About Craig Lowder: Craig Lowder is the Founder and President of the Main Spring Sales Group, a specialized client acquisition consultancy focused on creating significant, predictable and sustainable sales growth for successful Financial Advisors, Consultants and Business Leaders making a 6-7 Figure Income seeking a strategic senior-level sales executive on a part-time, contract basis to develop and execute sales strategy, including sales process development, performance management systems, and ensure sales execution. With a 30-year track record of helping business owners and sales teams achieve their goals, as author of two highly-rated books, Smooth Selling Forever and Trusted Advisor Confidential℠, and as Founder and President of the Main Spring Sales Group, Craig has learned that success in sales comes down to three things: process, teamwork and access to experience that shortens the learning curve. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Craig.
In this episode, Nancy and Craig discuss the following:
- Craig’s journey into sales
- The importance of understanding buyer journeys and aligning sales strategies accordingly
- The specifics of Craig’s target industries
- The value of choosing the right fit for sales roles within organizations
- Assessments in hiring salespeople: value or harm?
- Exploration of Craig’s new book “Trusted Advisor Confidential”
- Recommendations on maintaining a healthy sales funnel
- Increasing importance and the shift in buyer behavior towards virtual selling
Key Takeaways:
- The basis of selling is understanding the person that you’re talking to from a professional as well as a personal level so that you can communicate with them effectively.
- A professionally statistically valid assessment helps you to determine whether what you’re looking at is real.
- We were going towards virtual selling prior to COVID and COVID was just like the spark plug that initiated the change.
- If you think effective virtual selling is a 20-to-30-minute conversation at max, maybe 40, but the shorter the better.
“I have not found a company yet that has a defined, documented sales recruiting process. Step by step: what are the steps, who’s involved, what are the desired outcomes? So, number one: having a documented sales hiring process. Number two: developing filtering questions based on the characteristics that you’re seeking, so that you can also build an interview scorecard, which will tell you whether they’re a good fit for your organization.” – CRAIG
“I’ve been on a four-decade journey of being a trusted advisor, a salesperson, a business development person, a new client acquisition person. And I saw a huge gap out there for individuals who are in business. The only way that they can earn a living is by eating what they sell. Unfortunately, whether they’re financial advisors, commercial bankers, insurance brokers, consultants, coaches, or even marketing firms, they’re very, very good at delivery, but they’re not very competent or competent in developing new clients, having a process to do that. And with those, in many cases, particularly those who have letters after their name (PhD, JD, even MBA, I can say that because I have one of those), they go, “No, no, no, selling is too far below me.” So, in the book, we don’t use the word selling, but that’s really what it is. If you were to ask every one of them, “Would you like to have more of the right fit clients?” Unanimously, they’re going to say, “Yes.” Well, as you and I know, that’s technically business development and social selling. But it’s like taking the curse off the call by talking about client acquisition. So, trusted advisor confidentiality is about communicating to them what are the six stars (and we’re using that in celestial terms) that they need to follow to successively build a book of business filled with right-fit clients and significantly increase their personal income. And those stars include: targeting, messaging, sales process mapping, establishing sales success standards, effective generation, and having a healthy funnel.” – CRAIG
“Well, the six stars are developed in a hierarchical fashion. You have to have a good target audience and you have to have a message that resonates with them, and you have to have a lead conversion process that mirrors how they buy. So, it really all starts with targeting the right prospects, the right audience so that you can get the most out of your marketing activities as well as your limited sales time.” – CRAIG
Connect with Craig Lowder:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craiglowder/
- Smooth Selling Forever: https://www.smoothsellingforever.com/
- Personal: https://www.craiglowder.com/
Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/
Connect with Nancy Calabrese:
- Twitter:https://twitter.com/oneofakindsales
- Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/
- Website:https://oneofakindsales.com
- Phone: 908-879-2911
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/
- Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hi, it’s Nancy Calabrese, and it’s time again for Conversational selling – the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today. And it always starts with the human conversation. Today we’re speaking again with Craig Lowder, author of Smooth Selling Forever, a sales effectiveness expert with a 30 plus year track record of helping owners of small and mid -sized businesses achieve their sales goals. He is also the founder and president of MainSpring Sales Group, which assists companies needing a strategic sales leader on a part -time contract or project basis to develop and execute a sales strategy, develop sales process and performance management systems, and ensure sales execution. Craig has worked with over 60 companies and increased first year annual sales from 21 to 142%. Great job, Craig. Welcome back to the show.
