP to be bought in, to what we’re doing and feel that it is necessary to bring us in to help their people to take a new approach to look at sales differently and have a better way to go to market and develop themselves as well to through our principles in our process, not just to sell more. So because of that, I think we probably shut the door on a lot of opportunity as well, too. Because I think a lot of people out there would just pick up the phone, say, Hey, could you come and train my team? And it’s not necessarily it’s not what we preach? It’s not what we put out for people, it is the opposite, right? Where we’re, we say, Hey, you want to be better at sales, you got to be better be to human. Right. So we got to start there first, right. And then on top of it, though, for the most part, people do come to us for that uniqueness that we provide the creativity that we build out inside of sales teams, the strategies around that as well, too. And not just the framework, right? Not necessarily, again, the techniques or the moves the plays, but just showing people like hey, this is how you reconnect and rehumanize your efforts as salespeople with a market.

Adam Vazquez 32:09
Well, and I’m sure implicitly it helps you filter the right customer, right? Because the right people are going to want to have that humane approach that experiential approach, as opposed to just whatever’s the efficient tactic of the day that that might go out of style tomorrow, but flipping to the Creator side of things, what has that been like for you? Because you were a salesperson within an organization or in a couple of organizations and now you’re running a content business and a coaching business, which is pretty different than just being responsible for selling. How’s that transition been and what have you learned so far?

Dale Dupree 32:45
You go from being the only thing that you’re accountable for is yourself, unless you’re a VP or manager, which is what I transitioned into, eventually. So I had teams that were underneath me, but still, even when you have teams like sure you, you’re accountable for those people, but most organizations just still look at it as you’re accountable to yourself.

Adam Vazquez 33:04
Right. And the team is as well to themselves.

Dale Dupree 33:07
Yeah, right. Exactly right. So when I had a different take on it, right? Like, I was in the trenches with my team, I wasn’t sitting behind the desk, calling them saying, Hey, I know you’re in the field. And you’re in this territory, here are some places I want you to stop by, I was showing up at that first appointment. And then going, what’s up and me just say me, I’m just here to support Well, what can I do for you, you want me to go do cold calls, want to go drop some letters, you wanted to drop some rebels books? And obviously, we didn’t call them that at the time. But they’re like, What can I do for you today? And I think because of that mentality, it’s been easy for me to transition into the identity of being somebody that coaches, right, because it was always a coach in the first place. And so what we do isn’t too far off from what I was doing. And we infuse a lot of that into it as well, too. I think that when people start a sales training company, they silo themselves and they don’t do things like go in the field, but you can pay for me to go in the field. And it’s not that much money when you think about it. Because I’ve been doing that for 13 years instead of selling copiers, and now I’ve been doing it for three at the rebellion. So I’m an active seller inside of the rebellion as well. So I might be a co-founder and the CFO of the company, but I’m also an active seller inside of the rebellion and continually helping to build the playbook and designing what the process looks like. So eventually, I don’t have to sell anyone, I can empower other people to do that and to write their own story, create their own legacy. That’s my overarching goal. But man, I’d say it hasn’t really like from the perspective of how you ask the question, it hasn’t really been a whole lot of difference and other than the fact that now I have to make sure that everybody’s getting paid. Right. So the burden of being a business owner is there right but also there’s a lot of joy with that the burden is minimal at the end of the day because if you’re doing what you love, and you love what You’re doing if servant leadership for me, if servant leadership is at the forefront of your actions, even being able to be here with you as part of the whole principles of the rebellion to go to the market and tell the people the good news of what we bring, and what they can do for themselves without us even just buying into our community or buying into our movement without ever even buying sales training in the first place. Right. So, so for me it is extremely rewarding to be doing what I’m doing and comparatively to what I was doing before, I would say that it’s more rewarding because of the scale in which we’re doing. But the micros are, that when I watched one of my guys or girls come into the bullpen with sign paperwork, holding it up over their head, that it’s the same type of, of outcome in regards to that very intrinsic motivation that comes when you see someone do that, right. Like you get a little teary-eyed. You connect with them in that moment, like, what a feeling that is like, I have that as a coach as well, too. So those are the things that I have latched to as well just to motivate myself to never ask the question like, why are you doing this? Why are you spending all this time? Do constantly trying to build this business? Right? Like there’s never that person never comes to my head? Because I recognize that we’re impacting people’s lives. And that’s the most important thing in the world to me.

Adam Vazquez 36:22
That’s awesome. Well, Dale, I just want to acknowledge and thank you for the enthusiasm, the energy that you bring, and also the service and servant-based approach that you have even in our conversation and in the way that certainly you care about your business. If people want to follow what you’re doing and what you’re doing at the sales rebellion, what’s the best way for them to stay connected with all of that?

Dale Dupree 36:44
Sure, man. I appreciate you queuing that up and asking me to share that. Thesalesrebellion.com is a great place to start. Right now the website is under construction, but you can still go to the page there’s a landing page and some tabs at the top the best tab at the top is join the community where you could come and join our free rebel slack and mix it up with other rebels that are all across the world selling anywhere from eggs and milk to SaaS. And I that was kind of sarcastic maybe there are no egg or milk sellers out there but who knows we might have a couple of farmers we did have one but I digress. If you like content, I’m on LinkedIn daily, sometimes a couple times a day, sometimes on the weekends linkedin.com/in/copierwarrior or you can find any of our social channels through Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter @salesrebellion. So come find us, come be a rebel. We’d love to see more people joining the ranks, obviously, of putting people first, putting experiences above everything else, and getting back to the heart of sales.

Adam Vazquez 37:49
And you have a podcast as well. Right?

Dale Dupree 37:50
I do. I got a podcast. The podcast actually here in its last episode on December 31, called Selling It Local, but there are a solid 136 episodes in there for sellers and marketers and entrepreneurs the like to go and listen to some amazing stories and some very unique tales of what we call the local which is that connection with people more so than anything else, even if I’m selling on a global scale, right. But we are about to launch a new podcast within the next coming months. So stay tuned on that as well.

Adam Vazquez 38:19
There we go. Awesome. Boy, we appreciate you. Appreciate it, man.

Carlton Riffel 38:23
And that’s a wrap. Thank you for listening to this episode of Content Is for Closers. We hope you find this show really helpful as you grow your business with content. Maybe you know of other people who would find this show helpful as well. How about you send them our way? If you didn’t like this show and you want to tell us that, then you can head over to contentisforclosers.com where you can send us a message, give us some feedback, ask questions, or find detailed notes for every episode. Until next time, keep creating and keep closing.