Why A Sales Rep Isn't the Answer You're Looking For with Christopher Filipiak (stages 2,3) - Ep. 318
August 12, 2025 • 25 mins
In this feasible episode, Christopher Filipiak, Owner of Christopher Filipiak LLC, shares strategies to stabilize your sales. If you struggle with inconsistent revenue or hiring salespeople, you won't want to miss it.
You will discover:
- How to shift your mindset to see structure as freedom
- Why mastering sales yourself ensures stable revenue growth
- What systems are needed for a sales-ready organization
This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stages 2,3 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz
Christopher Filipiak assists CEOs in excelling at their sales endeavors. Leveraging his background in engineering, data analytics, and Fortune 100 consulting, he integrates strategy, execution, and mindset transformation to build Sales Ready Organizations capable of achieving consistent and profitable sales. His distinctive experience merges an engineering foundation, robust business principles, and a strong emphasis on mindset, delivering a holistic approach that comprehensively transforms sales organizations.
Want to learn more about Christopher Filipiak's work at Christopher Filipiak LLC? Check out his website at https://www.christopherfilipiak.com/ and find out if your organization is Sales-Ready at https://www.christopherfilipiak.com/blog/sales-ready
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Scott Ritzheimer (00:00):
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once
(00:02):
again to the start, scale andsucceed. Podcast, the only
podcast that grows with youthrough all seven stages of
your journey as a founder, andtoday we've got a big one,
because if you've started abusiness, if you've had some
success in sales, you'vestarted building the team
around you, one of the thingsthat you'll discover is that
you now have to sell more tokeep all of those people
(00:23):
employed, and it puts thispressure on us as founders to
continue to sell and growwhile we're managing and doing
all these other things. Andwhat we start to see is that
doesn't work real well. And wehave months where it's
amazing, we have months whereit's terrible, and it's this
roller coaster of success andwhat feels like failure, and
so to here with us today totame that roller coaster, to
(00:45):
bring in stable revenue thatwe can really scale and grow
with is our guest today,Christopher Filipiak, who
assists CEOs in excelling attheir sales endeavors,
leveraging his background inengineering, data analytics
and fortune 100 consulting, heintegrates strategy, execution
and mindset transformation tobuild sales ready
(01:05):
organizations capable ofachieving consistent and
profitable sales. Veryimportant. His distinctive
experience merges on merges anengineering Foundation, robust
business principles and astrong emphasis on mindset
delivering a holistic approachthat comprehensively
transforms salesorganizations, and he's here
with us today. Christopher,welcome to the show. Glad to
(01:27):
have you here.
Christopher Filipiak (01:28):
Hey, Scott, it's great to be here,
and hello to the audiencetoday. Thanks for tuning in
and listening.
Scott Ritzheimer (01:34):
Awesome, awesome. All right, so I've
got what I think is a bit of aparadox, and I need your help
with it. Maybe this will behelpful for some folks
listening as well, but itseems to me that founders who
are still like the leadingsales rep for their team,
right? Maybe they've got acouple people that are coming
on, but ultimately, at the endof the day, they're still
driving things forward, notnecessarily a problem. But
(01:56):
folks at that stage tend toget there by like virtue of
their visionary Ness, right?Like they can sell ice to an
Eskimo. You know, they're themost dangerous people to walk
next to on the road, becauseyou'll end up buying something
from them. They're not salespeople, but they're so
inspired by what they do thatyou can't help but get excited
(02:17):
about it. And and so that giftof seeing opportunity, seizing
opportunity, the enthusiasmthat they have around their
ideas makes them at leasteffective enough to grow some
successful businesses. But theproblem here is when, when we
start having to get morestructured with it, the very
same processes that theysucceeded by not having and
(02:41):
now need can become astumbling block for them. So
for those who who thrive onthat, like winging it and
making it up and they do theirbest work in that environment,
how can they? How can theybuild the the structure that
will really bring them thestable revenue that you help
your clients achieve?
Christopher Filipiak (03:01):
Yeah, it's, it's a is it an
interesting question? Maybeit's an interesting question.
I think what you're so, whatyou're asking me is, how can a
CEO or a visionary CEO who'sled based on their vision or
sold based on their vision andtheir status transition to
(03:22):
something that's morestructured, which seems Yeah,
seems constraining to their totheir vision, right? Is that
that was
Scott Ritzheimer (03:33):
Absolutely, yeah, yes, you said what I
said in about a third of thewords.
Christopher Filipiak (03:38):
Yours had a lot more color and
story, which is awesome. Ithink it's mostly a mindset
shift. Scott is. I think itcomes down to understanding
that the the what you weredoing wasn't actually creating
(03:59):
as much freedom as you want,and it wasn't allowing you to
have the money and profit andthe the structure that allows
you to really create apurposeful and free life. So I
think the first shift isreally this mindset shift.
