How to Build a Sales Team Without Losing Your Voice with Steve Caton

Intro - Outro: [00:00:00] You're listening to the 7 Figure Leap podcast. We're here to leverage rich relationships and smart strategies to take your business to the next level. Here's your host, Dustin Riechmann.
Dustin: Many of us as founders find success in our business in part because we become good at sales. But what happens when your own ability to do founder-led sales actually becomes a trap or a ceiling on your growth?
Dustin: So that is the topic today. It's something I've experienced personally. It's something I see pretty often in our community, and I'm really excited to have Steve Kaden here. Steve is actually a part of our community, and I've got to see firsthand the work that he does at Alteza Solutions. And when I wanted to have someone come on and talk about this idea of breaking through the founder ceiling and how to kinda transcend founder-led [00:01:00] sales, I knew Steve was the guy.
Dustin: So Steve, I'm really grateful to have you here on the 7 Figure Leap podcast today. I'd love for you just to take a few minutes, kinda introduce yourself, give us a little context on your background, why you care about this topic, and we'll hear a lot more about your business as we go through and start to teach the audience what they need to know about a really important topic in our entrepreneurial businesses.
Steve: Yeah. Thank you, Dustin. It's such a honor to be here with you. I've been looking forward to this conversation, so, for, so thanks for teeing it up. So I'll, I'll share a little bit about my background. So th- h- here's kind of what I've been doing for the better part of the last 20 years, and that's helping founders or business owners step out of the sales seat without watching the revenue follow them.
Steve: And, and that's- Been there, done that too. That's... Yeah. Not always easy to do, right? Most of the founders that I've had the pleasure of working with in my career have been the best salesperson in their company at the time that I met them, and that's actually a really good thing, 'cause I personally [00:02:00] believe that founders need to sit in the sales seat for a season of time, because it's really difficult to transfer all the things you learn from selling to somebody else if you've not done it yourself.
Steve: So I'm always a big fan of that. But the problem is, is if they stay there, then that strength becomes a ceiling. And the business can't grow past the calendar, and the founder can't focus on the activities that are gonna scale the business while they're busy closing all the deals themselves. So, so I've kind of, I've spent my career living inside of that transition.
Steve: I just, for whatever reason, God called me into that, and and I've loved living there for a variety of reasons. And so I've typically been the guy to come in, first guy to come in and do sales for a while, but also build the foundation, embed the right people, and then create a culture that holds all of it together as the founder moves further and further away from it.
Steve: So that's what I've done for a long [00:03:00] time. I'm doing it now with Altesa, but I've done it in my career for a long time as well. And at the end of the day, Dustin, what gets me out of bed is legacy. I really am passionate about helping founders build something that outlasts them as opposed to building a job that they can't decouple from.
Steve: So that's the work, and that's, hopefully that's a wall that some of your listeners are hitting and, will be hopefully encouraged by what we talk about today.
Dustin: Yeah. And so what's interesting, this is where we're gonna kind of start into the, the journey here, is- A founder may actually have transcended this.
Dustin: They may actually be living it and not know it. I think in some cases they, they're starting to feel it, they're starting to bump up against it, or maybe they're anticipating it. Maybe they're looking forward to it, right? And I, I would say from my standpoint, there were plenty of times where I was doing all the sales, and I was looking forward to the day when I wouldn't have to do this anymore.
Dustin: Because while I was effective at it, and I think this gets back to your point about, like, this can be a really should be a season for every [00:04:00] founder. While I was effective at it, there was, it wasn't like my favorite thing to do and there's things I'd rather do. Yet the business has to be at a certain point before it's even possible to hand this off, and then I have to be developed enough in the process th- by which I do sales has to be developed enough to hand it off.
Dustin: So why don't we start first in sort of the diagnostic of, like, what are some of the signs or symptoms if a founder's listening and they're like, "I wonder if I am a bottleneck. I wonder if I am starting to become the ceiling to my sales," or, "What should I be anticipating so that I know when this is becoming a real problem for me?"
Dustin: So what are some of the signs and symptoms that a founder should look out for to realize that they're becoming or have already become the bottleneck?
Steve: Yeah. That's such a, that's such a great question because that, the, oftentimes a a founder who doesn't necessarily love sales, they'll feel that tension way early.
Steve: Yeah. They'll be like, "I'm, I want out." And then others who love it will stay in [00:05:00] it a long time until... And so I think for that latter group, that's where this is relevant 'cause they'll just stay in it because they love it. They love the energy of the close and everything. So, so what I tell people who are kind of like that I have two different messages for those two different people.
Steve: For the first group who d-
Dustin: I was gonna say, I'd actually love to talk to both, 'cause I know both are in our audience. But why don't we start with the one that's really the, the one who loves the sales or maybe gonna stick around too long, and then we'll come back and we'll talk about how soon can someone possibly get out of the seat if they hate it?
Dustin: But yeah, let's talk about, like when you've been in it too long or when it's really becoming a bottleneck first.
Steve: Yeah, I think, I'm a big, no, no surprise here because of my sales background, but I'm a big believer in leading indicators. And so I always look for leading indicators that suggest that, okay, it, the business is ready for you to step out of the sales seat.
