An Interview with David Dvorkin of Hire Cause.
Have you ever done a presentation with everyone sitting on the edge of their seats, leaning in, paying absolute attention to everything you were saying? They just knew that you had the solution to their problem. And they wanted to learn more. This is the dream right?
Well, this dream was a reality for my client, David Dvorkin. And today, we’re chatting with David to hear how he made that dream a reality.
David is the founder and CEO of Hire Cause, a company dedicated to preparing the future generation of leaders to grow, lead, and contribute by connecting companies, non-profit organizations, schools, and projects allowing students to foster professional skills through civic engagement. Hire Cause was recently recognized by the University of Pennsylvania as one of seven organizations across the globe for its innovation in education. Hire Cause was also selected by superintendents to lead the career development programming for former President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) and My Sister’s Keeper (MSK) initiatives in school districts. David works with professionals from companies such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and American Express, consulting them on how to tap into the energy of students to achieve their individual and corporate impact goals.
David and his team experienced the struggle of getting through to the principals (decision-makers). They knew that they could help the schools and students, but they struggled to book meetings consistently in a repeatable manner. David realized he needed a lead generation system to bring in more of those quality leads. And that’s when he joined the EdSales Elevation Experience.
Today, he is going to share more of that story, including how he’s been growing his business and how he’s overcome some big challenges in lead generation.
Let’s dive into the interview below:
What challenges were you experiencing before you joined the Ed sales elevation experience?
I think that, as a growing business in the education sector, we knew we needed to have more conversations with potential clients. But our biggest challenge was in setting those up consistently. We felt that once we were in those meetings, and once we had those meetings, we did pretty well. But booking the meeting was tricky. Schools often seek service or internship opportunities for their students, which is precisely what we offer. The challenge was: how do you break through the inbox clutter of hundreds of emails that principals get? This aspect particularly resonated with me regarding the Ed Sales program because it directly addressed the obstacles we were experiencing. That was something that spoke to me. Also, you were the only person talking about leads in the education sector and having a system just to have leads on repeat.
How were these challenges impacting you, your team, and your ability to grow Hire Cause?
Without that system in place, you constantly have to figure out how to get the leads while also focusing on all the other things as an entrepreneur and business owner. It’s a constant balancing act. So, we needed to have a repeat, reliable system in place. Having a system in place is crucial, as it gives you more peace of mind as a business owner.
How were you trying to get leads before working with us?
We presented at certain functions, like superintendent PD days or principal professional development days. We would go in and lead a presentation, and that works. The challenge is that they are sporadic and infrequent, so it's not something you could do daily or weekly. That makes it less predictable and sustainable.
We also tried cold emails, but your strategy with LinkedIn is much smarter and more effective than just reaching out cold. With LinkedIn, you can really do your homework and find good candidates for the business and the program. This makes reaching out more effective than buying a generic list and sending out cold emails.
Did you face any resistance or skepticism from your team when implementing new strategies?
I think a lot of our team is open to learning new ways and we realize we don't have all the parts of the puzzle. I think that's part of what attracted me to the program too is I knew what was working for us, but I saw an opportunity to build on that with something new. I hadn't really used LinkedIn. And I hadn't used other areas that you talked about, like the signature solution or other areas of your program. So, when I heard that, I thought, here's an opportunity to learn from someone and from a cohort of like-minded entrepreneurs… It's worth trying, like it's worth seeing what you can get out of it. I feel like there's probably something for everyone. You know, people are at different stages and coming at it from different angles. For me, I really found the signature solution to be a helpful tool. Someone else might benefit from another part of the program. I feel like at each stage, there's something that connects a lot of different pieces of the puzzle in terms of growing a business and generating leads.
Can you talk about your experience in the cohort and how it impacted your perspective on growing a business?