Instead of going, Yeah, I justget to do what I want, and
(04:21):
people are buying or notbuying, but I don't, it seemed
like I'm having fun. I don'tknow what's really going on.
And going, Oh, I get to have,I get to see structure as fun,
or I get to see, you know,setting up my calendar really
well as a tool or a vehicle tocreate a ton of freedom and
(04:43):
the result that I want, not assomething that's limiting me
or or hurting me or inhibitingwho, the truth of who, who I
am. So Right? I think thatthat's the way. I think you
mostly bring. In newinformation and new truths
about what it actually meansto be a business owner, and
(05:05):
create some clarity on what itis you want and what the best
causes are to create that foryourself. And I think when you
make that shift, you're gonnastart to think about things
differently, and you're gonnasee that your life actually
has much more space for yourvision and not so much
(05:27):
confusion in what you'recurrently doing. I think
that's going to feel realgood. There is the truth is,
is that we create based on ourenergy and our emotions and
our activities, right? So it'sthoughts and action and your
energy will trump whateveryour skills are the majority
(05:49):
of time. So that's one of thereasons why that visionary
founder who's lit up aboutwhat they're doing is gonna is
gonna make progress regardlessif they don't have the right
skill sets.
Scott Ritzheimer (06:02):
So yeah, so one of the things that I've
seen folks at this stage do isthink that they feel like what
you're saying, that they feela lack of freedom. And their
thought is, well, if I can getsomebody else to sell, then I
don't have to deal with thisand and, you know, if they're
a good sales rep, they'll justcome in and be able to kind
(06:24):
of, they don't say this, butmagically sell everything that
we have. What's wrong with theidea of just hiring a sales
rep in and not dealing withany of this?
Christopher Filipiak (06:31):
They fail the majority of the time,
and it's a very expensivemistake. You know, on average,
founders hire and fire 3.25sales people at a cost of
upwards of, you know, or justover $400,000 as a 2025,
right? So. And what's worse,so that what's what's not even
(06:54):
included in that cost, Scott,is that you as the founder or
the CEO, go, Hey, I actuallydon't need to do sales. Yes.
So you take your foot off thegas. Of sales because you've
hired someone and to staff agood sales team is going to
take you 1218, 24, months. Soyou hire this person, you take
(07:19):
your foot off the gas. Theydon't. They don't work out,
right, which happens a lot,and we can talk about why that
is, and how to actually set upa successful sales team so
they don't work out. You'vetaken your foot off the gas of
sales, and everyone has areally bad day six to 12
months down the track. Yes,it's okay, yes. So as a CEO,
(07:43):
your number one responsibilityis to drive the growth of
revenue and profit for thefirm right. And I think the
easiest, most effective way todo that is to personally be
involved in businessdevelopment and sales like
you're in such a a sweet spot,easy place to make sales and
(08:06):
drive revenue for thebusiness, that any other
strategy, almost like you canbring in other strategies, but
any other strategy whereyou're you're moving away from
sales or business developmentas a CEO of your business, I
think is a is a mistake,right? Yeah, and yeah doesn't
(08:30):
mean you shouldn't have help,or you shouldn't set up
systems and processes thatenable you to sell really
quickly and easily and reallyprofitably at a large level,
but when you surround yourselfwith that system and that set
of processes, you're going tohave a lot of extra cash in
your business that you canexperiment and figure out what
(08:50):
it actually takes to stand upa successful sales team.
Scott Ritzheimer (08:55):
Yeah, yeah. That's so true. To reinforce
that point, not that point,not that you need it, because
it was very well articulated.But there's a client of mine
who will not hire a firstsales rep for a team unless
they have a coach taking themthrough the process. Because
of that, it just it. They,they had so many fail that
they're like, it's not worthplacing somebody because it's
(09:16):
just not going to work. Yeah.So let's, let's unpack that,
though. So it's one thing tosay, hey, they, you know, they
often fail. It's another thingto say why that is, and even
more importantly, what we cando differently. So let's walk
that through. Why do thesefail so frequently when it's
such a pivotal transition thatwe need to be able to make?
Christopher Filipiak (09:35):
Yeah, let me I'll answer that. And
let me just say, you know, oneof the things that happens
with founders, and this is oneof the reason why sales people
fail is because the CEO hasn'tmastered sales themselves,
right? And they're pickingstrategies based on their own
fear or lack of confidence oroverwhelm, instead of a place
of cause and effect. Sothey're, they're going, Hey, I
(09:59):
want to, I. Do this, right?Because I'm uncomfortable in
sales, or I don't like doing xpiece of marketing or x piece
of selling, right? Whateverthat is. It could be anything.
