Craig Wortmann Speaker Biography

Three-Time CEO, Author of What’s Your Story?, Clinical Professor at Kellogg School of Management, Founder & Academic Director of the Kellogg Sales Institute, and Creator of the Sales Engine Toolkit

Craig Wortmann is a distinguished sales speaker and Clinical Professor. He teaches Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. Furthermore, he is the Founder & Academic Director of the Kellogg Sales Institute. Notably, in 2018, 2019, and 2020, Kellogg’s Executive MBA students awarded Craig “Outstanding Professor.” Launched in 2019, his online course, Mastering Sales: A Toolkit for Success, is top-rated on Emeritus. Moreover, Kellogg Executive MBA students recently called Craig “the gold standard in remote learning.” As a renowned sales speaker, his expertise is highly valued.

Entrepreneurship

From 2008 to 2016, Craig was a Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship. He taught at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. Moreover, he designed and taught the award-winning Entrepreneurial Selling™ course. Inc. Magazine recognized this as one of the “Top Ten” in the U.S. Additionally, he taught Building the New Venture. He also developed Chicago Booth’s senior executive leadership course. This four-day course was called Building Leadership Capital. In 2012, Craig received the Faculty Excellence Award. This award recognized his significant positive impact on students. His entrepreneurial background enhances his perspective as a sales speaker.

What’s Your Story?

Craig is the author of What’s Your Story™?, a book designed to equip you with the right story at the right time for the right reason. Craig also launched The Art of Sales™: Mastering the Selling Process, a four-part Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Specialization with Coursera that has helped tens of thousands of people worldwide acquire critical selling skills and disciplines.

Career

From selling tech for IBM early in his career, to financial services where he covered three-quarters of the United States, to consulting services, books and apps, Craig is an expert in sales across the B2B and B2C spectrum. He advises some of the world’s largest and most successful companies on developing and fine-tuning their sales talent, as well as guiding some of the fastest-growing entrepreneurial firms on how to design and build a powerful revenue engine. In just the past ten years, Craig has been fortunate to teach tens of thousands of people how to sell, how to lead sales teams and how to lead companies.

CEO

After earning his MBA in marketing and finance from Kellogg in 1995, Craig has been a three-time entrepreneur and CEO, beginning with his first software company in 2000. After selling that firm in 2008, Craig conducted a successful turnaround of a struggling digital marketing agency, selling it to a larger French company only 11 months after joining as its CEO.

Sales Engine

In 2009 Craig founded Sales Engine Inc., a tools and services firm founded on the core belief that sales is the engine of any business. As a global speaker and virtual sales advisor, Craig helps people from every corner of the globe develop the knowledge, skill and discipline necessary to become magnetic and unstoppable sales people. In addition to growing his Sales Engine firm, Craig serves as Operating Partner for Pritzker Group Venture Capital where he helps grow the revenue engines of its portfolio companies.

Venture Capital

Craig is also an active angel investor, solely focused on companies that help people develop healthy habits and empower people to be their best. His portfolio currently includes sleep and food companies, as well as those creating the next generation of female leaders.

Craig and his family split their time between Illinois and Wisconsin where they can be found reading, running and laughing.

Craig Wortmann Speaking Topics

The power of story

The Power of Story keynote speech helps leaders enhance their leadership performance by looking at their everyday communications differently. Using a series of powerful stories, anecdotes, visual examples and his story tools, Craig describes unique challenges we face trying to communicate effectively and demonstrates how leaders create strong connections with people and with the organization's strategy. He discusses the importance of capturing and telling the right kinds of stories and why stories are the most effective method for enhancing performance.

Stories and motivation

The Stories and Motivation keynote speech looks at how leaders of all levels motivate and inspire those around them. This keynote can be quite a ride, as Craig shares different kinds of stories and examples of what causes people to become motivated and how great leaders inspire. This multimedia keynote demonstrates the true power of the human element of storytelling.

Stories and coaching

Stories and coaching... are you picking up on a theme? In this keynote, Craig looks at the usual ways we coach people and he helps leaders change their perspective on why coaching can be such a challenge. He looks at coaching from the perspective of the person receiving the coaching, and in this way helps leaders truly understand their challenge. The keynote then explores how to build stronger connections with people in order to open up more possibilities for coaching and building skill.

Stories and selling

The Stories and Selling keynote speech looks at how sales professionals differentiate themselves through stories. Craig calls on his days as an IBM salesperson to outline the new challenges that salespeople face, and how they can cut through all of the "noise in the channel." With plenty of stories and humor, Craig helps sales professionals distinguish themselves by going beyond "features and benefits" to build stronger relationships with clients.