Steve: And there's a, a couple of the ones that I see over and over again, it involve the sales pipeline. So if you see if you're [00:06:00] disciplined enough to be using a CRM, I'm making an assumption here that you're using a CRM, but if you're using a CRM and you're actually tracking your deals through the sales pipeline, if you start to see deals piling up in the early stages of that pipeline or in the latter stages of the pipeline, that is often an indicator that what's happening is you are not as present as you need to be in the sales process.
Steve: So if the, you got a bunch of deals stacking up early, that means you're, you're not finishing the qualifying and discovery process, right? You're not getting the information that you need to move it forward. And then if it's stuck at the end, what's happening there is you've done the opposite, which is moving it too fast through the sales process.
Steve: Like, you have one great conversation, you have a wonderful discovery, and you're like, "Oh, this, this person's ready to buy. I'm gonna send them a proposal." And then it just sits there and they ghost you. Or you never follow up. Yeah. So you never really did the, you never spent the time that you needed to [00:07:00] spend to figure out whether it was truly a qualified buyer.
Steve: So that's what's, causes the stacking up at the end of the pipeline. And then the front of the pipeline, it's basically I don't have time to do the follow-up. If someone's ready to buy today, I can close that all day long. But if they've gotta think about it, if they've gotta talk to other people, I'm probably gonna just let that ball fall through the cracks if I've got too many other things going on.
Steve: So those are the t- those are two big ones that suggest the business is ready for you to step out.
Dustin: That's good. And that, That's what we're gonna focus on mostly moving forward. I know that's, that's most of the focus, what Alteza helps people actually accomplish. But because I think we both sort of grinned at each other as I was framing it, there's definitely this group that maybe they're trying to give up sales too early, but I don't know, maybe this is an unfair question, Steve, 'cause it's gonna vary a lot based on the business, but sort of like the minimum viable business maturity where the founder can get out of sales responsibly if this is something they just really don't like to do.
Dustin: What, what are [00:08:00] your thoughts on that?
Steve: Yeah. And I, I've had the the pleasure of working with a lot of software development folks in my career, so sort of like engineers, right? And I know you can resonate with that, but you're actually an engineer who can sell, which is very rare. But but a lot of engineers, software engineers, they have a passion for writing the code and building a product, but not the sales part, and so they typically will look to jump out of that as fast as they possibly can.
Steve: The, the pitfall when you do that is, sales has to be... We have to be able to transfer all of this kind of market knowledge that we glean from the frontline sales conversations. There's no substitute for the things that we learn about a product or a service when we have the conversation with the potential buyer.
Steve: And if we don't do that, then it's gonna be very difficult to bring in a salesperson. What's gonna happen in those cases is the, the founder's gonna go, "Well, you're the salesperson, so you're the expert in the room. I'll just trust you to figure it out." But [00:09:00] figuring it out is a very long, arduous process if that founder has nothing to transfer to that salesperson.
Steve: So I feel like you gotta do it long enough to where you can build at least a minimally viable playbook that you could hand over to somebody else to represent the product or service for you.
Dustin: Yeah. And then obviously on a practical basis, you'd have to have the ability to pay the salesperson, right? So either you have investment or if you're bootstrapped, you have enough leads coming in that there's enough sales- calls available and enough fulfillment capacity to basically have commissions make sense for that, right?
Dustin: And what I think what you said there is really critical that maybe people don't think about especially in the types of businesses that listen-- the types of founders that listen to this podcast, is those things are not disconnected, right? Like, the marketing and the product development is tied to the sales calls and discovery processes, which is tied to the fulfillment, and it's an iterative loop.
Dustin: And I think that's what you're saying. It's such an important [00:10:00] part of the founder sitting in the seat, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it's not their favorite thing to do, because this sales role informs so much more of the business than just closing people into the program or the product, right?
Dustin: Yeah.
Steve: 100%. 100%. They're really... I, I mean, you can, pay a b- a bunch of money for someone to go do market research, but there's still no substitute for actually sitting and having those live conversations. And because you are, you're gonna iterate based on what you hear, and that iteration takes time.
Steve: It takes a little... I mean, I think about Alteza. I mean, we've been doing this now for almost six years. And I would say the first two, two and a half years was all about experimentation and iteration before we kind of found a formula. So, if I hadn't sat in that seat, it would have been, it would have taken, it would have extended that period much longer.
Steve: But y- you bring up a really good point, very valid point about leads. It's really important that you have some leads to, to, [00:11:00] for salespeople to handle. 'Cause if you drop a salesperson in there and go, "Hey, guess what? I know how to sell it, but I don't have anybody to sell it to," that's not gonna go well either.
Steve: Yeah.
Dustin: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And I, yeah, I've-- Well, I'll share a little more of my story. I think we get into the next c- couple questions, but people hear me giggling probably in the recording. It's 'cause like, oh, yeah, I made that mistake, I made that mistake, I made that mistake. I've kind of made many of the mistakes which is why when Steve and I got to know each other, I was like, "Oh, man, where were you two years ago when I was wrestling with a lot of this stuff?"
