In this feasible episode, Christopher Filipiak, Owner of Christopher Filipiak LLC, shares strategies to stabilize your sales. If you struggle with inconsistent revenue or hiring salespeople, you won't want to miss it.

You will discover:

- How to shift your mindset to see structure as freedom

- Why mastering sales yourself ensures stable revenue growth

- What systems are needed for a sales-ready organization

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stages 2,3 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz

Christopher Filipiak assists CEOs in excelling at their sales endeavors. Leveraging his background in engineering, data analytics, and Fortune 100 consulting, he integrates strategy, execution, and mindset transformation to build Sales Ready Organizations capable of achieving consistent and profitable sales. His distinctive experience merges an engineering foundation, robust business principles, and a strong emphasis on mindset, delivering a holistic approach that comprehensively transforms sales organizations.

Want to learn more about Christopher Filipiak's work at Christopher Filipiak LLC? Check out his website at https://www.christopherfilipiak.com/ and find out if your organization is Sales-Ready at https://www.christopherfilipiak.com/blog/sales-ready

Mentioned in this episode:

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Founder's Quiz

Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once

again to the start, scale and succeed. Podcast, the only

podcast that grows with you through all seven stages of

your journey as a founder, and today we've got a big one,

because if you've started a business, if you've had some

success in sales, you've started building the team

around you, one of the things that you'll discover is that

you now have to sell more to keep all of those people

employed, and it puts this pressure on us as founders to

continue to sell and grow while we're managing and doing

all these other things. And what we start to see is that

doesn't work real well. And we have months where it's

amazing, we have months where it's terrible, and it's this

roller coaster of success and what feels like failure, and

so to here with us today to tame that roller coaster, to

bring in stable revenue that we can really scale and grow

with is our guest today, Christopher Filipiak, who

assists CEOs in excelling at their sales endeavors,

leveraging his background in engineering, data analytics

and fortune 100 consulting, he integrates strategy, execution

and mindset transformation to build sales ready

organizations capable of achieving consistent and

profitable sales. Very important. His distinctive

experience merges on merges an engineering Foundation, robust

business principles and a strong emphasis on mindset

delivering a holistic approach that comprehensively

transforms sales organizations, and he's here

with us today. Christopher, welcome to the show. Glad to

have you here.

Hey, Scott, it's great to be here,

and hello to the audience today. Thanks for tuning in

and listening.

Awesome, awesome. All right, so I've

got what I think is a bit of a paradox, and I need your help

with it. Maybe this will be helpful for some folks

listening as well, but it seems to me that founders who

are still like the leading sales rep for their team,

right? Maybe they've got a couple people that are coming

on, but ultimately, at the end of the day, they're still

driving things forward, not necessarily a problem. But

folks at that stage tend to get there by like virtue of

their visionary Ness, right? Like they can sell ice to an

Eskimo. You know, they're the most dangerous people to walk

next to on the road, because you'll end up buying something

from them. They're not sales people, but they're so

inspired by what they do that you can't help but get excited

about it. And and so that gift of seeing opportunity, seizing

opportunity, the enthusiasm that they have around their

ideas makes them at least effective enough to grow some

successful businesses. But the problem here is when, when we

start having to get more structured with it, the very

same processes that they succeeded by not having and

now need can become a stumbling block for them. So

for those who who thrive on that, like winging it and

making it up and they do their best work in that environment,

how can they? How can they build the the structure that

will really bring them the stable revenue that you help

your clients achieve?

Yeah, it's, it's a is it an

interesting question? Maybe it's an interesting question.

I think what you're so, what you're asking me is, how can a

CEO or a visionary CEO who's led based on their vision or

sold based on their vision and their status transition to

something that's more structured, which seems Yeah,

seems constraining to their to their vision, right? Is that

that was

Absolutely, yeah, yes, you said what I

said in about a third of the words.

Yours had a lot more color and

story, which is awesome. I think it's mostly a mindset

shift. Scott is. I think it comes down to understanding

that the the what you were doing wasn't actually creating

as much freedom as you want, and it wasn't allowing you to

have the money and profit and the the structure that allows

you to really create a purposeful and free life. So I

think the first shift is really this mindset shift.

Instead of going, Yeah, I just get to do what I want, and

people are buying or not buying, but I don't, it seemed

like I'm having fun. I don't know what's really going on.

