Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Gary Kurtis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Gary, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s jump into the story of starting your own firm – what should we know?

The year was 2020, the month was May and as we all recall the entire nation was shut down due to the Covid pandemic. I had just ended a very successful four decade career in sales and sales management. Because we had recently moved to Ambler PA I had no local business contacts or connections with network groups and under these conditions I decided to start my venture, Salestips 101 sales coaching. From my career I was aware of large sales training companies that offer a “cookie cutter one size fits all” approach to the masses, but the pandemic resulted in so many losing their jobs and in many cases falling into a new career. I knew that many would lack sales experience and needed skills and not be in a position to hire these large companies or quickly accumulate these needed skills. Thus I created my venture to provide this market with the customized approach I felt would be needed by addressing their objectives and challenges. Why invest thousands of hours reading countless sales materials when you can leverage my bank of knowledge to give you what you need? Ironically Zoom quickly became my best friend as it allowed me to quickly discover many network groups leading to numerous strategic relationships and client introductions.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My beginning of my sales career was somewhat unintentional. With my undergrad degree in Marketing that was my passion but with no experience I was told to “start out” in sales. That lasted just forty years as I discovered I had a passion for sales because sales is helping others to achieve their goals. When my corporate life ended with the pandemic I knew I wanted to leverage that same passion to help others who were in a new role, career, business or even with sales experience but open minded to ways they can do better. This was also a natural extension of the many years I successfully mentored other sales people in my career. What clearly differentiates me from others is my commitment to learning about the intricate details of my client’s objectives and challenges so I can leverage my experience and knowledge to help them achieve their goals while eliminating many common mistakes. What I am very proud of is the numerous testimonials listed on my web site as they validate that my program helps my clients achieve their desired results.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I was blessed to have originally majored in Psychology. This gave me a somewhat unique perspective that sales is not about the sales person, it’s completely about your client and your ability to impact their behavior. You accomplish this by creating a comfort level so the client is clearly articulating their needs and desired solutions. This is quite different from the tradition sales model which has the sales person articulating the benefits of their services to the client. This approach had a huge impact on my career and thus my client coaching.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Traditional sales training emphasizes your company and services. I was in a new role selling software solutions to the federal government. I discovered that all agency heads are required to submit a strategic plan identifying all of their objectives, challenges and initiatives. My success over a ten year period would never had been possible had I not simply “connected” our differentiators to specific identified initiatives in these strategic plans. I was able to create interest and desire for our solutions not by leading with all our awards and strengths, I simply provided clear examples of how we could help them achieve their objectives and as such received a welcomed response. This concept on connecting what you do well with your client’s identified needs is now the basis of my sales training program as I know from direct experience that it works!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://salestips101.com
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-kurtis