Dustin: But you're here now, and I, I think I know kind of more which questions to ask 'cause of my own lived experience so that the listener can benefit from your wisdom directly. So l- we'll kind of go back to that original scenario here where someone has a good amount of business. Maybe they're hitting like seven figures if they're sort of running that lean information or authority-based business that a lot of our listeners run.
Dustin: The threshold would obviously vary based on the type of business you're running. But we'll just say, [00:12:00] hey, you're getting to seven figures. You're starting to feel like this is really working. I'm really starting to seriously consider maybe it's time to get out of this seat and have someone else do sales.
Dustin: One of the things I've heard you say is growth past that point happens more from subtraction than addition. Like, like we think, oh, I just need to do more and more and more and add team and grow and grow. What's like, what specifically as a founder Just people need to think about stopping to do if they want to grow more when they hit this sort of founder ceiling that we've been talking about.
Steve: Yeah. Man, so much s- so much to talk about here. So, and I'll, I'll just share a lot from my experience growing Alteza 'cause I've been in that exact-
Dustin: Yeah, I was gonna say, what's great about this is you're a case study for your own process 'cause you don't just do sales for other companies, you had to grow your own company over the past six years and do sales to do that, right?
Dustin: So yeah, please please use yourself as a case study here.
Steve: Yeah, sure. It... Yeah, believe me, I got lots of scar [00:13:00] tissue from the case study. So I could... Happy to help other people avoid it. But so when I... I saw that it was about at that two-and-a-half year mark that I brought in my first fractional salesperson.
Steve: So I ate my own dog food, brought somebody in from my team and said, "Hey, I'm gonna-- I want you to start taking over the sales process so that I can focus on some other things." Well, leading up until that point, as I said earlier, we had been doing a lot of experimentation on different, products, different services, different prices, different methodologies, and we had to do that in order to figure out what was gonna work.
Steve: Like who are g- who are the right clients and what's the right process and who are the right salespeople? Like there was no book I could go read on that. I just had to figure it out. So but by the time I brought the salesperson in, I could not still be in that mode. Like I couldn't still... I mean, it's o- we still...
Steve: There's always the experimentation. I feel like that's always gonna be happening, but it can't be just like massive ex- experimentation. So we had to... I [00:14:00] had to be able to say to the salesperson, "Here is the target that you're going after. Here is the message that you're speaking to that target, and here's how we help them win."
Steve: Right? And that way he could just be laser focused on that and not be distracted by all this other noise. So that was, that was a, a key piece of the focus, right? We had to reduce all of the experimentation so that he could have a lane that he could run in that was super clear. And that's true for any salesperson, but it's ex- it's especially true for fractional salespeople because they're only dealing with a limited amount of time, so focus is extraordinarily important to them.
Steve: So there was that. That was one piece of it. Then the other piece of it was me figuring out, okay, now that I am not babysitting these deals through the sales process like I have been doing for the last two and a half years, what does that free me up to do? Well, I had... luckily I had a coach I was working with that helped me do a little calculation on the value of my time, and what came [00:15:00] out of that exercise was when I was, when, when I was doing rainmaking, for the business, in other words, doing stuff like this, being on a podcast or speaking at an event or writing content, blog posts, LinkedIn networking meetings, all that.
Steve: When I did that, the value to the business ended up being, I believe it was around 2,000 bucks an hour. It was crazy. And so, so that, when I saw that, I was like, "Holy," you know what, "What? I shouldn't be doing anything. Like, that's the only thing I need to do." And so I was able to, once I got the salesperson up and running and trained, then I was able to reallocate my focus on that.
Steve: So I stopped doing so much, and I started doing more rainmaking. And that, if you go back and look at HubSpot and you look at the trajectory of revenue growth in the company from that moment forward was incredible, like exponential. So that, so it was kind of, yeah, and i- it's sort of weirdly just [00:16:00] counterintuitive, right?
Steve: To think I'm gonna do less stuff, but more output is gonna come from it.
Dustin: And I think they're going back to the thing we just talked about before this. The rosy version of this that maybe someone hears is like, "Well, I'll just skip the first two and a half year part. I just want the part where I'm worth $2,000 an hour.
Dustin: I just want to be a rainmaker. I'm gonna hire someone to do sales." But the problem is what we've already said, which is like that discovery period is how you get to the point where you have enough of a institutional knowledge, product description, product market fit, and a sales process that someone else can take and use.
Dustin: May- maybe this is a good time to talk about this, Steve, like- man, that transition sounds really hard, and I, I've experienced it and I've had false starts with it too. So I think we've talked about the symptoms that lead to the point where you're like, "I really need someone else to do sales." And then what you just shared is very encouraging and [00:17:00] valid, and, like, when this happens well, you have actually less things to do as the founder and you can do fewer things better, which actually greatly increases your effective hourly rate.
Dustin: That's great. The messy middle of how to actually make that transition, which is actually, what the service you guys provide, I'd love to know more about that, and this may be a part where I'll add a little mo- of my own experience 'cause I've had some substantial friction here in the past. So like tell me about when you guys are working with a founder who's like, "I'm ready to, to get a sales- some sales support."
Dustin: You guys have, at Alteza, have fractional sales representatives and, and other ways to support this process. What are the critical sort of assets that the company needs to make that transition successful?
