"Of all aspects of business the one you have the most control over is sales. At the end of the day, I have the freedom of knowing in that index finger I'm going to dial x amount of times to get to x amount of meetings to get to X amount of core stories or sales meetings, to get the X amount of proposals to get x amount of contracts. I’m in control, there lies freedom." — Joe Pici, Pici & Pici
This episode is brought to you by the Rapport Mastery Complete Virtual Sales System. Click here to get over 60% off this course, designed to help you book more appointments, close more deals, and recover lost revenues.
Curt Mercadante interviews Joe Pici, ranked by Global Gurus as the #3 sales trainer in the world, about Joe’s new Rapport Mastery Virtual Sales System, which packs Joe’s years of experience into a virtual sales training course to help you attract more clients, book more appointments, and close more deals.
Curt and Joe also discuss lessons learned from Joe’s years as a football coach and Amway business owner, why stories attract but don’t sell, and the importance of shifting your beliefs to be successful in sales.
Since 1992, Joe has functioned as a catalyst for sales teams and individuals, helping them sharpen their skills for creating appointments and closing sales through his live phone call workshops. Rapport Mastery™ sales training, a methodology exclusive to Pici & Pici Inc., is an extremely strong skill builder which is straightforward and easy to apply.
COO and co-founder of Pici & Pici Inc., Joe is also co-author and intellectual resource behind the books Sell Naked on the Phone and Sell Naked in Person. Joe has expanded his knowledge and coaching expertise into a comprehensive, turnkey system for success in sales. The Rapport Mastery™ for Sales is relentlessly on-target, packed with the culmination of his years of experience.
FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE:
Curt Mercadante:
Hey there, freedom lovers. This is the Freedom Media Network. I'm your very grateful host, Curt Mercadante, and I'm grateful that you have chosen to spend even a small snippet of your life with me and our wonderful guest here today. Now, today's episode is brought to you by, and you've heard this before from our last several episodes, the Rapport Mastery Virtual Sales System. If you want to sell more, sell better, attract the right clients, book more appointments, close more deals, and recover lost revenue, go find the link wherever you're listening to this podcast, watching the video in the show notes. There is a link, you get money off. I'm actually giving you money. I think it's about 60% off. Click the link and learn more.
Curt Mercadante:
And guess what? If you're wondering what the heck is this all about? You're going to learn more in today's episode because we have with you the host of that sale system, Joe Pici. He's been on our show before. By the way, it's not Joe Pesci. It's Joe Pici, which by the way, just as exciting, and he's another like me, height challenged Italian from the Northeast. So, you're getting all the benefits here. But Joe is my mentor. He's one of our Freedom partners. Joe teaches me how to sell. He teaches a lot of people how to sell.
Curt Mercadante:
You've probably seen a lot in social media people touting their global gurus ranking. Well, Joe, I think it's five years in a row he has been in the top 30. He's ranked number three this year. He's been ranked number one without spending a dime, a dime of money on marketing to promote himself. And the reason he's there is because his system just plain works. I've been to his boot camps. He packs them. He has business owners from every walk of life, all across the country, sometimes the world. He teaches them how to sell and they respond by giving him that ranking because it works. Without further ado, I'm going to quit pumping. Oh, he's going to get a big head here. Joe Pici, welcome to the Freedom Media Network.
Joe Pici:
Hey, Curt. So good to be with you, man. I wish we lived closer but our wives probably glad we don't.
Curt Mercadante:
We get in a lot of trouble, you know?
Joe Pici:
Yeah, I know that.
Curt Mercadante:
Well, Joe, I really appreciate you coming on the show and you've been on the show before. And like I said, I don't throw these things out. But since working with you, I've had the most consistent months over the past several years that I've ever had in business. And that includes when I had a seven-figure agency, because there were ups and their downs, and there were one of the things you helped me with is, it's a line I think I've used on this podcast, I share with my clients, I give you credit. And it's spiritual, and I don't even think you realize it is. But you remind me all the time, wake up and stay dumb and excited.
Joe Pici:
Yeah.
Curt Mercadante:
And I remind people, I was talking about one of our common clients that I said, Joe think doesn't think he's spiritual, but it is. I said, if you look at the gospel, you look at Buddha, you look at Lao Tzu, you look at all this stuff. One of the things they say is be childlike. And the reason that is, is because children wake up and they don't give a darn. They don't know what's going on. They're dumb and excited. And we create our own blockages because we wake up and we doubt ourselves, and we think, and we're anxious where the next client is coming from. So, that one line, I wake up and I actually write it down every morning, stay dumb and excited. I had one client say, "Are you calling me dumb?" I was like, "No, but I'm urging you to be more dumb." So Joe, thanks for coming on the show.