And they pick strategies,hiring sales people so they
don't have to do the innerwork to try to bypass doing
(10:19):
the inner work, yeah, and cometo their own leveling up of
their self worth, of theirmastery of sales. So that's
one of the reasons why itfails, because energetically,
they're trying to get out ofdoing something that's theirs,
that's yours to do, yeah? Theother reason that initial
(10:41):
salesperson fails is, is yougot to understand that sales
is a system of systems, like,I like to think of it as a
race car team. So you need aright a fast car, you need a
driver, you need a coach forthe driver, you need a pick
crew. So sales is a system ofsystems. And if you just hire
an amazing driver, an amazingsalesperson, and there's no
(11:03):
car, there's no pit crew,there's no coaching, it
doesn't matter. And in insale, in a sales organization,
that means that your yourmarketing is dialed in. You
know who your market is. Youknow what their problem is.
You have an offer that helpsthem solve that. You know how
to message against that offerin sales. You know how to
(11:25):
create and have conversations.You have the tools to lead and
then under get the informationand the data required to make
decisions on your team has theright mindset, and you have
all that, all of that managein a well, in a well, put
together project, and it's oneof the things that I help my
(11:45):
clients with Scott is thisidea of being a sales ready
organization, and thatbasically is like looking at
the business going, Hey, wewant to make sure your
mindset, your leadership, yourmarketing, your sales and your
project management, When itcomes to adding revenue to the
business is dialed in. There'snothing missing, and a sales
(12:06):
person is just one part ofthat bigger system. The last
piece on that is to understandthat sales people are
leveraged to scale somethingthat's working, but if there's
something fundamentallymissing broking or needing
improvement, bringing in asales person to try to scale
(12:27):
that up is not the right isnot the right move, right? So
that that's, that's one of thereasons. And it could be, it
could also just be that youmay not, you don't have a good
process for hiring andtraining and coaching and
identifying top sales talentas as well. Like the business
doesn't have that competence.
Scott Ritzheimer (12:48):
Yeah, right, right. It's a skill set hiring
those folks as well. So let'sbreak this down a little bit
and maybe get it to a pointwhere we can get some
actionable steps today. So interms of creating a sales
ready organization. There's awhole lot to that. Are there a
set of steps or phases thatyou typically walk your
clients through?
Christopher Filipiak (13:09):
Yeah. So the first thing I do is we do
a sales ready organizationassessment to look at the
organization and understandwhat they're doing. Well,
because you're making money,you're profitable, right? You
have clients, you're doingsomething, so we want to
understand what's actuallydriving and creating that
profit and that revenue. Butyou look at that, and I
(13:33):
actually have a self salesready organization, self
assessment, that is kind of amini assessment that the
audience, I'll gift that tothe audience, that they can
take and I'll score that, andthey can understand how they
stack up. But typically we'lldo a the the assessment, and
then we'll write a scalingroadmap. And I've done
(13:56):
hundreds of assessments androadmaps at this point, so I
have a really good and with myengineering background, I can
a lot of the biggest benefitis I can just tell people,
Hey, you can stop doing this,this and this. Yes, we'll do a
lot of things that arewasteful, right? But they
can't see that, because it'swhat's comfortable for them.
So I can go, Hey, this is whatwe need to do from a cause and
(14:20):
effect standpoint, instead ofjust what's comfortable for
you. So I do that, and thenwe'll typically build what
like for me, I workspecifically with helping CEOs
succeed at their sales. Worklike, that's my sweet spot.
That's my niche. I don'treally do sales teams. I, you
(14:41):
know, years back, there'sother companies that are much
better at recruiting,staffing, coaching, training,
sales people. My sweet spot isreally helping support and
lead, lead the CEO to make alot of money and profit in
their business really, reallyquickly, so that they. Can
have some extra cash, butwhether it's the CEO or sales
(15:04):
team, you need to have, youneed to build the race car,
you need to have some type ofsystem that enables you to
create and have salesconversations. Yeah. So that's
kind of the second phase. Oncewe have the roadmap, it's
like, okay, what are theconditions? What are the
leadership, marketing mindset,sales and project management
(15:26):
systems that we need to buildso that you can hit whatever
your revenue goals or revenuetargets are?
Scott Ritzheimer (15:31):
Yeah, yeah. What I like about that, and I
get it like the temptation isso strong to try and skip a
step, because we see step A,where we are right now. We see
step c, where we've got salespeople helping us, and we're
scaling, and it's awesome. Andit's so tempting to skip this
step B, which you keep comingback to, and that is that you
have to develop a proficiencyin this, right? You have to
(15:55):
develop the ability to createstable revenue, not that you
have to, but if you do thereturn on it is so high. If
you can generate stablerevenue, and you do that
through a process with a car,the likelihood that someone
else will be able to do it isexponentially higher. And so
what would you say to someonewho's listening, and let's be
(16:17):
honest, most folks in thisstage like they're being
pulled in 100 differentdirections, and burnout is
like a real thing. We may notwant to say that, but they're
tired. They're worn out. Howdo you help folks to see the
light at the end of thattunnel? Because it can feel
like like you opened in thefront end of this of adding
system and process is actuallymaking it harder. It's making
(16:38):
it more uncomfortable. How doyou help folks to really get a
vision for what it can looklike when they have that
process in place.
