71: Dale Dupree - From Top Selling "Copier Warrior" to Leader of the Sales Rebellion (Part 1)

0:08 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram.

0:24 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Dale Dupree. You may already be familiar with Dale and his Copier Warrior branding. And he just finished an incredible 15-year run in the copier sales space to lead the sales rebellion. Welcome to the show, Dale.

0:41 Dale Dupree: Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it.

0:43 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. I am super excited to dig into this stuff with you because you have so many incredible stories to tell. And fair warning for those listening to this, we're a little bit time constrained today, and I think there's so much extra ground that I'm gonna wanna cover with Dale that there is likely going to be a second part to this conversation. Conversation. And if that's not enough, 2 interviews with Dale, he'll also be joining us at the Sales Success Summit. So, there's just one more reason to come join us in Austin this October, and you'll find all of those details at top1summit.com. All right. Let's dig into this thing and kick off like we always do with the top 3 things that you believe have contributed most to your success, Dale.

1:29 Dale Dupree: I'm gonna read them like 1 through 3, but I just want, I, I kind of want to do the first one last, but I'm not, but mostly just because it is the most important. But the, the number one thing, you know, behind my success is my father. My dad started his own business in 1984. His journey is, is epic. He was the guy that had the football scholarships, was headed to the NFL, and then got injured. And, and plan B was basically, I don't know. Maybe go to work. So he ended up coming back to Central Florida from Carson-Newman University and selling paper, right? If you've sold copiers in the, in the '70s and '80s, you knew how to sell paper as well too, because most of the time they made you do that before you could sell a machine in the first place. So, so my father is a big contributor to my success… his story, his accolades, everything about him. And it is my duty on this earth to honor his legacy as I walk it. The second biggest contributor has got to be my grit. Although I do, like, emotionally I'm a big giant teddy bear. My, my father and my grandfather, you know, taught me what grit was. At the perseverance side of my lifestyle has, especially in sales and copier sales, I mean, having grit is like one of the most key ingredients inside of the B2B world in general. But when you're going door to door and it's the Orlando summer, right? Humidity is at 90%. You've got to be able to persevere pretty hardcore. And then on top of it, you've got a bunch of people telling you that you suck. They don't want you in their office. You know, I'm going to call the police. So it gets a little intense, right? So, so my grit would definitely be my second ingredient to my success. And my, my third would be my creativity. I don't know how many people know this, but I do talk about it quite often that I played in a band on Warner Brothers Records. I started doing that at 17 years old and I toured the country. At the time I was 18. We got 12 record label deals, ended up on an indie label and then advanced to a major label. And inside of that perseverance and that part of my journey and that part of my walk was when I got the most creative. And I found that in my business walk from a B2B perspective and a cold calling perspective, that the creativity side was my biggest factor. It was my secret weapon. You know, when people always say, you know, what was your, what was your secret, you know, that made your success? Like, it's not really a secret, but what it was was my creativity. The, the outlandish and off-the-wall things that I did from a marketing perspective to cold call and get to my C-level decision makers was pretty wild. So I, I put, I put that in the top 3 because mostly it's a mindset, but at the same time it is, it can be a tool as well too, something that's tangible that can be relayed to other people as well.

4:17 Scott Ingram: You know, that's, that's interesting that for you it was really about the creativity because it doesn't sound like… like the stories I've heard, it doesn't really sound like you leveraged the music capability specifically, right? It was really just more the creativity in your prospecting. Is that, is that accurate?

4:33 Dale Dupree: Yeah, that's very accurate. The idea of the music side was like this, where when I went into the studio, it wasn't so much that I had the ability to be able to create music. I mean, put it together as much as I had this bigger picture of what, what it looked like live, what it sounded like on the CD, what it would, it would feel like, you know, in your home on, on the surround sound system in the living room. Right. I, I had this bigger picture of everything and it was all stemming from creativity, you know, the lighting, the mood, the atmosphere, I mean, you name it. And so the entertainment side of me, you know, came out full force and into my B2B walk.

5:10 Scott Ingram: Well, and, and what I think I just heard there is you're really thinking about the experience of the person enjoying that show and direct translation to what's the experience for your customer.

5:22 Dale Dupree: That's correct.

5:23 Scott Ingram: So let's go back to the grit piece. Like what, what's your definition of grit and how does that really manifest beyond walking around in the, in the heat and not getting arrested?

5:35 Dale Dupree: It's funny because when my, the first time that my dad told me that I had to have grit, I remember looking it up in the dictionary and, and was like, what is, I think it was something like loose particles. It was like the, like one of the definitions. It's like, what does that mean? Like, what's he talking about? But what really resonated with me when I started to understand what grit was, was this idea of being resolved and, and, and being courageous as well. So from that perspective, you know, every day to me was an adventure. And, and so I courageously, you know, jumped into my territory rain or shine, you know, 100 degrees or monsooning. I was out in the field. And you couldn't stop me because at the same time too, I was resolved as to what I was going to do with my life. I knew that if I pushed through these things in the moment, you know, over the course of 90 days and then 6 months and then 1 year, that I would get to this place where suddenly I'm, I'm 15 years in and I'm starting my own business.

6:36 Scott Ingram: Nice. So I want you to strip away all of the humility and brag on yourself a little bit and just talk about the results and what you did as in the copy or sales space.

6:47 Dale Dupree: Cool. I can do that. I can do it because I've heard my, my mentor and my boss… he's one of my best friends too, his name's Rich Johnson… I've heard him tell the stories enough, like, for me that I could just kind of pretend that I'm him. But, but so some, some things that come to mind, you know, a lot of the time what I was struggling with in the beginning of my career, you know, the first 6 to 12 months, was in the, in the copier space, especially in Central Florida, when you walk in somewhere and the prospect says, oh yeah, we're getting ready to upgrade our copier right now, do you wanna throw in a bid? And you run to the car excited like, oh yes, I get to throw in a bid. Well, the first thing that I came to realize was that I was like the 12th person that walked in that day and got that same line. And so competition was fierce. I had to figure out how to overcome, you know, 8 to 10 other copier companies that were bidding on the same. It was nuts to me to even walk into a, bidding situation where the prospect told me that they had already taken 6 to 7 to 8 to 10 bids, right? I, I… that boggled my mind a little bit, like, because I was such a relationship-driven person and at my core, from my experiences through my father, and for me that was what it was about. And so I had to figure out how to just drown the noise out, not just for myself but for my prospect, and, and how to be loud enough inside of that noise but also to convey clarity through that, you know, loud scream that I was echoing across the room. Because clarity is important. You need the prospect to understand what it is they're going to get when they choose you. And it goes back to that, that statement of experience, of the experience that you give the customer. If I could translate that in the front end, then I would win. I knew I would win the business, or I'd have a really good shot at it. So, so, you know, I did some pretty wild stuff. I remember early in my career that we would go up against 6-figure deals, anywhere between $200,000, $500,000 in that range. And it was the first time that I was dipping my toes into that kind of equipment-sized acquisitions. And I remember that it would be all the manufacturers always, you know. I was always up against the guys that had a billion dollars, so I had to get extremely resourceful. So out in Brevard County I stripped away one of the largest manufacturers in the area. I stripped away about 19 of their 20 major accounts within 3 years. And when I took the 20th, which was one of my largest takedowns, retail, it was well over $6, $7 million in hardware. The industry is extremely competitive in the copier world. So where you might say this is the retail, you know, everybody goes and gets the lowest possible price. From the bid desk and, and comes in, you know, racing to the bottom. Now, my biggest brag on this win… it was, it was about $1.5 million in, in total revenue… but my biggest brag on this was that I was not the cheapest bid. So after we won the bid, I was able to collect the other bids, and I… and my, like, I mean, it was one of the coolest feelings that I have ever had in my career when I saw that I was the most expensive of the 3. But we had offered such a different experience for the prospect, right? So, and after we took that account, that manufacturer closed the branch out there in that, in that circle. And so people started calling me the copier slayer instead at that point, which was a lot of fun, you know, to do. But I had a kill board on the wall, as we like to call it, back in the, in the office. And anytime I would take out one of my competitors' machines, I would always grab the sticker off of it real quick and I would turn it upside down, and I would stick it on this giant board that I had on the wall at the office. It was a lot of fun. I, I enjoyed those days. But, you know, in doing so with these big takedowns, I ended… eventually became one of the number one reps, not just in the state but in the Southeast. And then eventually I became one of the number one reps in the United States through one of my manufacturers on, on total number of units sold for a specific segment of equipment. And, you know, my… essentially from there, my, my authority became different inside of my territory. I had every single company calling on me, the manufacturers. I had relationships with them instead of them just, you know, calling my bosses. They were coming directly to me. And some of those relationships still stand very strong today, which has always been one of the biggest fruits of my labor. But I would, I would have to say though that like one of my best brags was that I had… I had… I went into an account that was… it was high 6 figures, and it was a… it was a fortress account, as we like to call it, because it was one of those accounts that you just basically couldn't get into. They'd been with their incumbent for 30 years. The person that they had been with, they had a very good relationship, kind of like that, you know, Friday poker game type relationship where it expanded outside of the business. And I spent so much time and energy and effort using one of my theories that I actually call it my Reason Theory in the Sales Rebellion. And essentially the idea of it is that I radically educate the prospect. And so from step 1 all the way until they finally take an appointment with me, they, they just get to experience my culture on a different level. And in doing so, what happens… I always… and not to deviate from my story, but I always like to say that What happens is, is that at some point in those 30 years, the incumbent becomes, you know, they're like, this is mine, you know, no one's gonna take this. And they become very relaxed. And all of a sudden, when you're showing up and you're trying to bring that same level of energy that they've experienced for the last 30 years but they're not getting anymore, they start to have this fear of missing out on something that you could provide for them, especially if it's a little bit different than what it is that they're… that they've had or that they're currently getting. And so I always just tried to be as authentic as I possibly could all the time because I felt as if that was really what differentiated me no matter what. And, and I feel that that's what differentiates every individual seller in the first place, is just being authentic, not worrying about trying to be different, but being authentic. So, so I finally got this prospect to agree to allow me to hold the incumbent accountable, and something happened that it happens to people inside of their career all the time, right? But in this instance, just understanding that this was a fortress account, this is something you don't take. You know, the, the gentleman that made the decisions, he had come down to our office, he was hanging out in my office with me, he pulled out his, his briefcase that he had brought with him, and he laid down the, the leases from his incumbent. And he had redacted some of the information, but he had showed me the, the end date and the payment of their, of their lease payments or of their lease agreement and said, I want to do business with you, so let's work something out. And for me, in that moment, it was, it was more than just somebody telling me that they wanted to do business. And even though it was, it was a big win, and I'm not sure how many people come on this podcast and get super emotional about their, their wins, but I don't. The monetary side is great. I sold tens of millions of dollars in net new revenue Year over year, you know, over the course of 7 years, you know, collectively, yeah, I wrote anywhere between 50 and 60 net new accounts on average a year. My record was in the 90s of net new accounts in one fiscal year, and I never stopped. So for me, you know, winning that new business wasn't, it wasn't just about going and getting all this revenue and building the company up into a monster. It was about the relationships that I was, the new relationships that I was getting to build, the new walks of life and cultures I was getting to experience. And so when someone sits you down like that, you know, when they have literally told you you'll never win my business, it's an emotional win for you more than anything. And it empowers you to want to go out and find the next.

