BlogBreadcrumb SeparatorPath to Pipeline: Nick Bradshaw of DX

Path to Pipeline: Nick Bradshaw of DX

Path to Pipeline: Nick Bradshaw of DX

Nick Bradshaw could plumb your whole house by the time he was 14. Growing up in a self-described “blue collar” family, the allure of Utah’s “Silicon Slopes” would come later, pulling him first into B2B marketing, before a pivot into sales. After just 5 months as a BDR at developer powerhouse, DX, Nick was promoted to Account Executive, where he routinely hits 200%+ quota.

His secret? A love of data, a knack for buyer detective work, and a habit of hopping on the hottest leads when they matter most, with Koala. This is the story of the unique approach Nick took to ramp record time, and why he attributes a good chunk of that to Koala.

From SEO to SDR

Nick’s first job in tech was in marketing, where he developed an appreciation for buyer journeys, and a deep understanding of the audience before a mastery of the product.

Marketing is selling without selling…. What I always keep in mind is if I was in their shoes, would I want to get this message? My email response rate is 20%, and that's because l always think, is this gonna move the needle for this person? That is my barometer for whether I send it or not.

When he switched into sales, Nick brought this audience-first lens with him. And when he was introduced to Koala on his second day at DX, the value was obvious.

As a marketer, I had Google Analytics to trace the path visitors took through our website. When I heard DX had a tool like that for Sales—I was all in. I thought, ok, this is gonna be my daily tool. North star metrics, single pane of glass... whatever you call it. This is my companion for how I’m gonna kick ass.

The path to pipeline

Nick believes in the power of connecting with people at exactly the right moment. He relies on Koala to know when those moments occur.

1. While Nick also gets Slack alerts for hot activity, he also logs into Koala twice daily to do his own investigative work for new leads.

View of Nick's list of high-fit, high-intent leads

2. After clicking into each surging account, he finds a list of suggested prospects to pursue, based on both individuals with recent engagement on their properties, or DX’s ICP definitions.

View of suggested prospects at selected account

3. Nick can then automatically compose emails to each, using deep contextual analysis from AI research, CRM information, call data analysis, and his company’s preferred outreach playbooks.

View of Koala Coach AI-suggested outreach

Nick’s secret to a 20%+ open rate

When reaching out to target accounts, Nick is a big fan of something called the KPIC framework, which he attributes to sales guru, Kevin Dorsey:

  • K (Know): Say why you’re reaching out. Reference the signal.
  • P (Problem): Mention a pain point they might resonate with.
  • I (Impact): Optional, but useful—show outcomes.
  • C (CTA): Ask a real question. No pushy asks.

In other words, to connect with his customers, Nick knows he needs to understand better than anyone what they’re trying to solve. To do this, he follows threads uncovered in Koala:

One of the best ways to break into an account, is to talk about the problem how they talk about it internally. And so I really like areas where you guys show the pages and docs prospects viewed, so I use that information and language in the email itself.

Nick's custom content report, to find which product and web pages have the largest impact on real pipeline dollars

Nick uses Koala Content reports to better understand which pages his prospects have interacted with, and which convert best, so he can find the perfect intersection of problem<>solution fit, resulting in a much higher open rate, and response rate.

I don't want to sell to this person. I want to help this person. I want to learn about their problem and learn a little bit more before I can actually help them instead of just hit my quota. I always think about if I was in their shoes, what would I want to get? What type of emails would I want to get? What type of conversation would I want to have? That's honestly been the biggest differentiator for me in terms of outreach philosophy.

Why Speed > Everything

Nick holds the record for fastest outbound conversion at DX. Why? Because he doesn't wait for lead lists—he acts on intent the moment it hits.

There’s speed of onboarding—how fast can you start to understand your persona—as well as speed to reaching out to your leads. Koala helps with both. I still hold the record for fastest converted outbound at DX from a new hire, in part due to Koala. Because if they’re showing interest it’s because it’s a problem they have right now, and might not have in two days. Being able to act quickly is paramount, and Koala definitely helps with that.

Onboarding the Next Generation

Now in a leadership role, Nick is helping to train new BDRs with the same focus:

  1. Master the problem.
  2. Know the persona.
  3. Understand the tools.

We don’t even talk about our product in the first two weeks. If you can’t talk about the problem like a peer, product knowledge doesn’t matter.

AI and the Future of Sales

We spent a bit of time getting Nick’s take on the future of AI in Sales. TLDR: He’s bullish on it—not afraid of it. But this is a common trend across top sellers worldwide, who see it as an opportunity to elevate themselves, rather than a risk of replacement.

I think that the top 10 or 20% of reps in the next five to 10 years are going to be masters of their tools. They're gonna know what inside or out, they're gonna basically be admin level privileged across any set of tool because I think that they realize that what AI does is help speed up bottlenecks. It doesn't necessarily replace us, but it does help me research an account faster draft, draft an email faster, it helps me onboard faster, right? That's at least four different people that would've helped me that I just mentioned. But now using tools like it's up to me to produce. And it's as fast as I can go. So I'm very enthusiastic.

For Nick, Koala's AI capabilities accelerate:

  • Onboarding (by centralizing all knowledge about user behavior)
  • Research (by incorporating public information about each account)
  • Messaging (by auto-generating messaging for each sales playbook)

I used to need four different people to do what I can now do with Koala. Your AI—in terms of the email writing capability and how fast it is to draft high context emails—is by far the best I've seen.

Want to onboard like Nick, detect high-intent leads instantly, and cut through the noise?

Try Koala


Lauren Craigie

Lauren Craigie

Head of Marketing

Path to Pipeline

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