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Jul 28, 2021 · 26m · saastr

Kevin Dorsey, VP Sales at PatientPop Shares Cutting Edge Techniques for Building Trust in Sales

Kevin Dorsey · 16m spoken Brian El Cesar · 5m spoken
0:00 / 0:00
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In this episode of 'The Cutting Edge,' SaaStr's Brian El Cesar interviews Kevin Dorsey, VP of Inside Sales at PatientPop, on how modern sales professionals can build authentic buyer trust through deep domain expertise, human-centered psychology, and intentional personal branding.

How this conversation actually went

Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. How this is scored →

Jason as informed peer 2.7 Guest teaching 6.3 Guest disagreement 1.7 Jason pushing back 0.3
05100:0010:0020:002:01–5:34 · Jason as informed peer 2/10 Establishing Real Trust by Understanding the Prospect's World Kevin immediately reframes the conventional wisdom around showing care in sales, explaining that salespeople must demonstrate deep understanding of the prospect's role. Brian acts primarily as an encouraging conversational partner, offering simple clarifying questions.5:34–12:15 · Jason as informed peer 3/10 Buyer Psychology and Focusing on What Never Changes Kevin uses the Socratic method to educate Brian on buyer psychology and the fallacy of treating salespeople as coin-operated machines. Brian validates Kevin's insights on human conversation, playing along with the quizzes without challenging the premise.12:16–20:19 · Jason as informed peer 3/10 Evoking Emotion, Mastering the How, and Personal Branding Kevin critiques lifeless SaaS messaging and the shallow pursuit of personal branding on LinkedIn. Brian offers a mild probe on whether personal branding assists sales reach, which Kevin readily refines into the concept of brand building as a deliberate skill.2:01–5:34 · Guest teaching 6/10 Establishing Real Trust by Understanding the Prospect's World Kevin immediately reframes the conventional wisdom around showing care in sales, explaining that salespeople must demonstrate deep understanding of the prospect's role. Brian acts primarily as an encouraging conversational partner, offering simple clarifying questions.5:34–12:15 · Guest teaching 7/10 Buyer Psychology and Focusing on What Never Changes Kevin uses the Socratic method to educate Brian on buyer psychology and the fallacy of treating salespeople as coin-operated machines. Brian validates Kevin's insights on human conversation, playing along with the quizzes without challenging the premise.12:16–20:19 · Guest teaching 6/10 Evoking Emotion, Mastering the How, and Personal Branding Kevin critiques lifeless SaaS messaging and the shallow pursuit of personal branding on LinkedIn. Brian offers a mild probe on whether personal branding assists sales reach, which Kevin readily refines into the concept of brand building as a deliberate skill.2:01–5:34 · Guest disagreement 1/10 Establishing Real Trust by Understanding the Prospect's World Kevin immediately reframes the conventional wisdom around showing care in sales, explaining that salespeople must demonstrate deep understanding of the prospect's role. Brian acts primarily as an encouraging conversational partner, offering simple clarifying questions.5:34–12:15 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Buyer Psychology and Focusing on What Never Changes Kevin uses the Socratic method to educate Brian on buyer psychology and the fallacy of treating salespeople as coin-operated machines. Brian validates Kevin's insights on human conversation, playing along with the quizzes without challenging the premise.12:16–20:19 · Guest disagreement 2/10 Evoking Emotion, Mastering the How, and Personal Branding Kevin critiques lifeless SaaS messaging and the shallow pursuit of personal branding on LinkedIn. Brian offers a mild probe on whether personal branding assists sales reach, which Kevin readily refines into the concept of brand building as a deliberate skill.2:01–5:34 · Jason pushing back 0/10 Establishing Real Trust by Understanding the Prospect's World Kevin immediately reframes the conventional wisdom around showing care in sales, explaining that salespeople must demonstrate deep understanding of the prospect's role. Brian acts primarily as an encouraging conversational partner, offering simple clarifying questions.5:34–12:15 · Jason pushing back 0/10 Buyer Psychology and Focusing on What Never Changes Kevin uses the Socratic method to educate Brian on buyer psychology and the fallacy of treating salespeople as coin-operated machines. Brian validates Kevin's insights on human conversation, playing along with the quizzes without challenging the premise.12:16–20:19 · Jason pushing back 1/10 Evoking Emotion, Mastering the How, and Personal Branding Kevin critiques lifeless SaaS messaging and the shallow pursuit of personal branding on LinkedIn. Brian offers a mild probe on whether personal branding assists sales reach, which Kevin readily refines into the concept of brand building as a deliberate skill.

