No 1: Sales Leader: The Truth About Winning in Sales

Paul Leon: In a ⁓ study done with 939 companies have a B2B sales model it's business to business, they found that sales development reps had a 45% annual turnover. Account executives had a 30% annual turnover. Sales managers had a 28% annual turnover, customer success managers had a 25% percent annual turnover when they studied nine hundred and thirty nine companies. Joe Pici what is going on the world of sales leadership today when we look at these numbers, in opinion?

Joe Pici: Well, I think first of all, it has to d it depends on how you hire people. I think one of the biggest mistakes in hiring is we sell the job. We make it sound like this is you're you're just you talk a lot, you're charismatic, you're the right person for the job. You know, it's been my experience. You hire self-discipline and ambition and you train sales. So think ⁓ one the beginnings ⁓ Beginning of why there's such a high turnover is people do not state clearly the job description is. They the job and so they put the wrong people in the seats. That's the first one. The second one is they lack quality training. Companies think if you hire people that talk a lot, ⁓ smile a lot, whatever. They're automatically going to be great in sales. And I truly believe companies that train, and statistics will back this up, on strategies, skills, and communications will have a higher retention and they're closed more sales.

Paul Leon: So Joe Pici, I've had the privilege of knowing you for a couple decades now. anyone who has not had the opportunity to have a conversation with you yet, who are you to them as it relates to sales leadership for somebody who might be coming to the conversation for the first time? Hey guys, Paul Leon here. Thank you so much for being a watcher or listener of the Managers Mic podcast. If this is your first time ever clicking on this piece of content or tuning in, is a podcast dedicated to new people leaders who to have more psychological in the workplace and avoid the traps to kill rapport amongst their coworkers and teammates. That's the mission of this podcast, at least that's the intent.

Joe Pici: Who Joe Pici is is he's an expert at helping companies, individuals generate quality leads, book appointment with decision makers. You want to get in front of the right person at the right time for the right reason, increase their closing ratios with consultative sales, negotiate higher fees, do a better job with follow up. who I am to you out there is I'm

Paul Leon: And a big part of this is sales leadership, which is what I do day to day. This is not all I do. I I work a full time job with a very reputable employer. I have a family. I have kids that I support. But as you know, if you happen to be a podcaster or content creator too, you know that it's gonna be a very lonely road. And you don't do this just for money. You do this for a person, that one person that you want to help. And that's what I go into every episode.

Joe Pici: Person that can help you attract and retain quality clients, no matter what your vertical is.

Paul Leon: How many years have you been doing that now, would you say? somebody who may have not following you on LinkedIn, etcetera? Whether it's one view, five views, maybe a hundred views sometimes, which is very far and in between, or listens, whatever that your your data you treasure. So I say all that to say this podcast is on sales leadership. And in my opinion, as you know, for those who've been a follower of the show for some time, I interview a lot of people. I've interviewed cancer survivors, millionaires, teachers, common people like you and I.

Joe Pici: Well, actually started training and coaching sales reps the early nineties. Okay, we started out in that in in direct marketing. we ⁓ our own methodology and we were keynote and around the world and and but then in the late nineties, early thousands, we saw a gap in the marketplace that most ⁓

Paul Leon: We're just trying to fight the good fight and be good people. And I would argue of all the content I've made, this is the best content I've ever made on sales leadership with a subject matter expert by the name of Joe Pici what I hope for you as you tune in, or if you stay through the whole thing, is that you walk away with the sales leadership knowledge you need to be more active in your sales process.

Joe Pici: Sales training was more about charisma, mindset, which was great. But we knew that there were some things missing, which were processes and skills. So about 2002, we launched Pici and Pici as a hundred percent speaking, coaching, training, consulting companies that could help people really master skills and processes it would take.

Paul Leon: I've consumed a lot of content around sales on the internet, a lot of books while doing my masters in business administration. And I would probably say of all the content I've produced around the subject of sales leadership, this is the best one. And I hope you enjoy. Please consider giving it a like, subscribe, or commenting. But know that you don't have to. Because wherever you are in your career journey, I'm only thinking of you, that person of one.