And going, Oh, I get to have, I get to see structure as fun,

or I get to see, you know, setting up my calendar really

well as a tool or a vehicle to create a ton of freedom and

the result that I want, not as something that's limiting me

or or hurting me or inhibiting who, the truth of who, who I

am. So Right? I think that that's the way. I think you

mostly bring. In new information and new truths

about what it actually means to be a business owner, and

create some clarity on what it is you want and what the best

causes are to create that for yourself. And I think when you

make that shift, you're gonna start to think about things

differently, and you're gonna see that your life actually

has much more space for your vision and not so much

confusion in what you're currently doing. I think

that's going to feel real good. There is the truth is,

is that we create based on our energy and our emotions and

our activities, right? So it's thoughts and action and your

energy will trump whatever your skills are the majority

of time. So that's one of the reasons why that visionary

founder who's lit up about what they're doing is gonna is

gonna make progress regardless if they don't have the right

skill sets.

So yeah, so one of the things that I've

seen folks at this stage do is think that they feel like what

you're saying, that they feel a lack of freedom. And their

thought is, well, if I can get somebody else to sell, then I

don't have to deal with this and and, you know, if they're

a good sales rep, they'll just come in and be able to kind

of, they don't say this, but magically sell everything that

we have. What's wrong with the idea of just hiring a sales

rep in and not dealing with any of this?

They fail the majority of the time,

and it's a very expensive mistake. You know, on average,

founders hire and fire 3.25 sales people at a cost of

upwards of, you know, or just over $400,000 as a 2025,

right? So. And what's worse, so that what's what's not even

included in that cost, Scott, is that you as the founder or

the CEO, go, Hey, I actually don't need to do sales. Yes.

So you take your foot off the gas. Of sales because you've

hired someone and to staff a good sales team is going to

take you 1218, 24, months. So you hire this person, you take

your foot off the gas. They don't. They don't work out,

right, which happens a lot, and we can talk about why that

is, and how to actually set up a successful sales team so

they don't work out. You've taken your foot off the gas of

sales, and everyone has a really bad day six to 12

months down the track. Yes, it's okay, yes. So as a CEO,

your number one responsibility is to drive the growth of

revenue and profit for the firm right. And I think the

easiest, most effective way to do that is to personally be

involved in business development and sales like

you're in such a a sweet spot, easy place to make sales and

drive revenue for the business, that any other

strategy, almost like you can bring in other strategies, but

any other strategy where you're you're moving away from

sales or business development as a CEO of your business, I

think is a is a mistake, right? Yeah, and yeah doesn't

mean you shouldn't have help, or you shouldn't set up

systems and processes that enable you to sell really

quickly and easily and really profitably at a large level,

but when you surround yourself with that system and that set

of processes, you're going to have a lot of extra cash in

your business that you can experiment and figure out what

it actually takes to stand up a successful sales team.

Yeah, yeah. That's so true. To reinforce

that point, not that point, not that you need it, because

it was very well articulated. But there's a client of mine

who will not hire a first sales rep for a team unless

they have a coach taking them through the process. Because

of that, it just it. They, they had so many fail that

they're like, it's not worth placing somebody because it's

just not going to work. Yeah. So let's, let's unpack that,

though. So it's one thing to say, hey, they, you know, they

often fail. It's another thing to say why that is, and even

more importantly, what we can do differently. So let's walk

that through. Why do these fail so frequently when it's

such a pivotal transition that we need to be able to make?

Yeah, let me I'll answer that. And

let me just say, you know, one of the things that happens

with founders, and this is one of the reason why sales people

fail is because the CEO hasn't mastered sales themselves,

right? And they're picking strategies based on their own

fear or lack of confidence or overwhelm, instead of a place

of cause and effect. So they're, they're going, Hey, I

want to, I. Do this, right? Because I'm uncomfortable in

sales, or I don't like doing x piece of marketing or x piece

of selling, right? Whatever that is. It could be anything.

And they pick strategies, hiring sales people so they

don't have to do the inner work to try to bypass doing

the inner work, yeah, and come to their own leveling up of

their self worth, of their mastery of sales. So that's

one of the reasons why it fails, because energetically,

they're trying to get out of doing something that's theirs,

that's yours to do, yeah? The other reason that initial

salesperson fails is, is you got to understand that sales

is a system of systems, like, I like to think of it as a

race car team. So you need a right a fast car, you need a

driver, you need a coach for the driver, you need a pick

crew. So sales is a system of systems. And if you just hire

an amazing driver, an amazing salesperson, and there's no

car, there's no pit crew, there's no coaching, it

doesn't matter. And in in sale, in a sales organization,

that means that your your marketing is dialed in. You

know who your market is. You know what their problem is.