Christopher Filipiak (16:46):
Well, I think, I think having some
skill sets around burnout orstress or overwhelm is is
important because that'ssomething that you've worked
yourself into or learnedyourself as a as kind of a
default behavior. It's not anatural state for for humans.
So just recognize that, and Iget it. I work with a lot of
(17:09):
stressed out, overwhelmed,burnt out CEOs, and one of the
things that we we coacharound, is just understanding
how to do that and createclarity on how they actually
want to show up. You know,self trust, self love,
efficient, right? Happy,feeling good, safe in their in
their body, and that, that's areal skill set to get your
(17:31):
body to that state and moveyourself out of, out of, you
know, fear, worry, doubt,shame, guilt, stress,
overwhelm, burnout, yeah, andthen from there, you know, I
don't think setting up systemsand structures are is actually
very difficult, like, that's asolved thing, so to speak. You
(17:53):
just need some help doing it.So you can help. You know, you
can use the sales readyorganization framework, or you
can use any sales processframework that you want.
There's a lot of lot of onesout there, but it's really
going, Hey, like, what is ityou actually want? And then
it's just commit. I think it'sa commitment to being involved
(18:15):
in sales. I don't thinkgetting out of sales is the
goal, right? I think as yougrow in your organization,
you're just going to do biggerand bigger deal sizes. You
know, when I, when I was a w2,employee at a B to B, you
know, consulting firm that CEOhad been there for 20 years
and was still doing huge,multi million dollar deals for
(18:36):
that firm. You know, I workwith 200 uh, $200 million
consulting firm, and that CEOis still involved in in sales.
And I'm not saying you'regoing to be on the phones all
day, but you're going to spendsome time doing relationship
nurturing, yes, calling yourbest clients, and working on
those million dollar, $10million 100 million dollar
(19:00):
deals like that's that's partof what the CEO needs to be,
needs to be doing, in myopinion. And of course, you
have other priorities, but Ithink if you master that skill
of sales, that's going to helpyou in not only adding
revenue, but attracting thebest partners, building the
(19:24):
best team, right, having thebest friendships and
relationships. And it's not,it's not, it's not about
selling ice to Eskimos, right?And I a lot of people use that
because it's like, Eskimosdon't actually need, need ice,
but it's just understandingthat you you are like, there's
just such a gift and such apersonal journey in mastering
(19:47):
sales, and it allows you toreally have a skill set around
creating what you want,whenever you want and need it.
I think that that should bethe the vision it should
should be to. Hey, like, thisis actually the company that I
want, and a big part of thatis developing a real
competence and mastery formyself and for the business
(20:09):
around sales.
Scott Ritzheimer (20:11):
Yeah, so good, so good. Christopher,
I've got one more question foryou, and then I wanna make
sure folks know how they canget in touch with you and take
the self assessment as well.What would you say is the
biggest secret you wish wasn'ta secret at all? What's that
one thing you wish everybodywatching or listening to they
knew?
Christopher Filipiak (20:26):
Yeah, I would just say that to I think
the secret is that sales isgood. Money is good, right? I
think there's a lot of storyaround money and sales. And I,
you know, I talk about thisidea of sales as an expression
of love, or sales as an act oflove. And I think the biggest
secret is that, in today'sworld, sales and money is one
(20:54):
of the main skill sets thatyou need. And we don't. We
don't teach it in school,right? We don't teach it you
can't, like I went to MBAschool. There wasn't even a
course on sales, right inbusiness school, right? And
there was marketing andoperations and HR and
leadership and consulting andfinance and all the things,
(21:14):
but there wasn't one course onon sales. And I think if you
just just teach yourself thatsales is good, is a good
thing. Like, sales is a goodthing to do to someone, right?
Like, selling people is good.I think that's a huge secret.
You know, my mentor said tome, sales isn't something that
we do to someone, sales issomething that we do for
(21:37):
someone. That's an expressionof love. It's an act of love.
There's and it's how we createand interact as humans. So
that that's the secret I'dlove your audience to take
away today.
Scott Ritzheimer (21:50):
Fantastic. Christopher, there's some
folks listening. It's exactlywhat they need when they need
it. How can they find more outabout the work that you and
your team do? And where canthey get a copy of the
assessment?
Christopher Filipiak (22:00):
Yeah. So you can go to my website,
christopherfilipiac.com, orfind me on LinkedIn, and
there's an article, an articleon my blog called, is your
business sales ready? And thelink to the assessment is in
that article.
Scott Ritzheimer (22:18):
Fantastic, Christopher. Thank you so much
for being on the show todayand sharing with us your time.
