I got a chance to sit down with Joe Pici and talk about how to land huge deals over the phone.
For 30 years Joe Pici and Pici &Pici Inc have offered a results-driven methodology with proven ROI covering the complete sales cycle. This unique program significantly improves closing ratios increasing sales, empowers communication, increases saves and first call retentions, improves customer satisfaction, enhances team efficiency, reduces turnover, and creates focus and direction for ongoing growth with maximum productivity.
Umar Hameed 0:00
Hello, everyone. Today I’ve got the privilege of having Joe peachy. He’s an expert at landing appointments and making sales. And I’m so excited to talk with him. Joe, welcome to the program.
Joe Pici 0:12
It’s an honor, it’s great to know you.
Umar Hameed 0:14
So the thing I’m most intrigued about, like the subject matter itself, but tell me about how you became a global guru, the top 30 in the entire 8 billion people. Tell me about that.
Joe Pici 0:25
Well, it’s, well, quite frankly, we don’t know. Three years ago, I was speaking for the National Football League on how to help athletes transition out in Las Vegas. I’m on my computer and he said, Congratulations, you’ve made it to the top 30 of global gurus, as in the top 30 for sales training and speaking, so I thought it was bogus. All right. I told my wife I said this is like when our kids were coming through school, and they want you to pay $500 to get them on the National Honor Society.
Umar Hameed 0:59
Yes, she
Joe Pici 1:00
Check it out and she said, Joe, this is for real. These are the elite. Well, this last concert. Then last year was number three and then this year, I got ranked number one in the world, a sales trainer and our star training program. Our rapport mastery sales training program has been ranked number one in the world.
Umar Hameed 1:24
That is brilliant. So let’s dig first. Congratulations. Thank you too. Let’s dig down deeper into this because I think I was doing a presentation to about 140 sales managers and I asked them okay, this is the sales process plus and minus get the appointment, do the presentation, handle objections, close the deal and deepen into the account to get referrals they went okay plus minus, that’s what it is.
Where do your people struggle the most two things tight the top place number one was landing the appointment. And I said okay, how much revenue is left on the table. If people think Can’t get enough appointments.
They said 50% the other runner up the tight for was closing the deal. And of course, that adds 50%. But if you can get enough appointments, it’s called being unemployed. So I could talk about that. How do you get people to pick up the phone and make those calls? What does that process look like?
Joe Pici 2:22
What you do more, it’s so much harder than what I do. Because you have to work between your ears. Yes, you’re changing a culture, you’re changing a mindset. Whereas what I decided to do years ago was if I could improve skills, yes, and get traction right away, then I could prove to that person that company that I was worth, it was worth keeping me around.
All right to fix things long term. So when we put together our training, we knew that you had to generate leads, we have 21 ways we generate leads. Okay, then you had to be able to take those leads and convert them to appointments. Hmm. Well, when we studied sales, we realized the single biggest challenge was a person picking up the phone and getting a qualified appointment. I didn’t say an appointment, but a qualified appointment.
Umar Hameed 3:24
By the way, Joe, this is no joke I’ve used in the past, but I’m gonna bring it up again. How do you get a salesperson to shut up? I don’t know. Hand him a phone.
Joe Pici 3:34
Can I steal it? Absolutely. Yeah. So we decided Okay, the next one is doing consultative presentations and in the proposal in the closing all that. But what we knew that your big challenge was, their messaging was not good. Or lead generation was not good. So what we decided to do is really focus on How to create value propositions.
And then, in the world of sales, many people sell from charisma in talent, which I have neither. So I had, that I had built a sales process out of processes, communications and skills. And see I could teach anybody that I can’t teach everybody what you teach.
Umar Hameed 4:26
And I think what’s true is that we are all we all suck at something. And we’re all good at something. And but I think your piece of the sales puzzle is vitally important.
So let’s talk about that. You were telling me that you did a boot camp recently with 20 people in that camp. So walk me through the opening of the day where people are like, I want to get good at this, but I really don’t want to do this. So walk me through that initial court lesson.
