Latest / The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast / Stop Hiring Salespeople Like Everyone Else with Jorge Chavez (stage 3) - Ep. 398

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Stop Hiring Salespeople Like Everyone Else with Jorge Chavez (stage 3) - Ep. 398 · The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast

0:00
Scott Ritzheimer: Hello, hello, and welcome. Welcome once again
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to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast, the only podcast that
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grows with you through all seven stages of your journey as a
0:09
founder. I'm your host, Scott Rettheimer, and today we're
0:11
tackling one of the most expensive mistakes that
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relatively new founders make on the way up, and that is hiring
0:19
salespeople the same way you hire everyone else, especially
0:23
those who are in the reluctant manager stage and are the sales
0:26
team themselves and are looking desperately for help to shoulder
0:30
the burden, and you don't want to hear me talk about this,
0:34
because I'll probably just jump on a soapbox for 30 minutes. So,
0:36
instead, we have with us today Jorge Chavez, who is the
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president and co-founder of Topaz Sales Consulting in
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Austin, Texas. With over 30 years of sales expertise, he
0:46
developed the buyer facilitator philosophy and process,
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empowering CEOs, founders, and sales leaders to build teams
0:53
that deliver revenue through trust, clarity, and mutual fit,
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through targeted sales training, executive coaching, and proven
0:59
hiring systems. Jorge and his team enables organizations to
1:05
scale effective sales cultures. He's also a keynote speaker and
1:09
mentor committed to transforming how companies approach sales and
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leadership. He's here with us today. Jorge, welcome to the
1:15
show. Very excited to have you on. We were chatting for a
1:19
couple of minutes here ahead of time, and I was telling you
1:22
literally how excited I'm to be able to cover this topic this
1:25
way, because our reluctant managers, those folks in stage
1:28
three, have heard us talk about this transition to sales before,
1:32
but we've never really talked about arguably the biggest
1:36
problem of them all in this stage, which is hiring those
1:39
salespeople. How do you pick winners? How do you find the
1:42
right ones, and then what do you do with them once you've got
1:44
them? So, let's start there. How do you hire salespeople, and is
1:50
it different from the way you'll hire the rest of your team at
1:52
this stage?
1:53
Jorge Chavez: Yes, 100% different. And how do you do it?
1:58
That's a great question. It's so why would the way we hire
2:04
salespeople be different than the way we hire everybody else?
2:09
Any one of us who have hired a salesperson before, or as we
2:14
think about salespeople, they're really good at telling us what
2:18
we want to hear, and their best sales job is selling an
2:24
unsuspecting, ill-equipped owner on that they can sell, but then
2:31
we hire them, and then we find out they can't sell. So that's
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it's a big challenge, and the reason that they're different is
2:39
because a lot of folks don't know how to interview sales
2:43
people, because sales people, so there's the here's really the
2:49
magic question, or the magic answer, if you will. I have to
2:53
get to this right away, which is this: people oftentimes it's not
2:58
a, it's not that they're hiring bad people. They don't know what
3:02
to fix. A lot of people, when they hire salespeople, they'll
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either use a recruiter and say, "Oh, they hire salespeople, and
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then they trust the recruiter screening process, or they hire
3:15
internally using the same hiring process they use for everybody
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else, and it doesn't lead to the right results. The issue is that
3:23
they have a hiring process problem, and so the way we want
3:29
to hire salespeople, you want to use a different process.
3:33
Traditional or normal methods of hiring don't really screen for
3:39
sales competencies, and so, for instance, a lot of people, when
3:45
they interview somebody, they may start talking to them and
3:52
both contributing to the interview conversation, and
3:55
because now I'll put myself in the shoes of the owner who's
3:59
doing the selling and needs a salesperson. We're in a lot of
4:03
pain, and so we start telling them about what we're looking
4:08
for and what we need, and then we start painting a vision of
4:12
how great the opportunity is here, and how if they really
4:17
work hard, all the upside, and how much money they're going to
4:20
make, and here's what's happening. We're telling, and
4:24
we're giving them all of the things we want them to do, and
4:28
we're not learning anything about them. What we need to do
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as owners, as we're looking for those sales people, is get our
4:36
questions answered before answering their questions, and
4:40
we actually, and this is very counterintuitive and difficult
4:44
for many people, we have to treat the whole process like a
4:48
cold call, so that we can screen for sales competencies. So, what
4:55
does that look like, Scott? If I called your office, who would
4:59
answer. Answer the phone,
5:01
Scott Ritzheimer: it would be me.