Joe Pici: Not only to do well in sales and grow their businesses, if they chose to, they would become great leaders ⁓ salespeople and business owners.

Paul Leon: I think it's important to highlight this ⁓ that had the privilege to lock arms and help their sales processes power up ⁓ are nationwide also keynote spoke for the NFL. you've also worked with McDonald's, and that's just three that I feel like most people top of mind are gonna know right away. That I want to help. And I hope this helps you. But what I like about you in my experience is even though you've worked with Fortune 100 companies, I still feel like you know how to come to the table for somebody who's maybe a solopreneur or maybe that mid-sized business. Can you talk to me about those journeys as well?

Joe Pici: Yeah. Well, we have a B2B business and a B2C business. So our B2B business is any small, medium, and large company where we do corporate training. But we also focus on B2C, where we have our own three-day sales boot camp where people will come from all over the nation, solopreneurs, speakers, coaches, trainers, sales professionals. ⁓ And They will master skills and processes to either grow their own company or play to the top of the chart at their company. we've trained thousands and thousands and thousands of people in those areas. We we also work with speakers, coaches, trainers, and consultants that would like to make money. And how do you make money? Attract and retaining clients.

Paul Leon: It it's 'cause in preparing ⁓ for ⁓ conversation, started doing some cold outreach on LinkedIn last week. And one of the things I'm reminded of when we have an opportunity to talk is and I'm just gonna be totally clear. I'm I like I'm showing my cards here. I don't do enough outbound. if I'm being totally transparent, I don't think a lot of people do, and I I'm guilty of slacking in this. Why do you feel, if we go back to the numbers earlier, is outbound such a hard For people to actually engage and execute on because I think a part of those numbers that we started with based on that study, and that's a recent study from twenty twenty five to twenty twenty six is I think a large pain point into why those numbers are pretty high is this skill of outbound and conversations is a huge gap. Why is that? Why why and I'm just and I want you to s yeah.

Joe Pici: It is. Well, there's a lot of there's not one, there's a lot of reasons for it. Number one, there's not a lot of really good outbound training out there. I saw guy who bragged on doing outbound, but he really didn't do outbound. He stood in the middle of a room in a seminar and he did a fake call. as you know and you've experienced in our training, whether it's corporate or boot camp. On day three, everybody's making real outbound calls to real clients. But here's the key you master the skill of being able to pick up the phone and have the right scripting for navigating the gatekeeper, for getting return phone calls, for getting to the decision maker, you have the keys to the castle. But the problem is, as you humbly stated, If you don't do it daily, lose your edge. I mean, I'm old and I do all our selling besides coaching, training, and speaking. And I average 75 formal proposals a month. 100% of those through outbound. Me picking up phone 90% of the time to I don't know. And getting to the decision maker and starting the sales process. enjoy I enjoy it because my highest closing ratio ⁓ is to people I get through that of doing it. But I will tell you, if I slacked, as you put it, for a week or two, it might become hard for me. it's like being a great athlete. It's doing it over and over and over and over again until you master the skill, but then you don't want to stop.

Paul Leon: many calls would you say average ⁓ day do you have to make to generate those seventy five proposals? And I think this is an important conversation, Joe. Yeah, I I wanna just go there. Yeah.

Joe Pici: It's a good question. That's a very good question because let's let's just but let's just look at something for a second. Let's just say, forget mine for a second. Let's say a person just did 25. Just did 25. that was 100, and they only worked five days a week. That's 125 calls. Right? That's basically 525 outbound calls a month. Now, if you really had the right scripting on 525 calls a month, will guarantee you you're gonna have at least 40 to 50 or more quality conversations. You don't have to get 75 proposals out. You don't. Decide how much money you want to make. What if you only got 20 to 25 formal proposals out a month? I'll guarantee you. That is a hundred percent higher than most people will do in their lifetime. I've gone into insurance companies, I've got into companies that were sales based. And I asked the owner or the manager to take a walk. And I said, How many of you are doing at least 20 quality meetings a month? Zero. The average rep right now is averaging three to six quality meetings a month. That tells me haven't mastered the outbound approach because your ⁓ business is measured in how many quality consultative meetings you do a month. And so I will always be an advocate of starting out every sales process with a phone call.