It's, I really, reallyappreciate it. It's, it's one
of those episodes that itsounds so simple because it's
so true. And I couldn't agreemore, you mentioned this in
the middle of the episode, butso much of this is about
knowing what you don't have todo. So if you're looking for
someone to come and help withyour sales processes, help you
(22:40):
as CEO, become a better salesleader and sales person, and
you want to do that by notdoing some things. This is a
place to do it. I love that.And for those of you watching
and listening, you know yourtime and attention mean the
world to us, I hope you got asmuch out of this episode as I
know I did, and I cannot waitto see you next time. Take
care.
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once
(00:02):
again to the start, scale andsucceed. Podcast, the only
podcast that grows with youthrough all seven stages of
your journey as a founder, andtoday we've got a big one,
because if you've started abusiness, if you've had some
success in sales, you'vestarted building the team
around you, one of the thingsthat you'll discover is that
you now have to sell more tokeep all of those people
(00:23):
employed, and it puts thispressure on us as founders to
continue to sell and growwhile we're managing and doing
all these other things. Andwhat we start to see is that
doesn't work real well. And wehave months where it's
amazing, we have months whereit's terrible, and it's this
roller coaster of success andwhat feels like failure, and
so to here with us today totame that roller coaster, to
(00:45):
bring in stable revenue thatwe can really scale and grow
with is our guest today,Christopher Filipiak, who
assists CEOs in excelling attheir sales endeavors,
leveraging his background inengineering, data analytics
and fortune 100 consulting, heintegrates strategy, execution
and mindset transformation tobuild sales ready
(01:05):
organizations capable ofachieving consistent and
profitable sales. Veryimportant. His distinctive
experience merges on merges anengineering Foundation, robust
business principles and astrong emphasis on mindset
delivering a holistic approachthat comprehensively
transforms salesorganizations, and he's here
with us today. Christopher,welcome to the show. Glad to
(01:27):
have you here.
Christopher Filipiak (01:28):
Hey, Scott, it's great to be here,
and hello to the audiencetoday. Thanks for tuning in
and listening.
Scott Ritzheimer (01:34):
Awesome, awesome. All right, so I've
got what I think is a bit of aparadox, and I need your help
with it. Maybe this will behelpful for some folks
listening as well, but itseems to me that founders who
are still like the leadingsales rep for their team,
right? Maybe they've got acouple people that are coming
on, but ultimately, at the endof the day, they're still
driving things forward, notnecessarily a problem. But
(01:56):
folks at that stage tend toget there by like virtue of
their visionary Ness, right?Like they can sell ice to an
Eskimo. You know, they're themost dangerous people to walk
next to on the road, becauseyou'll end up buying something
from them. They're not salespeople, but they're so
inspired by what they do thatyou can't help but get excited
(02:17):
about it. And and so that giftof seeing opportunity, seizing
opportunity, the enthusiasmthat they have around their
ideas makes them at leasteffective enough to grow some
successful businesses. But theproblem here is when, when we
start having to get morestructured with it, the very
same processes that theysucceeded by not having and
(02:41):
now need can become astumbling block for them. So
for those who who thrive onthat, like winging it and
making it up and they do theirbest work in that environment,
how can they? How can theybuild the the structure that
will really bring them thestable revenue that you help
your clients achieve?
Christopher Filipiak (03:01):
Yeah, it's, it's a is it an
interesting question? Maybeit's an interesting question.
I think what you're so, whatyou're asking me is, how can a
CEO or a visionary CEO who'sled based on their vision or
sold based on their vision andtheir status transition to
(03:22):
something that's morestructured, which seems Yeah,
seems constraining to their totheir vision, right? Is that
that was
Scott Ritzheimer (03:33):
Absolutely, yeah, yes, you said what I
said in about a third of thewords.
Christopher Filipiak (03:38):
Yours had a lot more color and
story, which is awesome. Ithink it's mostly a mindset
shift. Scott is. I think itcomes down to understanding
that the the what you weredoing wasn't actually creating
(03:59):
as much freedom as you want,and it wasn't allowing you to
have the money and profit andthe the structure that allows
you to really create apurposeful and free life. So I
think the first shift isreally this mindset shift.
Instead of going, Yeah, I justget to do what I want, and
(04:21):
people are buying or notbuying, but I don't, it seemed
like I'm having fun. I don'tknow what's really going on.
