Marketing for SMEs Podcast: Chad Paris on Fixing Broken Sales Processes and Where AI Fits In

Chad Paris is the Founder and CEO of Stonefly Consulting Group and host of the Process Over Pressure Podcast. He joined this episode of Marketing for SMEs after fifteen years as an executive sales leader driving over $37 million in revenue growth, before walking away to help founders fix broken processes.

His core belief is that most sales problems people try to fix with training or hiring are actually broken processes in disguise. It’s a conversation that ties directly into how we think about paid ads at Digital Goliath, because a lead is only worth what a sales process can convert it into. You can connect with Chad on LinkedIn or learn more about his work at Stonefly Consulting Group.

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From Teacher to Sales Leader

Jeremy: Alright guys, welcome back to another episode of the show. Jeremy here, founder of Digital Goliath, the online ads guy. Today I’m joined by Chad Paris.

Jeremy: Founder and CEO of Stonefly Consulting Group and host of the Process Over Pressure podcast. After fifteen years in the executive seat, driving over $37 million in revenue growth, Chad walked away to help founders fix broken processes quietly draining their revenue, and put AI where it actually works instead of where it just adds hype. His thesis is that most sales problems are really a broken process in disguise.

Chad: I’ve always been an educator at heart. I started out as a school teacher and school administrator, then got into sales.

Chad: I think I learned a lot of the core foundations of what really makes someone a good salesperson from education, because you constantly have to be willing to learn and self-examine. I’ve always brought that approach even as a sales leader for organizations.

Jeremy: So you weren’t just a leading salesperson, you actually raised sales teams. You recruited them, hired them, trained them.

Why Old Sales Tactics Stopped Working

Jeremy: So when you look at sales the traditional way, fifteen years ago, how you brought people on, what’s the biggest thing you see has changed?

Chad: It all starts with the way we think about who we’re selling to and the way they buy today. It’s totally different from 15 or 20 years ago.

Chad: We’ve evolved as far as what our appetite is for taking a sales call. People are hesitant to get on a call, they don’t like pushy salespeople, whereas 15-20 years ago it was “come in, sit down, let’s talk about it.”

Chad: The buyer has evolved. Most sales teams haven’t evolved with them. A lot of people beat their head against the wall because they’re still trying to sell the old way.

Jeremy: If we go back ten years, before AI was prevalent, did you ever have those moments where you thought, “man, I wish I had that tool”?

Chad: Absolutely. Let’s go back 10-15 years. The ability now to research someone and understand what their business does before you walk into that call, we didn’t have that.

Chad: CRMs that are out there were built around information to regurgitate back to you. Now I have an AI CRM that’s basically taking AI and learning that person even before the phone call.

Chad: If you use the tools available today, you can pretty much lay out the objections before you even go in, versus doing a lot of research and then having to be reactive on the spot.

Chad: What I’ll tell you is most sales reps today are not as good at that task as they were 15-20 years ago, because that’s the way they had to sell. The number of salespeople today versus 15-20 years ago, there’s about four times the amount.

Jeremy: Well, cause everybody wants to be in sales, because of the money.

Chad: Yeah, but they’re not as sharp at that skill anymore. You had to constantly evolve on every sales call, and I don’t know that salespeople today do that.

Chad: If you have a salesperson out on the road with nobody riding along to coach them, how else are they learning? They go into a sales call, leave, and think it went good, but it never ended up in the sale.

The Broken Process, Not a Broken Salesperson

Jeremy: So when you go to fix businesses, you’re identifying those process gaps instead of just pushing sales techniques on people?

Chad: A prime example: the founder or CEO walks into a meeting and says, “sales are down, what’s the problem?” A room full of people go, “the market’s slow,” or “so-and-so isn’t a great rep.”

Chad: Nobody actually says the real tension. They leave that meeting and haven’t moved any further with solutions. That’s a process problem.

Chad: So what I do is go in, hear what’s happening, and point out where the gap is, in a way that’s meant for them to engage with, not just accept or defend.

A Real Example: Diagnosing Gaps in an SME Sales Team

Jeremy: Can you give a practical example? Maybe a small business where the owner’s doing their own selling with a few people behind him?

Chad: Let’s say a small business, $10 million or less. You usually have an entrepreneur who’s smart, who built this thing.

Chad: What do they always do when they start to grow? First, hire a secretary or someone to follow up. Second, “we’re really growing, let’s hire a sales director.”

Chad: Now you’ve got a sales director, marketing director, operations director, all these directors. So what are they feeding you when you walk into the board meeting?

Chad: If they’re telling you “Johnny’s a good salesperson, he’ll do a good job this month,” that’s not a playbook. It’s very common: they hire someone smart from a great business and just say “now go build a good sales team.”

Chad: But it’s still broken, because that person may be selling the way they did at their last company, and that’s not your structure. Otherwise you’re just putting a bandaid or a tool on top of a broken process, and you’re getting chaos.

Jeremy: So the thing they should do before hiring a sales director is get the vision first.

Chad: You’re the entrepreneur, the builder. You know what your intent was. Let’s go back to why you built this.

Chad: Sometimes people don’t know because they’re so busy in it, they may have to go talk to the people in the shop to understand where the gaps are.

Chad: I ask salespeople all the time: where are you spending most of your time during the day? When you put those answers in a pile, you realize your sales are down because people are spending more time on clerical stuff than actual selling.