Paul Leon: I want you to put your plug in for if people are still having this pain point, how they can find you your text, and then what I'm gonna do after you put your plug for the text message of people wanna text you, all that, I wanna go deeper into peeling this onion together if that's fair. Go ahead. Yeah, please do, go ahead.

Joe Pici: Absolutely. I'm going to give out a free gift first. Take out your cell phone like this, pick it up, go to your text and put the word sales edge. S-A-L-E-S-E-D-G-E. that 59925. 59925. That'll take you to a pici and pici link. Hit it, it'll go to a splash page. It'll ask for an email, but hey, you will be sent a 45. Minute free webinar the non-negotiables of sales and business growth. Any of you out there ever want a complimentary cup of Joe? I'm not a hard closer. I don't sell to people who are not buying. I'll give you a complimentary cup of Joe for at 407-947-2590. You can see me on LinkedIn, Joe Pici, P-I-C-I. Any way you want to contact me, the best one is the phone. So let's get back to you, buddy.

Paul Leon: Yeah. And I'm gonna be putting all that in the show notes as we go into this conversation. so if you forget I'll put links to whatever you want, Joe, and I'll put all that on the screen. So ⁓ a couple things you that I I do agree with. You talked about the expense of training. So I a little deeper in preparing for this conversation. So job posting and agency fees and interviews and time at background checks.

Joe Pici: That'd be great.

Paul Leon: costs around fifteen to twenty five thousand dollars per staff member. But this was interesting because you said how expensive it is for onboard and training. The average cost of loss of productivity and time that companies reported is three to six months, and they lost an average over that time, between three to six months, somewhere between twenty to forty thousand dollars.

Joe Pici: Absolutely.

Paul Leon: The overarching theme of why we've set this up for the first fifteen minutes and why I wanted to all the the plug stuff up front and your expertise is one is so people know that there's proof behind your statements. I think that's very important in the sales process is what level of proof is there is for me to buy into this. Like even when I do this podcast, I'm I think about that proof layer ⁓ first. ⁓ Let's peel the onion on what goes into ⁓ and planning. And what I mean by that, Joe, and feel free to push back in case something's unclear or we're trying to put a square and a circle here. You've trained Fortune 100, you've trained solo entrepreneurs. Is the same pain point the same across a solo entrepreneur and four to a hundred companies in your experience when it comes to accountability and getting results?

Joe Pici: One of the biggest challenges in sales professionals, is accountability. People are afraid of that word. I've actually had companies say, do not use that word. People hate accountability, but that's because they misunderstand what accountability is. and I have a training, and anybody who would like a 90-minute training for your team on how to hold people accountable without running them off. Or micromanaging. Accountability is not micromanaging and it's not running people off. The key to accountability starts with onboarding. So let's say, Paul, I would I was going to bring you on as a sales rep and you were going to have a base plus commission. Are you with me? First question I would ask you would be: Paul, how much money do you want to make?

Paul Leon: I'm with you. I would wanna make and I'm just gonna we're gonna roleplay it out like it's real. That's fair. I would wanna make a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in this role with your company, is what I w my answer would be.

Joe Pici: Fantastic. And let's say Paul's base was 70,000, which is pretty high. Which means he needs to have 80,000 in commission. Are you with me? Now I say, Paul, do you realize to make that your base is 70? You need to make another 80 on commission. The average transaction in this company is $5,000.

Paul Leon: Which is very high. I'm with you so far. I got ya.

Joe Pici: Which means you're gonna have to have this many deals closed to hit that number. Are we in agreement, Paul?

Paul Leon: I'm in agreement.

Joe Pici: Paul, do I have your permission to hold you accountable to your goal?

Paul Leon: you would have my permission, yes.

