Ep. 259 SHOP TALK INTERVIEW – Joseph Roy Miller

Develop a Winning Sales Process” SHOP TALK INTERVIEW with long time, top sales performer Joseph Roy Miller. He outlines the winning sales processes that lead him to six & seven figure sales deals and dives into how you can apply them to your business.

Voice over:

Get ready for an unfair advantage over your competition. This is The Sales Edge podcast. Where globally recognized sales expert and trainer Joe Pici helps you sharpen your skills for booking more appointments and closing more deals. And now here’s your host Joe Pici.

Joe Pici (JP):

I got another special feature. I’ve got a stage with me. We call, you know, it’s one of those guys that have been in the trenches selling. This is shop, talk. This is the special feature when to Two old guys. Grab a cup of coffee. Talk shop about sales. You’re gonna love this. I’ll before I bring Joe on. Let me just welcome you to the sales edged. This is podcast. Number 259. Thank you for keeping us on the air and our sponsors. We want to thank them is Pici and Pici inc.-speaking coaching training consulting company right now. We’re specializing recapturing. Lost revenue for our clients. Getting in front of your target market. Closing more deals negotiating for higher Arches and sell more virtually.com. That’s our membership platform. I’m out there, every Thursday night. I’m doing live coaching live training. We got e-courses. We have downloads. We have a special feature coming out about a week, which is a 14 course, 53 module sales, training on demand. But before we do that, I want to thank you. Thank you for being loyal. Thank you for helping expand over a hundred countries, tremendous amount of down. Loads and we appreciate that. Now for the main event, you know, I got Joe Miller here and this guy I call him a salty, dog. He has been hitting this thing for what over 30 years in sales and Sales Management. Joe, Would you please share with this audience who you are? And how you got into the sales game?

Joseph Roy Miller (JM):

I’m just a simple guy from a little town outside of New Orleans grew up in a working-class family. He was kind enough to put me in college at LSU and I got out of college. I actually thought I was going to be a doctor. I think I’m still smart enough to do it, but I didn’t have the self-discipline. I found beer and girls and those did not work for good discipline and study. So how is I’ll be honest with you. I was pretty depressed after school. I didn’t know what to do. So I know I have all these courses about chemistry and all my stuff. If and it was my very good for my college roommate. Actually Hugh got a got a job with door, cell batteries back in the day. Okay, and he had a company car, and he had an expense account. He was traveling. I was like, this is pretty cool with it. When I was actually working in a medical lab at the time, clue going to school at the University of New Orleans doing some extra coursework. And then I just kind of opened my mind to you know, certainly sales wasn’t the first thing that ever came to my mind as a Endeavor. And but then I saw people, I know that we’re working, that left the lab and then became salespeople for medical companies as like they were making really good money. Like if those guys can do that. Yeah. I think I can do it and then I was just fortunate to get the first gig in a little Dermatology company. And that was, I never looked back after that. Now, I will say I’ve had some, you know, along the way I’ve had. Ali to Fantastic mentors, that that I owe a lot of debt to it. Is, they took me under their wing and they helped me out a lot. So, it’s all I got here Ben and I was looking at products that sold in the hospital to get, sold the bus everything at some point in time. Yeah, from bandages, all the way to MRI scanner. So I was growing up and everything in between.

(JP):

All right. So now you’re asked in to a group of young salespeople. First I’d have to sell and one of the things that I know is your fastball and I’d like you to expound on this, your you’re teaching, these people, the value of it. Share with these people, the importance, and how you follow up.

(JM):

Well, I got a lot of gray hair. So I do some things that are different than the average person. It’s very easy today, to send an email. If you’re even lucky to get that. I see a lot of lot of lot of salespeople. That’s happened. Don’t follow up the zero and that’s unfortunate. I had a mother. However, that was a crazy person for. Thank you notes. Oh, and she would have me write those notes and

In high school, I had Crane stationary they had Joseph are Miller on the top of it and it was all embossed and print and he would have me write that the discipline of doing that for anything, anything anyone ever did for me and that still holds true today. That’s a, it’s a habit, I got into and it’s just fantastic. It’s the most perfect. I’ve gotten sure got one right here. I got a certain all over the place. I have these cards everywhere. This this one happens to be a particular. Author on his computer. Is a painter that I like he’s caged and I’m actually from Louisiana. So. But I mean there’s a there’s a thousand ways to do it. You can use just a regular piece of paper. It’s more the thought of that that you did it and in today’s today’s world everything, you know, text messages or video quick video. It just it just gives you that extra Edge. Not only do I do it using for follow-up. I use it to hunt down business to, you know, if I have it.

