Craig started as a computer science major and ended up one of the top sales people in Canada, with a best-selling sales book to his name.
How did this happen? And what can you learn from this for your business (and your life)?
In this episode, learn:
- What’s considered a mild winter in Calgary.
- How he jump started his sales career, even though he didn’t seem qualified on paper. (And how he reflected on this later and the realization it led to.)
- Craig’s primary sales philosophy: How do I become the first person people call when they have a problem?
- Where to look for great sales reps.
- Why he had a lot of price objections when he started, and what he did about it.
- What he did after he joined WorldCom just as 9/11 was happening, and then, after he became their top sales rep, what happened when everyone realized the execs had committed accounting fraud. It was the first time no one would buy from him.
- Craig’s 3 big epiphanies about sales:
- The Window of Disatisfaction
- Trigger Events (and typical examples)
- Analyzing wins (and why it’s more important than the typical sales advice of “even if you lose the deal, don’t lose the lesson”)
- Why you need to use verbs instead of nouns (with some great examples from trucking companies to marriages), and what you want to hear as a response.
- Why you want to ask “how?” and “what?” rather than “why?” questions (speaking of advice that can also apply to marriages).
- Why Craig ended up living on Yerba Buena Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay (I always wondered who actually lived there whenever I drove over the Bay Bridge).
- And much, much more. Even though I had read Craig’s book, I learned a ton, and I think you will, too.
The Wine
After my forced experiment with rosé in the last episode, I’m back to reds with Parducci True Grit Reserve Petite Syrah 2014 from California, while Craig enjoyed some Tom Gore 2016 Cab, his favorite California Cabernet Sauvignon.
Where to find Craig:
Craig’s Book:
Shift! Harness the Trigger Events that Turn Prospects into Customers
Other books mentioned in the episode:
Consultative Selling, by Mack Hanan.
And, my weakness in Russian literature is obvious. The quote about happy families is not from Dostoyevsky. It’s Tolstoy– in fact it’s the beginning of Anna Karenina:
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Where you can find Reuben: @Sales4Nerds, @Mimiran, Mimiran.com (the easy CRM for people who are awesome at serving clients but would love some help getting more). You can also listen on Overcast, or Subscribe on Android, or Player.fm.
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