14:49 Scott Ingram: Love it, love it, love it. And you were kind enough to really get into some of the weeds and the details around your Reason Theory in a 5-part series on the Daily Sales Tips podcast. So we'll link over to that if folks click over to top1.fm forward slash… I think this will be 71. If that doesn't work, just do top1.fm/dale and then it'll take you right there and we'll have that all linked up so you can check out the depths of the Reason Theory. So Dale, this is one of the parts I've been most looking forward to because again, I've heard bits and pieces, but I'm looking forward to just kind of the whole thing because I always ask about people's origin stories and how they initially got into sales. So what was that for you?

15:28 Dale Dupree: For me, it was almost like this It was an inevitability for me in my walk where I had grown up in my father's business. And I'll tell you right now that my 2 favorite segments of the business were sales and service. You know, not to say that I didn't enjoy hanging out with, you know, the front desk ladies and, and gentlemen that work there and, and going and seeing the guys and girls in accounting. And, but my favorite people to hang around were sales and service. It was because they had the best stories. And if you just even ask them like, hey, how's your day? Sometimes you got the most ridiculous answer, right? And, and that was what drove me to, to constantly be curious about this culture of small business and, and sales and, and how it all, how it related to the bigger picture, right? So I'll say that, you know, growing up, that was what kind of instilled this sense of wonder inside of my outlook on sales. But when I toured in my band, I realized I'm doing sales, you know. Every night I'm with strange people, or the… or people that I've met, you know. We're at the city for the, you know, 4th or 5th time, and it's the same kind of group of kids, or a few of the same kind of deal. And but so, so either I was culturing new relationships or I was nurturing existing ones. And I realized during that process too that I liked it. I, I enjoyed meeting new people. I enjoyed shaking hands with strangers and then also kind of having that revival, you know, type of hangout where it wasn't just about… well, I should say, I shouldn't even say it wasn't just about anything. It was about us coming together on common grounds and meeting and saying, you know, this is something that we're all passionate about. And I believe that that's what sales is. And when we can get our buyer to that common ground with us and help them to understand that we want to be on their common ground just as much as they want us you know, to join their culture and to better their experience in the first place, then you have a better relationship with them. Whereas most sellers, I mean, are pushing a commodity or they've got a product that, you know, it's unique, it's different. And so it's 2 different types of sales, but no matter what, both of those people are always so fixated on the product that it causes this disconnect. And so I slowly started to also realize, you know, as I came back to help my father in between tours now and again, you know, I was very competitive. My dad was always challenging me. I loved to work. It was one of my passions for sure at one point in my life. I got lazy for about a year and a half. I talk about it in, in one of my books that I'm writing right now actually about, you know, the burnout. And it was funny because I was young in my stage of burnout and it was mostly just selfishness more than anything. But I digress. The, the whole concept of sales to me was, was always kind of bred into me, and I was always just a step away from becoming extremely involved in it and, and going full-time with it. And once I did, honestly, I never wanted to look back. So much so because people ask, you know, your dad sold the business, why didn't he offer it to you? Well, he did, and I, I looked him dead in the eye and said, I can't do what you do, bro, but I can definitely sell. And so get me somewhere that has a really good commission structure. So, and he did, I mean, he literally lined me up with the best company he thought possible. You know, we had about 4 or 5 different people throw their hat in the ring during the process, you know, collectively over time, over the course of about a year. And he said, Dale, I think this is the, this is the company, man. This is the one that's gonna treat you the best. And they're gonna treat our customers the best and let's do it. So again, you know, not to deviate from your original question, but I really honestly, like, I think sales was just built into my being through my father and my grandfather was in sales too. He was with Nabisco, you know, retired with a pension, one of their top guys.

19:21 Scott Ingram: So, you know, it's, it's funny, parts of that definitely parallel my own story. I mean, I, I started my first company when I was 19, 20 years old and, you know, it was wearing all of those hats and being responsible for everything that was the most frustrating to me. And I just, I really wanted to focus in on and do the thing that I was best at and enjoyed the most and just, you know, let me, let me just do the sales thing and let other people deal with the delivery and the finance and all of this other mess. Like, let me just focus on, on delivering that experience. So I love that. And I'm also really curious about the origin story around the Copier Warrior. Like, where did that come about and how big of an impact did sort of that personal branding that you wrapped yourself in have in your results?

