I write about sales, leadership & productivity to help you become a top sales performer. RSM at Lonestar Forklift | AIB MBA

I’m Chris Crane, and my mission is simple:

Transforming industrial sales reps & teams into formidable professionals.

Over my 15-year sales career, I’ve closed over $100 million in industrial equipment deals, trained more than 150 reps, and led industrial sales teams across Canada and the U.S.

I built the Scaling Success System™ to give industrial sales teams what no one else offers: a sales operating system specifically engineered for industrial sales.

This system has taught over 150+ industrial sales reps & teams to operate as formidable professionals, and it can do the same for your team.

DM "sales" to learn more.

Chris Crane

Most companies hire one kind of rep, and expect them to do both jobs.

They want someone who can hunt.
They want someone who can farm.
They end up with someone who does neither well.

Hunters drive top-of-funnel.
They chase the deal until they get it. 
They don’t stop until the calendar’s full.

Farmers grow existing accounts.
They build solid long-term relationships.
They don’t stop until the client renews again.

Here’s what I’ve learned coaching both:

→ Farmers win with value.
→ Hunters win with volume.
→ Hunters need structure and a clean target list.
→ Farmers need trust  and a relationship to protect.
→ Both lose when you try to make them play the other’s game.

Learning to do both well is an elite level game. 

I have done both, and I can teach someone how to do both, but most companies cannot, and they wonder why they are missing their quotas.


P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://lnkd.in/dHH93M4u

Experience alone doesn’t scale. A system does. Turn industrial sales prospects into buyers with ARC5™

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Most sales reps consume motivation. Top sales reps study communication.

Everyone wants better closing lines.

Very few reps study the psychology behind why people say yes.

And the gap between those two groups is where commissions are made.

Here are 7 talks every serious salesperson should study.

→ Rejection tolerance — “What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejection” by Jia Jiang

→ Listening discipline — “Want to Help Someone? Shut Up and Listen” by Ernesto Sirolli

→ Persuasion mechanics — “The Four Letter Code to Selling Anything” by Derek Thompson

→ Body language intelligence — “The Power of Nonverbal Communication” by Joe Navarro

→ Conversation control — “How to Have a Good Conversation” by Celeste Headlee

→ Managing resistance — “How to Deal with Difficult People” by Jay Johnson

→ Direct persuasion — “How 5 Simple Words Can Get You What You Want” by Janine Driver

Notice the pattern.

None of them teach scripts.
None of these talks teach product
All of them teach deep human behavior.

Because selling isn’t about explaining your product. It’s about understanding the person sitting across from you.

And the reps who study people always outperform those who study only products.

83% of sales reps run discovery calls with no structure.

They wing it.
They ask surface-level questions.
They pitch before the buyer even admits there’s a problem.

The call feels productive.
The buyer sounds interested.
And then the deal dies quietly two weeks later.

Here’s the 7-step discovery structure most reps skip:

→ Prepare
→ Start Calm
→ Build Rapport
→ Confirm the Agenda
→ Ask & Clarify Pain Points
→ Present Your Crafted Solution
→ Schedule the Next Follow-Up Call

Miss one, and control slips.
Rush one, and urgency disappears.
Ignore the order, and the buyer leads.

The result?

→ Buyers open up faster.
→ Pain becomes specific, measurable, and urgent.
→ Your proposal becomes the logical next step, not a hopeful pitch.

The takeaway:

→ The rep who controls discovery controls the deal.
→ Discovery is not a conversation, it’s a controlled sequence.
→ Structure creates urgency, and urgency creates movement.

Most reps try to close at the end. Elite reps start closing in the first 10 minutes.


P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://lnkd.in/dHH93M4u

Sales teams don’t fail because of skill.

They fail because they don’t care.
They fail because they’re not engaged.
They fail because they’re disconnected.

Motivation isn’t always about money.

It’s about meaning, mindset & execution.

Here’s what I know:
→ Trust must flow both ways.
→ Goals create clarity & direction.
→ Knowing the “why” drives performance.

Consider this:
→ Start with a 30, 60, 90 plan.
→ Align the team with this objective.
→ Explain the “why” to create full buy in.

Watch what happens with your team in 90 days with full focus on this effort.


