To Grow the Company, You Have to Grow the Leader
What happens when a great salesperson becomes a leader? Or when a founder realizes that the thing making their company successful is also the thing keeping it from growing?
In this episode of Because People Matter, Dr. Helen Fagan sits down with Steve Caton, CEO and Founder of Altezza Solutions and host of Whiskey Is for Closers, for a wide-ranging conversation about leadership, sales, empathy, culture, and the difficult transitions that come with growth.
Steve shares lessons from decades in sales and leadership, including one particularly unexpected hiring strategy: instead of hiring traditionally trained salespeople to sell software to churches, he hired former pastors and taught them how to sell.
Why? Because they already understood empathy, listening, curiosity, and human connection.
But the conversation goes much deeper than sales.
Steve and Helen explore what happens when a salesperson becomes a sales leader, why founders can become the bottleneck in their own organizations, and why growing a company often requires the founder to grow right alongside it. They also talk about the difference between leading through authority and leading through relationships—and what it really means to “have your people’s backs.”
Steve offers two practical lessons anyone can put into practice immediately: prepare before every important conversation, and become comfortable with silence.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing a leader can do is ask the right question… and then give someone the space to answer.
Episode References:
Helen Fagan and Associates – https://helenfagan.com
Altezza Solutions – https://altezzasolutions.com/
Whiskey Is for Closers – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/whiskey-is-for-closers/id1835972747
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