5:02
Jorge Chavez: Okay, if you had an EA and I called your office,
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who would answer your phone?
5:07
Scott Ritzheimer: My EA,
5:08
Jorge Chavez: Exactly. That's fair. And maybe a lot of us
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don't have EAs, but let's say someone else answers the phone.
5:13
But to highlight the importance of what does that mean, hiring,
5:17
and treat it like a cold call. So, if I called you, Scott, and
5:19
you had an EA, and she answered the phone, and I'd say, 'Yes, is
5:24
Scott there? And she'd be like, 'Can I ask who this is? And then
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I'd give her my name, and she'd say, 'Can I ask what this is
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regarding? And I'd say, 'Well, I'd given a thing, is he
5:36
expecting your call? And she's cool, or he's cool, whoever your
5:40
EA is they're cool, they're curious, and they're trying to
5:44
see if this person is a good use of their time. Well, that's how
5:48
we want our interviews to be. We want to force them to bond and
5:52
rapport with us, we want to force them to ask us questions,
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we want to force them to have pressure and resistance
6:02
immediately to see how they deal with it. That's a good
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interview. That's what I mean by the sales hiring process has to
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be a unique, more uniquely tailored to uncover sales
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competencies, and a lot of people don't even realize they
6:18
have a sales hiring process issue, so they're not screening
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correctly, and they're not learning the things they need in
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order to make the right hire.
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Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, there's so much to unpack in there,
6:31
because so many founders would be like, "I don't even know what
6:33
sales competencies are, I just pick up the phone and hope that
6:35
they close, you know? Yeah, I want to, I want to address
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another challenge that I think comes into the sales hiring,
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especially at this stage, and, and it is very different than
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how you hire other folks, and that is when to hire, right?
6:51
When can you afford to hire a sales rep? Because if you're
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looking at when can I afford to hire an admin assistant, or you
7:00
know, hire somebody for production, it's kind of like
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when you have the cash flow to do it, or you already have the
7:06
work to do it, but hiring in another sales rep brings in that
7:10
work, and so how do you help folks figure out the timing on
7:14
this hiring decision?
7:16
Jorge Chavez: That's a great question. The it really comes
7:19
down to if so, as an owner, and I'm looking to decide, should I
7:24
hire another salesperson. Owners have to decide, well, what is
7:28
the greatest use of their skills? They should do what they
7:31
do best, enjoy most, that brings the greatest value to their
7:35
company. If they just want to be a salesperson, then they
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shouldn't necessarily be a business owner, they should sell
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and maybe hire a business owner, you know, or a CEO, or a
7:45
president, or something like that, because that's their
7:48
greatest passion, and that's really what they want to do.
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They don't really want to hire or manage a salesperson or have
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a sales team, because that's a whole different set of skills,
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but if you start, if as an owner, when you start realizing
8:02
I don't have enough time to do other very important things in
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my business, I need to delegate some of my work. Well, what is
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the work that you can delegate? Maybe hiring a salesperson is
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the last you can, you delegate. So, we have a lot of clients
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that are these people we're talking about right now, and
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it's the complete gamut. Some have no sales background, but
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they need sales, and others have a sales background, and they
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love it, and they don't want to let it go. So, they figure out
8:33
and hire every other position they can, eas technical people,
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proposal writers, all these other roles, because they really
8:42
like selling, they get to 10 plus million, and they're the
8:45
sales engine, and they're running the company, but when
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they just, they start realizing, like, I need help supporting all
8:52
these clients, and then they start to see an opportunity to
8:56
mentor someone along, they hire somebody they can teach, and
9:00
they can start delegating some of the work as they build up
9:03
skills, so maybe over time they can take stuff off their plate.
