By Donna Marrin

Craig Elias

I believe that sales is all about getting to highly motivated decision makers at EXACTLY the right time. When you have the right timing, the sale almost happens by itself—there are few challenges getting to the prospect, understanding their dissatisfaction, presenting a solution, or closing the sale. The best timing is after someone has experienced a ‘Trigger Event,’ followed by the realization that they need to solve the problem, BUT before they have found the time to do anything about it yet. What I teach is how to: Identify the Trigger Events that create demand for your products or services; Discover who recently experienced these Trigger Events; Close more sales by getting to the decision makers who experienced these Trigger Events before the competition does!

At what point did you reach the ‘fork in the road’ that led you to the path you’re on today?

For me the there were two forks; becoming an entrepreneur, then becoming a dad.
For almost 20 years, I had been a lucky salesperson—always in the right place at EXACLTY the right time. This pattern continued until my last employer, WorldCom, where I was named the number-one sales person in the company less than six months after joining. Unfortunately, shortly afterwards, WorldCom admitted to $11-billion in accounting fraud, and no one would buy from me any longer. I had some vacation time coming to me, so I waited until August and took afternoons off for the entire month. During that time, I reflected on my successes over the previous 20 years, realizing a number of things about a special timing window—called the Window of Dissatisfaction, the Trigger Events that create it, and a special way to analyze sales so you can replicate your biggest wins. So just before I turned 40, I took what I learned and started an online lead exchange company called InnerSell. Seven months later, I won a $1,000,000 prize in Tim Draper’s Billion Dollar Idea Pitch Competition. In order to collect the prize, I had to move my company to San Francisco. At that point, I was living the life of a entrepreneur in Silicon Valley with a famous venture capital firm, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, backing my company.
While all this was happening, I arrived at my second “fork in the road” in the form of Heather & Liam. As I was in the final stages of Tim’s competition, I met my wife, Heather. We were in our early 40s, neither of us had married before and we both wanted a family. We decided I would travel between Calgary, where Heather was living and playing French horn for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, and San Francisco every other weekend so we could try and have a family. As luck would have it, Heather got pregnant just six months later. I had promised Heather and myself that I was not going to be a successful entrepreneur with a ruined marriage and dysfunctional kids, so I decided to move to Edmonton by the time Heather was six months pregnant. To make that happen, I put into place a CEO and returned home exactly a year to the day that I went to San Francisco. Shortly afterward, our son Liam was born. A few months later, Heather brought home a magazine called Mompreneur. I called the publisher, Kathryn Bechthold, to tell her that I was a Dadpreneur and would love an opportunity to write a few articles for her magazine. From that point on, the term Dadpreneur stuck.
 

Did you have any doubts, and if so, how did you overcome them?

I had doubts about moving back to become a Dadpreneur. My whole identity was tied up in being a highly successful sales person and entrepreneur, so I had to undergo an identity transformation. I also felt negatively judged by some of my peers. But I quickly realized that what others think doesn’t matter. It’s more important to live my life in such a way that, at 75 and sitting in a rocking chair, I can say to myself, “I have no regrets”. So I began sharing with the world my aspirations, values and interests about being a great dad first and entrepreneur second. Then the most amazing thing began to happen; those in my target market started becoming my customers. They had learned who I was and the importance I placed on my family and there was this instant connection between us, based on the fact that they shared my aspirations, values and interests.
 

What has your biggest learning curve been in terms of building your business?

Figuring out my primary target market. First I had to figure out which part of the market had: Money to afford my services; the Authority to spend it; and Influence—friends who also had Money and Authority. Every time I got a new customer I practiced a form of Won Sales Analysis™. In doing so, I was able to identify that the vast majority of my customers were CEOs of small and mid-size companies or Sales VPs of larger companies that were +/- 7.5 years my own age and made decisions based on emotion and ego. I then learned that the emotion came from having similar aspirations, values and interests to mine, since they would rather do business with someone like themselves. I then learned the ego part came from the fact that my target market likes to tell their friends they hired the best person in the industry, or the originator/creator of something versus an imitator who was the cheapest. That’s one reason my email signature says I am the creator of Trigger Event Selling™.