Twenty five or top 100 clients. They’re getting those and they’re getting one is a cake. It’s like you would in the email. Came you doing the same thing with with? Thank you notes. I wrote these notes and it doesn’t have to become, tell me. It could be given some, it can be watching somebody on LinkedIn and saying are they had a baby or you know something personal it doesn’t have to be. I’m trying to sell you something every time but that note you want to talk about something that you know, it’s going to get opened. It’s got to be, you know, I’ve never tracked it all though. It’s something I price do. It’s got to be in the high, 80 percentile, or pull-up or more.

(JP):

Well, I can tell you this. I got mine from you yesterday, and two things went through my mind because I am so diligent on follow-up. I mean, I’ve gotten massive contracts because I always follow up, but what about it for me was number one. It’s the first thing I got opened. Okay, even though it didn’t look like a bill even though it was small. I know it was personal but the second thing is it told me Joe. Why did you stop doing this? I mean, I’m good. I’m good. People come all over the world for my training and I’m thinking, Joe, I used to, I used to do this. So you kicked my butt and you helped Joe PC. Say, look, I’m getting back into those handwritten notes. So I thank you for that. Is he any other things you do for follow-up?

(JM):

Well, I can tell you, I tell you what, let me give you this a little caveat on that, to make it more modern. Well, that was I do also is I will write the

Thank you note. I’ll write it out. Then. I’ll record a video of it. Just me and just not my, not my face because nobody wants to see that, but they are not. I’ll just just a ship shortly. Okay, shut in the top down video on of me, actually reading the card. And then I’ll send that via LinkedIn. Why is hugely effect? I got your video yesterday. Now we’re done that. Now, that was a system. That was just, that was great. That was just, you know, getting ready for today and it was awesome. And those touch points are powerful and if you people are listening, this doesn’t cost you a lot of money, but I’m going to tell you something. It’s so powerful, any more secrets on follow-up. Yeah, there’s I don’t think there’s any secret, really? You just got to do it and you know, when you’re doing it, right, you know, when you have to follow up and get down to it and it becomes a habit. Just like every other piece of sales is a habit. It’s a habit to follow up and you know, is it is it more important to get new clients or a follow-up on Owens? I don’t know. I just know it. I’ve got a lot of business from using a pen and a piece of paper.

(JP):

Yeah, well I got another question for you, buddy. You talk about companies that are going to sink or swim on whether or not they trained. Can you expound on that?

(JM):

I’ve seen this over the course of my career when I first started, it was coming that when I really got really serious in the medical business. I work for a company called, Derringer Manheim was a German company. They sold out there now Roche, but I’m thinking about the training that I had back then and of all things.

I was selling out, so I had this background. Science and they made me the urinalysis specialist. That was my da guy was selling your analysis strips for Laboratories. And that was two weeks of training. Okay, just for that one, simple product, but it wasn’t just, you know, how is my product different than your product? It was actual selling and it was the things. I know you talked about which is training and Drilling and doing it over and over and over again, just like when you were afoot, Ball coach Hank, no directly. You got to do the training, the training. I see that. How we think your business should be just go. I don’t know what is going off the charts because companies don’t they just don’t do it. They I see young guys that are out there who are probably really, really good. Profession could be really great. Professional salespeople.

Get hung up because they don’t have the training and they just stick them on a phone and give him nothing and say go get it. Well, you gotta train. Yeah, that’s why there’s a 92% Fallout rate in outbound sales. Oh, I didn’t know. Is that he asked? If it’s that high back to your follow-up, ninety percent of sales professionals, Never follow up after the first call or no, answer. How about that one? That’s good news for me. Yeah.

(JP):

I know, you know, that fortune is in the follow ups. Okay. So here’s another one. I will throw you a slider. Okay, you know, you’ve built sales teams. You’ve been sales manager. Give me three or four of the most important skills, a sales professional needs to master today.