9:06
So I think a great time is when you can't get all the other work
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that's essential to running your business done, and you have to
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start delegating and hiring somebody if you want to run a
9:16
business. Then you just decide which one do you enjoy least, or
9:22
you bring no incremental value, replace those things first, and
9:25
at some point it's going to be a salesperson.
9:27
Scott Ritzheimer: Yes, yes. Let me tell you what I think is a
9:30
mistake, and correct me if I'm wrong, because you know a lot
9:33
more about this than I do, but one of the things that I think
9:35
is a mistake that that a number of sales reps that are on the
9:39
side of that spectrum of saying, hey, I'd like to get out of
9:41
sales. The founders who say, I want to get out of sales. I'm
9:44
not a salesperson. I have dreams about this. I want to invent
9:47
that. I want to do the actual work, whatever it might be. And
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they hire somebody, and immediately they say, like, here
9:54
you go sell, and it's like, here's the leads, here's the,
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you know, everyone, here's all of it, sell. Because you're a
10:00
salesperson, I'm not. Is that a mistake? And if so, what's a
10:05
better way?
10:06
Jorge Chavez: It's a huge mistake. A lot of times people,
10:09
and we're talking, you and I right now, about like, let's say
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we're hiring that first one and we want to hand off the keys.
10:16
I've seen this play out also, and sometimes we don't get
10:19
involved until after this mistake is made, and then if we
10:22
are involved, we can try to prevent it. A lot of times,
10:25
people will hire a sales manager, they get a few sales
10:28
people, but they don't want to manage. That's the coaching, the
10:31
motivating, the training, the holding people accountable,
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pipeline management. They don't want to do any of that kind of
10:37
stuff, so they hire a title, a VP. Oh, you've been a VP, you
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must, and ran a sales team, you must be good. So, there's very
10:44
little screening. They hire someone with a title, they pay
10:47
them a lot of money, and then they want to hand it off. Huge
10:51
mistake. You have to inspect what you expect. So, once you
10:55
make that hire, you have to make sure they're executing all the
11:01
things that you need done and done to the expectation of that,
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what the business needs, you can't let it go. You got to
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inspect what you expect. So that means that you're having
11:12
meetings with them, you're reviewing their, their
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pipelines, their activities, their results, and you're
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digging into and making sure that business and sales are
11:21
happening, cash flow is happening, clients are
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satisfied. You can't let that go, that would be a huge
11:27
mistake.
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Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, it's so interesting because it's so like
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other areas of the business, but so different at the same time,
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and it's easy to think of managing sales as just managing
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another aspect of operations, or administration, or development,
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or whatever it might be, but it is such a distinct part of the
11:47
business, and really does require a different skill set.
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Jorge Chavez: They do well, sales, you know, in some
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respects it's different. Sales people tend to think
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differently, but I would actually say we have some really
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great sales professionals that aren't sales-minded, like sales,
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like what we think about sales people. Let me give an example.