You have an offer that helps them solve that. You know how

to message against that offer in sales. You know how to

create and have conversations. You have the tools to lead and

then under get the information and the data required to make

decisions on your team has the right mindset, and you have

all that, all of that manage in a well, in a well, put

together project, and it's one of the things that I help my

clients with Scott is this idea of being a sales ready

organization, and that basically is like looking at

the business going, Hey, we want to make sure your

mindset, your leadership, your marketing, your sales and your

project management, When it comes to adding revenue to the

business is dialed in. There's nothing missing, and a sales

person is just one part of that bigger system. The last

piece on that is to understand that sales people are

leveraged to scale something that's working, but if there's

something fundamentally missing broking or needing

improvement, bringing in a sales person to try to scale

that up is not the right is not the right move, right? So

that that's, that's one of the reasons. And it could be, it

could also just be that you may not, you don't have a good

process for hiring and training and coaching and

identifying top sales talent as as well. Like the business

doesn't have that competence.

Yeah, right, right. It's a skill set hiring

those folks as well. So let's break this down a little bit

and maybe get it to a point where we can get some

actionable steps today. So in terms of creating a sales

ready organization. There's a whole lot to that. Are there a

set of steps or phases that you typically walk your

clients through?

Yeah. So the first thing I do is we do

a sales ready organization assessment to look at the

organization and understand what they're doing. Well,

because you're making money, you're profitable, right? You

have clients, you're doing something, so we want to

understand what's actually driving and creating that

profit and that revenue. But you look at that, and I

actually have a self sales ready organization, self

assessment, that is kind of a mini assessment that the

audience, I'll gift that to the audience, that they can

take and I'll score that, and they can understand how they

stack up. But typically we'll do a the the assessment, and

then we'll write a scaling roadmap. And I've done

hundreds of assessments and roadmaps at this point, so I

have a really good and with my engineering background, I can

a lot of the biggest benefit is I can just tell people,

Hey, you can stop doing this, this and this. Yes, we'll do a

lot of things that are wasteful, right? But they

can't see that, because it's what's comfortable for them.

So I can go, Hey, this is what we need to do from a cause and

effect standpoint, instead of just what's comfortable for

you. So I do that, and then we'll typically build what

like for me, I work specifically with helping CEOs

succeed at their sales. Work like, that's my sweet spot.

That's my niche. I don't really do sales teams. I, you

know, years back, there's other companies that are much

better at recruiting, staffing, coaching, training,

sales people. My sweet spot is really helping support and

lead, lead the CEO to make a lot of money and profit in

their business really, really quickly, so that they. Can

have some extra cash, but whether it's the CEO or sales

team, you need to have, you need to build the race car,

you need to have some type of system that enables you to

create and have sales conversations. Yeah. So that's

kind of the second phase. Once we have the roadmap, it's

like, okay, what are the conditions? What are the

leadership, marketing mindset, sales and project management

systems that we need to build so that you can hit whatever

your revenue goals or revenue targets are?

Yeah, yeah. What I like about that, and I

get it like the temptation is so strong to try and skip a

step, because we see step A, where we are right now. We see

step c, where we've got sales people helping us, and we're

scaling, and it's awesome. And it's so tempting to skip this

step B, which you keep coming back to, and that is that you

have to develop a proficiency in this, right? You have to

develop the ability to create stable revenue, not that you

have to, but if you do the return on it is so high. If

you can generate stable revenue, and you do that

through a process with a car, the likelihood that someone

else will be able to do it is exponentially higher. And so

what would you say to someone who's listening, and let's be

honest, most folks in this stage like they're being

pulled in 100 different directions, and burnout is

like a real thing. We may not want to say that, but they're

tired. They're worn out. How do you help folks to see the

light at the end of that tunnel? Because it can feel

like like you opened in the front end of this of adding

system and process is actually making it harder. It's making

it more uncomfortable. How do you help folks to really get a

vision for what it can look like when they have that

process in place.

Well, I think, I think having some

skill sets around burnout or stress or overwhelm is is

important because that's something that you've worked

yourself into or learned yourself as a as kind of a

default behavior. It's not a natural state for for humans.