(JM):

You know, I’m thinking about one of my mentors, his name is Rod Cold War and the, I worked with you sighs. I still call it. Daddy. He’s supposed to like clothes. This is going to sound really simple because it really is simple. It kind of goes up to the follow-up thing. Number one, be on time. There you go. Just beyond time. And I mean it’s the same thing with phone calls first, as I was working with a guy on a mortgage couple weeks ago, as like, we had a set time just like you. And I had a time today to meet and it was I think it was 8:30. Any calls me at eight o’clock. He says can you talk and is like a time? Is it 8:30? I got other stuff going on. It works both ways. Surely, you can be super early at 8 o’clock, or you can be late at, you know, at 8:35, right? Beside, you know, this and a lot of this goes back to my I’m going to tell you goes back to my mom because she was a just a stickler for being on time. That sounds simple.

It is I the other one is being prepared. Just, I see a lot of once again, this comes back to training. I was trained before you go into a call. If you’re sitting in a car, if you, if you were doing that back then you how can be on a zoom call. Take a few minutes ahead of time to plan, what you’re going to think. Now. I know what you’re going to say. You may have just gotten off another Zoom call and you roll it right into the next one. Take some time. Think about what you’re doing. Think about the person on the other side, what they need, what they want before you just run into it. Yeah, I think any other one. Being if you’re not getting trained and believe me, this is not just because you’re here, Jose is the truth. If you’re not getting training from where from your company.

Get some, it’s worth. It’s worth every penny. I’m 60 years old. I’m coming to your event. To get training to get you get better. You just never it never ends. It never ends and I’m older than you, and I’m still in the hunt for getting better, learning North new things and learning better ways. There’s a fundamental things that you’re talking about that when you say it’s simple, I can tell you because I’m out in companies and within the individuals every day, in those fundamental things that you and I cut our teeth on.

Don’t exist. I think you’re right. I mean, I don’t I don’t see as many companies as you do because I work for one time in that company most the time so but I don’t, I don’t other sales people. I interact with, I don’t see it. I don’t see the very Basics and that’s unfortunate because That never changes those things. Those skills are evergreen. They never go away.

(JP):

Never, I was watching a video the other day of a guy who does a lot of training. Is it really good? He’s a Grizzly, good trainer in the car industry. And so he sending a, they’re showing him getting ready to train all these cars salesman and I got my pen out. I’m going. Hey, this is going to be good. Just I know he’s good. He goes. Let me just tell you the number one thing you need to do stop chewing gum when you talk to a client.

Okay, put your phone away. Do we don’t have any say things like that? Yes, we do. Yeah, the fundamentalist. It’s fun to dance.

(JM):

Exactly was about is exactly what I was going to use its the fundamentals. It’s blocking and tackling for football coach, right? It’s the same stuff over and over again.

(JP):

What was the biggest challenge or thing in the beginning of your sales career? What would you say was the hardest thing for you to learn and In master to be successful?

(JM):

I was scared as hell. I was just scared. I was scared. I was, you know how people don’t believe this but I’m very introverted. It looks like I’m extroverted when I’m out meeting people, but I don’t want to do that all the time. And I, when I was really young, when I first came out of school and I had a pharmaceutical sales job and back in the day. You would just literally sit in front of a doctor and you would hold a card up in you go, die.

I’m here today to talk to you about boom. Boom. Boom. Try to get all three of them in that was it? And I was scared out of my mind because, you know, this is something I learned much later in life. Unfortunately, is that I cared more about what they thought of me that I thought about myself. Would you repeat that, please. I cared more about what they thought of me that I thought of my own self. Right? And that’s that was the. It took me decades overcome. They even realize what I was doing.

Yeah, I still, I mean, I have I was forced into it because I had to make a living. So I got better and better and better at. And then, I started to feel really comfortable, right? But then, when I jumped from that, to Big Capital Equipment Sales, multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars in Radiology. That was a different game, right? And it took me a long time and I had a great mentor who stuck with me because he could have fired me in. Probably sure. They are quite frankly. I was trying hard the first six months I couldn’t I couldn’t get out of my own way, but he stuck with me. Thank God. That’s the other thing to today. And I just to get back to that. They don’t people will don’t hang around long enough to be successful. Sometimes. It doesn’t always happen in the first day as Frank, you know, but I had, I had a mentor. I stuck with me. Don mud on, dude. I know you’re in heaven, man, because you did so much for me, you so much for a lot of people here is, he was A stick and he taught me that business. I, you know, it was a different game because you were dealing with keep Financial Officer of hospitals. How do you speak that language? We write, how do you talk to them? And then if you had multiple people, you’re dealing with the radiologist you’re dealing with them and the manager of that department. It was a lot going on. I I learned to eventually juggle all that and get really, really good at it and, and consequently made a lot of money out of it. So, I don’t know how I got off on that tangent, but nobody,

