People-First Leadership: How Jason Staiger Built a 150-Rep Sales Organization
- Who: Jason Staiger, managing partner of Legacy Marketing, on The D2D Podcast with host Hunter Lee, talking about how he built a sales organization of 150+ active reps across pest control and smart home security in Western Canada.
- The core idea: You cannot motivate or manage people you do not know. Jason's leaders learn each rep's interests, goals and "why," then wrap the opportunity around what that person actually wants.
- What owners can use: A simple coaching system for struggling reps (inputs first, 15 minutes of purposeful training, one pitch recording and one fix per day), plus a hiring filter of work ethic, coachability and a positive mindset.
Most owners say their company is "people first." Fewer can explain what that looks like on a Tuesday afternoon when a good rep is stuck in a slump, a leader is thinking about leaving, or a whole division has to be rebuilt from scratch.
Jason Staiger can. In this episode of The D2D Podcast, recorded ahead of D2DCon Canada in 2025, host Hunter Lee introduced him as the managing partner of Legacy Marketing, a company with "over 150 active reps across Western Canada" that, in just five years, "has produced five Golden Door Award winners across both verticals." Jason walked through how that organization was built, what he looks for when he recruits, and the exact routine he uses to pull a struggling rep back on track.
This post breaks down the leadership system behind those results and what home service owners can take from it when building a sales organization that does not depend on one person.
From Top Rookie to Losing Everything in 2020
Jason did not plan on a sales career. He grew up in a small town in British Columbia, played soccer at a high level, and went to university in Kamloops after being recruited onto the soccer team. About a year in, he realized he was not going pro. A roommate came back from a summer selling door to door with Vivint, and in 2017 or 2018 Jason followed him.
His first summer was, in his words, the "most uncomfortable I've probably ever been in my life." But his competitive streak took over. Vivint had about 400 people at the time, and his goal was to be the top rookie. He finished the year as the top rookie.
What came next matters more for owners. After that first year, Jason noticed where the real influence sat:
Jason Staiger: I could see that the people with true influence in this space were not just salespeople, they were the leaders.
He started recruiting, brought out 18 people in his second year, and by 2020 he had about 46 people working with him. Then COVID hit, Vivint shut down its Canadian operations, and everyone lost their jobs. "That was tough," Jason said. "That hit me pretty hard and it hit, I think a lot of our people pretty hard too, because we were just all in with them."
Why the Shutdown Forced Him to Build Legacy
The shutdown is where Legacy Marketing was born, and the lesson Jason took from it is one every owner should hear.
Jason Staiger: It forced us to create Legacy because... at that point I said we're never going to marry an individual brand ever again and kind of... leave all the decisions in their hands.
Jason knew what his team was good at: "We were really good at selling, we were good at recruiting and building." So he got on the phone, called a bunch of companies, and found a dealership partner to sell for, starting on August 13th of 2020. They grew quickly. By 2021 they had about 100 people, and Jason could see they were outgrowing that single platform. That pushed Legacy to add a second partner and a second vertical: pest control.
The pest launch was humbling. "We thought we were... the bee's knees at selling," Jason said, and the team expected to sell a thousand accounts. Instead, "got kicked in the teeth when we started at first." He credits his business partner James Fraser with keeping the pest division alive: "He was the reason why we stayed." James went on to become, as Jason put it, the "first guy to go and hit a Golden Door in pest control in Canada."
For an owner, the takeaway is structural. Concentration risk is not only about one big customer. It can be one supplier, one product line or one partner whose decisions you cannot control. The move Jason made was to own the parts of the business his team was best at, selling, recruiting and building leaders, instead of leaving every decision with a single partner.
People-First Leadership Starts With Knowing Your People
When Hunter asked how a people-first culture shapes Jason's systems for turning reps into leaders and leaders into partners, Jason started with an honest point: leaders usually have to find some level of success themselves first. He had to "crack that six-figure earning level to realize that... maybe money isn't my core driver and it gives me a lot more life to help other people go and hit their goals."
Then he laid out the rule he teaches everyone moving into leadership:
Jason Staiger: If you really want to motivate somebody, you need to know that individual.
Jason Staiger: You should know three things... about that person that have nothing to do with this job.
The second piece is understanding each person's "why." Jason explained that if you know why someone took the job and what their end goal is, "you can wrap this opportunity, including leadership and growth, around what they want." It also gives you something real to use when they are not performing, so you can push them, call them out and hold them accountable.
He was blunt about where most leaders go wrong: "A lot of times people just go money first and they don't actually get to know their people." And because "there's a million different reasons why somebody would come and do this job," a money-only pitch leaves most of your team unmotivated.
One more detail is easy to miss. Jason pointed out that "your drivers will change" as you grow, so leaders have to keep learning about their people as they develop. A one-time onboarding conversation is not enough. If you want a structured way to keep that relationship going after the first month, our guide to the 30-day onboarding ramp that stops early quits is a good place to start, and How to Keep Your Sales Reps covers the retention side.
Who Jason Hires: Work Ethic, Coachability and a Positive Mindset
Jason believes "anyone can do this job" with a good training platform and leaders who understand how to motivate different people for different reasons. "Whether they actually succeed is a totally different story." So his filter is simple and has three parts:
- Work ethic. "You have to ask good questions to see how hard of a worker that person is."
- Coachability. "Are they able to take constructive criticism and not put up a wall?"
