Welcome to Making It! This weekly show explores the lives and stories of entrepreneurs as they share their unique perspectives on their success and the path to making it.  

    Craig Handley is a marketing expert, adventurer, author and public speaker. He is the CEO of Listen Trust, a call center company and Social Close, a brand management and marketing company.

    In this episode of Making It, Craig shares his exciting journey and entrepreneurial advice. For him, making it is about living without fear and being generous in supporting others’ dreams.


“Find out what you really love to do and what you’re great at, and make sure you have people around you to do the stuff you aren’t great at.”

– Craig Handley

Craig Handley is the author of the best-selling book Hired To Quit and the CEO of Listen Trust, a company that provides bilingual call center services. Listen Trust was named #1 in Business Products and Service on Inc. Magazine’s 500/5000 list. He is an expert in hispanic marketing, direct response marketing, and sales and brand expansion—skills he puts to good use in his other business, Social Close, a brand marketing and management company.

     He started his professional career as a paperboy, winning a contest to go to Disney at the age of 13. He followed that up with 3 years of door-to-door insurance sales, where he won the company's highest award 8 times. He worked at a call center in telephone sales and sold over a million dollars a year in product. A respected advisor for hundreds of brands, products, and services, he contributes to business magazines, blogs and podcasts and has spoken at conferences, company retreats, seminars, and private masterminds.

     He served five years in the U.S. Army infantry during the first Iraq war, leaving with an honorable discharge. Handley studied voice and piano in college. He has written and produced hundreds of songs, from rap to pop to ballads to humorous parodies, and even opened for Coolio and hosted the Adult Entertainment Awards.

     He went cage diving with great white sharks and rappelled down Table Mountain in South Africa. He drove the Baja 500 trail in Mexico, hiked through the jungles of Malaysia and snowmobiled across a live volcano in Iceland. Craig swam in the Blue Lagoon, and dove in the famed Silfra Fissure, a crack between two continental plates. He is also the 85th civilian in the world ever to jump out of a plane from over 32,000 feet (HALO Dive).


Resources or websites mentioned in this episode:

Guest – Craig Handley

Co-Producers – Danny Bermant & Geoff Govertsen

Supervising Producer – Cynthia Lamb

Executive producer – Danny Iny

Audio Post Supervisor: Evan Miles, Christopher Martin

Audio Post Production by Post Office Sound

Music soundscape: Chad Michael Snavely

Making our hosts sound great: Home Brew Audio

Music and SFX credits:

• Track Title: The Sunniest Kids

Artist Name(s): Rhythm Scott

Writer Name: Scott Roush

Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

• Track Title: Sweet Loving Waltz

Artist Name(s): Sounds Like Sander

Writer Name: S.L.J. Kalmeijer

Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION

• Track Title: Come Along

Artist Name(s): Reveille

Writer Name: Brendan St. Gelais

Publisher Name: A SOUNDSTRIPE PRODUCTION