Steve: Yeah. Well, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna start with mindset, Dustin, because I feel like this is where e-everything has to flow from the mindset, right?
Steve: And the mindset that will absolutely torpedo [00:18:00] this messy middle transition every single time is viewing sales as this kind of orphaned organism that doesn't mesh with the rest of our culture as an organization. It's kind of like, "Well, salespeople are different, so I'm gonna treat them like a hired gun, but everybody else I'm gonna treat like a family," right?
Steve: That is an absolute recipe for disaster every single time. So that's the first thing you've got to reconcile in your mind as, as the owner of the business is to say, "Okay, gonna bring in a sales team or a salesperson. They need to, first of all, be a fit for our core values. Just because they have an impressive resume doesn't mean they're the right person for our team.
Steve: I need to find someone who has the resume but also is a good cultural fit for the team, and then I got to make sure that we incorporate them into the culture and don't treat them differently just because they're creating revenue," which is a really... It's a tempting thing to do. So that's where it starts there.
Steve: And then beyond [00:19:00] that, it's all the foundational stuff. So everything that was in my head doing sales as a founder, I had to document. So going back to b- before I brought, Drew in to do sales, all of, like, all of the things that happened in the sales conversation from discovery all the way to close had to be documented in a, in a w- in a Google Doc, and what happens in each stage of the sales process, what has to happen before I can move it from one stage to the next All that had to be documented, and then I, then I needed to actually build it into the CRM.
Steve: I didn't do that. I hired somebody to do that piece of it, but I did the documentation 'cause I was, I was doing it. So I had the process documented. That needed to be built into the CRM. And then all the m- all of the kind of the archives of the messaging, right? All the, all the things that you do say and things that you don't say.
Steve: All of that, again, it can't just live up here in my head. I've got to get that out on paper so that it can now be transferable. So when we talk [00:20:00] about build the foundation before you hire the people, that's the stuff I'm talking about. It's the sales process. It's the who's our ideal client profile, how do we talk to them, what are the problems we solve for them, what's the before and after state for them out- when they work with us.
Steve: All those things have to be documented and clear, 'cause if I re- if I expect my salespeople to figure it out just because, oh, they're the sales expert, it-- again, it's just gonna extend the runway that it takes for them to pay for themselves. And typically what happens with small businesses is we don't have the margin to play that runway out for a year.
Steve: It's like, if they're not s- if they're not paying for themselves in three to six months, we're pulling the cord.
Dustin: Yep. Absolutely. Yeah, which I think just happens so often, and I'm sure you see that so much being day to day in this industry. Yeah, there's kind of two things there I wanna talk about a little bit separately.
Dustin: The one I think is really important, this kind of orphaned role that it, it is kind of odd, right? It's like it's not even just 'cause they're perhaps fractional. Maybe they're commission only. Maybe they're, maybe [00:21:00] they're compensated different than many of the rest of the team. I don't know if that plays into it.
Dustin: Or maybe it's just the fact that sales, just people kind of put it in its own silo. But I totally agree with you. I see this. I've done this and I've seen this in, in our clients and, and peers' businesses, where it's like they get the salesperson and they're like, "Oh, that, that's the salesperson."
Dustin: And they're like, "Here's the team." And it's like, wait a second, the salesperson should be part of the team, and they really need to communicate with the team because just like we talked about earlier, sales does not stand on an island. It's an integral part of an iterative optim- optimization loop, if you will.
Dustin: 'Cause these guy- this salesperson is hearing stuff that the product team needs to know, fulfillment needs to be able to know, the marketing team needs to know, and vice versa. Like, all these things need to talk to each other, right? Like, anything else you wanna say on sort of that Don't hire a salesperson and put them in, in a, in an attic as an orphan.
Dustin: And then we'll talk more about the process part of this next.
Steve: Yeah, I think the... I think you said it really [00:22:00] well. I think the only thing I would add to that is that the best salespeople and my, this is my opinion now, but I, I've got many years of evidence to prove it. The best salespeople are actually servants, right?
Steve: They see sales as a way to serve people and help them solve problems. And so if they-- if you orphan that kind of a salesperson and make them feel like they're not part of the culture, then that is very discouraging for them because they genuinely feel like they're there to serve people, and your company is part of that service equation in their mind.
Steve: So if they're put out on an island, then they just feel like-- they feel like an outsider, and so it's very discouraging, and they typically will just leave.
Dustin: Yeah. And then process-wise, I mean, we could do a whole podcast just on, like, how to create a sales process that someone else can run. But this is an area where I feel like I made a lot of progress through a lot of mistakes.
Dustin: So maybe a little of my own experience here. I've [00:23:00] done-- did all my own sales, and then I brought someone in last year at the time that we're recording this. And Good news is he was a kind of sales coach, so he was not surprised by how screwed up my approach to this or how non-systematized my approach was.
Dustin: 'Cause, when you're a founder, part of that is like you kind of sell intuitively or you sell through enthusiasm, or you see belief in people, and you just like know what to say because this is your whole life, right? Like, I created this program, I, and people believe me because I'm the founder and they heard me on a podcast and like there's just this direct line.