20:10 Dale Dupree: Well, I'll answer the second part of that question first, and it was the key to my massive results. I give all credit to the Copier Warrior. But it came around when I kind of like I was talking about earlier in this podcast where I'd walk in somewhere and I had to differentiate myself from dozens of other salespeople. And so I started to realize, you know, that we all wore a suit, we all wore a tie, we all had a white shirt on. I mean, how do you tell us apart and how do we be more authentic in 5 seconds, 10 seconds of first meeting a prospect. And so for me, it was about this concept of first touch pieces and interrupt marketing concepts where when I walked in, I wanted someone to know I was the Copier Warrior without me saying, hi, my name is Dale, I'm the Copier Warrior. You know, that, that kind of translation doesn't necessarily come across effectively when you're cold calling someone for the first time. Or think of, even think of dialing on somebody for the first time, because I use the phones a lot in the beginning of my career too. So I knew that I had to get something in someone's hands or let them see my personal brand to some extent as I was introducing myself, and that, that would help me to leverage what it was I was trying to accomplish from a relationship standpoint. Because when people saw the brand, I'll tell you right now that it was like a transformation within the moment of that interaction that you were having with them that led toward much more meaningful and impactful relationships in my walk. So the real way that the Copier Warrior was actually born though was that it was at my dinner table in my, my family's dining room where we were talking about what it was that we did for a living, my father and I. My mother happened to be in here as well too, and, and some of my siblings. And, and my mom just kind of chimed in and said, well, you're… you, the two of you are warriors. And, and then she kind of just said, copier warriors. And so it was this moment of brilliance, right? And I mean, hell, I don't even know if my mom remembers that conversation, but it impacted me so hardcore that the following day I called up one of my branding friends, Travis Webster. Shout out to him. He's one of the best creative minds on this earth. And him and I molded what we turned into the Copier Warrior. And it started with imagery, with an online presence. So buying DaleDupree.com, CopierWarrior.com, kind of enlightening my LinkedIn page a little bit. Creating interrupts inside of all the visuals that you saw. And my first campaign was actually at 8… 4 8.5 by 11 cutouts. They were 8.5 by 11 full bleed, you know, very thick paperweight, real nice and glossy. It just like captured your attention when I walked in and I handed that to you as if it was my business card. And it was wild, right? And on the front, the 4 different variations, but the one that people have probably seen the most 'Cause I pushed it out through my socials a few times, of me pulling a sword from a golden copier in the middle of the woods. And up in the top corner it says, every morning he wakes up believing this is his job. And everything pushed back to my website as well too, and my content. And so I was writing, I've been writing content for a very long time, but back in the day, I will say this, that Twitter was my game. And so I was actually, if I was on LinkedIn or Facebook, I was, I was tying everything back into Twitter. And so everything was 180 characters. I never wrote much more than that. So the content wasn't necessarily storyboarded, but it was content. And were there any copier people producing content other than check out the new Sharp, this model, it's got the best color series we've ever had, right? I mean, like, I was the guy that was just like, yeah, I just cold called somebody and they slammed the door in my face. Onto the next, you know, hashtag sales. That was me, right? You know, but again, too, also I'm, I'm a millennial, right? So I, I wasn't really cultured to do it any other way because my dad also did not believe in that form of marketing whatsoever. He believed that people did business with those they liked and those they trusted. And so his whole thing was always for me, go shake hands, go tell people your story, and, you know, get them enlightened and turned on to your culture. And if there's a fit, there's a fit. And if not, find another business, dude.

24:30 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. So one of the things I'm just gonna keep teasing stuff, and I've started making a list of stuff that we'll, we'll dive into to in sort of round 2, because I want to talk about really this idea of how do you develop that type of personal brand, right? If that was, you know, the thing that made such a big difference for you, and I know it wasn't just in the copier sales, but it's making a huge difference for you right now as you're kicking off the Sales Rebellion, right? So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about sort of this alternative path that you're going down. You know, one of the topics that I'm building a lot of content around at the Sales Success Summit is just the career side of sales and being intentional about that and, and choosing a path. And the most obvious paths are, well, do I, I remain… apparently I coined this term. I didn't realize it until I… somebody mentioned it to me the other day and I Googled it and there's 141 results on Google. That's like a thing doesn't exist. And, and that term is intentional individual contributors, right? So that's what I consider myself as, right? So we're going to talk about that path. We're going to talk about the path that is sales leadership, right, which is the other more obvious path. But there's obviously a third or other alternative paths that are, hey, I'm going to go out on my own and either create a business or do consulting or do other work. So, I'm going to set that aside as well. But if you were starting over today, right, and I would imagine this would change sort of the Twitter dynamic for sure, right? Twitter is not anything like what it was 10 years ago. What would you do differently? Like, how, how would you, how would you start if you were starting today?

26:08 Dale Dupree: Honestly, I would start the same exact way. And I'll say because of this, I'll say because of this, because I was just cultured from this perspective of enlightenment early on that, like, even with my mother, a lot of people don't know this about me, but here's… and I don't think I've ever said this on my social or podcast, so here's an exclusive… I was homeschooled. And so were my siblings. And we're all pretty weird, but we're also all really successful. So there's your outlook of homeschooling right there. But my mother, you know, throughout the years of being homeschooled, especially my middle school and high school years, she enabled me to think larger and think more impactfully and think deeper about every single thing that I looked at. Like if it said 2 2 4, my mom would ask why if I put the right answer. Why is that the right answer? You know, where you would look at it and say, what do you mean? Why is it the right answer? But, but again, this concept of, of her trying to help us to understand that there's a bigger purpose for us on this earth. And my father was, you know, he was definitely the, the big motivator on that side as well. He… my father found Christ and, and became a Christian when he was 35. Prior to, he was an alcoholic. My mother and him had been married, I want to say about 10 years up until that point, maybe a little bit less than that. Sorry, Mom, if you're listening. But they had been on the rocks, the business was on the rocks, right? And then my father had this transformation. And in the middle of that transformation, it wasn't so much about just becoming a better person, it was about the impact he was having on others. And he sat back and realized that he was messing it up and that he was causing people to not… to look at life differently, in a bad light. And so he took full responsibility of that and started even going around and, you know, apologizing to people that he had wronged to some extent. You know, my father was a moral person leading up to his, to his transformation as well too. I want to preface that as well. But, but it's that concept of all the little things that we don't think about, like, yeah, I'll just go ahead and do this, nobody will notice, right? That concept, like, it broke my father. And so growing up, you know, we had that, you know, that part of life being breathed into us. It wasn't beaten into us, it was a choice. And so So again, you know, I hate to be like the anti to your question, right? But I wouldn't do anything differently because I was just put in such a great situation by my parents. I'll tell you what I am gonna do differently for my son though, is that I'm not gonna be the traditional father like the world asks us to be. I'm gonna cause wonder in my son's walk. I'm gonna help him to realize his weaknesses and his strengths. I'm gonna help him to understand that he's not gonna be like me and he's not gonna be like his mom. You know, in some ways, like, he'll probably never eat the crust on the top of his bread like his mom, right? But, but, you know, in, in, in that individual mindset, you know, I'm going to push that narrative passively, right? Just like my mother and father did, so that he can have the same kinds of choices. Because when I look back at my walk, I'll tell you the 2 things I see. I see failure, and I see it coming from my own mouth, right? My own walk. So it wasn't pushed on me. It was always my choice. And so when I turned around and said, shoot, well, how did this happen? I could always come back to myself, right? And my father always liked to say that nobody cares as much as you. And, and the best part about that is my mentor that took my father's role in my life when he sold the business… he was my… he became my boss… he used to say the same thing too. So Again, like, I'm not trying to be super spiritual here, but, but the Lord just lined me up, dude, big time. You know, even in the midst of my father stepping down as my leader and me getting a new one, my new leader was like my dad version 2.0. So it was great.

30:03 Scott Ingram: You know, and I think like that description, as you were talking through that and what you're trying to do for your son, what I was thinking is, and clearly I have like a one-track mind when I'm, when I'm doing these conversations, I swear to God, I'm not like this in real life. But, but it's, I, I was just thinking, you know what, that's also what like the ultimate sales leader would do for you as well, right? What, what the ultimate sales manager is going to do is help you find your own way. And, and I think we're so divergent from that in, I don't know, just the way things have been the, the last number of years, primarily because there's just so much data and there's so many tools. And so there's so much like management by numbers and not management by human. And all of these conversations, I mean, I've had over 70 of these conversations at this point with people who are the best of the best across all kinds of industries. And the thing that makes… I mean, they're all very different, right? None of these stories are the same. But what they are is they're true to themselves, right? And they found sort of that way to be the best version of who they are and not the best version of what they think the best salesperson should be or what somebody else is doing. You really have to kind of find this for yourself. And you've clearly done that. And you're thinking about how do I, how do I do that for others and help them find their thing?