P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://scalingsuccess.co/

71% of sales teams miss quota, and it's not because of effort.

They track revenue.
They track activity volume.
They ignore the indicators that actually drive outcomes.

The dashboard looks full.
The pipeline “feels” healthy.
And the quarter still comes up short.

Here are the KPIs every serious sales leader must track:
→ Key Sales Activity
→ Sales Cycle Length
→ Sales Pipeline Value
→ Average Order Value
→ Product Performance
→ Lead to Opportunity Conversion
→ Opportunity to Sales Conversion

Miss one, and blind spots grow.
Track them inconsistently, and patterns stay hidden.
Obsess over lagging metrics only, and you’ll always react instead of lead.

The result?

→ Forecasting becomes predictable.
→ Coaching becomes precise and data-driven.
→ Revenue stops feeling random and starts compounding.

The takeaway:

→ Activity without conversion tracking is noise.
→ Revenue without pipeline math is guesswork.
→ The leader who tracks the right numbers controls the outcome.

What you measure dictates what your team becomes.


P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://lnkd.in/dHH93M4u

I almost didn’t call back.

Something felt off.

The buyer sounded polite but distant on the first call.

Most reps would have written the deal off and moved on to the next name in the CRM.

But something didn’t add up.

The problem he described was too operational to ignore.

And when problems are operational, the cost is usually hidden somewhere deeper.

So I called him again.

→ Align: “I understand you’re busy and this might not be top priority right now.”

→ Redirect: “When the system breaks down like you mentioned last week, what usually happens to production that day?”

→ Clarify: “If the line stops for even an hour, what does that actually cost your operation?”

→ Reframe: “So if that downtime keeps happening every week, that’s hundreds of thousands a year lost, correct?”

→ Close: “If we can eliminate that loss, it makes sense to move forward, doesn’t it?”

The result?

→ The problem was bigger than he first admitted.
→ The cost of doing nothing was far worse than the investment required.
→ The deal that almost died on call one closed two weeks later.

The takeaway:

→ Deals rarely die because of rejection.
→ Most deals die because reps accept the first layer of the conversation.
→ The reps who win are the ones willing to dig one level deeper than everyone else.

Most lost deals aren’t lost. They’re just undiscovered.

Most salespeople will never close a seven-figure deal.

They think they can.
They act like they can.
But when the opportunity comes, they choke.

I've seen it firsthand.

I've watched seasoned reps stall.
I've watched managers fumble negotiations.
I've watched buyers walk away, never saying a word.

Here’s what I know:
→ Patience is a strategy. Use it.
→ Big deals don’t die in meetings. They die in silence.
→ If you can’t handle long sales cycles, you won’t survive.

Consider this:
1. Control the frame: If they lead, you’ve already lost.
2. Don't push, pull: Let the buyer convince themselves.
3. Slow down: The bigger the contract, the slower the close.

Big deals are a slow process. Learn to slow down, learn to ask great questions, and the deals will start to come.


P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://scalingsuccess.co/

Objections don’t kill deals, insecurity does. 

You get pushback.
You lose your composure. 
You spiral into defense mode.

Most reps crumble.

They talk too much.
They try to win the argument.
They forget their job is to lead. 

Here’s what I know:
→ Objections aren’t rejections.
→ They’re tests of your confidence.
→ The buyer is watching how you react.

Consider this:
→ Ask for clarification, find the real fear.
→ Your tone matters more than your answer.
→ Reframe the concern to their original pain.

Master the objection if you want to master the sale. 

Don’t fear them, embrace them.


If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://scalingsuccess.co/

Deals don’t die at the close. They die at discovery.

I learned this the hard way.
Early in my career, I ran a perfect demo.
Clear value, strong interest, confident delivery.

Then the buyer stalled.

“No decision right now.”
And I had nothing to anchor them to.

The problem wasn’t price.
The problem wasn’t timing.
The problem was I didn't equate cost with inaction.

So I rebuilt how I run discovery using CICSR.
→ Context → I force myself to fully understand their current process before touching a problem.
→ Issue → I isolate where the process breaks and make them admit it out loud.
→ Cost → I quantify the damage until the number hurts to say.
→ Solution → I let them describe the future state before I ever show mine.
→ Resistance → I surface hesitation early while I still control the room.