Craig Lowder: Well, thank you, Nancy. It’s an honor and a privilege to be here talking to a fellow sales professional. [1:24]
Nancy Calabrese: You know, we both love selling and I know I asked you this in our last podcast, but let’s, you know, review it again. Why do we love it so much?
Craig Lowder: from my perspective, I’m basically a teacher. It’s all about helping others and creating life abundance for my client. And everything starts with what we can call selling business development, new client acquisition, but helping identify the undiscovered, unknown needs that a business has in growing is the beginning of the selling process and matching the needs of that organization, that individual with some options so that they can take actual steps is what selling is all about. And selling, I think a lot of people that are not professional salespeople, and even there are some that are professional salespeople, think that sales can be a little bit manipulative. It should not be. It should be going down the road in the same direction at the same speed with your prospect and trying to define a solution that fully addresses their specific needs. [2:56]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. How did you get involved in sales?
Craig Lowder: Oh, gee. You know, it’s really a long story. You know, I was a wannabe professional athlete that just didn’t have the talent. But that’s all about selling the coaches or whatever on your ability to get the job done. But when I went to college, and I wanted to become a psychologist and I found there was too much gray area for me after two years. And I sat back, and I started reading some books on marketing and selling. And if you remember the old, old, old Ford commercials where the light bulb went on, the light bulb went on. And I said, this is what I want to do because I really wanted to be a teacher, Nancy. And at that time, there was no opportunity to get into teaching back in the mid-seventies. [3:53]
Nancy Calabrese: Huh, okay. And then, so you opted for sales.
Craig Lowder: I opted for sales, and I did sales and marketing. And as we say to many of our clients, we went to the dark side. We moved away from marketing and moved out in front of the customer with the whole idea of help identifying needs and providing solutions to those needs. And I found it extremely rewarding. [4:22]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, and you probably used the two years that you studied psychology also in your sales skills. Wouldn’t you agree?
Craig Lowder: Oh, absolutely. The basis of selling is understanding the person that you’re talking to from a professional as well as a personal level so that you can communicate with them effectively. And when I say effectively, there’s one definition that somebody shared with me years ago, and it’s always stuck with me. Communication equals the response that you receive. And if you don’t receive the response that you’re seeking, the communication may have not been there. [5:11]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, wow. Now when you describe the sales process, you use the steps assess, design, deploy, and execute. Tell us more about that.
Craig Lowder: Sure, thank you for asking, Nancy. That is really a closed loop system and everything that we do and everything that any of us do in making an informed decision, we must first assess our situation, design a solution, deploy that solution, and make sure that it’s executed effectively. And then we because the process is an iterative process, we should be always on the look -up, constantly looking for seeking ways to improve or enhance the process. [6:04]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. How do you execute it properly? Like what are the things that need to be put in place to ensure that execution is correct?
Craig Lowder: Oh, that’s really a great question, Nancy. And too many sellers are looking at, well, this is what we sell, and this is how we want it sold, as opposed to starting with your buying audience and identifying the steps that they’re going to go through in terms of making an informed decision for them. And that’s what I refer to as a buyer journey. And that’s where we start in developing a sales process. So, what is the buyer journey of your target audience? What steps are they going to go through? Once we define that, now we can build a process that mirrors how they buy. [7:01]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, interesting. Now you play in the small and mid -sized businesses. Do you target certain industries or are your industry agnostic?
Craig Lowder: Nancy, it’s really all industries apply, the principles apply, they’re executed differently. But my focus is B2B. I do a lot of manufacturing, a lot of distribution companies, and believe it or not, although they spent 20 years in professional services, application software, I do some work in that area, but most of those companies are too early stage to really take advantage of what I do. My typical audience is anywhere from five to, quite frankly, 125 million with a sweet spot somewhere between 10 and 50. [7:52]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, wow. And like, what are their frustrations? So, I’m speaking with a prospect, and I hear them complaining about ABC. What am I going to hear from them that would make me think of you or have them come to you?