Joe Pici: See, that starts it off. Now I talked to a number of store managers in a f giant franchise, and I asked them, how many of you knew and know when you hired and onboarded your sales rep? You knew and know now how much they want to make, you have formed an agreement that you're allowed to hold them accountable ⁓ to your goals, but to their goals, and zero of them. Had ever stated that. Zero. Because the first thing they do when they hire is they go, and this is what you need to do, and this is what you need to do, and this is what you need to do. Instead of let's partner up. And my job is to help you make $150,000 for your family. Then you build out your accountability.

Paul Leon: Really.

Joe Pici: When you're going to have your meetings, when you're going to determine the KPIs, which is key performance indicators. When you're going to evaluate, are we on course? ⁓ people mistaking accountability, they're going to have a high turnover because the sales reps are going to take accountability as pressure.

Paul Leon: I would say I'm guilty I first was coming of age was when would say the word accountable, my guard came up. If I'm being com I'm gonna be real, 'cause I'm one kind of person who who shows their cards and I feel like in a lot of my consultations it helps bring down barriers, ⁓ in my this is just my opinion talking. I had a consultation the other day with a lady. I told her straight up where I was, what I was looking for, and if if it wasn't

Joe Pici: Absolut. Absolutely.

Paul Leon: in professional alignment, that's okay. This relationship means more to me than revenue. And I felt like that conversation, although it was only fifteen minutes, led to two other consultations. And I don't know where it's gonna go, but in my experience, that tactic or frame this is just some of my scripting, I'm I'm giving away my my full house here, is I will say I care more about our relationship over revenue and I'm okay if it doesn't end up anywhere. Let's just talk this through.

Joe Pici: Right. But let's look at your wisdom and your maturity. And I mean, you you you've sold, you've managed sales, you've trained sales ⁓ for probably 25 years. You you have an MBA in understanding, leadership. But think back to where you were in the beginning. And the reason why that that word accountability kind of fried you was the person who said it didn't know what they were doing. And you saw that as a ⁓

Paul Leon: Right.

Joe Pici: pressure deal, but now as you've gotten older and wiser and more educated, you would make a magnificent manager, really even above the sales level, because you took the time. You've always been a self-studier. You've always invested in training and and studying and education. The average sales rep, and and I know this to be a fact, I don't have to look at statistics, goes to one sales training course their whole life. a salesperson on the road and the company buys ⁓ a virtual training and money. they get in their hotel room and they turn on ESP and they grab a beer and their pizza and they got the game on ⁓ on TV. And at the they know just enough to pass the test. ⁓ That's ⁓

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Joe Pici: That's why live training is always, I believe, the best. They can't really watch ESPN during live training. So I think part of it's maturity. But I think it's a lack of understanding from the manager's position on what accountability is and really to build that bridge that accountability is a partnership between the sales professional and the manager.

Paul Leon: Talk to me about time or a case study that in and I and I don't think you have to provide data. I think when you've done something for decades, in my opinion, you are the data source. That's just my opinion. So I have to bring in data, I feel, just to kind of for the audience, Joe, just to be clear. To Yeah, I I that's kind of my personality. But what I think

Joe Pici: Well, you're a data driven person. That

Paul Leon: data misses is sometimes an anchor of somebody who's been on the front lines for decades like yourself, like who has trained, I don't know, thousands thousands of people. Like those are things you can't really copy and paste as easily when you look at data from an eighty thousand foot view. In your experience, do you have a specific case study that came to mind or a specific scenario? And obviously don't name a company, don't name a person. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Pici: Yeah, I won't name the company or the gentleman, but I will tell you, I also, besides doing training, speaking, and coaching, I can also operate on a contract basis as a fractional sales manager. Well, a company ⁓ close to Tampa hired me, and they were just getting ready to fire their two outside sales reps for lack of production. And it was a cold call for me, and they said, well. We don't know if we should talk to you or not because we're getting ready to fire our our outside sales team. I said, Well, what have you done with them up to this point? And I asked some questions and found out they hadn't done anything. They hired them and sent him out there, which is traditional for a lot of companies. ⁓ And they they were selling commercial commercial products, big hoses and clamps. And I said, Well, would it be worth

Paul Leon: Right. I agree. Yeah, I say that a lot.