speaking balance: gold is Jason, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)

0:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%0:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%3:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%3:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%6:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%6:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%9:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%9:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%12:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%12:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%15:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%15:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%18:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%18:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%21:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%21:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%24:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%24:00 · Jason 0% · guest 100%
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 17:17 Calling out fake experts on LinkedIn

Kevin vents frustration at the industry trend of every salesperson attempting to posture as an expert on social media without authentic value.

 Hardest push from Jason ▶ 18:25 Questioning personal brand's role in market reach

Brian gently pushes back on Kevin's skepticism of personal branding by sharing his own positive experience and asking if it directly impacts market reach.

 Biggest teaching moment ▶ 9:19 Deconstructing the coin-operated sales myth

Kevin quizzes Brian on how a gumball machine actually functions to demonstrate why modern sales commission structures distort rep behavior.

 Jason holds their own ▶ 10:01 Synthesizing sales conversation into humanism

Brian demonstrates his own sales philosophy by summarizing Kevin's argument into the core idea that sales conversations should just be regular human conversations.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
ChapterTopicJason as informed peerGuest teachingGuest disagreementJason pushing backWhy
Establishing Real Trust by Understanding the Prospect's World 2610 Kevin immediately reframes the conventional wisdom around showing care in sales, explaining that salespeople must demonstrate deep understanding of the prospect's role. Brian acts primarily as an encouraging conversational partner, offering simple clarifying questions.
Buyer Psychology and Focusing on What Never Changes 3720 Kevin uses the Socratic method to educate Brian on buyer psychology and the fallacy of treating salespeople as coin-operated machines. Brian validates Kevin's insights on human conversation, playing along with the quizzes without challenging the premise.
Evoking Emotion, Mastering the How, and Personal Branding 3621 Kevin critiques lifeless SaaS messaging and the shallow pursuit of personal branding on LinkedIn. Brian offers a mild probe on whether personal branding assists sales reach, which Kevin readily refines into the concept of brand building as a deliberate skill.

Statements from this episode (7)

Insight
Dorsey: Salespeople only show they care by sharing helpful knowledge
“The only way you can share how much you care is by sharing what you know. That's the only way you can't just sit there, right? Like the way you show that you care is by show sharing what you know that can help them.”
Kevin Dorsey Jul 28, 2021 ▶ 2:32
Opinion
Dorsey: Most salespeople don't understand the problems their product solves
“Because most salespeople don't even understand the problems that their product solves, right?”
Kevin Dorsey Jul 28, 2021 ▶ 2:57
Insight
Dorsey: Exclusively positive reviews reduce buyer credibility
“If there's only positive, people don't believe them as much.”
Kevin Dorsey Jul 28, 2021 ▶ 11:22
Insight
Dorsey: CEOs must be their company's public face to evoke buyer emotion
“Information on a brand and a product rarely evokes emotion. Information about people does. Right. And this is why every CEO should be the face of their company. People will attach to that.”
Kevin Dorsey Jul 28, 2021 ▶ 12:21
Insight
Dorsey: Sales reps must shift from explaining 'why' to demonstrating 'how'
“I think the next big shift is now to the how, right? The what is out there. The why the buyer is, in a lot of ways, convincing themselves of. Yep. Here's how it will actually work for you. Yep. That's the next step. And sales teams and people are still too foc…”
Kevin Dorsey Jul 28, 2021 ▶ 14:37
Insight
Dorsey: Sales reps must build brands where buyers are, not just LinkedIn
“If you know how to actually build a brand as a skill, You will be incredibly successful in whatever career. If I had to start over from scratch in a new market, a new world, I know exactly how I would do it. And it may not be on LinkedIn, right? If you're sell…”
Kevin Dorsey Jul 28, 2021 ▶ 19:15
Insight
Dorsey: Involving customers early beats salespeople at explaining product execution
“The people that know the how best on your product are the customers. Get them involved way earlier, because they can speak to the how better than any salesperson will ever be able to, right?”
Kevin Dorsey Jul 28, 2021 ▶ 21:49
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