And going, Oh, I get to have,I get to see structure as fun,
or I get to see, you know,setting up my calendar really
well as a tool or a vehicle tocreate a ton of freedom and
(04:43):
the result that I want, not assomething that's limiting me
or or hurting me or inhibitingwho, the truth of who, who I
am. So Right? I think thatthat's the way. I think you
mostly bring. In newinformation and new truths
about what it actually meansto be a business owner, and
(05:05):
create some clarity on what itis you want and what the best
causes are to create that foryourself. And I think when you
make that shift, you're gonnastart to think about things
differently, and you're gonnasee that your life actually
has much more space for yourvision and not so much
(05:27):
confusion in what you'recurrently doing. I think
that's going to feel realgood. There is the truth is,
is that we create based on ourenergy and our emotions and
our activities, right? So it'sthoughts and action and your
energy will trump whateveryour skills are the majority
(05:49):
of time. So that's one of thereasons why that visionary
founder who's lit up aboutwhat they're doing is gonna is
gonna make progress regardlessif they don't have the right
skill sets.
Scott Ritzheimer (06:02):
So yeah, so one of the things that I've
seen folks at this stage do isthink that they feel like what
you're saying, that they feela lack of freedom. And their
thought is, well, if I can getsomebody else to sell, then I
don't have to deal with thisand and, you know, if they're
a good sales rep, they'll justcome in and be able to kind
(06:24):
of, they don't say this, butmagically sell everything that
we have. What's wrong with theidea of just hiring a sales
rep in and not dealing withany of this?
Christopher Filipiak (06:31):
They fail the majority of the time,
and it's a very expensivemistake. You know, on average,
founders hire and fire 3.25sales people at a cost of
upwards of, you know, or justover $400,000 as a 2025,
right? So. And what's worse,so that what's what's not even
(06:54):
included in that cost, Scott,is that you as the founder or
the CEO, go, Hey, I actuallydon't need to do sales. Yes.
So you take your foot off thegas. Of sales because you've
hired someone and to staff agood sales team is going to
take you 1218, 24, months. Soyou hire this person, you take
(07:19):
your foot off the gas. Theydon't. They don't work out,
right, which happens a lot,and we can talk about why that
is, and how to actually set upa successful sales team so
they don't work out. You'vetaken your foot off the gas of
sales, and everyone has areally bad day six to 12
months down the track. Yes,it's okay, yes. So as a CEO,
(07:43):
your number one responsibilityis to drive the growth of
revenue and profit for thefirm right. And I think the
easiest, most effective way todo that is to personally be
involved in businessdevelopment and sales like
you're in such a a sweet spot,easy place to make sales and
(08:06):
drive revenue for thebusiness, that any other
strategy, almost like you canbring in other strategies, but
any other strategy whereyou're you're moving away from
sales or business developmentas a CEO of your business, I
think is a is a mistake,right? Yeah, and yeah doesn't
(08:30):
mean you shouldn't have help,or you shouldn't set up
systems and processes thatenable you to sell really
quickly and easily and reallyprofitably at a large level,
but when you surround yourselfwith that system and that set
of processes, you're going tohave a lot of extra cash in
your business that you canexperiment and figure out what
(08:50):
it actually takes to stand upa successful sales team.
Scott Ritzheimer (08:55):
Yeah, yeah. That's so true. To reinforce
that point, not that point,not that you need it, because
it was very well articulated.But there's a client of mine
who will not hire a firstsales rep for a team unless
they have a coach taking themthrough the process. Because
of that, it just it. They,they had so many fail that
they're like, it's not worthplacing somebody because it's
(09:16):
just not going to work. Yeah.So let's, let's unpack that,
though. So it's one thing tosay, hey, they, you know, they
often fail. It's another thingto say why that is, and even
more importantly, what we cando differently. So let's walk
that through. Why do thesefail so frequently when it's
such a pivotal transition thatwe need to be able to make?
Christopher Filipiak (09:35):
Yeah, let me I'll answer that. And
let me just say, you know, oneof the things that happens
with founders, and this is oneof the reason why sales people
fail is because the CEO hasn'tmastered sales themselves,
right? And they're pickingstrategies based on their own
fear or lack of confidence oroverwhelm, instead of a place
of cause and effect. Sothey're, they're going, Hey, I
(09:59):
want to, I. Do this, right?Because I'm uncomfortable in
sales, or I don't like doing xpiece of marketing or x piece
of selling, right? Whateverthat is. It could be anything.
And they pick strategies,hiring sales people so they
don't have to do the innerwork to try to bypass doing
(10:19):
the inner work, yeah, and cometo their own leveling up of
their self worth, of theirmastery of sales. So that's
one of the reasons why itfails, because energetically,
they're trying to get out ofdoing something that's theirs,
that's yours to do, yeah? Theother reason that initial
(10:41):
salesperson fails is, is yougot to understand that sales
is a system of systems, like,I like to think of it as a
race car team. So you need aright a fast car, you need a
driver, you need a coach forthe driver, you need a pick
crew. So sales is a system ofsystems. And if you just hire
an amazing driver, an amazingsalesperson, and there's no
(11:03):
car, there's no pit crew,there's no coaching, it
doesn't matter. And in insale, in a sales organization,
that means that your yourmarketing is dialed in. You
know who your market is. Youknow what their problem is.