Joe Pici: 90-day fractional sales management for me to help them increase their volume, save because if you lose them, you gotta hire more, and there's a ramp up time. These people know your product. So we we entered into this agreement. Their quota was $25,000 a month. They were averaging. twelve thousand a month. So they were falling way short of their quota.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Fifty percent, yeah.

Joe Pici: Within thirty days, both of them exceeded forty thousand dollars. Literally, I inserted my accountability program with training and coaching. And it two people had the want-to. They were not lazy. They would work. They didn't have the how-to, and they didn't have an accountability program whereby every week, and you may have remembered this, I had a focus board with them. And the focus board measured daily KPIs. had to fill it out. ⁓ And every we'd go over it together. And just by that going ⁓ on, numbers grew. Now, when we got to 60 days and their numbers were really growing, I said, you need to sweeten the pot. What do you mean? You're not paying them well enough. lose them now that they have the skills. And they didn't believe me. And by the 85th day, both of them went to competitors. So I'm not saying you have to give more money, but what I'm saying is: ⁓ if have the right training and you have the right accountability program and you have people that want. to sell and have some self-discipline and ambition, you can absolutely reduce turnover, increase productivity, and definitely increase your bottom line.

Paul Leon: And that was the mistake that w once they invested in their skill, would you say and this might be a common thing amongst business owners, once they created that skill and they had traction, they were too comfortable to invest further in their people. Is that that's part of the problem. I'm not saying yeah, I'm just wanna hear that right. Okay.

Joe Pici: Exactly. No, that's that's a big part of the problem. The big part of the problem is they think, well, you know, this guy took a took a took a course years ago, and and you know, he should be set for life. doctors have to restudy, realtors have to re-study. I mean, there are professionals out there that every year they have to re-certify, relicense, and yet.

Paul Leon: ⁓ yeah.

Joe Pici: There's no rules that say you need to get this person you know, trained. what I like, this is not self-promoting because it's a fact. And John Wayne said, if it's a fact, it ain't lying. ⁓ Our training always for itself because when we do the live calls on day three, we book real appointments. We close real business. I was with a client one time and I said, I don't cost you any money. He goes, What do you mean? I said, What did you pay me?

Paul Leon: You can Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Pici: And well, X, what did we make today? And they look at me and go, Wow. And I said, So why wouldn't you continue this?

Paul Leon: Right.

Joe Pici: so one of the things we also do is we license our intellectual property. So a company can work us. We'll do a train to trainer with them. And we'll we'll train a couple people. In fact, we're in our boot camp in October, our sales boot camp, we got a couple people coming from Arizona that are going to take the training back to their company with a licensing program and we'll do train to trainer with them. So every time they onboard a new person, they'll have a built-in training program.

Paul Leon: I love that. And I I think when we look at the numbers just from an eighty thousand foot view, again, the average cost of onboarding training is twenty to forty That's just the fact. That's just what the numbers are saying based on this study. That's just for that alone. I feel like a program like that, a certain type of cadence is necessary to obviously invest in. I feel like at this point, if people have dialed in this far or tuned into this episode, I think they understand that. I would value from you ⁓ at this point in the Joe, is now we're at a point where some people ⁓ and I and I think part of my challenge as being a podcaster is I do have to play devil's advocate. Not to rupture the relationship, but just to challenge you on like a deeper psychological level for like that very analytical person who's like, yeah, but and like obviously there's a point where you have to kind of let people go. I don't know if that that's the right frame to say this, but I think about that example of those two guys who were really ambitious. And I've met some other people who I don't think I don't think they're bad people, but I would say that they don't have the desire to keep learning. Talk to me about the character traits needed to be successful in sales wherever they're at in their career journey.