Describe a day in the life…

I just finished my book SHiFT! Harness the Trigger Events that TURN PROSPECTS INTO CUSTOMERS, so the past few months a lot of my spare time was about finalizing the book. Now that the book is complete, I will return to my regular routine… I’m usually up at 6:00 am to check emails and do a little social networking. By 6:45, my son, Liam, is usually up, so I get him breakfast and we watch a little TV together. From this point, my days break into three categories: the days Heather works are the days I spend with my son. He loves to go for hikes with our dogs, spend time at a number of the local playgrounds, have play dates with his friends, go train spotting or to the science centre; On some of the days that Heather is not working, I spend time working with my customers; other days I plan coffee meetings with other entrepreneurs, where I share my knowledge with others at no charge. Anyone can have an hour of my time at no cost, if they are willing to meet up at the Starbucks near my house. Part of my success comes from having a large and caring network of people who graciously provide insights and feedback on my ideas and my business. I figure I owe it to these people to pass on what they taught me and share what I have also learned. This is also one of the reasons I teach and speak at a number of entrepreneur schools. For the last five years, I have donated up to 500 hours of my time to anyone requesting it. When people ask why I do this, I tell them I have three reasons: I get to make a difference; I build relationships with really cool people who are turning their dreams into reality; and I get to perfect my craft.

You’re also a dad—how do you balance your business and family?

In my case, I am lucky enough that Heather works for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, so I’m able to arrange my customer days around her schedule. As a result, Liam typically only spends an few hours a week at a neighbourhood day home. On the occasions that a prospect or a customer calls on a day I’m with Liam, they will hear Liam in background and, depending on the situation, I actually have him say hello the person I’m talking to so he can be part of the conversation. I remember one occasion where I had called a business associate to say happy birthday and when my son heard, he asked to sing happy birthday to him. This person had had a particularly trying week and told me that my son’s happy birthday song was the best part of his day.

Do you have a favorite business tool or resource?

Relationships are key to any business, so my favorite business tool is LinkedIn. I joined during the first few weeks it was up and running. I am user 3,956 of almost 70-million people and have found many ways to use, and help others use, LinkedIn to build new relationships and strengthen existing ones.

What is the key to your success?

Having a purpose in life. Years ago, when I first became an entrepreneur, I noticed that my success as an entrepreneur had inspired others. So I made it my purpose in life to “Liberate and inspire people from all walks of life to become entrepreneurs.” When I left California to come home and focus on being a great dad, I struggled with how I was going to live up to that purpose. Then I realized… a large number of first-time entrepreneurs give up and get a job when their first venture fails. I could live up to my purpose by making my second business even more successful than my first business. That would inspire those who fail the first time to do it a second time. Having a purpose allowed me to have the other three things I think are critical to being a successful entrepreneur: passion, patience and persistence.

What or who inspires you?

I’m inspired by everyday people who defy the odds and find a way to make things happen. When I want to be inspired, all I have to do is watch the YouTube videos of the first auditions of Paul Potts, Susan Boyle and Kevin Skinner. Each of them found a way to overcome all odds and make things happen. Life can be changed for the better in ‘an instant’ and from that instant on, you know your life will never, ever be the same. I was lucky enough to have my ‘instant’ happen when Tim Draper saw my initial five-minute pitch in his business idea competition and since then, I’ve been able to live the life I had always dreamed about.

What is the one piece of advice you would like to give to others thinking about starting a business?

Begin with the end in mind. Start today by building relationships with those you want to be selling to in five years. Odds are less than 5% of first businesses will be successful. But, if your second business allows you to build on the relationships, reputation and experience you developed in your first business, you are five times more likely to be successful the second time around. So figure out who your target market is and start building relationships with these people—AND, most importantly, those who will become these people.

Craig Elias is the creator of Trigger Event Selling™, contributing author to the #1 selling book on both Amazon and The Wall Street Journal, “Masters of Sales” and author of the soon to be released book SHiFT! Harness The Trigger Events That TURN PROSPECTS INTO CUSTOMERS. For almost 20 years, Craig used Trigger Event strategies to be a top sales performer at every company he worked for, including WorldCom, where he was named the number-one salesperson within six months of joining the company. Craig’s knowledge of Trigger Events has also resulted in: Winning a $1,000,000 prize in a global billion-dollar idea competition; Coverage on NBC news, in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Nikkei Marketing Journal, The National Post, and Sales and Marketing magazine; Having his last company chosen by Dow Jones as one of the 50 most promising companies in North America.