Dustin: So if I'm like... It's almost like being in a seat of authority, like a doctor. Like if I prescribe you something, you're probably just gonna believe it 'cause, "Well, he's the doctor. I heard him, on... I've heard him teach about this." But if someone else has to sit in that seat, th- they need better tools, they need a better process, and, and sort of the mission that we went on when I hired this person that was successful finally was I...
Dustin: This is what I said. I [00:24:00] said, "I want my soul in the process of sales without my butt in the seat on the calls," right? So how does this sales process still feel like Dustin's soul is in it? Like it still feels like I- I'm accessing the values of the company and the, and like it still feels like unique and authentic to this company and this product that I'm considering without me having to be on every call.
Dustin: And what helped me kind of open up to that, if anyone's listening to this, is I, I was projecting forward, we hit seven figures in revenue. I was still doing all the sales. But there's these people I admired out there, and a simple example for, that most listeners would be familiar with is like Donald Miller from StoryBrand, right?
Dustin: And I'm certified with them. I've spent a lot of money with them. And I started asking myself, I'm like when I went and decided to be certified and spend $10,000 to go do that, did I expect Donald Miller to be on the Zoom call with me? No. In fact, if he would've been on the Zoom call, it would've devalued the whole process 'cause I'm like, he has enough time to be on the [00:25:00] Zoom call with me?
Dustin: Like, this company must not be as doing as well as I thought, right? And so the, the-- but that's an reflection point, right? Because the founder has to have enough comfort in the process and the person they've hired to run that process that they can trust that and they have to kinda get over their own ego that like, well, they expect me, they need me to really get them over the line.
Dustin: And so I love... The reason I'm bringing all that up, Steve, is I love that the first thing you said when I asked you what needs to be in place to make this m- transition effective, you said mindset. So I think the pr- and, and so what we did, just to close that loop, I documented everything. I recor- I had tons of recordings, right?
Dustin: And now with the power of AI the person that came into that role was able to distill that and listen to a lot of recordings, and I was really, really clear. I'm like, "I do not expect you, nor do I want you to do sales how I do them because I don't, I'm not a professional salesperson. You are. I do want you to like h- hear the passion and the soul of what's coming [00:26:00] through in my calls and how people react to that, but you're gonna have a different process, and that's what I want."
Dustin: And then I actually tasked him more with the process part because he's the sales professional and I'm not. But I was very much like hand in glove in the development of that to where I knew it felt right. And then we created some things like emails that happen before the call so that Dustin is sending them emails, and Dustin has maybe some videos.
Dustin: So again, it kind of transfers that authority. Like, "Hey, when you talk to my team, here's what you can expect." And it's me saying that, and so now they know, number one, I'm not talking to Dustin, and number two, whatever happens on this call, he has endorsed, and I already trust him to some extent. So just a little kind of inside experience from all that.
Dustin: So any reactions to that, Steve? Or anything else you want to say about the mindset of the founder that's gonna make this transition successful? 'Cause I feel like this is a real sticky point for almost everyone I talk to at this level.
Steve: Yeah, 100%. And I think what you said earlier as you were kind of sharing all that, that [00:27:00] really kind of this is the, the kind of exclamation point in all of that, which is I built this thing.
Steve: This was my baby. And I have the passion, I have the understanding of the why, and nobody else has that like we do as the founder, which is honestly why the founder is the best salesperson, right? So how do you transfer that? That it-- first of all, you have to figure out how to transfer it. It cannot be something that just lives with us.
Steve: Otherwise, scale isn't gonna happen. So you mentioned one thing I think that gets in the way of it a lot, at least what I've seen in my experience, has been ego, where there's a identity crisis for the founder when they do let go of that, and they're like, "Gosh, if I'm not the person doing that, then what am I doing?
Steve: What is my value to the company?" Right? So there's, they gotta get over that hurdle. But then once you get over that hurdle and you get excited about the potential that comes on the other side of it, then it is, whatever it is, the, the tools, the [00:28:00] mechanisms can be a variety of things. Like you talked about videos and emails.
Steve: I basically my approach to that has always been to have the salesperson sitting side by side with me on the sales calls as an observer, live if possible. If, if they're not available and they have to watch a recording, that's fine, but I'd rather they be sitting there live with me. And there's a way to introduce them in the call so it's not weird.
Steve: You can just say, "Hey, this is a new member of my team, and I've just invited him to be a, y- just to be a listener. He's a fly on the wall. He's gonna be listening. He might interject, but that's why he's here." So just so you wonder. Just so people aren't wondering, "Who's this third person in the room?" So-
Dustin: Yeah.
Dustin: We're really gonna hammer you today. There's three of us. Yes.
Steve: Yeah. And so then what would happen at the end of those conversations, then I would always build in 30 minutes of debrief time after the call so that then they can ask me, "Okay, I heard you say this. Tell me more about that. What did you mean by this?
Steve: I didn't understand that." And you [00:29:00] literally, in the moment while it's fresh, you're getting that founder story and that founder DNA embedded in them, and then they're taking it and making it their own, right? 'Cause they know they're not gonna be you, but they've gotta take some of that DNA and represent it for you.