Joe Pici: Hungry, humble, persistent. Hungry, humble, persistent. Hungry means they got a pilot light. They want more. They want to do more for their family. they want to make more for their family. Humble means they're teachable. They're willing to learn. And persistent means no doesn't knock them out of the game. You know, and it's like everybody should own a business and not everybody be in sales. It it's it's just not for everyone. And I think sometimes we believe and and I the mistake business owners make is business owners will throw money at websites and buildings and products and market and all the things. And then when it gets to end, they don't have a mechanism for sales. And I sit across the table from them and they say, we've spent all this money, even we don't have any more money to spend on sales. Would you work pro bono? And I say, absolutely not. I don't need to practice. Well, what should we do? Find the money, invest in sales. Sales for you owners out there is the only thing that makes money. I sat down with a company the other day and they were complaining about their salespeople. And I said, Well, you got two choices fix them. Or fire them. And they go, Well, what do you mean? I said, I think I'm pretty clear. Either fix them with some quality training and hold them accountable or let help them go somewhere else. don't ⁓ with this. never, ever complain about ⁓ what you're to tolerate.

Paul Leon: Yeah. Mm. Never complain with what you're willing to tolerate. And see, I feel like sometimes for me, what I value about doing this line of work, even though when I look at the podcast on a spreadsheet, it doesn't make money. I've told you this in our conversations offline. But what I get enjoyment out of this ⁓ is the to keep learning. I think that's the important thing trait to have. The reminder to do more. The reminder that a roleplay is good, but a roleplay is only as good as what you apply post role play. But I will admit to you something. I struggle with rejection. I'll be totally real with you. I in fact one of my biggest faults is dwelling. I have a bad habit of when I get rejection sometime. When ⁓ and I'm just being totally real and I don't think a lot of people Yeah. ⁓

Joe Pici: No, i it's okay. There's nothing wrong with that.

Paul Leon: And I feel, and I'll and I'll I'll tell you a story, and I'm not and this is about you, I'm I'm not flexing. So I was sending cold contacting once, and I remember I was doing a cold contact on LinkedIn, said I couldn't send it. And I thought something was wrong with LinkedIn. And it turned out I had sent this lady this beautiful proposal, everything. And this person never opened the email, ⁓ never opened the message, and for two years it just sat there. a part of me, I was mad that that happened. And I think about my emotional state at that point. I was at the kitchen table and I started I was mad, but then I started to laugh. And I said to myself, I'm not doing enough. I was just being totally real ⁓ where was by myself. I said, I'm just not doing enough. The reason I tell you that story, Joe, is because I feel The less I do, the more it hurts. your professional perspective on that? And do you th

Joe Pici: It's 100% true. It's it's it's a hundred percent true. people say to me, Joe, why do you send out so many proposals? See, I have a I'm gonna give you a secret sauce here. I just did it before we got on this podcast. It was a cold call, lady from LinkedIn. I picked up the phone, I gave her my value proposition. We went to the core story, which is our sales meeting, and at the end I said, Do you want a formal proposal? And she said yes. And I said, let me tell you how I do business. When I push send, I'm going to call you, not for a decision, but to make sure you open it. I called her and I said, Can you open it? ⁓ absolutely. Did I hit the mark? And she said, Yeah, absolutely. I said, What information do you need for me to provide for you to make a decision? She said, I need 24 hours to put the money together. Now, I do that 70 times a month. If they all said yes, I'd be a quatrillionaire.

Paul Leon: Ha ha ha.

Joe Pici: But I don't fall in love with any proposal and I don't fall in love with with prospects. I fall in love with clients which are paying me. So by doing high volume.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Joe Pici: And here's something else about rejection. By the way, nobody likes rejection. So I had to come up with a way, a scripting methodology that if they no, they weren't saying no to me. They were saying no to results, which keeps people in the game. And so, you know, I have a gentleman who We do our sales boot camp, which has been ranked the number one sales workshop in the world. He comes every six months. And people go, Why do you keep coming back? He said, Because I've been coming back for 15 years, and every year my income goes up. said, Why would I go somewhere else? And I say this to anyone out there: if you are in sales and you have found a methodology you agree with, go back. Sharpen, sharpen your sword. if you're looking for one, just call me, I'll send you some information. But find something that works and continue. You know, the greatest athletes in the world have coaches. Tom Brady, Peyton, all those great quarterbacks, they had two coaches with them at ⁓ all just for their throwing motion.