Joe Pici 5:01
few components get to different types of training you have if you go into a corporation where they have to be there, yes. And then when people come into our boot camp, they’re paying their own way. So they’re volunteer. So automatically that changes the game. But everybody who walks in that room usually has some challenge with making calls. So we don’t walk right up to the phone.
We don’t hand them scripts. It’s a three day intensive, whereby we handle communication styles. Yes. But then we really get into messaging. What do you say to a gatekeeper What do you say to get a return phone call? What but we don’t just hand them a script, we we really drill down and get to the core of their business, the benefits they deliver. So then on date, and then we do big thing on lead generation because here’s the thing I will tell you once a salesperson masters the phone, Now they have a real problem.
They got it. They gotta get leads. Yes. All right, because if you’re really making outbound calls, you’re going to go through a lot of names. Yes. Well, on day three, everybody, and I only allow 20 people in his Bootcamp, everybody is calling people they’ve never called before. Okay, b2b as well as B to C. And we never have ranked under 72% conversion to appointment.
We always are over 90% getting through the gatekeeper. The other thing is, we do that in the morning and that afternoon, we’ll get 6070 return phone calls. So it’s just like anything else, if it’s what you focus on. And look, I’m not afraid of the phone. I’m good on the phone. The key is can I translate to the other person and can they get mastery getting a point So
Umar Hameed 7:00
Joe, give me an example. I mean, has been this boot camp and another one. Tell me about a specific person, you can change their name to protect the innocent. But tell me about somebody that came in that wanted to learn was not sure they could and how you walk that individual through the process. So by day three, you’re getting a breeze out.
Joe Pici 7:20
Many, many years ago, I had a guy come to our boot camp, who was big time. He had a big construction company. Yes, he had been to Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes. He has spent $200,000 in two years on personal growth. He comes to our boot camp. He had never been trained on making outbound calls.
Most of his business was referrals. Well he hit a home run he he got some great stuff. Well, years pass, and I get a phone call from him one day. He says I’m sending my administrative assistant to your boot camp. Here’s what I want her to be able to do. He had to taken his methodology and packaged it into a licensing form for water intrusion for high rises. Yes. So he wanted her to book appointments with CEOs of construction companies, and he wanted also heard to sell seats to his licensing program.
Now, I don’t mean to be demeaning. But this was a 72 year old grandmother that five weeks before was working at a bakery. She had never as much sold a Girl Scout cookie. But in bakery she was had a lot of dough there. But anyway, yeah, that’s good. So she walks in, and honestly, I didn’t even know who she was. I had never seen her. Mm hmm. And she was like a 72 year old grandmother it me, you know, we and she walks in and I almost said something stupid, which I’m really capable of doing.
Okay. Well, I had an NFL player in the room with his wife. And they were really big into apartment complexes in Houston. And he looked at me, he goes, you’re stealing money. How could you sell her a ticket? How could you?
Joe Pici 9:10
I said, I didn’t sell her a ticket her boss center. I said, but I’ll tell you what, if she doesn’t book appointments on day three, I’ll refund your money.
So she went, Okay, hold that.
Umar Hameed 9:21
Hold that. There. Now that is you walking your talk. You’re telling this NFL player if she doesn’t book appointments, right, I’m gonna refund you your money, right, which is freakin amazing. So just because, you know,
Joe Pici 9:33
you said something to me earlier today that really resonated. You said where you guys are all like you stand in the middle of a room and you make calls? No, that’s not what the key is. The key is can I get them on the phone, can they? So that’s the only thing that counts. We go through the training. The first day, she’s scared to death. Right?
He also if you understand the communication styles, and I know you do, you’re welcome. Read and I know I know what you do. So you understand communication styles. She is slow paced people oriented, very shy. Day two we dig into the market we get to scripting. We dig we dig with day three, I spread all the tables out. So it doesn’t sound like a call center.
Right hotel allows me use the lobby, I spread people out by put her in the corner, and I walked up to her and I said, Mary, you’re really going to be a good very good at this today. She goes, I’ve never done this. I’m scared to death. I said, Mary. Focus on the process. just execute the process, you win. by dialing and executing the process.