The result?
→ Deals stop stalling.
→ Objections show up earlier and weaker.
→ Buyers convince themselves before I ever ask for the close.

The takeaway:
→ Bad discovery creates fake momentum.
→ Fake momentum collapses at the close.
→ Real discovery makes closing procedural, not emotional.

If you want better closes, stop trying to sound impressive and start forcing clarity.

P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉https://scalingsuccess.co/

The deal didn’t die because of price. It died because I skipped one question.

He was engaged.
He liked the numbers.
He nodded the whole meeting.

I thought it was done.
I moved straight to proposal.
I assumed alignment without confirming it.

Two weeks later he said, “We’re going in a different direction.”

Here’s what I missed.

→ I didn’t go deep enough into Context. I understood the surface process, not the internal politics.
→ I uncovered the Issue, but I didn’t press into real Cost with numbers tied to executive pressure.
→ I pitched Solution before asking the Resistance question that would’ve exposed the hidden decision-maker.

So I went back and did it again, the right way.

The result?

→ I quantified cost with his numbers, not mine.
→ I went back and rebuilt discovery from scratch.
→ I uncovered that his CFO had final sign-off and hadn’t seen the math.

The takeaway:

→ If cost isn’t quantified, urgency isn’t real.
→ Surface-level agreement is not commitment.
→ The rep who skips steps pays for it in lost commission.

Discovery isn’t about sounding smart. It’s about controlling the sequence.


P.S. If you want to turn your industrial sales prospects into buyers, I built a system to show you how 👉

Nathan Hirsch

5k to $12M ARR in 4 yrs (w/ Exit) 🔥 Scaling my 4+ B2B companies in the same way 🚀 Daily advice for entrepreneurs.

Over the past 10 years, I’ve built five businesses to 6, 7, and even 8 figures in annual revenue.  Now I buy businesses

In 2019, I exited one of them — FreeeUp — after scaling it from a $5K investment to $12M+ in ARR in just four years. It was acquired by The HOTH, and that journey changed everything for me.

Unique About the FreeeUp sale:
- No office
- No Us Employees
- Bootstrapped (No outside funding)
- Zero Money spent on Paid ads
- An internal team of 30+ All-Star Virtual Assistants from PH

These days, I’m focused on growing Hirsch Gillivan LLC — the holding company Connor Gillivan and I started. We're building a portfolio of 5-star businesses, each run by amazing operators who truly care about our clients. It’s been a blast supporting great people, growing cool companies, and enjoying life after our first exit.

Here are a few we own:

→ EcomBalance: Monthly bookkeeping for eCommerce sellers
→ AccountsBalance: Monthly bookkeeping for agencies, SAAS, and b2b businesses
→ TrioSEO: Helping SaaS and B2B brands drive high-intent organic traffic and revenue growth
→ HG Media: Growing Connor and my brand online + helping sponsors reach our audience
→ CFO Expertise: Reach financial clarity, optimize growth, and scale profits with an Ecommerce CFO that’s seen it all. Built for brands on Shopify & Amazon.

I’ve had the chance to be a guest on 900+ podcasts over the years — including shows like Perpetual Traffic, Mixergy, BiggerPockets, and Leveling Up.

Outside of building businesses, I'm a proud dad to Carter and husband to Quynh. I get in a daily hour of HIIT, run marathons, and play way too much softball. Always learning, always investing — whether it’s stocks, real estate, or new business ideas.

Want to learn more? Check out NathanHirsch.com, follow me here on LinkedIn or subscribe to https://nathanhirsch.com/newsletter for daily tips on entrepreneurship and growth.

For LinkedIn Sponsorship queries, please reach out to me at media@hirschgillivan.com

Co-Founder

🔥🔥Big News 🔥🔥

Really Excited to launch our new venture TrioSEO October 17th

TrioSEO(dot)com

For years we have ben putting out high quality blog SEO optimized articles for our different businesses leading to highly ranked websites

After years of getting asked if we can offer this for other businesses we now will be

Here's how it will work 👇

1. SEO Audit
We'll conduct a free audit on your site, share results, and let you know if we think its a good fit to work together. 

