LFCE Faculty Profile: John Ludwig
Helping Sales Organizations Reach New Heights
LFCE Faculty Member John Ludwig led "The Art of Selling" for client Simonton Windows.
Lake Forest Corporate Education (LFCE) faculty member John Ludwig has received rave reviews for LFCE selling skills programs conducted at Infosys, Kajima Construction, and Simonton Windows. The following feedback from "The Art of Selling" program at Simonton Windows is typical of his students' appreciation of his teaching approach:
"The upbeat sessions were thoughtful and well developed. The course challenged our conventional thinking."
"I liked the fact that we could express ourselves and explore areas we needed to. Yet John's 'pushback' forced us to dig deeper into our thoughts to form different opinions."
Why do even experienced sales professionals feel they can gain valuable insights from Ludwig?
The answer is Ludwig's passion, his education and his experience. All involve the study of understanding every person, every situation, and every product as unique. "Two interesting trends in sales are happening simultaneously," Ludwig observes. "At the customer level and in some business-to-business buying, people want instant transactions. Yet at the corporate level, successful companies promote relationship selling. For instance, if you as a customer walk into a store knowing what you want, you hope to get in and get out fast. But if you need help, you look for an associate who will be friendly and personable, exhibit product knowledge, share expertise, understand your goals, and go the extra mile to help you achieve them. Because successful selling means learning to accommodate both trends, salespeople need more training than ever before."
Extensive Experience Makes Ludwig Ideal LFCE Faculty Member
Ludwig began his career with a BA in Accounting and Data Processing from Parsons College. "It was important to have that business foundation for my career," he explains. "After college I worked for a CPA firm. When I was sent on an audit to count kernels of corn, I realized I'm more of a people person." Acting on this insight, he attended Beacon College where he earned a Masters degree in education and counseling, which deepened his understanding of human dynamics.
Ludwig then determined selling was an area where he wanted to build expertise. He recalls, "An executive from United Airlines once told me 'Nothing happens until something is sold.' I began to ask myself what it takes to sell successfully. Then I took a sales position and learned to focus on value." Applying his counseling skills to corporate management team negotiations as well as to sales negotiations helped Ludwig succeed in management and leadership positions with a variety of companies.
Today, as the President of John Ludwig Associates, a performance improvement company offering a variety of sophisticated training and consulting services to executives in sales and management, his sales expertise and interest in performance improvement make him a natural for teaching advanced selling skills for LFCE.
Having worked within the insurance, banking and financial, real estate, telecommunications, and mid-sized manufacturing industries, Ludwig is eminently qualified to teach selling skills applicable to a variety of fields. Understanding that each industry has its unique challenges, Ludwig is someone who can truly help sellers to sell even better. We are glad to have him as part of our LFCE faculty.
