About John Craft

Two life-changing events happened which have shaped his approach to life, to others and to his work. The first was when he heard this Zig Ziglar quote for the very first time at the age of twenty-one.

John didn’t realize it was an earth-shattering event at the time, but it did shape how he has approached his professional and personal life for over 40 years.

The second life-changing event was actually a sustained eleven-year period of personal and professional loss in his life, culminating in the death of his wife of 37 years after a 3-month cancer battle.

The story of how he got through the resulting grief, pain and chaos, and moved out of that into recovery and restoration is nothing short of miraculous — and led to the creation of Transforming Your Life After loss and a third career of being a transformational and performance-based coach, helping others to discover and create the lives of their dreams.

Prior to all of this, John had an extensive business career in the radio business as a seller, sales-trainer, general & corporate manager, senior vice-president and partial owner; then since radio as an entrepreneur, published author and speaker.

These experiences and this background have contributed to formulating his belief system that transformational/performance coaching and sales/business coaching are not mutually exclusive, but are holistic; they are both supported, strengthened and enhanced by the other.

John has worked with countless small businesses and numerous individuals to help them achieve Zig’s vision and get what they want. He has assisted them in accelerating and simplifying their personal growth and business processes which have allowed them to do the one thing everyone wants to do: actualize their dreams in order to create more fulfilling lives for themselves and their families.

John’s professional background consists of a four-year enlistment in the United States Marine Corps at the age of 17; a 35-year career in the radio business starting at age 21; a stint in home-safety sales; co-owner of Just Imagine Advertising and Promotions specializing in caricature/cartoon-maps; a partner in Backroads 2 Oz, a national metal-art sign company based out of Austin, Texas and Colorado Springs, Colorado; and as an agent/broker working in the senior health-insurance market. (At one point in life, he even sold Christmas trees. Successfully!!)

He knows how to succeed in business, how to position people to be successful and has set many records and achieved many, many personal goals and professional benchmarks.

He was a “turn-around” specialist in the radio business. As a consequence, he caught the attention of high-level movers and shakers in that industry and ended up working for a company with 65 radio stations in 13 western U.S. markets.

As the new business development director for that company, John created and presented in-person TOMA (Top of Mind Awareness) seminars and workshops to over 1,000 small business owners across the western U.S. These workshops generated over $5,000,000 in new revenue and repeat business for his company in that two-year period.

Ater that, he became the director of sales and senior vice-president for the same $175,000,000 company and in that role created a field-proven, 9-step selling system teaching account executives how to earn $100,000 per year or more in small market radio sales.

Additionally, he consulted and advised hundreds of small-business owners during his 35-year radio career and personally trained nearly 100 salespeople in the classroom and in the field; many of whom are top-producers, and still selling.

John has approached all of these ventures with a coaching mindset and by harkening back to Zig’s comment about helping others get what they want, by seeing to it that his clients, peers bosses and employees have gotten what they wanted and needed.

John is a certified life coach through the Brave Thinking Institute; a highly-trained sales, leadership, professional development and management consultant through Sandler Training, the world-wide leader in these areas; an expert in small-market business development and advertising; a renowned sales trainer; published author; speaker and presenter.

He has an unshakeable belief in Jesus Christ and brings a unique, never-quit attitude of power, positivity, passion and compassion to the fields of life, performance, and sales coaching, as well as business development.

John knows what it’s like to have dreams and to achieve them. From a small-town non-college-graduate kid, being painfully shy and knowing absolutely nothing about business and selling, to creating a successful career in sales and sales training, to speaking in front of literally thousands of people all across the country, to coaching his people and his clients in achieving their dreams, whether it be in life or in business — he’s both lived and is living his dream.

John also knows how to help others draw out, identify and actualize their dreams. He’s done it repeatedly with people desiring to change their lives for the better

That said, he understands the serious life issues people deal with. Issues like fear, self-doubt, procrastination, “imposter-syndrome”, rejection, loss and debilitating grief.

John has experienced and overcome many personal challenges so he knows how to help others navigate through, around and over these “rapids of life” simply because he’s lived them. More importantly, though, he’s OVERCOME and risen above them. He has never allowed either his circumstances or the conditions in his life to define who he is.

He knows how to guide his clients with practical personal discovery exercises and techniques, but also with an empathy that someone who hasn’t experienced and overcome these challenges will never have.

John has shared his thoughts from all types of stages; the biggest of which was sharing an international stage with Mary Morrissey, founder of the Brave Thinking Institute during his DreamBuilder certification process.

He’s also spoken from the stage for the National Association of Broadcasters annual conference in Washington, D.C. and has chaired numerous panels and been a part of the steering committee for the national Radio Advertising Bureau conferences with leaders in the broadcast business. He has been actively involved in local Chamber of Commerce organizations with prominent local business and government leaders.