You have an offer that helpsthem solve that. You know how
to message against that offerin sales. You know how to
(11:25):
create and have conversations.You have the tools to lead and
then under get the informationand the data required to make
decisions on your team has theright mindset, and you have
all that, all of that managein a well, in a well, put
together project, and it's oneof the things that I help my
(11:45):
clients with Scott is thisidea of being a sales ready
organization, and thatbasically is like looking at
the business going, Hey, wewant to make sure your
mindset, your leadership, yourmarketing, your sales and your
project management, When itcomes to adding revenue to the
business is dialed in. There'snothing missing, and a sales
(12:06):
person is just one part ofthat bigger system. The last
piece on that is to understandthat sales people are
leveraged to scale somethingthat's working, but if there's
something fundamentallymissing broking or needing
improvement, bringing in asales person to try to scale
(12:27):
that up is not the right isnot the right move, right? So
that that's, that's one of thereasons. And it could be, it
could also just be that youmay not, you don't have a good
process for hiring andtraining and coaching and
identifying top sales talentas as well. Like the business
doesn't have that competence.
Scott Ritzheimer (12:48):
Yeah, right, right. It's a skill set hiring
those folks as well. So let'sbreak this down a little bit
and maybe get it to a pointwhere we can get some
actionable steps today. So interms of creating a sales
ready organization. There's awhole lot to that. Are there a
set of steps or phases thatyou typically walk your
clients through?
Christopher Filipiak (13:09):
Yeah. So the first thing I do is we do
a sales ready organizationassessment to look at the
organization and understandwhat they're doing. Well,
because you're making money,you're profitable, right? You
have clients, you're doingsomething, so we want to
understand what's actuallydriving and creating that
profit and that revenue. Butyou look at that, and I
(13:33):
actually have a self salesready organization, self
assessment, that is kind of amini assessment that the
audience, I'll gift that tothe audience, that they can
take and I'll score that, andthey can understand how they
stack up. But typically we'lldo a the the assessment, and
then we'll write a scalingroadmap. And I've done
(13:56):
hundreds of assessments androadmaps at this point, so I
have a really good and with myengineering background, I can
a lot of the biggest benefitis I can just tell people,
Hey, you can stop doing this,this and this. Yes, we'll do a
lot of things that arewasteful, right? But they
can't see that, because it'swhat's comfortable for them.
So I can go, Hey, this is whatwe need to do from a cause and
(14:20):
effect standpoint, instead ofjust what's comfortable for
you. So I do that, and thenwe'll typically build what
like for me, I workspecifically with helping CEOs
succeed at their sales. Worklike, that's my sweet spot.
That's my niche. I don'treally do sales teams. I, you
(14:41):
know, years back, there'sother companies that are much
better at recruiting,staffing, coaching, training,
sales people. My sweet spot isreally helping support and
lead, lead the CEO to make alot of money and profit in
their business really, reallyquickly, so that they. Can
have some extra cash, butwhether it's the CEO or sales
(15:04):
team, you need to have, youneed to build the race car,
you need to have some type ofsystem that enables you to
create and have salesconversations. Yeah. So that's
kind of the second phase. Oncewe have the roadmap, it's
like, okay, what are theconditions? What are the
leadership, marketing mindset,sales and project management
(15:26):
systems that we need to buildso that you can hit whatever
your revenue goals or revenuetargets are?
Scott Ritzheimer (15:31):
Yeah, yeah. What I like about that, and I
get it like the temptation isso strong to try and skip a
step, because we see step A,where we are right now. We see
step c, where we've got salespeople helping us, and we're
scaling, and it's awesome. Andit's so tempting to skip this
step B, which you keep comingback to, and that is that you
have to develop a proficiencyin this, right? You have to
(15:55):
develop the ability to createstable revenue, not that you
have to, but if you do thereturn on it is so high. If
you can generate stablerevenue, and you do that
through a process with a car,the likelihood that someone
else will be able to do it isexponentially higher. And so
what would you say to someonewho's listening, and let's be
(16:17):
honest, most folks in thisstage like they're being
pulled in 100 differentdirections, and burnout is
like a real thing. We may notwant to say that, but they're
tired. They're worn out. Howdo you help folks to see the
light at the end of thattunnel? Because it can feel
like like you opened in thefront end of this of adding
system and process is actuallymaking it harder. It's making
(16:38):
it more uncomfortable. How doyou help folks to really get a
vision for what it can looklike when they have that
process in place.
Christopher Filipiak (16:46):
Well, I think, I think having some
skill sets around burnout orstress or overwhelm is is
important because that'ssomething that you've worked
yourself into or learnedyourself as a as kind of a
default behavior. It's not anatural state for for humans.