31:24 Dale Dupree: Absolutely. And I'll tell you, like, the product of that is this, that it creates an adaptability inside of your own mindset. So this is what came to mind when you said all that. And I could just be crazy and spouting this off, but But what came to mind was this, is that when I became a VP of Sales, I agreed to stay on actively as, as a selling manager, essentially, which a lot of people don't do. And, and really because it can cause turmoil in your… with your internal team, but also because you can't spend as much time with that team as you would need to as well. But I'll tell you this, at the end of the first year, that I did that, I stood up in front of the entire room as the number one rep in the company as the VP of sales. And people looked at, if you were like, if you heard me say that right now, you'd be thinking, man, I bet everybody in that room was pissed off at you. But if you looked at everyone else's numbers and you talked to my team, they would tell you that I threw them more business than they wrote themselves, right? So not only was I able to, in the midst of this transition for myself, to continue to strive for excellence and be the best. Not only was I the number one rep that year from a revenue standpoint, but I was the number one rep that year from… for net new, all the things that I was always consistent in doing in my sales walk. But, but then what really brought me fulfillment, and this is where I had a massive awakening, Scott, was where I looked at what I had just done and I realized that the fulfillment was in the numbers of my team. And even though they weren't the best numbers that I was able to help these guys get to a new place, a steady place, and girls actually as well too, in their, in their walk. And, and for me, I… that was when something started to flip for myself. And again, because like I just was saying, this adaptability type mindset when, when thrown into situations to be able to, to advance the narrative and get the results that are required of you, but also to be able to say maybe I want something different for my life. Like maybe, you know, and I'm always saying that, like I was just telling Jeff, my business partner at the Sales Rebellion, one of the co-founders alongside me. I was telling Jeff that I wanna be 50 and still having those moments, right? Where I'm like, yes, like I found something. Like, so, and that's just my personality for the most part. But at the same time, I mean, leadership and the way that it was breathed into my existence and my walk is the product of who I am. I do not take credit for Dale Dupree and the way… and my success and my outlook. I give it all back to my father, and my father gives it all back to God. So it's a full circle.

34:08 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So let's, let's keep going on that, right? Let's, let's talk about sort of fulfillment and accomplishment, right? Because you have clearly accomplished a lot and had a lot of success. Of all of that, what are you most proud of?

34:21 Dale Dupree: I think what I'm most proud of I'll say this, my brother Owen, he worked for us for a spell, and, and this just comes to mind right away. Like, what I'm most proud of is the experiences and the fulfillment that I was able to create for others. It's not like my brother Owen worked for us again for a short time after the acquisition. I was able to convince the ownership to let him on, which was pretty crazy. But, but when, when he was working with us, we took him to a whole nother level. Like, you know, he was selling, he was making commission checks, you know, from being a server at a restaurant, right? I, I think of those types of moments. I think of some of the other individuals that I trained. My protégé is Alex Dunham. He's all over LinkedIn. He's an up-and-coming star for sure. In Brevard County alone, he's already being recognized as, you know, one of the contributing factors of the growth of the community from all aspects. Guy gives back personal time, personal wealth, on top of being a sales stud. At a little company called CNI, which is not so little these days. But, you know, I think of those types, I think of the people that I was able to impact and come into contact with and to breathe my own little bit of culture and life into their walk so that they could take a piece and continue to move themselves forward and have the same type of mindset that I have and that was gifted to me, right? And it was gifted to my father and was gifted to my mother, which is this concept of of constantly helping the community, constantly growing the community, constantly being involved in and an active member of the community. So, you know, when I look at all the things that I've accomplished, and I mean, bro, I love what I've got, you know. I, I never knew that I would be living in, in a house in College Park, you know, without the woes of money at my back at 33 years old. But I also, you know, money to me is not of a fulfillment piece in my walk. Like, if it was, I'd have a nice car. I've got a 2013 Honda Civic in my driveway right now that I own. So, you know, to me, it's… my walk has never really been about me for the last about 9, 10 years at this point. And I'm trying to continue that streak. And I'll tell you this though, too, that the real fulfillment that I'm looking for is I'm looking for the same legacy that my father left. I'm looking to continue it. That's what the fulfillment is for me. Like everything that happens in between throughout my career, I'll be grateful for it. You know, I'll, I'll definitely relish in some of it. You know, I'll enjoy the moments, but, but at the end of, you know, those 10 seconds or that 1 hour, I'll reposition and realign my mindset and I'll continue to head toward the end of that path that I'm chasing toward.

37:01 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Well, you know, sales can be a bit of a roller coaster ride. So now we're going to go to the, the other extreme. What have you found to be either the biggest challenge you've had to face or maybe just take us to the time where you were struggling the most?

37:16 Dale Dupree: Yeah. So probably about, gosh, I don't know exactly what the date was or even how old I was, but I want to say I was about 25 or 26 years old. I was, I was working 80 to 100 hours a week. I was pushing myself so incredibly hard. I loved every minute of it, by the way. But something that people don't know about me unless they follow my content religiously is that I battle with depression as a child, as a teenager, as an adult. And something happened during one of my prospecting days actually where I'll never forget it very vividly. I remember getting in the car, looking at the clock, and it was 7 PM and questioning everything that I was doing in that moment. And I had experienced that it was a pretty intense day. And the last call that I had just made was at a hotel. I used to… a little, little sales secret here for you… I used to call on hotels after 5 because nobody else was open. So I was working that hard, right? And I got in the car. I had just been belittled and berated by somebody and sat down and questioned my life. And, and not just like what I was doing with it, but like my, my actual life. I thought about killing myself again, which has happened to me in the past as well too. And I, I remember in that moment, you know, the massive amount of emotions that happened. Anybody that struggles with depression can understand it. It's, it's something that you can't describe or explain. I've tried, I've tried to write it down even, but it is a dark place and And I, but what I realized was that after, you know, speaking with my wife and, and having a, a very intense intervention for myself with my family, I remember realizing that I was so focused on myself in those moments. I was so focused on those couple of months, which was more like 6 or 8 months of hard work because I lost track and I lost focus on what the true prize was. I was making a buttload of money. I was crushing it at this new company that my father had sold us to. I was loving, I was going on all the trips. I felt like a VIP everywhere I was. You know, I could, I could pay for bottle service if I went to a nightclub, you know, which I never thought I'd be able to do. I mean, it was just all these, these crazy experiences, meeting celebrities, hanging out with, you know, top dogs in the industry, including locally, you know, owners of the major sports teams, you know, the guys you see on TV commercials. And it wasn't fulfilling, but I wasn't realizing that because in the moments it's like a dopamine hit, right? It's in those moments it's like, this is so cool, right? But then you start to slowly realize that that success is tainted. Most of it is. And, and that it is not easy to get to it in the first place. The amount the, like you just said, the roller coaster. I think of it as an emotional roller coaster, our sales walk. It's a never-ending emotional roller coaster too. It's got like 8,000 corkscrews in it and like 4,000 backflip, you know, upside down, whatever you call them, parts of the track, right? But, you know, for me, I think I had hit that place in my life. And now I've had plenty of failures inside of my walk, but that was the lowest that I had ever been. And I almost, you know, gave up, you know, at that point. It was pretty close. And I don't talk about this lightly either. I say it in order… and I share the story in order for anybody listening that's been there or is there right now to know that, hey, it's been 7 years and I'm still alive. So, you know, the big thing that I did was I sought help and then I started to talk out loud in my team meetings and my one-on-ones with, with my either my mentors, my sales coaches, my any… I had 5 coaches, by the way, Scott, at one point, and right now I've got 3, just so all the listeners know. Like, I'm a, I'm a student of success. That's how I look at it. But I'm also somebody that understands that us humans are fragile. We are very fragile. We come from the dirt. We are extremely fragile things, you know, if you think about it. How when your phone won't load and you're staring at it and you're losing your mind and you want to throw it out the window. And, you know, the… when you really sit back and think about that emotion, like, that's… are we really that extreme about things? Like, are we just that fragile that, that the smallest things in life can have such a massive effect on us? And so when someone's looking you in the eye and basically telling that you're a worthless piece of shit on a cold call, it can definitely get to you over time. Nobody is immune to that, not, not even me with all the grit that I've got, you know, in my life and in my walk as a characteristic. When I do any kind of personality tests or the DiSC scale or, you know, anything Myers-Briggs or neuropsych related, when you look at my results… and it even happened with the last company I was with… it's like I score perfectly on, you know, whether or not I'll be able to persevere through a sales role. Like, that's who I am. But again, there's… we have to understand the bigger picture of life, that we are all vulnerable and susceptible to evil, and that it can come very quickly and, and also very slowly over time. It can build up and get to this point where we don't even realize what we've been doing, and then it catches up.

42:58 Scott Ingram: Well, okay. So that one is for sure going on the list for next time. And you and I have already gone back and forth on this a couple of times because you're about the only guy I can think of who has been really open about, you know, just, just the struggles with depression and stuff that I think is so incredibly common in sales. Because you're exactly right. When I talk about roller coaster, I'm absolutely speaking about the, the emotional part of it. Right. And so let's dig deeper into that in, in part 2. But for now, What's the one thing? So if somebody is in that place right now and they're listening to this, what would you suggest they do to find their way through?

