Tired of gut calls and keyword roulette deciding who joins your team? We sat down with Chrissy Manzano, CEO of Blueprint Expansion, to map where AI actually improves hiring today—without pretending it can replace thoughtful human judgment. From SDRs and BDRs to manager and director roles, we break down how to speed up sourcing, standardize interviews, and create a candidate experience that reflects your brand.

We start with sourcing, where legacy tools cling to keywords and miss context. Chrissy shows how to encode practical criteria—real SaaS exposure, tenure stability, and proof of growth journeys—to help AI surface people who match your motion, not just your titles. For private-company rocket ships, we talk about triangulating signals across press, funding rounds, and team expansion. Then we turn to screening, where conversational AI shines for high-volume inbound and entry-level roles by capturing narratives, clarifying gaps, and keeping response times tight, while senior and passive candidates still warrant a human touch.

The heart of the episode tackles interview bias. Too many debriefs end with, “What do you think?” and fuzzy scorecards. We lay out how to record and analyze interviews, tag against a tight ideal candidate profile, and compare candidates on evidence, not charisma or pedigree. We also get real about limits: AI still hallucinates and can be gamed at the edges, so structure and critical thinking remain non-negotiable. Finally, we look ahead at team design—why internal talent teams may shrink while specialist partners using AI deliver faster, more predictable results—and share two immediate plays for CROs: use AI to build a rigorous interview framework and deploy a candidate-facing agent to standardize information and elevate experience.

If you want a hiring engine that moves faster, reduces bias, and keeps the bar high, this conversation is your blueprint. Subscribe, share with a hiring leader who needs a reset, and leave a review with your favorite tactic so we can dig deeper next time.

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.

In this episode, Jake is joined by revenue leader Chris Casula for a highly tactical conversation on how AI is transforming pipeline management, forecasting accuracy, and GTM productivity.

Chris shares hard-won insights from managing enterprise and transactional sales teams, and breaks down why forecasting has historically been the “bane of sales” — and why it’s not the reps’ fault.

You’ll also hear real examples of how AI surfaces buying signals, identifies bottlenecks in the sales process, improves win rates, and enables managers to coach more effectively.

In this episode, we cover:
• Why traditional forecasting models fail
• Which AI signals improve top-of-funnel accuracy
• How to identify hidden deal risks with AI
• Why deal reviews are the first workflow leaders should automate
• A new way to think about pipeline coverage
• The mindset shift every sales leader must make in 2025
• What predictable revenue will actually look like by 2026

If you’re a frontline rep, manager, or revenue leader looking to drive predictable revenue and adopt AI the right way, this episode will give you one clear takeaway you can act on today.

In Part 2 of our AI in Sales series, Jake Dunlap breaks down how top sellers are moving from basic AI assistance to fully automated workflows that run before, during, and after their workday. This episode shows how modern reps are scaling their daily workflow using automation that handles research, meeting prep, intent analysis, follow-ups, and CRM updates—freeing them to focus on higher-value conversations.

Jake also explores what AI-enabled leadership looks like today, and how managers can use automation to surface coaching opportunities, review call quality, and improve overall team performance without hours of manual analysis.

What you’ll learn:
• How AI can complete account research, intent scoring, and meeting prep automatically
• How follow-ups, summaries, and CRM activity can be fully automated
• How top sellers optimize outbound using real-time performance insights
• Practical examples of digital teammates that improve deal execution
• How modern leaders use AI to scale coaching and increase visibility

Links from the episode:
👉 JourneyAI: https://meetjourney.ai/
👉 Performance Pulse: https://www.revoptics.co/services/sales-reporting
👉 Superhuman: https://superhuman.com
👉 AI Sales Training & Certifications for GTM Teams: https://skaled.com/services/ai-sales-training/

Connect with Us:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakedunlap/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/skaled/
https://skaled.com/