So just recognize that, and Iget it. I work with a lot of
(17:09):
stressed out, overwhelmed,burnt out CEOs, and one of the
things that we we coacharound, is just understanding
how to do that and createclarity on how they actually
want to show up. You know,self trust, self love,
efficient, right? Happy,feeling good, safe in their in
their body, and that, that's areal skill set to get your
(17:31):
body to that state and moveyourself out of, out of, you
know, fear, worry, doubt,shame, guilt, stress,
overwhelm, burnout, yeah, andthen from there, you know, I
don't think setting up systemsand structures are is actually
very difficult, like, that's asolved thing, so to speak. You
(17:53):
just need some help doing it.So you can help. You know, you
can use the sales readyorganization framework, or you
can use any sales processframework that you want.
There's a lot of lot of onesout there, but it's really
going, Hey, like, what is ityou actually want? And then
it's just commit. I think it'sa commitment to being involved
(18:15):
in sales. I don't thinkgetting out of sales is the
goal, right? I think as yougrow in your organization,
you're just going to do biggerand bigger deal sizes. You
know, when I, when I was a w2,employee at a B to B, you
know, consulting firm that CEOhad been there for 20 years
and was still doing huge,multi million dollar deals for
(18:36):
that firm. You know, I workwith 200 uh, $200 million
consulting firm, and that CEOis still involved in in sales.
And I'm not saying you'regoing to be on the phones all
day, but you're going to spendsome time doing relationship
nurturing, yes, calling yourbest clients, and working on
those million dollar, $10million 100 million dollar
(19:00):
deals like that's that's partof what the CEO needs to be,
needs to be doing, in myopinion. And of course, you
have other priorities, but Ithink if you master that skill
of sales, that's going to helpyou in not only adding
revenue, but attracting thebest partners, building the
(19:24):
best team, right, having thebest friendships and
relationships. And it's not,it's not, it's not about
selling ice to Eskimos, right?And I a lot of people use that
because it's like, Eskimosdon't actually need, need ice,
but it's just understandingthat you you are like, there's
just such a gift and such apersonal journey in mastering
(19:47):
sales, and it allows you toreally have a skill set around
creating what you want,whenever you want and need it.
I think that that should bethe the vision it should
should be to. Hey, like, thisis actually the company that I
want, and a big part of thatis developing a real
competence and mastery formyself and for the business
(20:09):
around sales.
Scott Ritzheimer (20:11):
Yeah, so good, so good. Christopher,
I've got one more question foryou, and then I wanna make
sure folks know how they canget in touch with you and take
the self assessment as well.What would you say is the
biggest secret you wish wasn'ta secret at all? What's that
one thing you wish everybodywatching or listening to they
knew?
Christopher Filipiak (20:26):
Yeah, I would just say that to I think
the secret is that sales isgood. Money is good, right? I
think there's a lot of storyaround money and sales. And I,
you know, I talk about thisidea of sales as an expression
of love, or sales as an act oflove. And I think the biggest
secret is that, in today'sworld, sales and money is one
(20:54):
of the main skill sets thatyou need. And we don't. We
don't teach it in school,right? We don't teach it you
can't, like I went to MBAschool. There wasn't even a
course on sales, right inbusiness school, right? And
there was marketing andoperations and HR and
leadership and consulting andfinance and all the things,
(21:14):
but there wasn't one course onon sales. And I think if you
just just teach yourself thatsales is good, is a good
thing. Like, sales is a goodthing to do to someone, right?
Like, selling people is good.I think that's a huge secret.
You know, my mentor said tome, sales isn't something that
we do to someone, sales issomething that we do for
(21:37):
someone. That's an expressionof love. It's an act of love.
There's and it's how we createand interact as humans. So
that that's the secret I'dlove your audience to take
away today.
Scott Ritzheimer (21:50):
Fantastic. Christopher, there's some
folks listening. It's exactlywhat they need when they need
it. How can they find more outabout the work that you and
your team do? And where canthey get a copy of the
assessment?
Christopher Filipiak (22:00):
Yeah. So you can go to my website,
christopherfilipiac.com, orfind me on LinkedIn, and
there's an article, an articleon my blog called, is your
business sales ready? And thelink to the assessment is in
that article.
Scott Ritzheimer (22:18):
Fantastic, Christopher. Thank you so much
for being on the show todayand sharing with us your time.
It's, I really, reallyappreciate it. It's, it's one
of those episodes that itsounds so simple because it's
so true. And I couldn't agreemore, you mentioned this in
the middle of the episode, butso much of this is about
knowing what you don't have todo. So if you're looking for
someone to come and help withyour sales processes, help you
(22:40):
as CEO, become a better salesleader and sales person, and
you want to do that by notdoing some things. This is a
place to do it. I love that.And for those of you watching
and listening, you know yourtime and attention mean the
world to us, I hope you got asmuch out of this episode as I
know I did, and I cannot waitto see you next time. Take
care.
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