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There's a gentleman I know who is a project manager and got
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promoted his way up to a branch manager, so he had operations
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initially and then got into overseeing operations and sales,
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and was ran the P and L. Well, they had to go through sales
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training and sales leadership training in their role, and they
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ended up being really effective at sales and closing a lot of
12:35
sales, and they got to this place where they said, I don't
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know what all you, I don't see what's so hard about sales. I
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don't see what the problem is. All you got to do is follow the
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process, and so let me share what I mean by that. There's a
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lot of questions that we have to ask in sales, so the skills that
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you want to look for are listening skills, infinite
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curiosity, questioning skills, being present, caring about
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people, being trustworthy, having humility, being
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coachable. Those are hard to find in a hiring process, but
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the hiring process has to allow you to learn how to look for
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those. So, so you look for those. Some of the tough
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questions are, you know, hey, do you have a budget? People are
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afraid to ask questions because they want to get a yes, and
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they're afraid if I ask how much money they have, they might give
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me an answer that might lead me to no, I don't have enough
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money, and now I'm going to lose a sale. Well, so a lot of
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questions don't get asked because sales people are wired,
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I got to make money, I got to go sell stuff, they read all those
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sales books that I, by the way, you said that this has to be for
13:44
no, no worse than a five year old, like five years, so I won't
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even tell you how I feel about most of those sales books. Is
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toxic appropriate? Okay, that's what they are. They just poison
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the mind of sales people, and they don't help, they get them
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to operate from a place they're outcome-based, they're not about
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building trust, they're not about building relationship,
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they're not truth seekers, they just want what they want, and
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and so sales people tend to struggle to ask some hard
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questions, they're hard because they're trying to get a yes, but
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if you don't have all that garbage in your head, which, by
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the way, our training, we get rid of that garbage, and then
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put good. We just clean out your mind and have open, honest
14:25
conversations with people. Then sales isn't so hard, and just
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follow the process. You don't, you're not afraid to ask those
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questions, because they make sense, and you want to know, and
14:35
you don't want to waste your time. So, you don't have to be
14:38
so great and be all salesy. You just have to be coachable, have
14:42
a passion to help people learn a process and execute it
14:45
consistently, and you can do wonderful things.
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Scott Ritzheimer: Yeah, that's excellent. That's so, so very
14:51
good. Jorge, there's a question that I have for you, and I think
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you've alluded to it a little bit earlier, but the question
14:57
that I want to ask is this: What. Is the biggest secret you
15:00
wish wasn't a secret at all? What's that one thing you wish
15:03
every founder watching or listening today knew?
15:06
Jorge Chavez: I would love people to know, and I kind of
15:08
gave a little bit of this early, and I said I was going to jump
15:10
ahead. It's the fact that the problem they're having is they
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have a sales hiring process problem. If I were going to hire
15:18
somebody, and I've never hired a salesperson before I would get
15:22
equipped on help on what are the sales competencies that I need
15:27
to look for, and I'd equip myself on a process on how to
15:31
find them, and that's absent that you're gonna fly blind, and
15:37
if you can afford the long learning curve to figure it out,
15:41
to hire the fire. If you have runway, it's expensive. Then I
15:46
wish everybody knew they have a hiring process problem, and they
15:51
should get skilled up and learn, get a process and learn what
15:55
they don't know they don't know before making that next hire.
16:00
And I would encourage people. Here's let me add a second part
16:03
to it. Don't wait till you run out of time and you run out of
16:06
money. Be proactive while you still have time and you still
16:10
have money. The ounce of prevention of equipping yourself
16:14
will save you a fortune on the back end, because that money,
16:18
there's no budget for the bad hire, the cost of a bada hire.
16:21
Scott Ritzheimer: So true, so true, so true. Jorge, this has
16:26
been amazing. I know there's some folks who'd love to hear
16:28
more. They want to connect with you and find out more about the
16:31
work you all do. Where can they connect with you? Where can they
16:34
reach out to find out more?
16:35
Jorge Chavez: Yeah, truly, our website is got a lot of great
16:39
information, hiring resources, videos on on many of the things
16:45
that we, they're just good tips and techniques, and even
16:49
prospecting guides. Just go to our website, it's a Topaz Sales
16:54
consulting.com and from there, if you want to have a
16:58
conversation, just go on our contact form, and fill it out,
17:02
and we'll reach out to you within 24 hours, and set up time
17:05
to talk and learn.
17:06
Scott Ritzheimer: Excellent, that's excellent. Excellent,
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Jorge. Thank you so much for being on the show. It really was
17:12
a privilege and honor. I loved this conversation. I love the
17:15
way that you approach hiring sales folks, and it is
17:18
different. We have to approach it differently, and I think
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you've helped a lot of folks today, so thanks so much for
17:22
being here. For those of you watching and listening, you know
17:24
your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as
17:26
much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait
17:30
to see you next time. Take care.