I think the cohort is an interesting part of the program because you're hearing other people share their challenges and their goals and what they're working on. And they’re working through things at the same time as you. So you learn alot from each other. It broadened my perspective. There would be something (in the weekly meetings) that someone else was working on that I could relate to, or I could learn from. E.g. just going over, for instance their LinkedIn pages, and having that cohort critique each other. Seeing what worked well and what didn't, I thought that was beneficial. So I’m excited to be in the cohort now and to have the network of people that I admire what they're doing.
Can you share a success story related to the signature solution and how it impacted your interactions with clients?
So we were talking about the signature solution in our cohort. And at first it was all theoretical. I was having trouble figuring out what this would look like and how I could put this down on paper.
And, then there was a big conference coming up (CRDi) which is a conference with superintendents, discussing Innovations in Education and solving different problems in education. I thought to myself, this could be an opportunity to look at the signature solution and share it with superintendents and see what feedback I get. And so when I presented, I shared some success stories of our students. And then I showed them how it was possible to get those results using my one page signature solution that clearly talked about the process and the transformation. I think that is the most important part, the transformation and each stage that occurs within students during the process.
We had one superintendent say, Hey, I like that you called it I like that zigzag page. Like he liked that page in terms of the signature solution. We had another one take out their phone and take a picture of the signature solution. It was just a great feeling to be presenting and see a lot of them just leaned in and were engaged, and the signature solution really made the vision clear about what we were doing, and gave them a sense of certainty that we had all the pieces along the way that made this different, a different process to get the outcome that they wanted and something that they couldn't replicate on their own.
How has the signature solution made you more efficient in sales and closing deals?
I think it's great. Instead of showing 20 slides, we really show two or three. One is a success story about a student that shows the impact that we're having. This also lets them see a real project from a student that supported the nonprofit and how they did that, what their passion project was and how Hire Cause made that possible. The second slide we've been using is the signature solution, which really shows how that story was possible. Because a question we hear all the time is: How does it work? And how do I set this up, you know, at my school, so that students all have these opportunities to work on these projects to support nonprofits. I think the signature solution page is very efficient because it shows the different parts of the process, and it shows the transformation that's happening at each stage. And based upon their questions or feedback to that page. It lets us hone in on what they are most interested in or what they want more clarification on.
For example, before students start these projects we share videos of other students when performing this participation. And that's one of our points on the signature solution is the alumni videos. And that's just one bullet for one part of the signature solution that says, this is different, this is one of the nine things that we're providing that you can't just go and do by yourself because all of this works together to have the impact of that story that you just saw in the previous slide.
Can you quantify the success you've seen since implementing the signature solution?
I can quantify it now. I could probably quantify it a month from now, too. So you can add on that. But in terms of quantifying it. I'd say we had about 10 meetings since the cohort ended with superintendents or principals where we're sharing the signature solution and we receive positive feedback in each of those. And we're in the process of enrolling for the first time which will be a milestone, our first district outside of New York, just across the country. We're looking at different markets and so we're in that place to expand and one of them is close to happening. We have a few in the hopper that came from that were a direct result of good conversations with the signature solution that we can monetize and talk about.
So there you have it, from generating leads but not having a steady stream of leads to having a system set up that can continue generating leads.
The Ed Sales program has given David and his team the tools and ideas to reach their goals, setting them up for more success ahead.They're getting meetings faster and going into new places, which is a sign their way of finding leads is working.
By targeting the right people and sending them the right messages, you can get results fast. It's all about understanding how LinkedIn works within your complete lead generation system, and using it to your advantage for getting new leads quickly.
You can learn more about Hire Cause and connect with David here.
And if you want to know more about using LinkedIn to create a lead generation system that brings you high-quality, high-converting leads on repeat… then join the waitlist to be the first to know when the doors open to my signature 3E EdSales Elevation Experience Program, where we show you how to get 5-10 sales calls booked in your diary each week without pushy sales tactics.
Get on the waitlist to be the first to know and get exclusive waitlist bonuses.