All I want you to do is read the script. And I said let me tell you something. I’m really good at this and I’m not gonna let you fail. Well, she goes over in her little corner and NFL guy and his wife before they get on the phone.
They’re just watching her and her wife me and her watching her. She booked 10 appointments, and she sold 10 seats. And each time she would do it, she would go like this. Oh my gosh, I’m so afraid. Right? Yeah. Because here’s the key to that. It’s not what’s special about Joe. It’s what’s special about the process? Yes. processes, communications and skills can be taught and they can be learned. So
Umar Hameed 11:29
let me pause you there. A I agree with you, Joe. Pick any 100 corporations, small ones, big ones, little ones. And they all know about process. But I’d be shocked if 10% of them actually have a process that’s being
Joe Pici 11:46
used. You’re exactly right. No, you’re right.
Umar Hameed 11:51
And that’s one of the reasons they don’t succeed at the level they should so so. Do you customize the process for each individual person or the message Teaching is different, but the process is the same.
Joe Pici 12:03
The process is always the same. Nice. It’s what it says I met teaching. It’s the value proposition. It’s maybe the way they write a proposal. But sales is very simple. It’s where are you getting your prospect leads from? Yes. How are we? How are you getting them to the table? You know, right now everything is virtual. I’ve been selling virtually for 30 years. Right.
85% of my clients don’t come from Orlando,
Umar Hameed 12:37
by the way, I’ve been virtually selling for 30 years. Yeah, please.
Joe Pici 12:43
So, the whole idea is that the process of virtual selling in the process of face to face selling is the same. The only difference is, you sit with them or, uh, you know, before zoom was popular. I closed our biggest contracts over the phone.
Umar Hameed 13:04
So let’s pause there just for a moment. So let’s go back to Mary. So Mary has been there, but she’s scared to death. She’s gone. Two days. She’s ready for the third day. She has no lead generation because basically Rosie had to bring names with her. Ah, he’s
Joe Pici 13:20
wishing well he provided the list because he knew the construction companies he wanted to go after.
Umar Hameed 13:28
Brilliant so whenever a cold list they will so good so she gets this cold list. She’s basically dialing for dollars. And so walk me through the process like let’s say she got to the gatekeeper.
Joe Pici 13:44
Let me call you. Let me just say I call you first before getting through the gatekeeper is the game but if I call you
and you get through to me, I ring ring ring ring answer the phone.
Umar Hameed 13:56
Hello
Joe Pici 13:58
Umar. This is Joe peachy of peace. peachy just good time, I guess. Okay, um, let me tell you why called I specialize in helping speakers, trainers and consultants. Take your talent and intellectual property and make money with it.
Umar Hameed 14:14
That sounds interesting.
Joe Pici 14:16
Would it be worth 15 minutes me to show you how you could monetize your talent? Say No, no, say no.
Umar Hameed 14:22
No, of course not. No. Next.
Joe Pici 14:26
My closing ratio is 92%. Right? Why? Because only people that sit down with Joe are people that it’s their idea. So when I said to Mary, Mary, you don’t have to overcome an objection. You don’t have to talk people into the meeting. Right? We’re fishing. You’re not hunting. Mm hmm. He said you mean no is okay. No is okay.
Unknown Speaker 14:51
That took a lot of pressure off
Joe Pici 14:53
of the pressure was off if you had I said and you’re not a failure. So we create We spend on day two, we spend six hours on digging into their target market or value propositions or scripting their, their uniqueness. By the time they get done with that they have a whole new understanding of who they are, who they’re going after and what they deliver.
Unknown Speaker 15:21
So,
Umar Hameed 15:23
so, Joe, what a lot of people do is, this is my company, and we have the best product, we have the best service and this is what’s important to me. And this is what a thing does.
And they talk very much about themselves, or the value they see from their point of view. And it sounds like like when you were talking to me, I’m a speaker, I’m an author, I’m a consultant. The way you pitched it to me it was as if you were in my mind knowing this is top of mind for me.
