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Empowering Healthy Business: The Podcast for Small Business Owners
#33 The Founder as Chief Salesperson
A challenge all businesses face is setting up the sales function for success. In this episode, Christopher Filipiak explores why it is critical for the Founder to master the sales process regardless of whether the plan is to hire salespeople or for the founder to continue to be the primary salesperson.
More specifically, this episode includes:
- The core of the sales process is creating and having conversations
- Challenges of delegating sales when the founder has not mastered it
- The sales mindset founders need to embrace
- Are salespeople born or made?
- Pitfalls of founders as salespeople
- Founder sales mastery is the foundation for hiring salespeople
Reach Christopher Filipiak at https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherfilipiak or https://www.christopherfilipiak.com/
Sponsored by SmartBooks. To schedule a free consultation, visit smartbooks.com.
Thanks for listening!
Host Cal Wilder can be reached at:
cal@empoweringhealthybusiness.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/calvinwilder/
Welcome to the Empowering Healthy Business podcast, THE podcast for small business owners. Your host, Cal Wilder, has built and sold businesses of his own and he has helped hundreds of other small businesses. Whether it is improving sales, profitability and cash flow; building a sustainable, scalable and saleable business; reducing your stress level, achieving work life balance, or improving physical and emotional fitness, Cal and his guests are here to help you run a healthier business, and in turn, have a healthier life. Welcome to the empowering healthy business podcast. So as we try to grow our businesses, one of the things we need to tackle is the question of who is driving and doing marketing and sales, right? some founders are natural salespeople and they just love to do that kind of work. And frankly, it would be very reluctant to try to delegate it.
Christopher Filipiak:Thanks for having me, Calvin it's really good to be here, you and your audience.
Calvin:So I've met, a lot of business coaches and sales consultants over the years. and when you and I connected on LinkedIn, I think you may be the first, at least that I can remember, that has this exclusive focus on helping founders and CEOs be really effective primary salespeople for their businesses. So I'm curious how you ended up in this niche.
Christopher Filipiak:Yeah. So, I think when you're thinking about, we'll just get right into it and like, we can walk into kind of some of the background that led me to this, but I think what is most important is when you have a business, the business's job is pretty simple. Actually it's to profitably make sales and profitably help clients. Okay. So there's two pieces and you can kind of think of that like as marketing and sales. I like to think of it as creating and having conversations. So the question you need to ask yourself is if I would need to profitably make sales and drive revenue for my business, who's going to create and have those sales conversations. Okay. So that's the lens. That's how you want to be thinking, critically thinking about your business from like a place of truth and a place of cause and effect. And the answer to that is going to depend on the stage that your business is, the industry that your business is, the sophistication and maturity of both the business and of yourself as abusiness owner and what I found, you know, I started my firm in 2017 and I started by just going around to all the CEOs that I knew and saying, Hey, can I sell for you on a fractional basis? I would call the business development as a service at the time. And I started that first year or two by learning to sell for multiple businesses simultaneously, which gave me two insights.
Calvin:Great. So I want to drill into a couple things. You know, when I go to, business owner, continuing education classes or talk to business coaches or when I used to have a business coach, I don't think anybody ever said you'd be better off being the lead salesperson. They all said, if you're trying to scale your business, you have to hire salespeople. And I did that. I know a lot of other people do that. And like you said, you end up hiring three or four people and firing three or four people a lot of the time. So I'm curious, you've got more data points, probably having observed this in action with a bunch of different businesses or at least a lot of data points. You know, what are some of the reasons that has not worked and what are the cases in which it can work in your experience and why does it typically not work?
Christopher Filipiak:So when you're thinking about creating anything you want, any effect, like we live in a world based on cause and effect. And when you're trying to increase revenue, it's based on your mindset, your strategy and tactics and your activity. So one of the first reasons it doesn't work is because a lot of founders pick that strategy from a incomplete mindset or not from a place of cause and effect, meaning that they don't like doing sales and they haven't mastered sales themselves. So they want to give that to someone else to do. And when you're the CEO, you need to be the principal driver of, revenue. And I know a lot of, books like, Lean Startup and the E Myth talk about. So, you know, the CEO building a business, they don't have to be involved in, but for a lot of the businesses that I work with professional services, firms, consulting firms, those businesses are built around the expertise of that CEO. Right. And that, that's the other thing, that comes in to play there. And then last thing is just the activity. Sales, something business development is something that you need to do essentially every day and works much, much better based on consistency. So that's what doesn't work. If we were to, you know, you asked the question, so what does work?
Calvin:Okay, so let's just run with the premise there that we agree that the founder has to develop some sales mastery with the mindset and the strategy and tactics and set of weekly or daily and weekly activities that need to get done, right? And so, and we'll agree you can't hire a salesperson, expect them to figure it out, right? You need to give them a system to follow. And this is anything else you want to say about why things don't work. Maybe we can focus a little more on, how the founder goes to market to try to master the mindset and the strategy and tactics and the activities, you elaborate a little bit on what you mean by mindset.
