AI-Powered Seller

What happens when a seasoned CRO decides to stop “exploring” AI and actually master it? We sit down with Colin Van Excel to chart the path from a single prompt that wrote a price increase letter to a full, AI-first sales operating system. The story is practical, candid, and packed with takeaways you can use today, whether you lead a revenue org or carry a quota.

We start with the real barriers holding teams back: fuzzy sales processes, inconsistent stage criteria, and sellers buried in admin. Colin explains how he rebuilt around the buyer’s journey, then layered AI to enforce consistency and speed. Think call transcripts auto-summarized into Salesforce, hot points captured and resurfaced before the next meeting, and follow-up emails drafted with context and tone in minutes. The result? More time with customers, less time wrestling with notes, and a measurable lift in deal velocity.

Colin also breaks down why certification matters and how structured learning accelerates impact. He walks through a six-week arc: sharpening prompts, using variables, building workflows in Make, and presenting a working automation to graduate. The big unlock is meta-learning—using AI to learn AI. When he got stuck, he fed the system context and constraints and received working code and steps to finish the job. That shift turns leaders from passive consumers into confident builders.

We don’t sugarcoat the stakes. Leaders who stay hands-off risk being underemployed by 2028. The advantage goes to those who learn the tools, define clear processes, and deploy automations that free sellers to sell. If you’re ready to replace “pay your dues” busywork with AI agents that actually move revenue, this conversation is your playbook. Subscribe, share with a colleague who needs the push, and leave a review with the first workflow you want to automate—we’ll tackle the best ones on a future show.

What happens when you stop predicting the future and actually audit the past?
In this episode of AI Powered Seller, Jake Dunlap revisits his 2025 AI predictions and gives them an honest scorecard. No hype. No backpedaling. Just real lessons from the front lines of revenue teams adopting AI.
Co-hosted by Skaled’s Head of Marketing Kara Burd, this conversation breaks down how AI really impacted sales teams over the last year and why some widely held assumptions completely missed the mark.
You will learn:
 • Why reps adopted AI quietly while leadership debated policy
 • How AI created performance gaps instead of replacing jobs
 • Why most copilots became distractions instead of deal support
 • Why personalization is now table stakes, not a nice-to-have
 • What surprised Jake most about high performers resisting AI
 • What sales teams must operationalize in 2026 to win
This episode is for sales reps, sales leaders, RevOps, and founders who want a grounded, experience-based view of AI in revenue, not theory or trend-chasing.
If you are trying to figure out how AI actually fits into your sales motion, this episode will save you months of mistakes.
Listen now and start 2026 as a truly AI Powered Seller.

Most AI in sales content is stuck at the top of funnel: prompts, prospecting, and research.
This episode is different.
Jake Dunlap sits down with David Maloof, Founder and Managing Partner of Pre-Sales Advisory Group and longtime pre-sales leader across high-growth SaaS and enterprise orgs, to unpack a truth most teams miss:
AI’s real power shows up in pre-sales, where discovery, storytelling, and demos decide whether you win or lose.
David breaks down how the best SEs and revenue teams are using AI to:
show up to discovery with a point of view
move from cookie-cutter questions to validation-style discovery
create stronger, faster, more tailored demos using transcripts and structured feedback
build a tighter AE and SE operating rhythm because AI gives teams back time
use frameworks like MEDDIC and MEDPIC with better pattern recognition, without outsourcing human judgment
They also tackle what modern buyers expect now that they can research everything themselves, and why the demo jockey era is dead.
Key takeaways
AI-assisted discovery starts before the call, not during it
If you are not putting in at least as much effort as the buyer did to meet you, you are already behind
Top SEs in 2026 and beyond will be defined by curiosity and consistency, not perfect tooling
AI is not replacing great sellers or SEs, it is replacing the ones who will not adapt
Learn more about Skaled: https://www.skaled.com

Jake's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakedunlap/

David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmaloof/

Check out Journey AI: http://meetjourney.ai/

AI Certification for Reps:  https://bit.ly/ai-sales-certification...

AI Certification for Managers: ​​https://bit.ly/ai-sales-certification... 

Want Jake’s AI Playbook? Go to one of Jake’s LinkedIn posts and comment or DM the word “prompt”
New episodes weekly. Follow and subscribe so you do not miss what’s next.

2026 is the year AI stops being optional in sales.
In this episode of AI Powered Seller, Jake Dunlap walks through his five biggest AI predictions for 2026 — and why sellers and leaders who don’t act now will be forced to catch up later.
This conversation goes beyond tools and trends. Jake explains how AI becomes a true go-to-market teammate, why generic personalization is dead, and how signal-based selling will redefine outbound, deal cycles, and account growth.
You’ll learn:
What digital teammates actually look like in modern sales workflows
Why AI-generated personalization alone won’t cut through
How coaching shifts from post-call to real-time execution
Why signal-based selling becomes mandatory, not optional
Why AI fluency becomes table stakes in 2026
If you want to win in sales next year, this episode is required listening.
Learn more about Skaled: https://www.skaled.com

Connect with Jake on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakedunlap/
Check out Journey AI: http://meetjourney.ai/

AI Certification for Reps:  https://bit.ly/ai-sales-certification-rep

AI Certification for Managers: ​​https://bit.ly/ai-sales-certification-manager

AI Bubble or Breakout: Are you building real, needle-moving workflows with AI, or collecting “bubble” use cases that create overlap and extra change management?
In this episode of AI Powered Seller, Jake Dunlap explains why the “AI bubble” is not AI itself, but the noise on top of it, including duplicate tools, overlapping features, and organizations investing without clear ownership. He breaks down how GTM leaders and frontline sellers can evaluate AI the right way: start with the revenue bottleneck, then choose technology that solves it.
Innovative Seller
You’ll also get Jake’s tactical seller playbook for adopting GenAI in a sustainable way:
Identify your three most painful tasks
Refine AI outputs so they sound like you
Build a simple ongoing roadmap so you don’t try to solve everything at once
Check Out: 
JourneyAI (free trial): https://meetjourney.ai/
Jake Dunlap – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakedunlap/
Skaled - https://skaled.com/
If you got value from this episode, share it with a teammate in Sales, RevOps, Enablement, or Marketing, and make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss the next drop.