Craig Lowder: Typically, what they will say is, our sales are not growing as we anticipated or expected. And so, we’re not generating predictable and sustainable results. That’s one area. They don’t have a system and strategy. And secondly, they say, gosh. The world has changed and my salespeople, my sales leader is not functioning in the way that they used to, which means their biggest challenge is recruiting and retaining right fit members of their sales team. [8:53]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. You know, which brings up a very good point, having the right people in an organization will make or break its success. So how do people recognize that salesperson A is a fit, but salesperson B is not? What do you suggest companies do?
Craig Lowder: Well, that’s a great question because I have not found a company yet that has a defined, documented sales recruiting process. Step by step, what are the steps, who’s involved, what are the desired outcomes? So, number one, having a documented sales hiring process. Number two, developing filtering questions based on the characteristics that you’re speaking are seeking so that you can also build an interview scorecard which will tell you whether they’re a good fit for your organization. A case in point. I had a client a number of years ago that sold banners and flags and their salespeople were expected to close 20 plus transactions a week in the range of 500 to $1 ,000. The owner of the company brought somebody in that sold MRI systems. And I think you know where I’m going with this, Nancy. The owner said, I love this individual. He dresses great. He’s so articulate. Wow. And I said, go through your scorecard. And he went through an agreement and goes, he’s not a fit. And I said, that’s right. He’s not a fit. MRI systems, if he sells one or two in a year in the sales process is 12 months, 24 months long. He’s not going to create enough activity for you to generate the type of sales that you’re accustomed to generating. So, it’s not that he’s a bad person. He’s just not a right fit for your role. [10:59] The other thing, Nancy, I go ahead. []
Nancy Calabrese: You know that I had. No, no, no, go, go finish.
Craig Lowder: I was going to say the other things that I find that most companies don’t do, they do not know how to effectively conduct reference checks. Or they will just give up and say, well, they’re useful. Any sales candidate can come up with two or three shills that they know that’ll say nice things about them. And I say, nay, nay, nay, during the interviewing process, as you go through your discovery, you’re either seeking to validate what you’ve learned that’s positive, and you’re also speaking to fill in the gaps where things are missing. So, when you’re doing reference checks based on your interviewing, I may say to you, Nancy, I’d like to talk to your superior at Ajax. I’d like to talk to a customer at that company. I’d like to talk to a peer or a subordinate. And very quickly, you will be able to ascertain whether they can come through or not. Too many times do I hear Oh, I had a great relationship with my boss. I left because I was looking to have the opportunity to be promoted. When I’ve asked him to talk to that superior, oh, and this is a real-life case. Oh, I don’t know where to find her. She’s retired. Well, I thought you said you had a good relationship with this person. Are they on Linkbook or face, LinkedIn, or Facebook? Well, I really don’t know. So, suddenly, you’re starting to see some bad signals there. [12:39]
Nancy Calabrese: Yep. Red flags.
Craig Lowder: Red flags, bad vibes, yeah.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. And do you believe in assessments before you hire a salesperson?
Craig Lowder: Absolutely, Nancy, and I know you and I both believe that’s the case. There are so many variables. A professionally statistically valid assessment helps you to determine what you’re looking at is real. In fact, right before we got on the call here, I have a client that’s looking to hire a salesperson. They took the sales assessment that I use, and I gave them feedback. This is a great transactional competitive salesperson, but they’re not best suited for a multiple buying influence long -term sale. [13:28]
Nancy Calabrese: Huh, interesting.
Craig Lowder: So, as you know, it’s just one other point that you need to check to make sure that you’re making a right hire. And the old philosophy is married slowly, is really, important here. And fortunately, too many people say, I really like this person. They worked for a competitor in our industry. They probably really know their stuff and you find out they’re looking for a reason, and in most cases, it’s related to non -performance. [14:06]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah, wow. Well, let’s talk about your new book, Trusted Advisor Confidential. What’s it about and what motivated you to write it?