Joe Pici:
Hey, my pleasure. And you intelligent, talented people, I feel sorry for. Because you have so much going on in your head. I mean, from the time I met you, I thought, "This guy is a wealth of information." And that's a good thing. I guess all I do for my clients is help them cut through all of that and help them understand when it comes to marketing, when it comes to branding, when it comes to so many things that you are skilled with and have such a great methodology. When it comes to sales, it's a different animal. It's processes, messaging skills, and in repetition, doing it over and over and over and over and over again, so you get great at it. But not to hunt and not to convince but really to find buyers.
Curt Mercadante:
Right now, as we record this, and for the past several years, and really if you actually pay attention, it's always this way. But the world seems to be on fire, a lot of stuff going on in the background. And this is the Freedom Media Network. And we talk a lot about sales on this show. And sales and freedom, this is a two-part question. Number one is, how do you see the link between sales and having freedom in your life a, and what do you tell people who call you up maybe their prospective clients in the world is on fire and oh my gosh, are you seeing what's going on and the precedent, whatever precedent is, this is going on? It's going on over there. What do you urge those people to get back in that zone to be dumb and excited, so that they can focus on the sales?
Joe Pici:
Of all aspects of business, the one you have the most control over is sales and everybody discounts that. They go, "Oh no, you can't control sale." You can't control sales if you understand that's numbers. Yep. We're very consultative. Yeah, we don't convince people. But at the end of the day, the control in the freedom you talk about is knowing this. I have the freedom of knowing in that index finger, I'm going to dial X amount of times to get to X amount of meetings to get the X amount of course stories or sales meetings to get to X amount of proposals to get an X amount of contracts. I'm in control, there lies freedom. Now, second question, what do I do with people call me with but you don't understand the economy, the precedent. First of all, something else I learned many years ago is, I don't watch the news. Okay? People tell you when the hurricanes is coming, but I am very protective of what happens here. I am very protective.
Joe Pici:
Many years ago, I remember, I had gotten started in a whole professional and self-development world. And somebody says, "Well, that's brainwashing." And I say, "Well, yeah, my brain needed to be washed." Okay. It needed some cleansing of understanding. No, it's programming. I program. When I watch one of your videos, when I watch what you do, it's programming me to think and freedom lifestyle, it's programming me to understand the importance of branding. So, we choose what we program our minds to. And so, I don't care what the price of gas is, I don't care what's going on out there. As long as I'm willing to do X amount of work, develop expertise in certain areas, and give more than I received for my clients, we're going to be fine.
Curt Mercadante:
Now, I'm going to bring something up as a marker, because I have an interactive behavior style. So, I got to set this marker so that I come back to it. But I want to talk about some lessons learned from you as a football college and high school football coach. But then also, just the stories you've told me about, people have these bad things that conjure up in their mind about MLM, multilevel marketing. You talk about your days, not specifically about the type of work you did in multilevel marketing. But the fact that you did something that I've never met anyone has done.
Curt Mercadante:
My wife has done it and they have the, she didn't do Tupperware, but they have the Tupperware parties, and they have the parties and you build a company by cold calling people, which is incredible when it comes to that. And you could do that with Amway. Oh, my goodness, you could do that with anything. So, I'm setting the marker, because I want to come back to that. But I'd love to start by talking about the Rapport Mastery Virtual Sales System now. You've worked with me one on one, and I've been to your boot camps. The first question that I have that some people are having, and you do this in your boot camp, because you throw out the word and there's five people with 20 different, what does the word rapport mean?
Joe Pici:
Okay, and in our methodology, because you're exactly right. A hundred people have 100 different ideas. But when Dawn and I realized, for us, and really what the dictionary says is, rapport is the deepest relationship you can have in business. And most people say, "Well, you're developing rapport, you're handshaking." That's connection. But rapport takes time. It's when you become the trusted adviser. It's when you're at the know, like, and trust. It's when your clients or your prospective clients say things like, "Joe, what do you think would be the best solution to our problem? "And it takes time to get there, Curt.
Curt Mercadante:
Are there people who sell who don't build rapport and take a shortcut? And if they do sell and make the money, what's the, I guess, the back end of that? What's the repercussion of that?