43:37 Dale Dupree: So the steps I took were, number one, I just like go talk to somebody. And if it's me, just reach out to me. I'll help you. But I went to the people in my life that I know would not be judgmental of the situation. If you don't have those people, they exist, trust me, and you can find them. And you could start with me or you could start with one of the local psychologists even. But the first thing you need to do is to recognize that you're not okay and that you can't help yourself. Okay? It's a tough thing to even say out loud coming from a guy that built his success and built his wealth with his own two hands, but it's the truth. So that's the number one thing you've got to do right now is admit that you're having a problem and that you can't fix it, but others will be able to help you with the process. And so go seek them out. I had like a, I had a sequence of things that happened to me and that I did that helped me to get past ever having to deal with this again. And I hope to never deal with it again on top of that statement. So I continue to practice these types of things, but I got my sales roots in order, as I like to say, where I started to realize that I needed to not be on this island of the copier warrior, you know, even though if you were looking from the outside in, you would think Dale's the most popular guy on the face of this earth. And my mom always says when, when I say the name of somebody, like, you know, Mom, Scott, right? She goes, yeah, one of your 3,000 friends, right? So growing up in my neighborhood, playing in my band, I mean, I've… I am a friendly person. I… if I put you in my phone, you stayed. And if you're in my phone, I'd probably talk to you at least once a year at a minimum because I'm intentional with relationships. It's just who Dale is, right? And so if you're looking at the Copier Warrior again, you, you think that, but here's the staunch reality is that that's not what it is, what it's like. You're for 10 to 12 to 13 hours a day, you're alone in sales. You know, you, you're out in the field, you're writing your proposals. Yeah. Do you, do you lean on some applications people every once in a while? Do you call your boss here and there? Absolutely. And I got lucky because a lot of those guys were very supportive and very helpful with me, but 90% of the sales world doesn't have it like I did. I've talked to that 90%. I know what they struggle with. I know what they deal with. And it, it's hard to admit and hard to even tell other people that you feel like you're on an island because, you know, meanwhile in the back of your head you're thinking to yourself, that's just me being… making excuses, right? Or that's just me being a wimp, right? But it's not. Not. I promise you that. And so getting my sales roots in order was a big piece. And like understanding that that island could have other people on it was a, was a big piece. And so every morning I would call 5 people before I started my day. And sometimes, you know, it would be different people, but consistently for the first at least year, it was, it was about the same 5 people that were supporting me, whether it was my father, a couple of my mentors, one of my best friends, you know, I would just call. And if they wouldn't pick up, I'd leave them a message and I'd just talk to them, right? Because again, it's this concept of understanding that communication activity, right, those things we do, those things as a salesperson, but to blur the line of like personal and business is important. And so calling your best friend and saying like, hey, I'm about to start my day, I'm gonna make 50 calls today, I'm trying to get this one person to get to take an appointment with me, I've been calling on them for a month, right? Like when you talk, when you're talking to somebody that you grew up with since you were 7 years old at 27 years old, right? About your business life and the daily cadences that you're, that you're going to achieve today and this week and this month, it starts to blur that line naturally. And that will help with the way that you communicate with your prospects, right? It'll be less about the process and all the minutia of the product. And it'll be more about what it is that they are experiencing now and how they can experience it with you. So it helps in a lot of different ways to kind of get your roots together in the first place. But I then had habitual pieces inside of my morning routine as well, like confidently sitting with myself and exclaiming what my, my number one, my truths are, and number two, what my success will be. And so one of, 'cause one of the things that we do to ourselves is that we wake up in the morning and we're like, okay, I'm gonna call these 3 people that haven't called me in 2 weeks. And they told me they were making decisions, you know, 8 days ago. And I'm going to continue to call them, but I'm pretty sure they didn't go with me or they went with somebody else at this point. And, and then you start going, why is that? And then you start going, do I suck? And then you start questioning all the processes and procedures that you're doing in the first place, all the communication, the relationships you're building, your worth, right? You start to question that. And we sit around and we do that, you know, when we go over our tasks for the day or like, God, this guy won't email me back. What am I doing wrong? And when we say that tiny little piece right there, what am I doing wrong, it starts to echo. And then we affirm it for ourselves as well too. When people don't get back to us, we say to ourselves, yeah, you must suck, right? And, and that's a big piece of the puzzle that, that builds up over time and starts to create and cause an avalanche of evil into your life from all angles… anxiety, doubt, disbelief. I mean There's a lot of things that come of it. Right. But, but again, so those couple of things in the beginning stages of my, of my resurgence of my B2B walk were instrumental in the way that I pulled myself up out of it.

49:18 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Well, I think that's a good transition. Let's continue to kind of ride that wave. Cause I love just tearing apart how everybody structures their, their day. Right. So you gave us a hint there with the, with the 5 conversations in the morning, but the way I really like to think about this is Like give us the detailed blow-by-blow, right? Alarm clock goes off. What time did that happen? Give us the play-by-play until your head hits the pillow. And what time did that happen?

49:43 Dale Dupree: Yeah. So here's another secret. I love saying that because I, because I hate it.

49:50 Scott Ingram: Amen.

49:51 Dale Dupree: Yeah. Right. So, so anyway, that's why I laugh at myself every time. And so it's, I don't say wake up at 5:00 AM. Okay. A lot of people say that. I say, give yourself a window, like allow yourself to be flexible inside of your own schedule. Because if you don't do that, when it's 3:30 and a customer calls and they have an emergency but you've got a schedule to keep, you're not going to be able to pivot correctly. It's going to cause a massive amount of anxiety for you, all kinds of different issues, right? So, so I usually said, I'll wake up in between 4:30 and 5:30. And so consistently I usually woke up about 4:45. That was usually the time because my alarm clock would go off around 4:30 and I'd have it set for 2 snoozes, right? And then, and then the second one was just like, you couldn't snooze it. So it just would go off until I woke up, right? But, but when you give yourself that flexibility, you'll be, you'll be surprised about the way that your body and your mind adapt to it. You know, you kind of just like, oh yeah, I gotta get up. Like, let's do this thing. You know, you're a little bit more motivated because again, you're allowing yourself to say you know what, I'm still a little bit tired. I bet 10 minutes will help. And, and scientifically it does help, you know, in the ways that it helps, you know, sometimes aren't just to like close your eyes. Like a lot of times it's like turn to your side, like put your feet above your head. I know it sounds crazy, but there's a lot of different things that anybody can go out and look up on the internet and find from that perspective. But also my wife, she's a neuropsychometrist. So she took psychology, she's got a master's in it. So I, in my routines and in my sales walk, That was part of my foundation as well too, is understanding the way that the brain worked. And, and so by alleviating this like strict, you know, very Nazi Germany style routine for myself in the morning, I allowed my… myself to be flexible. This is my time is how I looked at it. This is my time. I can do with my time whatever the hell I want. And, and so, and not from a selfish perspective, but just from like a, hey Dale, dude, chill. Deal, right? Like, it's okay, man. It's 4:30 in the morning. Nobody's awake except for Steve Nudelberg. That's the only guy… him and Ned Ehrich. Those are 2 of the guys in my, in my circles that wake up before me. I think they get up at 3:30 and 4, which is pretty awesome, right? Anyway, so once I actually got into my rhythm, it looked like this. Like, lots of self-confident things going on. Do not look at your phone when you first wake up, you know, turn your alarm off. Put it down. I know that the tendency is to say like, oh, I have 8 notifications on LinkedIn, or I have 4 text messages that I got in the middle of the night. And look, if you've got like 40 text messages in the middle of the night, definitely check because something's wrong. But the point is, is that your body and your brain react differently when you jump to the phone right away. It… they react negatively is what happens. It doesn't allow your brain to fully wake up. And so the affirmation part of the morning is for you and for your routine is important, you know. So self-hygiene… if you like to take a shower at night, take a shower at night. I like them in the morning. And you know the saying, the best ideas always come in the shower? Well, they happen when you give yourself a solid 10 to 30 minutes of not diving into the digital realm and being present with yourself, you know. So, so I'd take about 15 minutes of, of getting up, kind of stretching, I had a devotional that I would read out of a book, not on my phone. And then, and then I'd jump in the shower, right? And by the time I got out, I felt like a whole new person. I think that's important for people to hear. Like, every morning you should feel incredibly rejuvenated from what you've been doing for the last 24 hours. Truly, that's how we should, we should get up and start to feel, not immediately waking up and going, let's, you know, kick today's butt, because you'll, you'll lose steam so quickly. You know, when you get up and you're not in the right mindset, you know, allow your body and your mind to adapt to the morning, to adapt to what's about to happen throughout the day, and naturally and holistically it will be prepared. So another thing that I did is in my little office, I love music, and I've already told you I played in a band. So I would turn some music on, and it's not the same music I played, which was heavy metal. I'd turn on some much softer, much more chill music in my, in my home office. And that's about the time that I would start writing. And that's what led to my content, my long-form content on LinkedIn eventually, and led to the book that I just finished and the 2 that I'm writing. And, but I started writing. And so I'd have LED lights going in the room, you know, that were different colors that created an atmosphere, kind of like we talked about earlier, this experience, that entertainer in me comes out in my morning routine. The music's going, it's impactful music. I always am very cautious about the lyrics in a song if there are any. And if there's not, I'm, I'm super, I'm uber-focused on the melodies, on the rhythms. All these things are incredibly important for me and my brain and the way that I tick. I say my brain and the way I tick because people listening need to understand that you might try this morning routine and it won't work for you. Make sure that you're… the only thing that I say to copy of mine is to be flexible with yourself. Don't be so regimented in the morning and hard on yourself. Like, we're supposed to live this life and have fun, and work should be fun for us too. And so if you're waking up and you're like kicking your own ass, you're gonna lose. Simple as that.

