A Conversation with Dave Dexter from RevScale Partners
I caught up with Dave Dexter shortly after OpTech, when everyone was still sorting through business cards and trying to determine which conversations were worth pursuing. Dave walked in with the calm demeanor of someone who’s seen enough sales cycles to know what actually works.
Before founding RevScale Partners, Dave worked across multiple industries: radio, multifamily, startups, and scale-ups. That breadth of experience has given him a clear perspective on what breaks down in growing sales organizations.
Early in our conversation, he said something that stuck with me:
“Presentation without discovery is sales malpractice.”
Most sales leaders would agree with this in theory, but Dave actually builds systems around it. RevScale isn’t a traditional sales training company they help founders diagnose why their revenue engine is stalling, often before the founders themselves realize there’s a problem.
The Three Common Sticking Points
Dave outlined a pattern he sees across industries:
Under $1M – Everything runs on founder hustle. There’s no system because there doesn’t need to be one yet.
$1–5M – Companies hire their first reps and realize that instinct doesn’t transfer easily. What worked for the founder needs to become repeatable.
$5–10M – The founder becomes the bottleneck. The company needs a scalable sales process, not just the founder’s intuition.
As Dave put it: “Forecasting on vibes is not a strategy.”
The Doctor Analogy
Dave compared good and bad sales to good and bad medicine:
A bad doctor walks in and immediately talks about their credentials and tools.
A great doctor asks: “Why are you here?”
“Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice,” he said. “Presentation without discovery is sales malpractice.”
Most companies still skip discovery.
The Teeter-Totter Model
Dave introduced a simple framework for understanding buying decisions:
Every purchase decision is a teeter-totter with hope for gain on one side and fear of loss on the other. In the middle sits fear of change.
If fear of change outweighs both the hope and the fear, nobody buys even if they love your product.
“People don’t buy because they understand your product,” Dave explained. “They buy because you understand their problem.”
On Urgency
Dave pushed back on the idea of “creating urgency”:
“You can’t create urgency. You can only capture the urgency that already exists in the buyer’s world.”
Trying to manufacture urgency is manipulation. Understanding existing urgency is partnership.
Better Follow-Ups
Dave had a pointed take on follow-up emails:
“If your follow-up begins with ‘Just checking in…’ you’re signaling that you add no value.”
His advice: “Follow up with intention and value, not hope.”
The Truth About Call Recordings
When we discussed call recordings, Dave made a compelling case:
“Without call recordings, you’re actively omitting the truth. Your memory rewrites conversations. Your ego edits reality. Recordings are where the truth lives unedited.”
Key Questions
The conversation left me thinking about several questions:
- Are we diagnosing or just prescribing?
- Are we selling to buyers or with buyers?
- Are we enabling decisions or complicating them?
- Are we addressing fear of change or ignoring it?
- Are we listening enough, or talking ourselves out of deals?
Dave’s core message was simple: Sales isn’t about being charming. People don’t buy charm, they buy change.
