About

Where to start? At the beginning I suppose…

I have always been able to excite and convince people about products and services even at a young age. Some of my earliest jobs as a pre-teen were convincing people to buy something.

As I got older and into several new jobs I found I was able to listen and connect with customers to help them make a purchase they enjoyed. And I was good at it and I could see that I was meeting a satisfying need in the buyer. Since then it has been roller coaster of being green and naïve as I grew into more professional sales positions. I didn’t get much official defined sales training at the beginning, but I did get extremely good mentors along the way that showed me the real world of salesmanship. And those mentors showed me critical skills that I embraced and still use today.

At the beginning of my sales representative career I realized quickly how far behind I was to my competitor sales peers. I made a plan and pledge to myself to find a way to compete. If I was sales skills ‘green’ I needed to find a way to pull myself up to my competitors. Being young, dedicated, and feisty I committed to getting in several more sales calls per day than my peers and additionally I would attempt new sales skills on these visits. I assumed I could out-work and out-commit my peers and that would help me with my handicap. This would also give me more sales experience quicker as I would get 1 ½ years of sales experience in one year; thus I committed to this for next few years. Thankfully this worked and I had considerable performances.

I certainly learned some hard knocks of what not to do in selling and that informed my need for solid, comprehensive sales training. During my time as a field sales rep I threw myself into ongoing education in sales from the greats of the modern sales culture – Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Jeff Gitomer, along with many others and they became my daily curriculum. I was fortunate to get some training sessions with many substantial sales leaders. And I soaked it up!

One of the best things I learned from these training sessions was the need to apply these principles and strategies in real life otherwise they would not be effective, and this was what I did, years of experimentation of sales skills and tactics. I found many successes through applying these sales strategies.

And this is what informs me as a sales leader and in new future sales roles. Those sales foundations that absolutely work and form a basis of the 101 of salesmanship. The challenge and fun is building from those art of sales basics and growing sales skills and strategies to next-level salesmanship!

I was fortunate to spend more than 20 years at a company that was seeking to go literally from Good to Great. During my time there I was able to create and grow a regional team into a national team. I was able to use my sales and management skills to be a part of that growth and thrill-ride.

Now as an experienced sales leader who grew a national sales team and led sales teams to new levels of success, I have effective strategic selling and team management ability with an impressive track record of more than 10 years of hands-on Director-level management experience and more than 20 years of sales growth performance.

I truly enjoy the art and process of selling!

I look forward to sharing sales and marketing concepts that work and last.

Thanks for joining me, Happy Selling!

Ian Cross

Skill sets & Experience –

Strategic planning and development
Leading and managing sales teams and growing key accounts
Proven ability to hire, train, and develop exceptional sales people
Sales to national accounts and big box
Sales through e-commerce and e-commerce accounts
Ability to grow strong client relationships
Successful in pre-qualifying client’s situations to identify closing solutions
Focused on client experiences and needs
Acute ability to align with clients and with their goals
Brand building with tactical sales and marketing efforts
Developed successful marketing strategies
Sales training and team building
Designed “Plus One” training – Delivered a distinctive client experience
Developed channel sell-through strategies at all levels
Sales & operation forecasting