Joe Pici:
Well, there's two types of sales. There's transactional, which is get to yes or no as quickly as possible, closing the deals quickly as possible. And then, there's consultative. People who are in transactional sales. They're basically hitting for the next one, hitting for the next one. They're really not as concerned with the long-term relationship and they're always focused on the dollar. Rapport building sales, consultative sales is this, I'm going to build trusted relationships that there may be a long period of time that that client doesn't need us, but I don't want to lose that relationship. Not only for money, but we're always, a lot of our business we generate leads 20 ways, and yes, one of the ways we generate leads is referrals. How can you get a referral from a person you don't have rapport with? Okay. And so, people always say to me, "You're unbelievable. You stay in touch with people." Well, yeah. Do you know 92% of sales reps never follow up with a client after they made their first purchase?
Curt Mercadante:
Wow.
Joe Pici:
It sounds crazy. Did I answer your question?
Curt Mercadante:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And more importantly, I think you answered people's questions that are out there and working with clients. There are people, and some of them by the way, some of them are on that global gurus list. Some of them they teach what I like to call the Glengarry Glen Ross, adrenaline-based force people through the funnel type sales, which is the transactional. And some people push back and say, "Well, that works for me." Well, it works. I guess it's the difference, right? I call it the tyranny of the short term, right? You made a quick buck, but are you getting the right clients? And are you getting the clients coming back? And those clients who talk about you to other people to build in those referrals?
Joe Pici:
Well, I think there's another thing here. When you're in business, to not only make money, but to, but to really deliver significance, it's more than just the buck. All right? In other words, all of a sudden, you become a trusted advisor. And now, your clients have a deeper and you have a deeper relationship with them. Now you're sowing significance into them. All right? You're that way. I see that way. I mean, when you and I talk, whether we're in a coaching session or just a hey, how you doing session, your comments are, what your clients are accomplishing, not what Curt is accomplishing, but what your clients are accomplishing. That's the way we think. We're more client centric as to long term success for them.
Curt Mercadante:
Yeah, that's interesting. And it helps from a mindset perspective, too, right? When you wake up in the morning saying, "I got to beg and borrow and steal to get people to reach into their pocket." You do that every day. That's just a miserable existence.
Joe Pici:
That's why transactional sales has a 93% annual turnover. It's a churn. Okay? Whereas people who sell more consultatively, they're going to have more staying power.
Curt Mercadante:
Yeah, yeah. So, helping folks, business owners, entrepreneurs, wantrepreneurs, people in between. I mean, I've been to your boot camps. And every walk of life, I mean, you have life coaches, you have I think, in the last one, there was a psychologist, a psychiatrist, people from Atlanta, people from Washington, people from New York, financial people all over the place. So, you help them sell. What you've launched now, this virtual sales system. Did you just bring over, did you take the Pici Bible of everything you've learned over your career, everything you do in the boot camps with people, pack them into this sales system?
Joe Pici:
Well, this sales system really was birthed from an idea from Dawn. Okay, when COVID hit...
Curt Mercadante:
And by the way, Dawn is your wife and business partner.
Joe Pici:
Dawn is my wife. We've been together for 50 years.
Curt Mercadante:
She's your boss.
Joe Pici:
And we don't do marriage seminars, but we keep one marriage together. That's enough. So, when COVID hit, and we lost a chunk like everybody, I kept my foot on the gas pedal. Because we live in Florida, we were open rather quickly. But we knew that we had to have more of a virtual component to our business. We knew for a lot of reasons. We knew the world wanted virtual training, and I was doing some Zoom stuff, but we also knew they needed robust training. So, we went to work and we developed Sell More Virtually, which was a second business or website where we have E courses in membership platform and all that, but we decided to take the core, the real core of our bootcamp.
Joe Pici:
Now, of course, in our sales bootcamp, it's the marquee product right now because I do live outbound telephone call training. And so, if I'm working with you live, we're going to be doing live outbound telephone call training to book appointments and that. But aside from that, we took the guts of our sales training boot camp, which three years in a row global gurus ranked as the number one sales training program on the planet and we put that on an on demand. It's 14 courses, 53 modules that you can watch, it's six-minute module, 30-minute module, anything from value propositions to navigating the gatekeeper, to how to get returned phone calls, how to overcome objections, all of the components of having a complete sales system, and I know that you have a link. And I'll tell you what, go through the link and take a look at this thing. We have seen what's out there and this is a marquee product. And for pennies on the dollar, you could get this entire system and never have to get on an airplane. A lot of companies are requesting it.
Curt Mercadante:
What I love about the way you do your work and you teach and you instruct is there's a lot of folks out there. And there's no right or wrong here what I'm about to say. It's a balance, you need both. And they focus on the mindset, having to do with sales and that's important or overall strategies. What I like and we started off this show by talking about it. You helped me with my mindset doing those things. But what I really love is, I went years reading a lot of these books, and they're big ideas, and they're great. But they didn't get down to the nitty gritty of like, "I go to my desk at this time. What the heck do I do?"
