In this actionable episode, Shad Tidler, Sales and Leadership/Management at Lushin, Inc., shares how to build repeatable sales systems that scale without founder dependency. If you struggle with inconsistent revenue and every deal requiring your personal involvement in stage 3, you won't want to miss it.

You will discover:

- Why founder-led selling creates an invisible ceiling that stalls predictable growth.

- How to document and systemize your winning sales process into trainable steps

- What simple scripts and cadences turn average reps into consistent closers fast

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 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

Shad Tidler has been a seasoned member of the Lushin sales team since 2014. He combines his extensive global business expertise with the disciplined mindset of an Ironman triathlete. As a leading sales transformation consultant, he is known for crafting scalable strategies and processes tailored to client success. Shad's structured approach instills a sense of calm in clients, guiding them past immediate challenges and toward their goals.

Want to learn more about Shad Tidler's work at Lushin, Inc.? Check out his website at https://www.lushin.com/

Connect with Shad through his LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/shadtidler/

Mentioned in this episode:

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Founder's Quiz

Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again

to the Start scale and succeed podcast. It's the only podcast

that grows with you through all seven stages of your journey. As

a founder, I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and here's what just

about nobody warns you about in this process, specifically the

sales process that built your business. It actually only works

because you're the one doing it, and the moment that you hired or

tried to hire someone else to sell for you, or even with you,

it becomes a very, very expensive problem, and this is

yet another and probably one of the biggest challenges that

turns founders into reluctant managers, because you can't just

hand someone all your instincts and without a repeatable,

teachable process, your new hires just winging it, and

they're probably not going to do it the way that you did. There's

a good chance they won't do it as well as you did, and it leads

to all kinds of unpredictability, added cost and

a huge amount of frustration. But it doesn't have to be that

way. In fact, today's guest knows exactly how to fix it. We

have with us today, Shad Tidler, who has a has been a seasoned

member of the Lucian sales team since 2014 he combines his

extensive global expertise with discipline mindset, and he is an

Ironman triathlete, which is just extraordinary. We might get

into that a little bit later, but as a leading sales

transformation consultant, he's known for crafting scalable

strategies and processes tailored to a client's success.

Shad, structured approach instills a sense of calm in

clients, guiding them past immediate challenges and toward

their goals. Well, Chev, we've kind of laid it out here. We

know what the gambit is in front of us. Why is it that so many

founders get the sales process wrong when they try and hand it

off to their first real sales team member?

It's something called learned helpless, or, I'm

sorry, not learned helplessness. It's called non transferable

skills, sorry, learned helplessness is a whole

different thing that actually adds into it. I'll explain here

a minute, but it's called non transferable skills. So you're

the owner of a company, right? And you build it, and selling

comes natural to you, because you go, I've got the charisma.

It's my company. The buck stops with me. I've just kind of

learned things over time, and then you a lot of times I've

seen it says, as owners are getting that first sales person,

they just expect that they're that it's going to happen,

right? Like, they're going to like, oh, that person's going to

know it like me, or I'll just go, Hey, here's my here's my

leads, and you just go out and all of a sudden, revenue is

going to take off. And as you alluded to, Scott, it doesn't.

And the problem is is, like, all that knowledge, everything up in

their head, all that expertise, even the way they show up, they

can't get it out of their head and translate to someone and

then lay it out in a way that that someone can learn it, pick

it up, be coached to it, and put it into play. Even if you and I

see this a lot of times, when they're hiring their first

salesperson, they may get lucky and find a great salesperson. A

lot of times they don't. And that's a whole other thing we're

talking about here in a second. Is what do you need to set up

for that? A lot of times they don't, but if they do and they

expect, okay, they're great sales persons coming in, they

just expect sales are going to take off, and then all sudden,

things dip, or things go backwards because they've taken

the foot off the gas, and this person is still ramping up,

right? If you think of a ramp up of a sales person, well, it's

probably like an effective ramp up is going to be two to three

months at least, and then it's plus the sales cycle for actual

sales to start coming in. So if you're even in a longer sales

cycle, like, let's say, like construction or something really

like that, it may be almost a year or more before you're

really starting to see sales start to pick up with an

appropriate onboarding plan, right? So that's one big thing,

is that they struggle because they got all this knowledge in

their head, and they think that person is just going to have

that same knowledge, and they don't know how to get it out.

And then coach, train, hold people accountable to apply it.

Yeah. So there are two big parts to this, and

I'm going to start with what I think most people probably think

is the bigger part, but you may argue, as the smaller part, what

are you looking for in that first sales person?

There are three big areas, and there's some tools.

I'll mention some tools that are used that can help you suss us

out. Number one, is there what we call will to sell. So are

they truly motivated go out and sell and even get better?

