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Invoca was lucky to have Daniel Dubinsky join us over four years ago. With his background in aerospace engineering, he quickly became a sought-after source of information on all things technical. Committing to his position as a resource, his job evolved many times until he found his current role.
An avid yogi and part-time DJ, he brings contagious energy and positivity wherever he goes. See our Q&A with Daniel below to see what makes him an indispensable team member and an integral part of our culture.
I get to do many roles here, which is part of the fun, but my primary work is Sales Engineering. What that means is I am the technical subject matter expert on everything in the marketing industry, as well as the software itself. With this knowledge I act as the technical consultant for both the Invoca sales rep I am partnering with in the sale as well as the client in coaching them through the solution.
Check out our careers page for open positions in sales.
It all starts with me graduating with a degree in Electrical Engineering, and a certificate in Technology Management from UC Santa Barbara. My first job out of college was in aerospace defense at Raytheon. At first, I thought “wow this is cool”, but then I went through the growing pains of “is this actually what I want to do for the rest of my life?”. I was ushered into leadership development trainings, and one day stumbled upon a book called “Now, Discover Your Strengths”, which I would later find change my life. I took the assessment that told me I had a talent with people- empathetic, and passionate about inclusiveness and maximizing their potential—the book stated that if I wasn't applying these strengths every day, I need to find a position that allows me to do that.
Which, in short, forced me to leave that job where I later met with my entrepreneurship professor at UC Santa Barbara who told me that the startup life would be a great fit for me. From there, it wasn’t long before I found myself in a position at Invoca in account management. Since I was technically minded, it wasn’t long until I moved into technical account management, managing the more sophisticated accounts. Then from there, I moved into Customer Success Engineering, and then beyond to build out a role called Solutions Architect where I worked with almost all of our biggest clients. After a couple years doing that, I had a short period in Sales Enablement training the next generation of Invocans, and then finally found myself in my current role as a Sales Engineer! Whew, quite the ride as I speak about it now.
Whenever you’re buying a new technology, everyone needs to be aligned to the value the solution is bringing to the organization, first and foremost. And by everyone I mean...everyone. I have seen plenty of bad software purchases, where some team members don’t understand what the solution does, or, even worse, are not aligned on the goal of purchasing it. It’s very important that all those involved in purchasing software agrees on what problem the software is solving, why solving that problem is important, and who is responsible for what in the implementation. These are essential questions to answer before purchasing any software or your will quickly find yourself with a silo of data that may or may not be deployed completely, where only of handful of people understand what it does and can leverage it.
Most of my work involves partnering with sales reps and working with them to drive revenue for the business. But I also work with a lot of other teams in the company, which is one of my favorite parts of the job! I partner with marketing, working on creating great collateral and content for our prospects to get Invoca more easily. I work with product/engineering, bringing in the “word from the street” since I am interacting with customers and prospects every day, talking about what problems and I seeing and how is the industry changing and what we should do about it. I also work with our customer success team after a deal is signed, where we work together to support the client through implementation.
The technology we offer, while simple in concept, has a lot of complexity to it. I mean, at its basic level, we help marketers understand what marketing tactics are driving quality inbound phone calls. The way we do that, can be incredibly complex. Not to mention the industry is constantly evolving so just when I think I have a strong handle of things, my world gets flipped upside down and I love that. With this incessant change, we have adapt our offering to meet the needs of the various industries we serve. It is this level of variability that keeps it exciting and engaging. I am consistently challenged.
My simple piece of advice is to “stay curious” and “be comfortable being uncomfortable”. The reason I say that is because, if you consistently push yourself into uncomfortable positions, you will find yourself growing exponentially personally and professionally. Your consistently curious mindset will help you get into those uncomfortable positions.
When I am hiring someone I am looking for a person who has a passion to learn and challenge themselves. My personal hiring philosophy is, “Hire people—not skills”. I look at the person, do they have integrity, work ethic, accountability, and passion to succeed? I can teach someone the skills they need to be successful, but I can’t change their character.
Where do I even begin! First and foremost, the people at Invoca are top tier. I am consistently amazed at how genuine, authentic, and hard working everyone is. The air is electric with passion and the room is filled with respect. Some of my best friends today work or have worked at Invoca, and some of my friends have even gotten married after meeting at Invoca! Hopefully that says something! I am inspired by too many people to name, leadership and colleagues, to do my best work every day and to represent the company in the strongest light. We not only know how to play hard, but we work harder with integrity unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The company runs in a form meritocracy, you are the only thing in your way of success and happiness.
Sound like something you want to be a part of? Find your dream job at Invoca.
I am an avid yogi, I practice yoga every day. It gives me the headspace I need to approach every day with an even perspective and calm collective. I am also a huge music enthusiast. I was a professional DJ for many years in college, and was even invited to play a side stage of Coachella once! I still play shows, friends’ birthdays, and parties from time to time but lately I just started partnering with CorePower Yoga to do a deep house yoga practice. I wanted to bridge the deep peace I find in the music with the grace of the practice and I am amazed at how successful and fun it has been! People are resonating with my intent and it warms my heart beyond belief. In a recent event we sold out a rooftop session at the Canary with close to a hundred yogis—it was surreal. Yoga, Deep House, sunset….it was a tear jerker.