Craig Lowder: Well, thank you for asking. You know, I’ve been on a four-decade journey of being a trusted advisor, a salesperson, a business development person, a new client acquisition person. And I saw a huge gap out there for individuals who are in business. And the only way that they can earn a living is by eating what they sell. And unfortunately, whether they’re financial advisors,
commercial bankers, insurance brokers, consultants, coaches, and even marketing firms, they’re very, very good at delivery, but they’re not very competent or competent in developing new clients, having a process to do that. And with those, in many cases, particularly those who have letters after their name, PhD, JD, even MBA, I can say that because I have one of those. They go, no, no, no, selling is too far below me. So, in the book, we don’t use the word selling, but that’s really what it is. If you were to ask every one of them, would you like to have more of the right fit clients? Unanimously, they’re going to say, yes. Well, as you and I know, that’s technically business development and social selling. But it’s like taking the curse off the call by talking client acquisition. So, trusted advisor confidential is about communicating to them what are the six stars, and we’re using that in celestial terms that they need to follow to successively build a book of business filled with right fit clients and significantly increase their personal income. And those stars include one, targeting, two, messaging, three, sales process mapping, four, establishing sales success standards. Five, effectively generation. And six, is having a healthy funnel. [16:26]
Nancy Calabrese: Right. So how do you, how do you, well, what do you recommend people do to have a healthy funnel?
Craig Lowder: Well, the six stars are developed in a hierarchical fashion. You have to have a good target audience and you have to have a message that resonates with them, and you have to have a lead conversion process that mirrors with how they buy. So, it really all starts with targeting the right prospects, the right audience, so that you can get the most out of your marketing activities as well as your limited sales time. [17:04]
Nancy Calabrese: Right, wow, really cool. And you know, I want to wrap this up, but let’s just mention virtual selling, the world in which we live. I think it’s going to be around for a long time. What do you have to say about it?
Craig Lowder: Nancy, it’s going to be around for as far as we can see in our lives. And we were going towards virtual selling prior to COVID. And COVID was just like the spark plug that initiated the change. I was very blessed to be published in Forbes right after COVID started. And the writer came back to me and says, oh look at the article that McKinsey came out with. They’re saying the same thing that you are. And I said, I stand corrected. I’m saying the same things that they are saying. It’s not the other way around. They know what they’re talking about. But what we’re seeing is, and this is, here’s the insidious thing, Nancy. It’s being driven by the buyers. The buyers are saying, salespeople suck up too much of my time. [18:19]
Nancy Calabrese: Hehehe. Right.
Craig Lowder: The cordialities are too much. I cannot get all the buying influences in the room. It’s logistically impossible. It takes too much time. Bottom line, we cannot make the best-informed decisions for our business. So virtual selling facilitates our ability to make the best decisions in a shorter timeframe involving the right people who need to be involved in the process and if you think about this, when I teach virtual selling, I used to ask the question, is virtual selling new? And everyone would say yes. And I’d say, well, let’s think back. Have you thinking of a Sears catalog, newspaper ads, Ron Pappil and Vegematic? Those are all virtual selling. [19:12]
Nancy Calabrese: Oh my god. Vegematic. Oh, God.
Craig Lowder: So, it’s always been there, but in a B2B environment, more and more buyers are insisting that they have the opportunity to buy virtually. And if you think about more millennials getting into the market where they’re making informed buying decisions, most of them are focused on doing their research online and meeting or conversing virtually, not in -person meetings. [19:48]
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. Hey, I think, you know, virtual selling is fabulous. It saves you so much time travel to and from. And you can do it out of the comfort of your home or out of your office. And you still accomplish the same thing.
Craig Lowder: And we have. Absolutely, it must be structured differently. If you think effective virtual selling is a 20-to-30-minute conversation at max, maybe 40, but the shorter the better. So, you have more meetings, shorter meetings. What that does, it puts the onus on the seller to be well prepared in setting out the agenda in conjunction with the buying audience and making sure that they deliver on the agreed upon outcomes for that conversation. And for me as a… Go ahead. [20:37]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow, Craig, our time is up. I hate to stop this, but how can my people find you? You’re fascinating.
Craig Lowder: Well, my wife would beg differently. She says I should be on the stage and there’s one leaving in 20 minutes. But the best way to reach me is you can call me at 630 -649 -4943 or you can email me at Craig, C -R -A -I -G, at Smooth S -M -O -O -T -H, Selling S -E -L -L -I -N -G forever, f -o -r -e -v -e -r dot com. [21:20]
Nancy Calabrese: I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise once again. You’re a great guest and audience. Take advantage of this man’s knowledge and wealth of knowledge. You know, if you are struggling with finding the right salespeople, if you’re not hitting quota, he is the go -to guy. So, thanks again, Craig, for being on the show. And for everyone out there, make it an awesome sales day. [21:51]