Chad: If you’ve got 40 hours a week and 36 are clerical, you’re only selling four hours a day. Your sales aren’t going to be good, and that’s common.

Hiring a Sales Director Doesn’t Fix a Broken Process

Jeremy: It sounds like you’re also coaching the boss through this, not just the sales team.

Chad: The CEO is texting me all day, ready to pull their hair out. It could be at the sales director level too, where everybody wants more leads.

Chad: I can turn on lead generation and get you as many leads as you want, but if there’s no execution behind the lead, how good is the lead? Is it a lead problem or an execution problem?

Chad: If I give you 30 good leads tomorrow, are you going to close them? Then you find the inside sales team all sells differently and isn’t on message.

Jeremy: That’s part of why I wanted to chat, because as an advertiser we can get leads for people. But I can’t say I know how to improve someone’s sales process, I wouldn’t be able to speak with authority on that.

Chad: It always comes down to a sales director saying “if I had more leads I could close more deals,” and a marketing director saying “if you’d close the deals I gave you, we could get you more.” There’s truth to both sides.

Chad: But it comes back to: one lead is worth what? I ask that question all the time, and barely anyone can answer it.

Chad: Let’s say, for argument’s sake, one lead is worth $5,000. If I give you 20 leads and you only close one, your ROI isn’t good.

Chad: So is it a lead problem or a sales problem? Chances are it’s in the messaging, the follow-up, the flow, all the things we’re required to keep track of that we don’t do, because that’s where AI comes in. But putting AI on top of a broken process isn’t going to fix it.

Jeremy: It’s going to amplify it, isn’t it? That’s what you said earlier.

Where AI Helps, and Where the Human Still Has to Close

Jeremy: So is there a clear line in your philosophy for where AI helps and where the human comes back in?

Chad: Everybody’s very digital today, they can Google, search, or ask AI to find information. Say I’ve hired Jeremy and he’s sending me leads as a salesperson.

Chad: My job first is understanding: is this a hot lead, a warm lead, or a cold lead? Oftentimes the reason Jeremy can’t dial in his leads is because I’m not giving him feedback on where the lead needs to be better.

Chad: That’s a scoring system AI can help with, it can grade the leads and start identifying “this is your perfect client.” Repetition is a great place for AI, it helps accumulate that pattern.

Chad: The human touch is giving that information: “this is an ideal customer, here’s your sales playbook, here’s how you talk to them.” That’s a human element using AI to help close more deals.

Chad: Then afterward, we go back to AI and say, “how was that sales call? Here’s what you did good, here’s what you did bad, here’s how to do it better.” Now AI is training the human to get better at their skill.

Chad: AI is also learning: “Jeremy gave me five leads just like this, that’s our right ICP, find me more.” That’s a process fixed with both a human element and an AI element working together.

Inside the Process Over Pressure Podcast

Jeremy: Is that what you talk about on your podcast too?

Chad: Process Over Pressure is something I curated to give back to the industry. I was always the guy hiring marketing people and consultants to come in and work with us.

Chad: I wanted to give back and be a voice for entrepreneurs to hear and go, “that resonated with me.” What we talk about is real world, real raw, what it’s like being an owner.

Chad: The times I said “what the heck with it, I’m walking away,” almost quitting. The hope is people hear it and think, “this is helpful, I need to refocus.”

Chad: It’s Process Over Pressure because I’m a firm believer pressure is only there because of a broken process. The more process we have in place, the more we’re defined, the better that pressure is reduced because we’re doing the things we’re good at.

Working with Chad: The Discovery Call Process

Jeremy: In terms of how people work with you, I know it’s stoneflyconsulting.com and you’re active on LinkedIn. What happens once someone signs up, in the first few months?

Chad: My website, stoneflyconsulting.com, is the easiest way, there’s a place to book a call. Usually what I do is a discovery call.

Chad: I like to learn about their business, what they’re doing. If I have their website, I do a lot of pre-work beforehand, I like to know a bit about the person before we get on the call.

Chad: So we spend that 30-45 minutes with me asking questions to lead them and really discover where the flaws are. From there, I give them a synopsis of what I’ve uncovered on that one call.

Chad: Some next steps, or areas we need to dig deeper into. At that point it’s their decision whether they want to engage.

Chad: I don’t charge for that conversation, because I don’t know if I can help you until I’ve heard what your needs are. And I’m honest, if I’m not the right person, I have a great network I can refer you to.

Chad: I try to treat people the way I wanted to be treated when I was the guy hiring. I didn’t want to waste people’s time, I wanted to give them real resources that would actually help.

Jeremy: Chad, thanks man for coming on the show. I really learned a lot from you today.

Chad: Good stuff. It’s always a pleasure.

Key Takeaways

• Most sales problems are process problems in disguise. Many problems blamed on salespeople, training, or lead quality may actually come from an undefined or broken sales process.
• Hiring a sales director doesn’t fix a broken foundation. Bringing in senior hires without first defining the company’s vision and structure just means that person sells the way they did somewhere else, on top of the same underlying gaps.
• AI cannot repair an undefined sales process. Once the process is clear, AI can help score leads, identify patterns, and coach salespeople after calls.
• Lead quality and sales execution are two separate conversations. Before blaming lead quality, determine what a lead is worth and whether the sales team is consistently following up, using the right messaging, and applying the same process.

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This conversation is from Marketing for SMEs with Jeremy Yang — exploring how Australian SMEs can use AI and digital marketing to grow their business. Available on your preferred podcast app and on YouTube.