2. Keyword Research & Planning
We'll get to work finding the best possible keywords for you to be targeting where you have a good chance of driving traffic and leads. We'll put together a full strategy that we'll present to you.

3. Content Creation & Optimization
We'll start creating content for your site. We'll publish it directly on your site as we finish it. If there's pages or articles you already have that we think could move up in search rankings, we'll propose those as well and improve them.

4. Analytics & Reporting
We'll provide you with a monthtly report showing all key SEO data so you can track progress and stay involved in the process.

Interested in being one of our first clients (we have already landed a few)?  Lets chat

There’s a difference people like to confuse.

Hard is effort.
Hard is learning.
Hard is staying present when things are uncomfortable.

Disrespect is something else.

Disrespect is a signal.
It shows how power is exercised.
How conflict is handled.
How much of yourself you’re expected to compress to stay.

Staying through difficulty can be resilience.
Staying through disrespect is usually conditioning.

This isn’t quitting.
It’s pattern recognition.

Boundaries aren’t about avoiding hard things.
They’re about refusing environments where erosion is normalised.

Know the difference.

Image credit: Dearme2_ on Twitter/X

Shoutout to Chase Dimond for this awesome post!

Building A 10-Business Portfolio (5 Down, 5 To Go) | FreeUp Founder (Exited 2019) | Family First, No Work Travel

Most founders think storytelling is for marketers.

It is not.

Storytelling is how you get people to care.

Care is how you get people to act.

A great story does three things:

It builds connection.
It inspires action.
It makes your message memorable.

If you want to get better at it, keep it simple.

Start by knowing who you are talking to.

Then open with a hook that creates curiosity.

Then build emotional depth with one real detail.

Then follow a clear arc.

Beginning, middle, end.

And do not overcomplicate it.

The best business stories are not polished.

They are specific.

A customer moment.
A hard lesson.
A mistake you fixed.
A decision you almost avoided.

That is what people remember.

Quick checklist I use:

1/ One main message only
2/ One character the reader can relate to
3/ One conflict that creates tension
4/ One takeaway that changes how they think

Edit ruthlessly until it is clean

If you are building a business, you are sitting on stories already.

You just need to start telling them.

What is one business story you have not shared yet, but should?

♻️ Repost this if you want more founders to write with clarity

P.S. I share my business stories weekly in my newsletter (link in comments).

Most new managers fail for one reason 

they keep thinking like employees.

They focus on doing, not enabling.

On tasks, not systems.

On effort, not outcomes.

The best managers don’t work harder.

They think differently.

Here are 10 frameworks that’ll help you think like a manager:

1️⃣ The 80/20 Rule

→ Focus on the 20% that drives 80% of results.
→ Identify high-leverage tasks and delegate the rest.

2️⃣ The Leverage Lens

→ Ask: “Can this scale without me?”
→ Build systems, templates, and people that replace repetition.

3️⃣ The Decision Filter

→ Reversible: decide fast.
→ Irreversible: think deeply.
→ Delegatable: empower your team.

4️⃣ The Clarity Triangle

→ Every project needs clear ownership, goals, and timelines.
→ Ambiguity kills accountability.

5️⃣ The Feedback Loop

→ Give → Act → Review → Adjust → Repeat.
→ Great managers close loops, not just start them.

6️⃣ The Trust Battery

→ Every action either charges or drains trust.
→ Protect credibility like it’s your currency.

7️⃣ The Zoom-Out Principle

→ Don’t react — step back first.
→ Fix patterns, not moments.

8️⃣ The Outcome Mindset

→ Stop asking “What do I need to do?”
→ Start asking “What outcome do we need?”

9️⃣ The Coaching Model

→ Ask before advising.
→ Build thinkers, not task-doers.

🔟 The One-Level-Up Test

→ Before deciding, ask: “How would my leader think?”
→ Elevate from doing to designing.

Managers don’t just move work forward 

they move people forward.

Save this for your next leadership leap.

♻️ Repost if you’re building better managers.

11 red flags you're not leadership material.  

(Number 7 hurts the most).  

True leaders are made, not born.  

Bad habits destroy team potential.

You might be the problem.

Confront these signs now.