Steve: And that's... I don't know any other way to do it than to just be in the room together for a period of time. There's this, "I, I'm gonna do it, you're gonna watch for a season, and then we're gonna do it together, and then you're gonna do it and I'm gonna watch, and then we're gonna debrief, and I'm gonna give them feedback.
Steve: And then eventually they get to the point where you're doing it, and you're only bringing me in occasionally."
Dustin: Well, actually, it's a perfect transition 'cause the, the question I had next is, we hire Alteza or we find our own internal team member, we've got someone in the sales seat, we've done this transition work that we've talked about for a while now, and it's working.
Dustin: And like they are taking the calls, and you're the founder and you're rainmaking [00:30:00] or coding or whatever the thing is that you really love that it's in your unique ability. I think a risk there can be the founder saying, "Cool, I don't have anything to do with sales anymore. I'm glad that's over." Which I think could be a huge mistake.
Dustin: So, after that transition has happened and someone is in that seat, Steve, as a founder, what, what do you feel sort of like the long-term role in sales? 'Cause I'm guessing you're gonna say you don't just get to forget about it at that point.
Steve: Yeah, I think it all depends on where- what scale looks like for you.
Steve: So for instance, in a software company I came in as employee number 11, and then we grew to 150 plus, within a very short period of time. So by the time we were at, I don't know, 50 to 75 employees, the CEO had, and founder, had no involvement in the sales process at all, but there was a period of time when he was, right up until that point.
Steve: And he was, he was one of the guys who wanted to be out of it, so he didn't mind it. But we were selling a, [00:31:00] a SaaS software product. So once we were able to get the DNA out of him to basically represent the product in the market rooted in that DNA, then the product and the sales team had it.
Steve: They didn't really need him. In a pr- and but I've also worked with a lot of professional services companies, where the founder is actually someone who's doing the work. It's not software. It's a human doing really important work.
Dustin: They're doing engineering, accounting whatever kind of B2B or even, I guess, could be physical service like a pool cleaning or it could be, or whatever, name your business.
Dustin: But I, I like the distinction. On one end of the spectrum, of course, a Fortune 500 company, the CEO's not on dealing with sales. There's an entire department and all that. But... And then on the other end of the spectrum, it's just one person who's got a company, and they're doing all the sales.
Dustin: And we've talked about the transition from if that's a one for the solo guy and it's a 10 for the Fortune 500, most of us are looking to graduate to, like, a two or [00:32:00] three, right? Like, we're not trying to build a huge corporation. And so that-that's where I wanted to focus next is, like, that in between the owner, doer.
Dustin: They're still involved. They still have an awareness of sales. Every sale still really matters to them even if they're not personally on those calls. And yeah, like, how should they be thinking about their ongoing relationship to sales?
Steve: Yeah. I think, you mentioned Donald Miller earlier. I really feel like he's a great model for this, right?
Steve: 'Cause I've listened to him and followed his career for a long time, even when he wrote Blue Like Jazz, so, and what he did over time was you saw, he was on... You-- He's very involved in the events and very involved in all the content generation, the podcasting, everything. And then, and then a chief of staff showed up and began to kind of take some of that mantle, right?
Steve: And then over time, you could see Donald's still very involved in the brand and the overall messaging and in driving demand generation. [00:33:00] But in terms of being in the sales conversations, I'm guessing he's-- there's probably, maybe there are some accounts that are very strategic that he might show up in, but for the most part, he doesn't have to do that anymore.
Steve: So I think that's what we have to think about is the progression of we're not totally stepping out, but we're stepping out in very strategic ways where when we come in, it is for the very strategic conversation that shows up occasionally, whether it's a bigger client or a more complex situation or a rainmaking opportunity, right?
Steve: And I think for me, again, the, that shift into more rainmaking was that, that is a sales function at the end of the day. I'm actually, where I'm operating is at the very top of the sales funnel, and then all the stuff that gets created by that is flowing down to the team to close it. That's still very much being involved in the sales process.
Steve: I just don't have to close it anymore.
Dustin: That's good. That's really and very helpful because it's a spectrum, right? And where I've [00:34:00] gotten with salespeople at this level where, we have seven people on our team and they're all fractional except for one. So we have one full-time person. Just to kind of give people an idea of the scale I'm talking about.
Dustin: Our salesperson is also one person who's part-time. But they're able to do the majority of what we need done. And what I've done, and this is a Dustin version of this, but maybe it may give someone some comfort if they're a little fearful of giving up full contact with this process, is I'm like, "I'm always available if I'm helpful.
Dustin: So have all the calls," and if someone's like Yeah, like, they just have some hesitation and y- you as a salesperson have the discernment to say, "Hey Dustin, can you answer this question for this person? Could you do a Loom video? I know it would mean a lot to them if you gave them a two-minute audio response 'cause they had this particular question they're hoping to ask you."
Dustin: I'm like, "Absolutely," like, I'd love to do that. And but I, So that's kind of like one step removed from doing the sales. But I like what [00:35:00] you said there, Steve, too, about if you like sales, there's different ways to express that without having to sit on all the calls and be the closer. Like the rainmaker, the...
