Growth Revealed - marketing and sales strategies behind successful businesses

Steve Craig: Why Championship Teams Are Won by B Players

• Don

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0:00 | 48:32

In this episode of the Growth Revealed Podcast, my guest is Steve Craig, Vice President of Sales, Central at Solmetex, the dental water safety and compliance company that started in amalgam separation and now serves more than 85,000 dental practices across the U.S. Steve leads the Solmetex sales teams covering the Central U.S. and Canada, and he brings more than 30 years of sales leadership, including more than 20 years as a DSO and dental industry partner at Johnson & Johnson, OraPharma, and now Solmetex. A seven-time President’s Club winner, he has hired and coached 30 President’s Club winners, 44 Triple Digit Club winners, and six Rookies of the Year, and he has built his reputation on one idea: making the complex simple. Today Steve is helping a private equity-backed dental platform grow through new products and acquisitions, while reminding dentistry that water is the number one instrument in every practice.

We talk about why championship teams are won by strong B players, how he hires for what gets people out of bed in the morning, how to turn a compliance purchase into a real partnership, and why, in an AI-first world, it’s no longer who you know but who knows you.

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro
 00:27 Steve’s Career Journey
 04:39 Selling Change to Practices
 05:25 End-to-End Water Solutions
 12:56 Leadership and Hiring Mindset
 14:54 Why B Players Win Championships
 19:15 Making the Complex Simple
 21:57 Big Company vs. Startup Lessons
 23:31 From Compliance to Partnership
 25:23 Building Demand When Buyers Don’t See the Problem
 27:16 Your Team Is Your Number One Customer
 28:09 Tracking Compliance With Systems
 30:07 Protocols and “Choose Your Hard”
 30:53 How AI Changes Prospecting
 33:02 Why Personal Brand Brings in Patients
 36:29 Reinvent or Get Left Behind
 37:11 Leadership Beyond Titles
 39:29 Speed Round
 46:45 Where to Find Steve
 47:45 Closing Thoughts

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