John Kaufman

Sales Experience

A large portion of his experience is as a sales recruiter.  His primary role was recruiting the top multimillion dollar salespeople from many of the largest software and consulting companies in the world.  Over the last 15 years he has interviewed thousands of the top salespeople from startups to fortune 500 companies.  This lead to becoming one of the leading experts on sales methods, mindsets, and what separates top performers from average. 

Serial Entrepreneur 

John is a serial entrepreneur and sales fanatic who has bootstrapped businesses in several industries including:  screen printing, art brokerage, web hosting, managed services, software, IT consulting, recruiting / Staffing, automotive sales, talent management / entertainment, recycling / green products manufacturing, social media management, commercial and luxury real estate.  

In 1998 as a 25 year old fresh out of college  he started FineArtAmerica.com with only $500.  He cold called his way to having a business worth over $7 Million dollar in under 90 days.   He later developed the site to become a portal to independent artist online prior to selling it. 

Web Hosting and Explosive Sales Growth

 Over the next 10 years, he grew TBhost into one of the premier web hosting companies in the world.  Tbhost focused on the private label reseller market growing at 100% compounded year over year sales growth.  TBhost grew due to a commitment to providing an insane level of customer service and an aggressive yet customer focused sales culture.  A culture that included every customer worldwide having John’s personal cell phone number in addition to a fully staffed 24X7 sales and support call center.   TBhost was eventually sold TBhost to a private equity group  who owned several large data-centers and it was merged with their operations.

Auto Sales

Along with his father he started a collector and luxury car dealership.  They spent years buying and selling classic and late model luxury car.  They built a classic car collection that grew to include cars from Model T’s through 50’s classics, & many rare Muscle Cars .  They invested their own money, time, and the entire risk over a 20-30 car inventory worth hundreds of thousands of dollars all paid for in cash.  The best part for john was the challenge of making money and the thrill of the sale.

Enterprise Consulting Staffing and Recruiting Sales

He was also doing a lot of IT consulting, and recruiting for large companies through TBhost.  in 2005 he partnered with former executive from SAP starting Nexmation, a dedicated IT consulting and recruiting company.  John lead the sales effort, and Nexmation grew at one point to 25 recruiters.  Nexmation focused on enterprise sales recruiting enterprise software project managers and developers for companies like IBM, major auto manufacturers, the banking industry.   John was in constant sales mode, prospecting, relationship building, negotiating and closing over 80% of all new contracts for the entire company.   

Sales Consulting Training and Coaching 

In the years since, John has focused on helping companies recruit, train, and manage rock-star sales teams.  His lifetime of experience in building business on a shoestring, interviewing the top sales pros from all over the world and learning  what sales techniques work.  As part of the evaluation and recruiting process he spent time role playing with them, and really getting inside not only their heads, but inside their sales process, their sales pitches, their ability to overcome not just sales objections, but their unique ability to rescue a lost sale has given him a unique perspective on building sales teams and recognizing talent in even untrained individuals he can then train and turn loose to make his clients more successful.