Dustin: And for some people that looks like selling to a huge room at once, like that gets them really excited. For some people that's more that like, I wanna write a book, I wanna speak, I wanna do podcasting. Because it's still a form of sales. There's, there's a blend there of marketing and sales, but it still gets to exercise that muscle.
Dustin: Something that I realized is I had, you talked about identity, as I stopped doing the sales calls, I started to feel a little less valued in a sense because our program is a group program and I absolutely love that. But I didn't get to do as much consultation with people, like one-on-one consultation 'cause it's not really like part of what we were doing in the program.
Dustin: And so I was like, oh, I actually miss that part. Like, I didn't really have to close people, that, I didn't enjoy that. But I love getting to know people, understand their motivations, their story. And so what we [00:36:00] did as a way to kind of leverage my skills and kind of feed my ego a little bit is like, okay, now we're gonna do a one-on-one strategy call with each client as they come into our main program.
Dustin: So that served a lot of purposes. It became a great bonus. It answered the objections of people that are like, "Well, I thought I was gonna get to talk to Dustin." Oh, yeah, all the new clients get to talk to Dustin. There's a one-on-one strategy call w- with him. And for me personally, it's not selling. They've already bought the program, but it's a reinforcement of the decision they made and I get to sit in a strategic seat, be consultative.
Dustin: Like it, the parts of sales I like, I got to do in a different way. And so I say that as encouragement to the listener. If you're like remorseful of like, I don't know if I ever wanna give up sales You need to because you're definitely gonna become the bottleneck otherwise. But there's other ways to express the parts of the process that maybe you do enjoy, right?
Dustin: Do you agree with that?
Steve: Oh, 100%. What you're, what you're describing is the role of a subject matter expert, right? And I think that's the, that's that [00:37:00] interim bridge that, you know, between you being doing it all to that place where you're being the rainmaker, is just showing up as a subject matter expert which is really powerful.
Steve: And you can place that voice in the sales process. Sometimes it makes sense for that subject matter expert to show up in the sales process as a way to validate that there's alignment between work we do and this person that wants to work with us. Or you could do it like you do, which is after the sale, and it's part of kind of the onboarding experience, so yeah. But yeah, that's a great way to exercise that muscle.
Dustin: Good. Yeah. So I, I know our audience enough to be like, some of them are like, as, as we've said, "I hate sales. I want nothing to do with it." Some are like, "I really love sales." And the reality is, in both cases, you need someone else to do sales, which means you need to do sales first yourself.
Dustin: And so you're not escaping this. You need the right solution. So if someone's believing that, they're kind of coming to that realization, Steve, as, as we're gonna close out here soon so they're like, "Hey, I do need to bring someone in. I know [00:38:00] this is not necessarily gonna be easy." Maybe they've had some false starts like I've had a few times.
Dustin: What's the practical action? What do we, what do we want people to do next this week if they feel like they may be the bottleneck and they really should start taking this idea seriously of getting someone else on their team to do sales?
Steve: Yeah, that's such a good question. And we, this is a question that's kind of built into our discovery process at Alteza.
Steve: So we try to kind of help a founder kind of narrow in on this, and we call it the kind of what breaks conversation. And so it's the... It's a... You could spend thirty minutes just listing all of the, what I call the deal advancing actions that currently only you can do or only you do. So think of it in terms of like the intro- the introduction, right?
Steve: That only lands because it's you. So if you got a, I remember a a guy that we worked with who was a Vistage speaker, and he was, he was going... He was always on the road speaking at Vistage [00:39:00] groups, and people would come up to him after his talk and say, "I want to work with you." And he could not make, he could not make that introduction to the next person.
Steve: He felt like, "Oh, they want to work with me. I got to handle that." So, or if he got a referral from a very trusted, friend or advisor, same thing. So if that, if you can't get comfortable with those intros not landing with you, that would probably be the first thing that's gonna break if you step out, right?
Steve: Other, other examples could be the pricing conversation. When it gets to the nuts and bolts, and talking the numbers, sometimes that's when the the founder comes in as a subject matter expert because they feel most comfortable being able to present the value and, and get past any objections that show up there.
Steve: It could be also the save, I call it. When the deal's working through the process and all of a sudden it goes south and it's like, "Okay, I got to call Steve to come in and try to save this deal," right? So think about that. Walk through the... This is where the CRM is really helpful, 'cause if you've been using it, you can [00:40:00] kind of look at all the stages in the sales process and go, "Yeah, if I'm not in, if not here in this stage, is that where it's gonna break or is it gonna break here?"
Steve: So, and it's not about a to-do list, it's really about where do we begin to build first? Because everything that's on that list needs to become a system or a skill before you can hand it off to somebody else to sit in the seat. Otherwise, it's gonna break as soon as you step out.
Dustin: That's good. So the what breaks audit and kind of the overarching thing there is the deal advancing action.
Dustin: So sort of like all the things involved in the sales process, writing down all the ones that only you currently do or feel like only you can do, and the list starts to get really long. That's the first step is kind of getting that actually documented, getting honest about the process you're currently following and starting to like understand that there actually is a process here even though maybe it's all felt intuitive and internal and in your head.
Dustin: Getting that out into a written format would be step one, right?