Curt Mercadante:
What do I do? I mean, you in the boot camp scripting, how does this go? What do you say? I mean, you get on the phone as well, which by the way, I mean, some of the numbers, you keep the whiteboard and everyone's going up there booking deals. People who have never booked a deal or booked a call in their entire life. I think one guy closed a million-dollar deal while we were there. But it takes, yeah, you can build a lot of knowledge. A lot of people read 36 sales books a year, but don't know how to apply it and you help connect the dots between the intellectual part and the application.
Joe Pici:
Well, I think what we decided was 80 to 85% of our training was going to be the tactics and the skills, and look, most people would rather work with strategy and motivation and that's fine. And we do have a complete sales strategy and we do have a strategy for what we do. But we roll up our sleeves and we really train the skills, the messaging, how you create the messaging. So, we do the how-tos. And see, again, this is going to be a controversy for most people's thought. Most people think top down, okay? They think dreams, goals, plans action, and that's good. That's really good.
Joe Pici:
In our priority management system, that's what we do. However, the biggest thing you have to overcome in sales is a person's belief, the belief window. And you can walk on hot coals, you can read self-help books, you could go to the Red Rocks, which I wish I could come to. If you haven't registered for Curt's Red Rock Retreat, this is going to be a dynamic time. He'll promote it. But I'm going to tell you what, if I wasn't booked that weekend, I'd be there. They may not want me out there, but I would be there.
Joe Pici:
But anyway, so all those things are important. But what I realized, Joe Pici realized because I work with so many people, and I'm talking about CEOs right down to foot soldiers, that lack belief in sales. So, when we go to work, I get to the tactics and we actually do the skills and drills and they accomplish. And all of a sudden, it builds self-esteem, self-confidence, the belief window opens. And so, by doing this, they have belief.
Joe Pici:
I said to a guy one time, he said, "You know, I want to have a kind of business." I said, "There was a time I wanted a business like somebody else's." I said, Well, what does that person do? If I do what they do, I'll have what they have." In sales, you want to be successful? It comes down to leads, booking appointments, doing core stories, or sales meetings, moving to a proposal. I mean, sales is a process. So, did I answer your question?
Curt Mercadante:
You did. You did. And I love that you took it to the beliefs because I remember the first boot camp I went to, there was a woman there who very successful, was in tears.
Joe Pici:
Yeah.
Curt Mercadante:
Before the calls. And she ended up doing it. And getting into reps and booked like five or six appointments.
Joe Pici:
She did.
Curt Mercadante:
And then, she started to believe. And so, that's interesting. Is that something you learn? I promised that I'd get back to this. You talked about doing the drills and the skills. Is that something you learned in football? Did you ever have some guidance [crosstalk 00:19:31] talented?
Joe Pici:
I did with it. I learned in football, but you talked about MLM. Dawn and I had no business background. We didn't go to business school. We were half a million dollars in debt and we wind up stumbling into an MLM business, not even understanding the word business. We didn't know what MLM was. We didn't know what sales was. All we knew was we were losing our home. And nobody was teaching us anything. We'd look at books. I mean, we would read books and we go to seminars, and nobody was teaching the how to it. So, I started, I got 56 nos one night on the phone for appointments, and I broke the phone. I was so mad. And I said to Dawn, "There's two problems here. I don't know what I'm saying. And I'm saying it to the wrong thing, person."
Joe Pici:
Therein was two thirds of sales, lead generation, and what you say book an appointment, I didn't know that. But I didn't know this, spaced repetition, doing something over and over again created mastery and skills. So, I started doing them. And then whatever worked, I wrote it down. I started doing it and that's when I got into my own scripting. And I remember I built a script and I made a bunch of calls. And literally, we went from making $400 a month to $2,500 a month in 60 days, part time. Now, you got to understand I was a football coach back when Godzilla was a lizard. I wasn't making any money. So, we more than replaced our income doing that. But then we just kept doing it over and over again and getting better at it.
Joe Pici:
The fundamentals of sales are work for everything. It's either inbound sales or outbound sales, that's all there is. And so, we have more of an outbound sales approach with respect to, we're going to initiate the action. So, the MLM time in our life, because we did it for a while. We actually got into six figures, we paid off all our debt, we walked away from our job, we went full time, and then we decided to leave that and really do what we're doing now. But for that moment in time, what we learned, why I'm an advocate of MLM, I mean, I won't do it anymore because I'm past that in my life. But it taught Dawn and I we could work together. It taught us we had the right stuff to own a business. We had the mental toughness. We had stick-to-itness and it taught us to embrace professional growth and development.