Paul Leon: Wow, just for that.

Joe Pici: Okay. They had how to eat coaches. had how to exercise coaches. These are people that are so good at their craft, but they needed coaching. But people who get into sales think, well, you know, I read a sales book once. ⁓ is like, it makes no sense.

Paul Leon: Could you share with the audience or that new person your coming of age story those key moments in your professional career that allowed you to arrive at this thinking, create this methodology and that mental toughness because I think whether it's football, whether it's sales, whether it's whatever

Joe Pici: Sure. Sure.

Paul Leon: The mental toughness aspect is something that, whether you're in business or school, is something really hard to develop. And I think if you could share some pieces of your coming of age story, it might embrace that a little more to the audience.

Joe Pici: Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, you s mentioned AI. I'm gonna give you something real quick on that. I just I just spoke to a hundred and twenty electrical contractors. They were the owners of the electrical contracting businesses. And my talk was ⁓ ⁓ in an AI world. I people that understand human behavior.

Paul Leon: Sure, go ahead.

Joe Pici: And great communications and great skills, married with knowledge of technology, will dominate. Nothing will replace interaction. Now let's get back to things that had developed my mental toughness in sales. Number one was need. We had to make sales work. Before we trained it, see, I still sell. And I believe if you're going to hire a sales coach, they better still be selling. there's great sales coaches, trainers, and authors out there that are magnificent. But you want somebody in the game, somebody on the cutting edge. What what are you hearing out there? so we had a need financially. We were $350,000 in medical debt with our backs against the wall on the foreclosure paper. And so we had to sell.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Joe Pici: Well, eventually you may get out of that, but you're either running away from the bear or running to the dream. So we're running away from the bear. You're either going to quit or you're going to start to develop a thicker skin. You're also going to know once I have the skills, then are they really rejecting me? See, rejection is one of the number one reasons why some people get out. Because no matter how good you are in sales, I don't care what they say on the internet about statistics and numbers, 80% of the people you Call the first time or not, ready, willing, or able to move forward with you. That's just the way it is. That's why you have to follow up. So just by knowing numbers, having skills. the more you do it, the more you do it, whether you're a golfer, a baseball player, it doesn't matter. The more you do it, the more not only does your mental toughness get better.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Joe Pici: Your skills get better. So here's what happens: you're getting tougher, you're getting stronger, your skills are going up, and you're getting better results because you've gotten better. When I got first in sales, I had a 3% closing ratio. That's horrible. But we fed ourselves because I ran big numbers. My closing ratio today is.

Paul Leon: Wow, three percent.

Joe Pici: Ninety percent of the people I have my sales meeting with within a year and a half do business with me. I didn't say immediately.

Paul Leon: Right, year and a half. Which is a fair time.

Joe Pici: But here's a statistic. Ninety percent of sales professionals never follow up after the first no or no answer.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Joe Pici: Just by being good in follow up, you're going to change the numbers. did I answer your question?

Paul Leon: Not only did you answer it, you actually highlighted another data point that I was gonna share with you to help you. And when you go back and listen to this post our conversation, is that the new data report shows, and this is from Hub Spot, was that two calls and an and two emails is when you start to actually see customer responses from their data. ⁓ that means is from what I interpreted the data, they saw the highest point of when a customer started to interact was after two calls, two emails, is when they finally got a response back. I'm saying that to anchor credibility into your statements, I think as a strong guide gonna save someone decades of experience around the pain of developing the skill of sales. Let me ask you a hard question.

Joe Pici: Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Paul Leon: Yeah. that I haven't done it already. And then because I have enough rapport for those who are listening, I feel I can do this with Joe. Don't yeah. ⁓ maybe not everyone's willing to do this, but I can. my my fear around the next couple of years so I had privilege this weekend to converse with one of the executive producers of The Chosen. You know, the TV show.

Joe Pici: You can ask me anything you want.

