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