Kevin "KD" Dorsey on why every VP Sales should love copywriting, understanding how people buy, how to interview your customers, and why he hates the sales deck

19 snips

Apr 11, 2022

Sales leader Kevin “KD” Dorsey explores why copywriting belongs in every salesperson’s toolkit, how marketing research can sharpen outreach, and the six questions he asks new customers. He also discusses customer language, personalized emails, speed to lead, and why he’d choose marketing if he weren’t in sales.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

Monthly Live Email Writing Sessions Improved Outcomes

Anecdote: Dave Gerhardt ran live monthly copywriting sessions with 30 sales reps to write email openers together.
Those sessions improved companywide emails and strengthened relationships between marketing and sales.

ADVICE

Ask Six Questions To Learn Why Customers Buy

Do interview 20+ customers with a short script of six questions to extract buying reasons and objections.
KD's six: Why did you buy; what problem were you solving; what were you afraid of; favorite part; what's changed most; how you'd describe us to a peer.

INSIGHT

Speak Prospect Language To Build Instant Rapport

Insight: Matching prospect language builds instant rapport and reduces subconscious friction.
KD shows that using unfamiliar marketing-speak like "innovative" or "all-in-one platform" triggers prospect discomfort and rejection.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Kevin "KD" Dorsey (Practice Lead: Sales Leadership at Winning by Design) joins Dave to talk about his experience as a B2B SaaS VP of sales, the power of understanding how people buy, why he loves copywriting (and some of the exact email scripts he uses), the six questions he asks when calling new customers, his opinion on the sales deck, and why he'd work in marketing if he wasn't working in sales.

Follow Kevin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kddorsey3/
Follow Dave: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davegerhardt/

Be a part of the Exit Five B2B marketing community at exitfive.com

This episode is brought to you by Metadata: https://metadata.io/

Metadata helps demand gen. marketers automate paid campaigns and drive more revenue. Learn why more B2B SaaS companies are using Metadata to grow revenue at Metadata.io.

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing the podcast for me. They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

Join 50,0000 people who get The Exit Five Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletter

Learn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/

***

Brought to you by:

Optimizely - the AI platform for marketers. Build your own AI agents or pull from a directory of 50+ pre-built ones for marketing use cases. Their new Virtual Teammates can join meetings, complete tasks, support campaigns, and keep your website optimized. Learn more at optimizely.com/exitfive.

Webflow: Webflow helps you get discovered in AI search and build fully custom sites without a developer, and its new Webflow Campaigns turns your brand system into on-brand landing pages and ads. Make your website your biggest growth engine in 2027 at webflow.com/exit-five.

Zoom Webinars & Events – The virtual event platform built to help B2B marketers run webinars that actually drive pipeline, with branded registration pages, live engagement features, and built-in tools to repurpose sessions into clips and content. Learn more at zoom.com/exitfive.

Compound Growth Marketing - A full-funnel demand gen agency helping high-growth cybersecurity and enterprise software companies show up earlier in the buying journey, combining AEO, modern paid advertising, and a dedicated go-to-market engineering team. Podcast listeners get two free media planning sessions to find out what channels are driving the best ROI. Learn more at compoundgrowthmarketing.com/exitfive.

Convertiv - A B2B marketing agency that helps enterprise teams build an AI-powered go-to-market strategy, specializing in AEO. Podcast listeners get a free AI search review showing how you stack up against competitors. Learn more at convertiv.com/exitfive.

***

Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.

They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.
Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.

Visit hatch.fm to learn more