- A positive mindset. "If you can work hard, you're coachable, and you're a positive individual, I can teach you how to do this."
If a candidate is missing one of the three, Jason does not sugarcoat it: "It's not worth your time to come out here."
He also put the responsibility back on leadership: "I actually believe there's no bad teams... there's only bad leaders." For owners, that is a useful lens. When a team underperforms, the first audit is the leader, the training and the structure around the reps. If recruiting itself is the bottleneck, that is a machine you can build. Our team at Recruitomatic focuses on exactly that, and Why Recruiting Is a Sales Function explains how owners should think about it.
How to Pull a Rep Out of a Slump
This was the most practical part of the conversation. Hunter asked what Jason does when a capable rep is stuck and not producing. Jason's answer is a short, repeatable system.
Step 1: Know the person first
"If I don't know that individual, I can't get them out of that slump because otherwise I'm just shooting from the hip." Before any coaching, he wants to know why they are doing this and what their goals are.
Step 2: Look at the inputs
Next, he looks at activity. Legacy uses an app called Tally Counter to track inputs like doors knocked and people talked to. Jason shared the minimums he used at the time of the episode: "with telecom and alarms, the bare minimum is you need to be getting in front of 30 people at least. For pest control, it's 50." When someone is struggling, he asks them to send their inputs daily, and he said it "should be a daily practice in general."
Step 3: Train for 15 minutes, with purpose
"You don't need to train for an hour every day... you really only need to be putting in 15 minutes in my opinion, but it's a consistent action." Coming from sports, Jason draws a line between going through the motions and training like you are in the game. Pick one thing, focus on it, fix it, and you will be "miles ahead when you fast forward a week... a month."
Step 4: One pitch recording, one fix
The last piece is the one owners and sales managers should steal immediately.
Jason Staiger: Send me one pitch recording a day. I'm going to give you something to fix in your process.
Jason Staiger: I only give one piece of advice each time I hear a pitch recording.
His reasoning: when you listen to a newer rep's pitch, it is tempting to change 20 things, "but it's going to overwhelm them." So he picks the first piece of low-hanging fruit, has them fix it, and repeats the next day. The result, in his experience: "I've never had anyone that I do that for for a week that doesn't start succeeding. Like ever."
This is a measurement habit as much as a coaching habit. The same principle runs through a good company scorecard: track a small number of inputs, review them consistently and fix one constraint at a time.
Running Two Divisions Under One Brand
Legacy runs its pest control division and its telecom and alarm division as totally separate teams, and Jason said he is the only person who bounces between both. Everyone else is "in one or the other." They still do some events as a group and still identify as Legacy, but the company had to learn "how to have them still rub shoulders with each other and not... cross recruit and confuse each other's growth paths."
His view on what makes a multi-division model work is clear: "I think the only way this type of business model works is if you have really competent leaders in each area." When the telecom side ran into growth limits, Legacy moved people into pest, and Jason admitted the transition was not easy or quick. "But they figured it out... they've spent the time in the trenches."
If you are considering a second division or a new vertical, the lesson from Legacy's pest launch applies: the plan depends on the leader you put in charge of it. Our post on how to add a door-to-door division from scratch goes deeper on the operating side.
People Don't Leave Companies, They Leave Leaders
Hunter asked whether reps ever get recruited away, or ask to switch between Legacy's divisions. Jason's answer is a culture decision more than a tactic.
Jason Staiger: I think people don't leave companies, they leave leaders, right?
Jason Staiger: For me, I always say we're not a prison.
If someone finds something better, Jason will talk it through with them and "tell you to go there if it makes more sense for you." His point is that this openness "naturally... creates a little bit more loyalty inside our business." It connects back to how he kept a core group together after the 2020 shutdown. He admitted plenty of people dropped off, but the ones who stayed did so because "I really care about our people. I'm really loyal to them."
For owners, that is the difference between retention built on lock-in and retention built on trust. If you want to make that culture visible in your company, start with Build a Sales Culture That Actually Sticks.
Leadership Is a Race
Near the end, Hunter asked what Jason loves teaching about leadership. He called it "by far the highest paid skill set in the world" and said it starts with leading yourself: figure out what drives you, where your weaknesses are and where you can improve.
Then he gave the idea that has kept him in leadership:
Jason Staiger: It's a race, okay?
Jason Staiger: You have to become a person that people want to follow.
As he explained it, leaders have to keep educating themselves and getting better, because "if your people can supersede you with that, they're going to leave." That is not a threat. It is a standard. The leader's job is to stay worth following.
What Owners Can Take From This
Jason's system is simple enough to run in any home service company, whether your reps knock doors, run appointments or work inbound leads:
- Make knowing your people a leadership requirement. Three things outside the job, their why, and a check-in as their drivers change.
- Hire for three traits. Work ethic, coachability and a positive mindset, then let your training do the rest.
- Coach with inputs first. Agree on daily activity minimums and review them before you critique anything else.
- Fix one thing at a time. One recording, one piece of advice, every day, until it sticks.
- Put a competent leader over every division. A new vertical is only as strong as the person running it.
- Build loyalty, not a prison. People stay when they believe you are in the trenches for them.
If you are still the person doing all of this coaching yourself, that is the real constraint. The next step is building a leadership bench that can run the system without you. Read How to Build a Leadership Team (So You Can Step Back) and see where your company stands with a free business audit.
