Ian Illig’s first job out of college was a choice between a bank and a startup with no customers and no finished product. He picked the startup, joined as the first employee, and since he couldn’t code, his job became sales. In this episode of the Default Profitable podcast, host Matt Nettleton sits down with Ian Illig, co-founder of Stompbox, an Indianapolis sales consultancy that scales founders out of sales. For about a decade Ian was the first non-founding salesperson at early-stage companies, taking the baton from the founder and figuring out how to sell without them in every meeting. He kept watching founders hit the scale button, hire a salesperson, and lose all their momentum. So he and his partner started Stompbox to shorten that learning curve for other companies. Outside of work, Ian plays guitar and sings in the band GREGØRIAN, which he calls his anti-revenue-generating machine, and he has a baby on the way.

Ian and Matt get into the stuff nobody warns you about when you start, like accounting, payroll, and categorizing transactions. They also cover why a founder’s title, credibility, and magnetism are cheat codes a new salesperson doesn’t get, and why buyers want the painkiller, not the vitamin. Ian learned that last one the hard way: his best client isn’t the founder who hasn’t tried a sales hire yet, it’s the one who’s tried and failed a few times. Matt runs his usual three questions, and Ian claims one, six months of savings, then admits he never actually checked. His advice for day one goes further than sending the email: make a list of thirty people, call them, and find your own way of asking for help. Matt’s version is shorter. Start selling. The market will fix you.

Learn more about Ian Illig and Stompbox at https://stompbox.io/.
Listen to more Indianapolis Business Leaders at https://defaultprofitable.com or subscribe to Default Profitable on your favorite podcast platform.