(JP):

That’s what I wanted because I the thing that you said that is so true. As most people quit on this side of success. I had a friend who was the head of marketing department of Valdosta State. He used to say success is on the other side of splat, you know, the strip and most people I know when I got started. I remember the first night I got on the phone. I got 50 notes. In a row. And I looked at dawn, I said there’s two problems here. I’m calling the wrong people, and I don’t know what to say. Yeah, and that’s today, believe it or not. That was in 1992. That’s the day. I realized scripting and messaging, and the right thing to say, was key on the phone.

(JM):

Yep, but you only got there because you had 50 consecutive no’s.

(JP):

Yeah, it was hard.

(JM):

It’s funny. I’m Sub sub Sydney. I don’t need to ramble, but I was just sitting here thinking about that job. It was a, it was a French company called sofa Medical Systems and we sold nuclear medicine, gamma cameras, big Radiology, gear and I had lost d-lab to deal and then we lose one of these deals you don’t get to go back tomorrow and try to sell them. Something know you’re out for five years. Yep. That was our expression. If you’re it’s okay. If you lose this deal you get five years to think about it because that’s that was true. I mean But I remember there was one deal specifically. I was working at like crazy. I was literally that I drove, I drove a territory, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. And when I was coming back, things in Tuscaloosa, and when I would come back from Birmingham, I would stop in there. And see the radiologist if he was on a 12 o’clock at night. I would go in there and see him and that made a lot of the difference. But it literally was that that deal was hanging by a thread. It was I can almost tell you the exact number was over. Dollars in business. Wow. Yeah, it was it was a big deal and it was literally the thread. I always hang it on to keep my job. Yeah, and I remembered on the guy I’m telling you about he when he says I’m going to go make a personal call because it was a big deal, and I’m going to make a personal call in. And I remember Joe. I remember was like, it was yesterday. He called this is about right about your time, about 91 ish. He called me in my hotel room because we didn’t have cell phones. Huh, and he told me, we’re going to get the deal and literally Joe. I bawled I cried like I had worked so hard the lot of money. It was tough. But it was the Breakthrough. Yeah, there was that one thing that like you’re 50 phone calls. It was that breakthrough for me. That got to kind of Set It Off from there. Well, well, let’s do this.

(JP):

We’re going to move you over to sell more virtually, but first Joe, will you tell this audience how they could connect with you if they want to have a conversation?

(JM):

You want to have a conversation with me? I’ll give you my phone number. 713-7035574. repeat that one more time, seven and 1370 3557 for you can catch me on LinkedIn to at Joseph, Roy Miller, Roy Joseph, Roy Miller, and I’m there most days.

(JP):

Good. Well team. This has been great. It’s I just love talking to people that are still in the hunt, but I’ve been doing it awhile. And so this has been super, but take out your phone. I’ve got, I got some free stuff for you and put the word. Add sales edged in your text box, one word and send it to five, five, six. Seven, eight, that’s going to take you to Pici and Pici link that will take you to a splash page, tremendous amount of e-courses and ebooks and links to our podcast. But right now, we’d like you to hit that link to sell more virtually.com., Consider becoming a member every Thursday night. We get to talk Shop with a group training or coaching. And this ecourse is getting ready to launch. So, thank you So much Joe, thank you so much team. If this is here for you, like it, share it. Write a comment on it and we will move Joe over to sell more Virtually

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Thanks for listening. New episodes will air each Tuesday and Thursday. So make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and give us a five star review. The Sales Edge is sponsored by Pici and Pici Incorporated. A firm which provides training, consulting, and keynote presentations. Empowering corporations and individuals to attract and retain quality clients, for higher revenues and growth. Make more money in sales, speak with Joe in person by calling 407 947 2590 or visit www.piciandpici.com