So just recognize that, and I get it. I work with a lot of

stressed out, overwhelmed, burnt out CEOs, and one of the

things that we we coach around, is just understanding

how to do that and create clarity on how they actually

want to show up. You know, self trust, self love,

efficient, right? Happy, feeling good, safe in their in

their body, and that, that's a real skill set to get your

body to that state and move yourself out of, out of, you

know, fear, worry, doubt, shame, guilt, stress,

overwhelm, burnout, yeah, and then from there, you know, I

don't think setting up systems and structures are is actually

very difficult, like, that's a solved thing, so to speak. You

just need some help doing it. So you can help. You know, you

can use the sales ready organization framework, or you

can use any sales process framework that you want.

There's a lot of lot of ones out there, but it's really

going, Hey, like, what is it you actually want? And then

it's just commit. I think it's a commitment to being involved

in sales. I don't think getting out of sales is the

goal, right? I think as you grow in your organization,

you're just going to do bigger and bigger deal sizes. You

know, when I, when I was a w2, employee at a B to B, you

know, consulting firm that CEO had been there for 20 years

and was still doing huge, multi million dollar deals for

that firm. You know, I work with 200 uh, $200 million

consulting firm, and that CEO is still involved in in sales.

And I'm not saying you're going to be on the phones all

day, but you're going to spend some time doing relationship

nurturing, yes, calling your best clients, and working on

those million dollar, $10 million 100 million dollar

deals like that's that's part of what the CEO needs to be,

needs to be doing, in my opinion. And of course, you

have other priorities, but I think if you master that skill

of sales, that's going to help you in not only adding

revenue, but attracting the best partners, building the

best team, right, having the best friendships and

relationships. And it's not, it's not, it's not about

selling ice to Eskimos, right? And I a lot of people use that

because it's like, Eskimos don't actually need, need ice,

but it's just understanding that you you are like, there's

just such a gift and such a personal journey in mastering

sales, and it allows you to really have a skill set around

creating what you want, whenever you want and need it.

I think that that should be the the vision it should

should be to. Hey, like, this is actually the company that I

want, and a big part of that is developing a real

competence and mastery for myself and for the business

around sales.

Yeah, so good, so good. Christopher,

I've got one more question for you, and then I wanna make

sure folks know how they can get in touch with you and take

the self assessment as well. What would you say is the

biggest secret you wish wasn't a secret at all? What's that

one thing you wish everybody watching or listening to they

knew?

Yeah, I would just say that to I think

the secret is that sales is good. Money is good, right? I

think there's a lot of story around money and sales. And I,

you know, I talk about this idea of sales as an expression

of love, or sales as an act of love. And I think the biggest

secret is that, in today's world, sales and money is one

of the main skill sets that you need. And we don't. We

don't teach it in school, right? We don't teach it you

can't, like I went to MBA school. There wasn't even a

course on sales, right in business school, right? And

there was marketing and operations and HR and

leadership and consulting and finance and all the things,

but there wasn't one course on on sales. And I think if you

just just teach yourself that sales is good, is a good

thing. Like, sales is a good thing to do to someone, right?

Like, selling people is good. I think that's a huge secret.

You know, my mentor said to me, sales isn't something that

we do to someone, sales is something that we do for

someone. That's an expression of love. It's an act of love.

There's and it's how we create and interact as humans. So

that that's the secret I'd love your audience to take

away today.

Fantastic. Christopher, there's some

folks listening. It's exactly what they need when they need

it. How can they find more out about the work that you and

your team do? And where can they get a copy of the

assessment?

Yeah. So you can go to my website,

christopherfilipiac.com, or find me on LinkedIn, and

there's an article, an article on my blog called, is your

business sales ready? And the link to the assessment is in

that article.

Fantastic, Christopher. Thank you so much

for being on the show today and sharing with us your time.

It's, I really, really appreciate it. It's, it's one

of those episodes that it sounds so simple because it's

so true. And I couldn't agree more, you mentioned this in

the middle of the episode, but so much of this is about

knowing what you don't have to do. So if you're looking for

someone to come and help with your sales processes, help you

as CEO, become a better sales leader and sales person, and

you want to do that by not doing some things. This is a

place to do it. I love that. And for those of you watching

and listening, you know your time and attention mean the

world to us, I hope you got as much out of this episode as I

know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take

care.