So how do you get people to really think of their offering from the customer’s point of view so when they actually have that Conversation people go. Yeah, I want to talk to you.
Joe Pici 16:03
Because it’s got to be from the clients point of view 100%. But how do you teach that? Well, first of all, we teach them to understand their client. Right? What is it that their client probably wants most? So for example, if you were an insurance agent, I specialize in helping insurance agents attract and retain quality clients.
Now, if you don’t want that you don’t want me. Right. All right. So, I mean, this is this is so simple that people say it won’t work. You got to talk a lot. It’s the same thing when I do a sales meeting.
85% of the sales meeting, is the client talking not me.
It should be
Umar Hameed 16:44
what it is, but for other people it should be.
Joe Pici 16:47
And so the thing you’re saying is we all agree on this is that what’s common sense is not common sense. Most sales people think I’m going to get a 52 Deck slide presentation. I’m going to go in there and run the deck. And it’s going to be all about our company, our products and very little about you. And the people are polite. And thank you very much. And yeah, we’ll take a proposal and then nothing happens.
Umar Hameed 17:15
Yeah, I think I’m not sure who said it might have been. Mark Twain will say it’s Mark Twain. Common sense is the least common sense of all.
Unknown Speaker 17:21
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Umar Hameed 17:23
So, Joe, you’ve got a proven process. How long have you been doing this?
Joe Pici 17:29
Oh, my gosh, I started selling in 1992. But here’s the other thing I don’t when Don and I opened up teaching PG as a training company. Because we should do keynoting all over the world, right? We said we would never speak or train or coach on anything we don’t do.
Unknown Speaker 17:52
Make sense.
Joe Pici 17:53
So, whatever we do is what we train what we coach on Makes sense. So first I had to learn how to sell. The problem was when I got into selling, everybody was doing more motivational stuff. It was all mindset and motivation and, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
But eventually, somebody’s got to make money. And I don’t care. I don’t care how motivated I am. If I can’t pick up the phone to get an appointment, I’ll get really motivated fast. So we looked at that we said, okay, we learned how to sell I was terrible on the phone. I said, if this is so hard, let’s get great at this. Right.
And so once I mastered selling, then we had a big gulf of, oh my gosh, we need more leads. So we started really working on multiple ways to generate leads He said 21 I think earlier, yeah, LinkedIn creates our highest our best client leads.
And so walk me through that because a lot of people love LinkedIn but don’t know how to use it. Okay, I’m not being evasive, but I’m telling you right now. I can’t, I can’t walk you through how to use it on a podcast, I can tell you this. 99% of the people using LinkedIn are either using it like a commercial to try inbound more, they’re selling through you.
They want to sell through LinkedIn by writing new stuff. Right? Here’s the secret. My wife created a system for us on how to make it an outbound lead generator. I get them off the I get them offline as fast as possible and I use my phone skills.
Umar Hameed 19:53
Nice.
Joe Pici 19:54
So that’s our biggest clients have come from generating a lead on LinkedIn in me picking up the phone and going to work.
Umar Hameed 20:03
Brilliant. Joe, one of the things we chatted about is that you have a course coming up that people can actually attend for free to figure out how you do what you do. Tell me, tell us about them.
Joe Pici 20:17
Right? It’s coming Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 20. It’s a very short window here, the 2627 2930 it’s 15 minutes a day on demand. It’s webinar training. Okay. And so for people to get to that, all they have to do is take out their phone and type the word sales edge, one word sales edge, texted 25567855678. And
Umar Hameed 20:44
we’re gonna put that in the show notes. So people can just go click on it and when I release the show,
Joe Pici 20:48
and then it’ll go to a link, go to a splash page, scroll down, it’ll actually have free five day webinars only 15 minutes a day. It’s on how to recap loss revenue through virtual selling.
Umar Hameed 21:03
I love it. Joe. Joe, it was a pleasure chatting with you. You’re a master at your craft, and I’m looking forward to our next conversation.
Joe Pici 21:11
Well, let’s stay in touch. And if you need anything from you just call me.
Umar Hameed 21:17
Thanks Joe.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