Christopher Filipiak:Sure. mindset is just basically the simplest definition that I found of mindset is just, is just understanding how you think. So like, what are the thoughts that are happening in your brain and what are the feelings in your body? So level of skillset around. Mindset is just understanding how to think, understanding how to operate your body, right? Cause humans are feeling creatures, right? And we act based on how we're feeling and then we come in and rationalize with our mind. But basically we're feeling driven. So you need to, you know, a couple of mindset skills that are really important are creating clarity on what it is you want. Thinking based on cause and effect and the ability to make decisions, right? Those are some mindset skills. And I think also, Some awareness pieces around, knowing how to love yourself, knowing how to trust yourself knowing what to do when you get afraid, right. Or you get stuck, like all of those are what I would just call mindset skills around thinking and operating your body. And if you can level up your mindset skills, you'll move faster. You make decisions more quickly, right?
Calvin:Okay.
Christopher Filipiak:So that, that's the mindset.
Calvin:Right? You know, I find myself personally when I'm experiencing a hang up I try to remind myself that I'm not trying to sell anything. I'm trying to solve a problem for somebody that helps me kind of refocus. I'm just trying to help somebody. I'm not trying to sell them anything I'm trying to help them and maybe I can help them. Maybe I can't but we'll figure that out
Christopher Filipiak:Yeah. That's you're, you're on the right track with that, right? There's this, framework, Calvin, like you can think of it like. Sometimes you can be, especially with people who aren't on the path to mastering sales because it's so uncomfortable. They almostkind of swing the pendulum too far in the other direction and they're like, look, I'm not here to make sales. And sometimes you are there. You're always there to make sales and whether you can help the person requires not like bypassing the skillset of learning sales, right? You can be kind of too cautious, too careful, too unattached, you know, and you want to be in that place of caring, not like careful, right? So sales, there needs to be sometimes sales, there needs to be a little bit of this to it, right? Where like, you have to give a shit because the people you're serving, They don't want to change and grow, right? So if you, you show up and you're like, well, you're like too much, I'm not here to sell you, I'm here to help, which is the right, which is the right approach, you may not show up in your, your full mastery or your full power to really lean in and help that person. So you just want to be aware of that. And it's, it's a balance, right? It's like, you know, when to lean in. And use your sales skills versus be like, you know, I don't think I can actually help this person, right? So yeah, the key is you don't want to attach to any one person. You want to understand that no one person is responsible for your money or your safety. And you want to stay like in a place of like not being attached and understanding the truth of where money comes from.
Calvin:And where do you think? Money does come from, got to ask the question.
Christopher Filipiak:So money comes from opportunities and solving problems from other people. So it comes from the universe through people.
Calvin:We got to create the opportunities in order to solve any problems, right? So I guess we're getting into strategy and tactics a little bit about how to create those opportunities for yourself.
Christopher Filipiak:Or just be aware of them. They're already here. Like, you know, everyone, you know,
Calvin:How to see them, I guess, not create them. How do I see them?
Christopher Filipiak:That's right. You got it. Yeah, to see them.
Calvin:So how do you advise founders on determining the right set of, you know, the right strategy and set of tactics for their situation?
Christopher Filipiak:Well, it depends what they want to create. Like the first thing is to like create, help, help them create clarity on what they really want and then based on what they want, you can look at the cause and effect relationship between that, that thing and the mindset skill, the strategy and tactics skill and the activity skill required to create that. It's just like, you know, it's, the gym is really easy, like losing weight or being healthy. I know it's something that, you know, a lot of people struggle with, but, you know, the, the goal is to be healthy. You know, the mindset piece is clarity on what that looks like and some mindset skills that will enable you to, you know, make progress in that area. The strategy and tactic, there's many, right? It could be going to the gym, it could be going for a walk, it could be taking up kayaking. It could be, you know, one of period diets that are out there in the world. Like there's so many strategies and tactics around nutrition. And then the activity is just consistently doing whatever the strategy and tactic is that you pick.
Calvin:What else is part of your process when you engage with the found CEO?
Christopher Filipiak:So when I work with CEOs, my business is really simple. You know, we, we do mindset coaching, we do project based consulting work, and then we do daily selling support for our clients. And again, because we need to check the box. I mean, we need to support. Whether it's a CEO or an executive seller or whoever I'm working with, we need to work in mindset, strategy and tactics and activity, right?
Calvin:Right. Christopher Filipiak: So that, yeah. So like whether sales, so I think, you know, whether sales people are born or made, yeah, we're all born and we're made it's both and it's both and yeah, yeah, So do you help the founders develop those sales skills are as helpful if they go do some training somewhere else. Or how does that work?