Your team's success depends on you.

Their growth reflects your leadership.

Here's a candid mirror for aspiring leaders:

1. You avoid accountability  
→ You shift blame to others  
→ Fix: Own mistakes publicly and fix them  

2. You micromanage
→ You obsess over minor tasks  
→ Fix: Delegate outcomes, not processes  

3. You can't listen
→ You interrupt and dismiss ideas  
→ Fix: Practice listening first, speaking last  

4. You play favorites 
→ You reward loyalty over merit  
→ Fix: Use objective criteria for rewards  

5. You prioritize tasks over people
→ You treat employees as tools  
→ Fix: Schedule weekly 1:1s for their goals  

6. You lack empathy  
→ You dismiss emotions as weakness  
→ Fix: Ask "How are you really doing?"  

7. You're indecisive  
→ You delay decisions to avoid risk  
→ Fix: Set deadlines for all choices  

8. You can't inspire 
→ You frame work as a grind  
→ Fix: Connect tasks to a larger purpose  

9. You fear developing others  
→ You block growth opportunities  
→ Fix: Mentor openly and build plans  

10. You're emotionally volatile  
→ You snap under pressure  
→ Fix: Pause before reacting to stress  

11. You prioritize self-preservation 
→ You protect your reputation first  
→ Fix: Advocate for your team publicly  

---  
 
Leadership is a skill, not a title.

Build your team up with you.

Start with one fix this week.

Watch morale and productivity rise.

The best leaders are always learning.

Your team deserves your best self.

Commit to growing every day.

♻️ Repost this and help others.

P.S. Follow me at Nathan Hirsch for more such posts.

11 Signs You Are Not Leadership Material.pdf

Most startups don’t fail because of the product.

They fail because of their first leadership hire.

I’ve seen this pattern over and over again.

Founders hire too fast.

They hire on vibes.

They hire someone impressive on paper.

And six months later, everything slows down.

Here’s why the first leadership hire is so hard:

Early-stage companies don’t need “experience.”

They need execution under uncertainty.

Big-company leaders are used to structure.

Startups are mostly ambiguous.

That mismatch quietly kills momentum.

The real issue isn’t talent.

It’s alignment.
Role clarity.
Decision ownership.
Incentives tied to outcomes, not titles.

This is where most founders guess.

And guessing at the leadership layer is expensive.

That’s why I like how Knex approaches leadership hiring.

Knex doesn’t just help you find candidates.

They help you define the role before you fill it.

Clear expectations.
Clear scorecards.
Clear accountability from day one.

Instead of hiring a resume,
you’re hiring against the actual problems the business needs solved.

That changes everything.

If you’re making your first leadership hire,
or fixing one that didn’t work out,
this is worth thinking about.

Check out Knex for vetted fractional experts: https://app.knex.pro/

Strong companies aren’t built by luck.

They’re built by getting the leadership decisions right.

Repost ♻️ to help others startups hire better leaders.

Thanks to Knex for partnering on this post.

WHY MOST STARTUPS FAIL THEIR FIRST LEADERSHIP HIRE

Most cold email problems aren’t copy problems.

They’re deliverability problems.

If you’re landing in spam,

Your offer doesn’t matter.
Your subject line doesn’t matter.
Your follow-up doesn’t matter.

So I like to keep it simple.

Before you scale outbound, run a deliverability system.

Warmy helps you do that.

It’s built to improve inbox placement through:

Warm-up 
Authentication checks
Engagement simulation
Deliverability monitoring

Here’s the exact checklist I’d run:

1. Start with inbox placement data
→ you need a baseline before changing anything
→ measure inbox vs spam across providers

2. Validate authentication
→ SPF, DKIM, DMARC should all be green
→ fix this before sending volume

3. Track deliverability trends
→ monitor changes over time, not just one test
→ consistency matters more than spikes

4. Review provider-level proof
→ Yahoo and Outlook behave differently
→ confirm you’re landing where you think you are

This is what sustainable outbound looks like.

Less guessing.
More control.

You can try Warmy without a credit card here: https://lnkd.in/gvE2d75G

♻️ Repost this if you want systems, not duct tape.

P.S. What provider gives you the most trouble right now?

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