Because even if you get the best salesperson, they're not

perfect, right? That's a small, small percentage. So are they

motivated to get better? Do they have a desire? We call it like a

fire in your belly, go out and be proactive, not to wait for

leads to come in, not to wait for things to fall in their lap,

but to go, I'm gonna go out and hunt. I'm gonna go out and, for

lack of better word, screw some stuff up in order to be able to

get better and to build things and to get things going. Are

they committed to doing what it takes, which means I'm willing

to do the tough stuff, I'm willing to screw up and make

mistakes, right? So you're looking for things like that and

will to sell, then you're looking at things like what we

call. DNA for a salesperson that's beliefs and biases that

are supporting them being effective salesperson, not

getting in the way. Like, I think of these, like, like this,

Scott, it's like, I live in Indianapolis, here, if I was to

drive to downtown Chicago, it would take about three, three

and a half hours. Well, what would make it take longer? Well,

traffic on the way, construction and, yeah, I mean, especially

this time of your weather, right? I'll still get to my goal

again in downtown Chicago, but it took longer, more

frustration, more headaches, more effort, and when these

beliefs and biases are getting in the way and they're working

opposite you, it's like that. It's like all that stuff getting

in the way that's making it harder. So you want somebody

that's got strong DNA and able to have tough conversations when

they need to and be able to push back or challenge when they need

to hold their ground. Be able to talk money effectively, be able

to effectively get people to make decisions quickly, be able

to handle rejection right. And then finally, is the actual

skill sets right, which is tactical skill sets. So not only

do I have the right tools to be able to be effective. So to get

out there and hunt and get in front of new decision makers,

the ideal decision makers, and start conversations. But I know

how to use them, and I know when to use them. I do it

consistently. And then there's one last piece that they should

be looking for, and is that is, is that person coachable?

Because I've seen all those other three things be really

strong with a non coachable or a low coachability person, which

means, if you're helping them, Scott, they're your person. And

you're like, hey, let's talk about this. Let's work on this.

I'm gonna coach on this. They'll say to your face, that sounds

great, Scott, I bet that would help. Oh my gosh, that would be

great. And they'll walk away from that conversation going,

you don't understand that's never going to work, or my way

is better. And then you're frustrated, Peter or manager,

going, why the heck are we having this conversation again

again? Why don't they get it? Well, if they're not coachable,

it's not going to matter. So those are some of the big things

that you got to be looking for in people.

Those are excellent and simple but but

powerful and so, so very true. So we've kind of got this people

part, at least we know what to look for there. So let's say we

plug the right person into this role. How do we plug them into

the right role? How do we structure that for their

success?

So there's two parts that. Part number one is

you got to have the bird cage ready for the bird. Okay? And

here's what that analogy means. Bird is the salesperson coming

in. Bird Cage is the structure and the strategy and the pieces

around to support them, to have that comfortable, you know,

house there. So what does that mean? Well, that means, do I

actually have goals for them? I can't tell you the number of

companies I've talked to and worked with, or the first time

I've helped them hire, I go, what's the goal for the

salesperson? You're like, I don't know. Okay, so you have no

idea. You just want to come in and sell me. You have no idea,

like, how much you want to and, like, what success looks like.

We got to have goals. We got to go, Okay, how do we break those

goals down now, to the right metrics, the right indicators

that we're looking and then know what we're what those things are

to measure along the way and have appropriate one to one set

with them. Do we know they're even in their personal goals?

What are they going after and why? And then relate it back to,

okay, here's where we need to get you from a sales side or to

work on to get you, give you that so you're motivated. Do you

know from there is, do you have a good, strong sales process,

right? That's effective, that you can train somebody you know

how to train and coach them to it and use to hold accountable

that they're doing all the right things to qualify opportunities

so they're chasing the right stuff that you want as a leader.

Do you have the right ideal client profile and list to help

them? Yeah, they gotta go out and hunt, but you gotta help

them paint the picture right? Do you have the skills to hold them

accountable? Do you have training and development or a

way to do that for them, to help them right? So that's a big

piece of it, to find the right now. The second piece is you

gotta have some tools to go that, and also part of your

onboard or your hiring process to go, Okay, here's the ideal

candidate or job description, here's the nice to haves versus

the must haves that becomes your okay. Now this is the template,

and what we're going to measure against through that process,

and then having some sort of an objective evaluation tool that

can tell you, a, are they the right fit for that role and

within your company, selling environment? B, going back to I

said that will to sell DNA, tactical, coachable is that

really there or not? Not. I'm going to rely on my gut. Kind of

thinks in an interview, not. I'm going to rely on they wrote a

great resume and they talk of the right things, but I've got

objective data to measure that to go now I know not only the

right for my company and our environment, but the right fit

for this role.

It can be really hard when it comes to the

sales process. Piece of that, when it's working for you,

you're kind of inside the fishbowl, looking around,

thinking, this is fine. What are the hallmarks of a good sales

process, and how can a founder start to split themselves out of

that early in this process so they don't end up paying for it

later?