55:16 Scott Ingram: So keep going, right? So you've got a really solid morning routine, you've got the writing and kind of that piece of it. What happens from there? How are you structuring kind of the rest of your workday?

55:28 Dale Dupree: Yeah, so I look at it as before everybody gets into the office. Try to get to the, to the office by 6:30 or 7 and see what happens. Like, for me, it was, it was awesome because A, nobody's there. B, I loved my office. I loved the familiarity of my desk and the view I had of the parking lot. Like, I, I loved everything about it. And like, and the other thing that I tell people too is like, give yourself the ability to, to try and love these things. Like, a lot of times we we forcefully hate our job, you know, like we force ourselves to feel that way because we don't take a minute and step back and say, you know, this is a season of my life that I should be grateful for. This is a season of my life that's allowing me to learn and to nurture my own habits and, and success. And, and so I should sit back and be happy that I'm doing these things. I should love what I do in every moment. So, so before everybody gets in the office, right, try to get in an hour to an hour and a half earlier. You know, sometimes I'd be in the office by 6, just depending on what time I got up in that morning stage of my routine and when I got done journaling. So at the office, I get myself ready for the day, and you can't call those 5 people like I mentioned at 6:30. They're probably not awake either unless they're my dad or one of my mentors, right? So typically I'd, I'd make those dials, and they turned into text messages eventually I'll clarify that as well too, because texting became a lot more popular as I got older and it was easier. And instead of the phone ringing and like waking your mentor's wife up, you could just text them. It was a lot easier, right? So, so, but it's the interaction with somebody, right? But, but prior to that, get your battle plan ready, right? And when I say battle plan, I'm not telling you that sales is a war. By any means, but the way that I looked at every day was to be prepared. A warrior does not go into battle with sandals on, you know, a sword that's not sharpened, a shield that, that might be a little rusty, a helmet that fits barely. They are prepared. They, they wake up early, they meditate beforehand. They know that there's a chance that they might not live through the day. And, and so every day I woke up like a warrior and I prepared myself like a warrior in a very, I should say, non-confrontational way. So I wasn't coming to the office like beating my chest and kicking through walls and burning things. Like, I loved the warrior I was, right? I was looking forward to being in my territory. And so I would send emails, I would make content for social media at this point in time in the morning. I would strategically sit back and say, okay, I've called on this account 4 times, I've used my reason theory, I dropped off an 8.5 by 11 of Doom. I dropped off one of my special HR resumes that I've created, which is, let me be your… I'm applying for the job of your copier guy. I've dropped off, you know, one of my QR code business cards, you know, that takes you back to a video. I've done… I would look at my day and say, I've done these 3 or 4 touches, what's the next? And I looked at every day like that and every account like that, and I'd have hundreds that I was working on at a time, you know, throughout a week. And again, that's… that's if you want to be a net new warrior, that's what you got to do. So I didn't hold that trophy for no reason. I, I held it because I, I wasn't afraid to find new business and to culture new business. I'd have people tell me straight up over the phone, they'd say, we'll never do business with you. Or I remember one time a lady told me, I don't like you, right? When I asked her, when I asked her, you know, ma'am, is it okay if I ask why you're cutting me off? She's like, I don't like you, and hangs the phone up. I persevered through those things though, right? Instead of being angry or upset about them, I just simply loved the situation I was in, right? And so that's all part of that little morning routine that you get yourself realigned with the day. You know, you see the account where the lady told you to buzz off and you go, okay, I see you up there, I'm coming back. You don't know it yet, but we're doing business one day in some capacity, even if it's just a referral, or if I'm gonna take the trash out for you. Like, I'm going to serve you to some capacity. That was my mindset. At all times. So once you hit that 8 o'clock mark, it's like I used to picture the, like, the horse races, the Kentucky Derby, like the gates open and it's just like, who's gonna win this thing? So for me, I was very competitive from 8 to 5. And in the morning time, I was out in the streets doing drops. So I was walking in your front door, shaking your hand, leaving you my infamous crumpled letter. That was my favorite one. That I developed. It was a real estate marketing piece that I learned about that a guy had done in 2004. The concept of it was that he took this crumpled piece of paper after he would send a listing that had been on the market for 90 days a mailer and they wouldn't respond to him. He would take his crumpled piece of paper and essentially it was the same thing he sent them, but he would… he would… on the envelope was crumpled and it would say, don't throw me away again. And you would look at that and it would interrupt your daily pattern, right? So where he was getting 3% return on his mailers when somebody's house was on the market for more than 90 days, he got like a 60% return when the letter was crumpled up like that and he put that message on the front. People would open it, they'd read it, they'd laugh, and essentially he would say, hey, you threw this away the first time it came in, but it's, it's back because your house is still on the market. And it's gonna come again in 30 days if your house is still on the market. And so he, he drove home the pain a little bit in it. And so now mine is completely different. I just should preface that, but I have a completely different message. But the pain portion of it is what, is what resonated with me. People do business because they have a problem and that, or that, or because they want to get away from the inevitability of a problem, right? Or they, they see that in the process of you speaking with them and uncovering the problem in the first place that, oh my gosh, I didn't even know that this was happening. So, but regardless, it's always emotional to some capacity from that perspective. And so I'd leave you my crumpled letter, I'd walk out your door, and a lot of times I'll tell you straight up that people would call me in the car and tell me to come back. And the biggest time that that was happening actually was when I had a little 4x6 card, me, Chuck Norris, and Angus MacGyver on And at the bottom it said, they make movies about people this awesome. And then it just had the copierwarrior.com URL and it said, go here to watch mine, right? And it pointed at me.

1:02:18 Scott Ingram: That's awesome.

1:02:19 Dale Dupree: So people were just like, what the hell is this, right? So, so from 8 to noon, that's what I did. And then at lunch, I believe in the whole concept of lunch with a purpose. I either took people to lunch, I virtually did lunch, you know, over the phone or At the time we were, we were using… we don't… we… my dad had these, these videophones. I'm talking videophones, man. Like, it looked like a laptop. You popped it open and it had numbers on it. I can't even remember the models of those phones, but the millennials that are in their 20s listening right now are like, what are you talking about? You know, the Gen Z…

1:02:55 Scott Ingram: this isn't FaceTime.

1:02:57 Dale Dupree: Yeah, nope, not even close. You had to, you had to put it into you know, you had to put a landline into it or a Cat5, one or the other, to connect it to the internet or to, you know, a phone to some degree or a line to some degree so that you could make a call out. But so, so no matter what though, the point being that I would never eat alone. I'll tell you this too, here's another secret. I would, I would sit in community table restaurants. So where you've got like a big bench and you got 4 people on one end and a guy in the middle and a couple girls all the way down on the left I'd sit next to one of those strangers and just be like, hey, do you mind if I eat with y'all? Straight up. And, and sometimes you get some weird reactions, but here's the thing that, that we don't talk about in sales enough is that you can walk into a room and you can judge whether or not it's a good idea to sit over here or over there. And I'll say, I'll say it like this. You got 4 or 5 women that are all sitting with each other, go sit with them and enjoy fellowship. If it's one woman, do not sit with her. You're a creep, right? But that's the concept.