Christopher Filipiak:So, you know, I have a methodology that I call a sales ready organization, um, which basically, you know, helps set up the systems and processes for creating and having sales conversations. And then I help CEOs, founders implement that and learn the skills to master sales to basically be able to create whatever they want, whenever they want it.
Calvin:Well, that sounds good.
Christopher Filipiak:Yeah.
Calvin:Whatever you want, whenever you want it.
Christopher Filipiak:Yeah. So, yeah, absolutely. Oh yeah. And I've worked with, you know, many CEOs, many, many, many CEOs. at this point and, I think the coolest thing is just how quickly you can add revenue to your business, right?
Calvin:Yeah. I mean, certainly the founders and CEOs are the most dynamic, flexible people who can figure stuff out. On the fly and know their product or service offering pretty much inside and out. And yeah, I could see how they could be very effective with some, some training and skill development.
Christopher Filipiak:Yeah, for, for sure. Yeah. And that's kind of the secret. Like they know, they know the business better. They know the market better. They know they have the status, right?
Calvin:A definite advantage over just a generic salesperson.
Christopher Filipiak:For sure.
Calvin:Yeah, Christopher Filipiak: And so there, it's just a really good strategy and tactic, you know? And like I said, Calvin, even if you want to stand up a sales team, that's totally fine, I'm for or against sales teams. I think at some point you're going to bring other people into the business to help you with business development with revenue, right? It's just going to, it's just going to happen. You're not going to do it a hundred percent as a CEO. What is important though, is that, that CEO is doing some level of business development. And that's going to lookdifferent depending on the maturity of the business, and maybe they mean maybe the ones actually having the sales conversations, or they mean maybe the ones doing relationship nurturing with their very best clients, or they may be speaking, or they may be on podcasts there's going to be some, influence that that CEO is going to have within the business that drives revenue. Right. So what are some of the common pitfalls or deficiencies that, you see getting the way of successful founder salespeople? That you can help them overcome,
Christopher Filipiak:Some of the pitfalls are just being inconsistent, right? Cause there's a lot on, CEO's plate and it's easy to be inconsistent with sales work, especially. Since it's not something that they love to do. That's a pitfall. I think lack of clarity on what it is they actually want is probably, you know, a big pitfall that needs to be worked through and defined. And then I'd say the last one is just missing something within their approach to sales that's fun, like fundamental, right? It could be not having a clear sales process. It could be not knowing who your market is. It could be just using the wrong marketing place for who you and your business.
Calvin:Okay, I guess I'm kind of concluding from this conversation that, you know, whether or not you hire salespeople, you've got to nail the foundation first, and then I guess, depending on how quickly you're looking to scale the business and available financial resources and your risk tolerance and your timeline, you know, you could then decide to go ahead and onboard salespeople, but you've got to have the foundation in place first, and nobody's really going to be able to do that well probably except the founder most of the time.
Christopher Filipiak:Yeah. The cool thing is, is like, you know, and I was, I was chatting with one of my other CEO friends the other day, the cool thing about, sales is it's like partly market research as well, right? So it allows, it allows you to be talking to the market and, you know, hiring and firing salespeople is very expensive. So having a CEO who's in touch and engage the market is going to allow that information and those mistakes to be made. And it's much better to figure that out, as the CEO, just because they're probably the best person to do that, right? So you can prototype out and build a, build a good sales organization, a sales ready organization. And like you said, Calvin, you, then you can bring people in to help scale.
Calvin:Okay. So this has been a great conversation, Christopher. Before we wrap up, is there anything else that you'd like to share or bring up?
Christopher Filipiak:No, I don't think so. You know, if there, if this conversation resonates with you and you want to schedule some time for a follow on conversation or a private conversation to talk about your sales organization your sales or whatever's happening in your life and business, I would welcome that I'm available to do that, I think, you know, as a parting gift to your audience, really understand that whatever it is you want has a cause and effect relationship with your mindset, your strategy and tactics and your activity.
Calvin:So if somebody listening to this podcast does want to reach out to you or follow you, how should they find you or contact you?
Christopher Filipiak:Yeah. The best way to get in touch with me is through my website. It's just Christopherfilipiak .com or you can go to LinkedIn forward slash Christopher Filippiak. I think those are the two best ways.
Calvin:All right, great. I'll get those in the show notes. Well, thanks so much for your time. This has been a great conversation and hopefully delivers some value to members who are struggling with this issue in the audience.
Christopher Filipiak:Awesome. pleasure being here. Thanks for the conversation, Calvin.
Calvin:Thanks, Chris. Reference show notes and find other episodes on EmpoweringHealthyBusiness.com. If you would like to have a one-on-one discussion with me, or possibly engage SmartBooks to help with your business, you can reach me at Cal@EmpoweringHealthyBusiness.com or message me on LinkedIn where I am easy to find. Until next time, this is Empowering Healthy Business, the podcast for small business owners, signing off.