Paul Leon: And it was it it wasn't just him and I, it was like in this big group online chat on a Saturday, just to be clear. I had asked the question, what is your impact around AI? ⁓ over the next five years. And if I'm being completely honest, the answer is the typical answer that I've been hearing. AI, ⁓ if you're not there gonna get left behind, all this and and I'm not discounting what the executive producer of The Chosen said. He's a very smart man, very successful. when I was behind the computer screen, ⁓ I kinda was like, I get it. and I'm not I'm using AI, Here's my question why I gave you that weird word salad. What is your impact that you hope you have on sales leaders? when your time has come and gone, that you want to remain no matter where technology goes or flourishes to. what are you hoping your impact is ⁓ the decades of helping people?

Joe Pici: My impact, whether it's now or later, is that people see the importance in communication. They see the importance in mastering consultative. There's two kinds of sales. Transactional, get to yes and no as fast as possible. That's not us. Consultative sales, 80% of sales happens between six and fifteenth contacts. Which means you've got to master great communication. It took me 10 years to get Blue Cross, okay? Ten years to get Calwell Banker. So want to leave behind the skills, the strategies, the process, and the mindset of the importance of sales. That s ⁓ hear the sell and they they but they fry because they don't like the way they've been sold to.

Paul Leon: Ten years, wow.

Joe Pici: But a person that has great sales skills, really you don't feel like you're selling. You do know that you are solving a problem. You're delivering results. You you are effectively bringing tremendous value to your client.

Paul Leon: Do you have to be happy your career for it to win? It's kind of a weird question, but it just kinda comes to mind because in our past conversations we've discussed and peeled the onion around when we had a drive once in between meetings around the word happy. I'm just curious of your perspective on that word.

Joe Pici: Well It would be nice. It would be truly nice if if life was joy, joy, happy, happy. You understand? It would it would be wonderful. But I can tell you this. Sometimes you're not happy. And I think you bring up a really that's an MBA question. Okay, that is. Because happy doesn't factor to me. But but I think.

Paul Leon: I can Yeah. I'm with you. Yeah.

Joe Pici: Passion is more important than happiness. I mean, you have got to drive for a greater reason. So sometimes life you're not exactly you know, I remember I remember there were times in our life where our backs were flat against the wall. And I didn't feel like it that day.

Paul Leon: What do you mean by that?

Joe Pici: You know, but you know what? I got up and and and went to work and did what I was supposed to do. And I can't tell you I was happy, happy, happy. I was passionate, okay, and and I kept doing it. But here's something else I will tell you. People always talk about the dream. You gotta have this dream. Most people can't dream. Most people do not believe.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Joe Pici: They can be successful in business or sales. And I'm going to tell you one of the reasons why. Because our this is an MBA answer now. Our our self esteem and our subconscious work like this. This is what it takes to be successful. I don't do these things, I cannot have that because I'm not doing what it takes. So I'm not worthy of the accomplished goal. See the problem with AI, the major problem for Joe Pici with AI, it has taken away the process. People plug in some information, it gets spit out over here. And so there's no growth in time. People don't write their own books. don't create their own content. They don't suffer through and become. And AI is doing is it's taking away the becoming.

Paul Leon: Yeah.

Joe Pici: Why I like sales is what we become in the process. If you do it right, you become a problem solver. You become an advocate. You become a trusted advisor for people. So that gives you significance. It gives you joy. It gives you passion. But I can't tell you every day it's happy, happy, happy.

Paul Leon: I don't know why it's funny the way you said that to me. What if what is an important question we haven't discussed around sales leadership that we should discuss together?

Joe Pici: How do I know if sales is for me?

Paul Leon: Yeah, it's a good question.

Joe Pici: You don't until you give it a shot. I was a football coach. I loved coaching football. If you would have told me 40 years ago, if you would have told me that my life would be based around sales business development, I would have told you you were crazy. I thought I was going to coach football my whole life. When I got in it, ⁓ I realized I like this. This I like. Number one, I can control the game. What does it mean? If you're a 1099 or business owner, you can't get fired. But you have to produce. It's a level playing field. That's why I liked it. So you'll know about sales if you give it a shot, but don't give it a day or a week. Give it a shot. And then you'll know.