1:04:03 Scott Ingram: That sounds like a hard-won lesson, Dale.

1:04:08 Dale Dupree: My mom taught me that a long time before I ever did it, right? So I got lucky on that front. But, but I say it because I have had reps that I've told, like, just go sit with somebody. They're like, man, I sat with this lady and she about called the cops. Well, dude, come on, man. Be, be cognizant, right? So it's about the surroundings. Or about the atmosphere that you're in and looking and seeing, like, I would actually look for the people that, that I felt that they were lonely to some extent, right? Like, you'd have 2 guys sitting with each other staring at their plates, you know, and that, those are the kind of people that I would sit next to. And I'll tell you straight up, Scott, that I sold copiers to people that I met at lunch like that. And furthermore, I made relationships with salespeople, a lot of salespeople doing that. And so for me, it was like revitalizing and rejuvenating yourself in the middle of the day. So at 1 o'clock, I'd be back in the car where most people are like, I want to go take a nap. I'm like, I'm ready to rock, dude. I just had a great experience. Or I didn't have such a great experience, but I still did something different and I challenged myself. And so it was rewarding. And so I would head back to the office and do all my follow-up for the rest of the day. And essentially what I was following up on were my drops. You know, imagine being an account executive searching after net new business, and instead of just trying to coldly and blindly get an appointment, that you're very purposeful and you're very authentic on top of that, inside of this purpose that you're trying to fulfill for yourself, but more so that you're intentional about the interaction that you're having. The intentionality, I think, is the most important part to this, because I could call the front desk and say, hey, it's, it's the Copier Warrior from earlier. Were you able to get that picture of me and Chuck to Dennis, and can I speak with him? And I'm telling you right now that when you make that call, the front desk, 90% of the time it's just like, I gave it to him, he laughed. They give you all kinds of info. They become your alliance inside of the organization in those moments. And they'll say one of two things, like, he's not interested, but he said keep in touch. Like, it's the softest no you've ever gotten. Or they'll say something along the lines he said to call him tomorrow at 3, right? Or yeah, he's in, you know. So like either you get to them or you get the softest no ever. But, but one way or another, I always kept people in my pipeline. I should mention that even if they told me they weren't interested, I kept them in a bucket where I was respectful but pleasantly persistent with them over time and I won their business. So about 5 o'clock, people go home, right, Scott? Like they straight up just clock out and go home. But like I was telling you, like I'd go back into the field. I called it decompressing. And at one point I was doing it wrong, but I'll tell you the right way to do it is that you go back into the field, but you go with this attitude and mentality of serving. And so you head to a community event, or you do… or you head to a hotel, but, but go change your clothes first. Like, head in with some jeans and tennis shoes. Like, be less intrusive and, and be more meaningful in what it is that you're trying to accomplish with these business owners and these people that you're trying to serve.

1:07:11 Scott Ingram: So go back to You talked about a couple of things there that I'm interested in, right? You talked about you're managing, you know, hundreds of prospects over the course of a week that you might touch, and then, and then you've, you've got a way that you'd sort of recirculate. How are you managing that? And especially when you were doing the prep, was it, okay, let me look at these 25 or these 50 today so that you're not overwhelmed and having to go through a list of 200? Like, what, what is that process?

1:07:36 Dale Dupree: So I believe in target marketing. Account-based marketing, even ABM. I am a big believer in that, and I've been practicing it since I started in sales because for me it was like, here are 10 people I want to get in front of, okay? And so I can learn the situation and figure out if there's an opportunity for myself or for them through me, right? That was always my outlook. And so when I got a territory of, you know, 3,000 names or 4,000 names pulled from some list, you know, off the internet And think about being in that boat in 2012. I mean, it's '19, it's a lot easier to get that kind of information, but the info was garbage. You know, sometimes you'd pull up to the address and the building was burned down. You know, you're like, okay. So, so what I would do is instead of being overwhelmed or trying to get to those 3,000 people, I would realize that I could probably get in front of 20 to 30 people a day. That was my magic number. And so I would look at a month or even a quarter or even 6 months sometimes, Scott. And I would say, okay, I'm going to target 500 people and I'm gonna, I'm gonna get in front of all of them within this time frame… 120 days, you know, 6 months, whatever that looked like. And, and I was super intentional about it. So the one thing I, I need salespeople to hear me saying is, is that this isn't for everybody. You have to be uberly and overly focused. So that time frame of 6:30 to 8 when I'm in the office, and I told you of sending emails, doing follow-up work, doing prep work. That's a huge piece of it where I would say, I'm gonna go see these 25 people. Oh shoot, I don't have the names of the individual contacts yet. And so I was doing massive amounts of research. And back then, I mean, LinkedIn was like the savior of the, of the earth. Like the internet sucked except for LinkedIn, you know, because it at least… still true. Yeah, you're right. It at least had one person's name at the office. So even even… I'll tell you this, at one point, even if I wasn't asking for who I would assume or I knew to be generically the decision maker, if I could just get the HR person's information or a vice president of sales, I'd go meet them. I would target them and have them help me get to the right person. So instead of going in blindly or calling blindly and just saying, who's the individual I need to speak to, or can I talk to Maria, and then they're like, Maria has been gone for 6 years. Can I help you?

1:09:54 Scott Ingram: We've all been there.

1:09:58 Dale Dupree: I bet, right? I bet 10 people just got a chill just from… 100 people just got a chill from hearing that. But again, the, the intentionality behind like looking, like breaking down your territory and, and then also understanding that those 500 people are a territory inside of themselves as well because their referral, the referral that they'll give you won't be on your list. Trust me, right? It's always out of left field when someone gives you a referral. And so like, if I could get in front of 100 people over the course of 90 days, 120 days, to some capacity, whether it was just through a conversation on the phone, a quick email, hey, I got your letter, hey, I got your marketing piece, I loved it, stay in touch, we're not doing anything for a year, I would have a cadence for all them that I would then start to break them down toward helping them build their business to some capacity, and then to better learn about me. Right? Like, just as this podcast has helped a lot of people listening to say, man, there's a lot of Dale I didn't know, there's even more than that. And so just imagine how many times that you touch the prospect right now and say, just checking in, when you could be getting to know them better from all these different angles. Because just imagine what other people's walks look like. And then on top of it, once you've built that respective relationship and you've got, you know, that 100… those 100 accounts are in communication with you or they're doing business with you, you start asking them for referrals, they give you 5 to 10 over the lifetime of the relationship you have with them, right? I mean, I'm, I'm telling you, if you do this the right way, you never even have to cold call again in the first place. But I loved my outreach methodology so much because again, like when you walk in and you hand somebody a cardboard cutout of yourself that's 6 feet tall and you say, hey, Eric has been ignoring my phone calls and I just want to meet him. And so I figured this would probably be the best way if you'll put this in his office. And just tell them that, you know, I said gotcha. You know, like the front desk loses their mind, right? They love it more than anything. And then, you know, if you're intentional enough and if you, you put the right message with it, you're fun but you're also serious and what it is that you want to accomplish inside of the experience you're building, they'll call you every single time. And again, they'll, they'll become something bigger than, than how it started.

1:12:10 Scott Ingram: So How strategic were you about sort of organizing this? Because I mean, what you're doing, a lot of folks that I've talked to haven't been doing, right? You're selling in a very localized geographic area, right? So were you sort of organizing this so that when you went out in the morning and you went into offices that they were all sort of in the same neighborhood so that you're not driving all over town?