So we have three of the biggest, and then I'm going

to talk about the other pieces that. Ancillary to it in the

process, and then, and then we'll talk about how slow out

the three biggest things I see most sales process are missing,

and that's why, not only not, not even, is it, you know,

Scott, we get a No, right? Or, you know, here's the reason. But

like, no decision gets made, no action gets taken, and that's

where most deals die, is it's, it's a lack of them doing

anything. Number one is, we're not talking to the right people.

So there's not a stage in them or milestone in that process

that goes this is what the ideal decision maker looks like, and

we've got to make sure we get to them and have conversations

right and whether that's a single or whether you're in a

complex where it's multiple people, number two, there's no

compelling reason for them to even take action and make a

change. Hey, this sounds great. That would be wonderful to do

versus we're having this problem. It's impacting us, our

business this way. It's impacting us personally, the

decision makers, this way, and we got to do something about it.

Number three, there's no commitment to change, and

there's no check in the process for it. Just because somebody

goes I've got a problem. Here's a reason I would make a change,

does not mean they're committed to changing. I had a

conversation earlier this week with a prospect about owner and

VP sales. Shared a lot of problems, and things are

happening with a particular sales team, but there is not

commitment to do anything about it right now. I can't create

that in somebody, neither can you. All you can do is uncover

it's there or not, and then go if it's not, that's a reason not

to spend time. Doesn't mean won't come back later and

revisit or they change. But right now, not spend time. Now

the other things that go with that process, you got to have

somebody get in front of them through various prospecting

efforts and a good design for that first conversation to go,

get them to go, Yeah, I would spend time to you, with you and

have a further conversation. You got to make sure we

differentiate from the competition within that whether

competition is doing nothing, competition is somebody they use

now, or competition is other people bidding on the work,

we've got to make sure we have a good budget step in there. So

talking investment of dollars, time, effort, and we got to make

sure we understand how they make the decision, the process and

criteria and timeline were aligned, and then a good here's

how we close to that next step and get a yes or no. That's what

the process should look like. And those three things I started

with are the key now for owner, the thing is, is, like a lot of

that, getting to decision makers, finding compelling

reasons, gain commitment. That's just natural for them, right?

Because their title gets them to the decision makers. I'm the

owner, President, CEO of a company, owner present, CEO a

company comes out of the woodwork when I call them,

right? Or I'm me, right? They go, you get me. You understand

me, because you're at my level. And so I'll open up about the

good, the bad and the ugly of things going on. They're they're

like, I only have so much time. So I got to figure out, are you

actually committed or not that comes natural to sales, like to

owners and present CEOs and sales leaders, who are, you

know, owning their company. That's the stuff that has to be

taught and developed and great sales people have, but you have

to help them with that, because they don't walk in with it

naturally, like that owner does.

Yeah, it's so true. Shout out before I let you

go. I've got this question that I love to ask all my guests. I'm

gonna ask it of you. And the question is this, what would you

say is the biggest secret that you wish was not a secret at

all. What's that one thing you wish everybody watching or

listening today knew?

And knowing you're known the group here that you

know your audience, Scott, as owners and leaders of companies,

your people, aren't you, your people, aren't you? It's so

easy. I see so many times I hear something. Well, naturally

they're motivated this way, because that's how I'm

motivated. Naturally they can go out and do these things, like we

talked about, having those non transferable skills, the sooner

you realize they're not you and they're not motivated by things

you are. They don't have your skills and experience. And then

do something about it, and get out of the way, the faster the

company grows.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so hard when they're

not you. And you come to that realization, then you're like,

Well, who are they? Because they're not everybody else

either. You know, it's that. And he gave us just such a great

list, and for those listening, and you're like, well, then who

are they? Go back and listen to the points that he made about

who makes a great who makes a great salesperson, because

that's exactly what you're looking for. Shout out. I know

there's folks who'd love more help. They'd love more

information. They'd love to know more about the work that you do.

Where can they find out more about you and your work?

Sure, if go to www dot Lushin, that's L as in,

Larry U S and Sam H and Harry. I N as in nancy .com at the top,

you'll see, meet our coaches. If you click on there, that'll give

you a link to you'll see my picture and link to my page

right there. You can reach out and ask, you know, for get some

grab some time with me, etc, learn a little bit more.

That's great. Well, for those listening, if

you find yourself even at all in this position, please do reach

out to shad. He's gonna do a ton of good for you, Shad. Thanks

for being on the show privilege and honor having you here

really, really powerful insights, nice, simple, easy to

take action on and thank you for moving us down field. I really

appreciate it. Thanks for having for those of you. Yeah, for

those of you watching, listening, you know your time

and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out

of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see

you next time. Take care.