Steve: [00:41:00] Yeah, absolutely. And then I'll just say this as an encouragement, because like you said, that could be a long list once you write it down. We're big on, on Jim Collins' bullets before cannonballs around here. A- and so just think of that.
Steve: Like start small, pick the first one, test it, see what you learn, and then once you've got that built, go to the next thing. So don't try to fix it all at once. That'll be overwhelming and really discouraging. So just pick the first one and start small, build the foundation, then commit to it, and then go to the next thing.
Steve: And that's gonna, over time you're gonna build that foundation that you need to make sales transferable.
Dustin: I love it. I wanna give you a moment here, just kind of give us the spiel on what Alteza does 'cause it's super relevant to today's discussion. And then, if people wanna go deeper with you, find out more about that, I know you have a- another free resource for us.
Dustin: So kind of give the mic back to you. So you just tell us a little more about Alteza, and then you can go transition right into if someone's listening, they're like, "I'm actually pretty [00:42:00] serious about this, and I wanna take that next step beyond just documenting their current reality," what's life look like on your side from a professional service helping founders make this transition?
Steve: Yeah. Thanks for that. I would say, all of the things that we've talked about Dustin, today kind of fall into this theme of every business has revenue, but not all revenue is created on purpose.
Dustin: That's good. Yeah.
Steve: And so the purpose, th- what Alteza is about is bringing purpose to the revenue growth.
Steve: And purpose w- by that what I mean is- it's a combination of the systems and the processes and the strategy and the people all working together in harmony, like you were describing earlier, so that revenue becomes pr- predictable, sustainable. I can project it. It's... I'm gonna come close or, to hitting the projections, if not exceeding them.
Steve: Most businesses that are in that kind of, let's call it [00:43:00] the, startup to five million are dealing with very inconsistent revenue trends, and that's the stuff that keeps us up at night as founders, right? You wake up at 3:30 in the morning, you're going, "Oh my gosh, what do I do? How do I fix that?"
Steve: That's what we do at Alteza. That's what we love to do. And we do... What makes it u- the way we do it uniquely is through basically not through full-time people. So we have all these people that can sit in different kind of roles within the revenue engine, but they're- we're bringing them to the table fractionally as opposed to full time, so you don't have that fully loaded expense and investment.
Steve: I mean, so you... for the cost of one really good salesperson, you can get a whole team with us. Not that you need that, but that's what we're bringing to the table. And so we'd love to do that. It's again, bullets before cannonballs. When you're trying new sales stuff, it's always good because of the iteration.
Steve: Start small, learn, apply what you learn, then go bigger as you learn and you've honed it in. So anyway, so that's what we do. And then [00:44:00] to the You mentioned, you touched on an assessment. We have this tool called the Sales Plateau Check, and essentially it's very... it's a five-minute exercise.
Steve: And it basically helps us understand as a founder where, what is causing the plateau, the sales plateau. 'Cause every business hits sales plateaus. It's natural. It's just a normal part of our growth. So what we want to try to help you do is figure out which plateau are you on, and based on that, what do you fix first.
Steve: And so we call that the Sales Plateau Check. And it's just, altezasolutions.com/plateau. And then we'll we'll give you... It, it'll kind of, shortcut the what breaks audit that I was talking about.
Dustin: No. Cool. Yeah. So if you're like a little bit beyond ex- considering like, ah, I don't know if this...
Dustin: Like, if you wanted to decide if this is an issue or you just want to improve your own sales process, even if you want to stay in the seat for the foreseeable future, you should do the audit, right? Like, you should do the self-assessment, writing out all the things that you currently do. [00:45:00] And then if you're like, "I actually realize that I'm hitting some kind of plateau.
Dustin: I need some more clarity on how to name that and how to understand what the d- next best step is to break through that sales plateau," then go take this assessment. I- it's I'm gonna take it. It's a free assessment. It's Steve's someone I highly trust with this, obviously, and brought him on today as an expert for founder-led sales and making the transition into having the sales team or function outside of you.
Dustin: So altezasolutions.com/plateau. It's a little bit of a mouthful. We'll definitely link to it in the show notes, but yeah. Alteza Solutions, basically spel- sp- spell it just like it sounds with Zs .com. Yeah, two Zs.
Steve: That's right.
Dustin: Yep. Yeah, and then and then plateau. And that will allow you to take that assessment and get some personalized advice or some personalized insights into your unique situation.
Dustin: And then sounds like it gives you a f- some practical next steps to take based on where you're actually at right now with your business and with your sales process. So, Steve, well, I appreciate you, man. It's, it's amazing to have you as a [00:46:00] resource in our community as well. I've learned so much from you already.
Dustin: I'm gonna continue to learn from you and, and take your assessment here. And thank you so much for spending so much focused time here teaching. I mean, we basically taught sales for 45 minutes today, and I know it's gonna be super well-received, and I found it incredibly valuable, so I know all of our listeners will as well.
Dustin: So thank you so much for for being a gift to me, to the podcast audience here, and I'll see you soon in our community, my friend.
Steve: Yeah. Thank you, Dustin. I appreciate the gift of being able to serve your audience, man. This is means a lot.