1:12:31 Dale Dupree: So I'll tell you this, a lot of people think that, but my territory, it took me 40 miles to drive to my territory from my house. And then my territory north to south was 118 miles, I think is the number, man. I, I think that's it. I hope that's it because I always promised myself I'd never forget that number. But so imagine the radius of that too, like east to west, you know, alone being 40 miles, right? I had a huge territory. I had culture after culture after culture that was different than the last. So I created my Sales Wanderer Theory, which is something that I teach at the Sales Rebellion during this time. And what it turned into was it turned into a national ideal as a salesperson from the wanderer perspective for myself as well, because I ended up starting to sell through LinkedIn and through my connections and my content. I started selling copiers all over the United States. And on top of it, I started doing research where you'd walk in somewhere and they'd say, our headquarters is in Milwaukee. And I would say challenge accepted. And I would get to that person in Milwaukee one way or another, right? Without wasting my time and making it fruitful for both myself and the prospect. So my Sales Wanderer Theory was this, is that we have to have this, this concept and idea of just wandering and being curious ourselves about the prospects, their businesses, the territory itself, because mine was huge. If you really think about it. And I… and here's the other thing, dude, is that unlike most companies, I didn't really have somebody telling me you have to be in this zip code. They, they were like, you've got all these, so you can go to all of them if you want, right? And, and again, in my mind, you know, challenge accepted, let's do this thing. So north to south, I ran that beast, you know, inside and out. And I did it because I was curious everywhere that I went. I used a lot of the existing technology at the time. So pulling up the Maps app, doing a search around me for medical, and then like zooming in and out of the search itself, which at the time, and I think it still does it too, where you could essentially granularly search, you know, where it would say, Google Analytics would say, okay, so these doctors pay the most for their ad spend and their pay-per-click and their SEO. So we're going to show these 5 people. Well, there's 40 doctors. Doctors in the area, right? So if you zoom in on the map, it takes that away and it starts saying, oh, well, oh, you want to see who's off of Biscayne? Well, Dr. Menendez is off of Biscayne, right? So for me, it was like, even if I had a list and I knew that I was going to these 25 places today, I'd find all these little hidden gems in between. That's where a lot of my success came from too. I remember calling on a manufacturing plant that had 55 machines total throughout all their locations. And I would have never found it or, or even been able to pull it off of a list because technically their headquarters was in Nashville, Tennessee. And so we had no data on their satellite offices at the time, at least, right? So I think it's a little bit different now when you pull a list, but they made the decisions locally at that, at that organization. And, and after they bought from me for that, that local acquisition, their HQ wanted to see more because of what we were able to, to do. From an experience standpoint for the prospect. So, so using the tools like grabbing the local paper, not just in… because remember, I had a massive territory, so every city I knew the Chamber of Commerce where it was. I would go stop in, see if they had anything going on that week, that month that I needed to go to. I'd grab the local papers because there'd be write-ups in the business sections, or the local business papers, because those exist. There's one in Brevard called Brevard Business, right? Like, literally. And I would find all these leaders, all these companies, these people that were being spotlighted. I would go to the EDC, the Economic Development Commissions. I would learn about people coming to town. I would sit through their roundtables. Again, I would wander my territory. And you can do this same concept as an SDR. You can have this same perspective as a national accounts manager. It's easy. It's just about whether or not you want to choose legendary or be mediocre as a salesperson.

1:16:40 Scott Ingram: Love it. So 2 more questions and then we'll wrap because we're almost out of time for today. So definitely more to come. The first thing I want to ask is you have done some incredible things with LinkedIn. How do you manage LinkedIn without it taking over your life?

1:16:55 Dale Dupree: Dude, it's real close right now to dangerously taking over my life. So I send messages to people and anybody listening that's gotten one, I apologize, that say, the only time I copy and paste, you know, from message to message, I still write something personal for each one. Like I put your name at the top and I put a message responding to you at the bottom, but sometimes it takes me 60 to 90 days to respond to messages because I get on average anywhere between 50 and 100. And that's, that's when I don't have a post go viral. When I have a post go viral, which happens constantly, I have so many messages that it's almost unhealthy. Yeah. So what I do, with social and the way that I make it work for me is that again, like, I'm intentional with the way that I use it. So I have a regiment inside of my day, inside of my week, even over the weekend, of how I interact with people on it and what kind of attention I'm looking to drum up inside of it. So sometimes I'll post something that I'll, in my mind and intentionally I'll be doing this, I'll say to myself, this one probably won't really make too much noise. It'll help a couple people, you know, hopefully, and, and the people that follow me will enjoy it, but it probably won't make too much noise. And I know that sounds weird, but it's important because if every day you're getting 1,000 messages on LinkedIn, you gotta hire somebody. And if you can't monetize that, then you're wasting money. So thankfully we're able to monetize it at the Sales Rebellion. And I was as the Copier Warrior too, because a lot of what comes in is inbound. And so because of that, LinkedIn is life. For me because I, I get at least 1 to 5 leads a week. And not just like, you know, hey, can you quote me on, on taking your classes? It's like, hey, I want you to be my coach, what do I got to do? So, so for me, LinkedIn is an inbound tool and one of the only ones that I'm using, quite frankly. Just another secret. But, but so I spend a good amount of time in it, but it's, it's regimented. Morning, I have a little time in the afternoon when I'm eating if I'm not with somebody, which is very rare because of what I just told you, right? So, but if I am, I'll be like, okay, I'm not with somebody, so I'll make my lunch with a purpose on LinkedIn with, with my messages that I'm sending people. So, and then once again at night. But the other thing is, is that how I use it effectively is that I don't just post my content and respond to messages. I am in everyone else's feeds because I care, because I want to help. Because I see your question and I need you to hear my answer because I hope it will provide some kind of guidance for you. Or I go to Gary Vaynerchuk's post and I throw something in there that I hope again will spark something for someone somewhere to make their walk easier and to enlighten them from the perspective of what they're trying to accomplish in business. So, so it's bigger than just, again, you know, fielding everything that's coming in. It's about staying active and being a positive and a supportive member of the community.

1:19:55 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. So, if you are listening to this and you are not already following Dale, he is an incredible follow on LinkedIn. So, go, go make that happen. And then, Dale, we're probably not even half done. This is, this is so much fun. But I always end on something actionable and we create a challenge for the listener. So, we've, we've covered so much ground, but what would you challenge them to do between now and the next time they get to hear from you in, in probably 2 weeks? What would you challenge them to do to, to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:20:25 Dale Dupree: That's a good question. I definitely wasn't ready for that. But the thing, the thing that comes to mind, I must not have read the rules all the way through for the podcast unless this is the gotcha question. But the thing that, the first thing that comes to mind is I actually posted on Friday about this mindset of having a customer for life so that your sales story can have an eventual ending. One of the things that we don't talk about as well in sales is that it never stops. We might make the comment of like, you're always grinding or it's 24/7, but what we forget and the thing that's most real is that it never, it never ends. Our sales story does not have an ending. We don't get to the end of a fiscal year and take a break, right? It's not like an accountant, you know, after tax season that they take 2 months off, you know, to the Bahamas with all your money, right? It's a completely different mindset and perspective. And so what I would encourage people to start doing right now is to stop focusing on closing this one, finding a new one, getting that one closed as well, moving on to the next, next, flipping this account, right? I would tell everybody listening to start thinking about their own legacy and the glory that is going to be the success that they're building that ends, that has an actual ending and a good ending as well too. So the concept for me, and I posted, again, I posted this on Friday, this last week about the concept of what if 1 in every 5 of your new clients became a customer for life? You know, over the course of 3 years, that would be 36, right? And I say that in the post. And the idea of that is like, if you're in business right now and you're in sales right now and you're like, man, I gotta work 20, 25 years minimum to get anything that I want, to have $20 million saved up so that I could retire, whatever the number is with inflation these days. But stop thinking like that. Start working toward an end result that doesn't just benefit you, but that benefits your prospect. That you and your prospects are a community instead, right? Like, imagine that, like, everybody that you interact with is going to be at your funeral because you did right by them and because they owe you that respect, just the same as you will for them as well too. So the thing that I wrote, I'm going to read this verbatim, was imagine that at the end of your career, as you walk out the door, that you're lined up, you know, with all of your customers that you've had for life. And, and it ends with a hug and a final handshake followed by the words, thank you, my friend, for all that you've done to support me and my family. I hope that I was able to bless you just the same. I hope that resonates with a few people that are listening.

1:22:59 Scott Ingram: Love that, man. Good recovery. Next time, next time I'll ask you for another challenge, but that was fantastic. And I can't wait. I can't wait to do this again. And again, for you guys listening to this, come hang out with Dale and I and so many other incredible people that you've heard on this show. At the Sales Success Summit. I'm just getting close to wrapping up the agenda and all the speakers. Obviously, Dale will be one. There will be others. It is going to be absolutely freaking incredible. You do not want to miss this. So go to top1summit.com, get registered. The price goes up again the end of this month. This is, this is June. So just a few more days after we release this before that happens. There's an opportunity to pay monthly. There's really no excuse not to make it out to Austin and, and make this happen. I got, I got a note from somebody who's planning on joining us potentially from Nigeria. So you have no freaking excuse. People are coming from all over the, the world to this thing. Dale, enjoy your Father's Day tomorrow, and we'll look forward to doing this again real soon.

1:23:58 Dale Dupree: Thanks, Scott. Happy Father's Day to you too, bro. Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode, and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.