Curt Mercadante:
There's a story in my head that I love and I won't bring it up specifically if you don't want to talk about it, but you've talked about it before. It brings together everything we've talked about thus far. The mindset, staying dumb and excited, just focusing on your reps and getting it done. And I'm going to throw it out generally and maybe you'll end up telling the story, maybe you'll end up telling a different story. But a client that most mere mortals who are very talented but they overthink it would say, "You're not supposed to cold call these people. The unofficial rules are you don't cold call them." You just got to know someone who knows someone and you went in there, you were dumb and excited, acted. My dad used to have this line, "Just go in and act like you own the place." You go in and act like you've been there before." My football coach said this, "When you get into the end zone, act like you've been there before." Don't do the dance and don't do...
Joe Pici:
Act like you're supposed to be there.
Curt Mercadante:
Yeah, yeah. And of course, the first ever football game by the way, this is a total aside because I'm interactive behavior style. I score a 43-yard touchdown. I was a running back on the pitch play. I mean, I burned everyone and I get in the end zone and what did I do? I spiked the ball between my legs. My dad has it on video camera of me jogging back to the sideline and Coach [Kibelaski 00:23:47] is there. And the team splits and they see him see something to me. And you hear my brother on the videotape going, "Where's Curt going? Where's Curt going?" And they videotaped me. I had to run a lap around the stadium. So, I learned never to do it again. But that's an aside. Anyways, I think you know what story I'm talking about.
Joe Pici:
Well, I got a number of that, are you talking about TSA?
Curt Mercadante:
Yes.
Joe Pici:
All right. Well, okay. I will tell that story. It's okay. Because it is crazy. Years, years ago, many years ago, I lost a contract on a Thursday, it just blew up. And I went through some old business cards. I had a box and I called this guy and when I knew him, his name was Sonny. And I pick up the phone I call his number. It's his cell phone on this card and I said, "Hey, this is Joe Pici. Is this Sonny?" He goes, "My name is Angelo." I said, "Well, Angelo, this is Joe Pici. Do you remember me?" He goes, "Yeah." I said, "What are you doing?" He says, "I work in the Training Department at Homeland Security, TSA."
Joe Pici:
And I said, "You do know that I resolve conflict and increase productivity?" He goes, "Joe, do not call my boss. You cannot cold call the federal government and do not use my name that I told you to call anybody." I said, "Well just send me your information so we can stay in touch." Well, he sends it on the TSA letterhead. And there's a number an 800 number. And everybody out there is going, "Never call 800 numbers and never call website numbers." Well, I do because I have a script to get through everything.
Joe Pici:
So therefore, I called. I'll never forget that Matthew Middleton, this is a true story. He answers the phone. His secretary must have gone to the bathroom or something. "Matthew Middleton." "Matthew, my name is Joe Pici. Did I catch you at a bad time?" "What is this all about?" "Matthew, we specialize in helping you to resolve conflict and increase productivity." He goes, "You can't cold call the federal government." He starts screaming and yelling. I'm just sitting there. When he gets to the end, I go, "Well, Matthew, one more question. Is it worth 20 minutes for me to show you how we can resolve some of the issues at the gate and help you retain your employees?" There was dead silence. He goes, "Take this number. Call tomorrow."
Joe Pici:
I called tomorrow. He has a group of people. We do the exact same thing. We go to a proposal, this is a true story. You can't lie about this stuff. He pushes this whole thing through. And 30 days later, all this government contracting and RFPs, I won't do any of that stuff because I'm not the lowest price. This was a wild hair. I'm in the training room, Reagan International. I'll tell you. Between terminal C and terminal A, there's a room for TSA training. I'm in there and he comes to the door and he goes, "Do you have a SAM number?" "A what?" He goes, "You can't be here." I said, "But you hired me." They got me a SAM number. Now I'm only telling the story for one reason. With the right script, it's either going to be they want to talk to you, they don't want to talk to you. I don't take anything personally. And so, cold calling is one of my 20 ways of generating leads because based on two sentences, they either want to talk to me or not.
Curt Mercadante:
And that is adding the Rapport Mastery Virtual Sales System?
Joe Pici:
There is a complete 30-minute training on that methodology. Actually, I'm wrong. It's three, it's 90 minutes, it's three 30-minute modules on that. There's an extra bonus module on navigating the gatekeeper, another module on how to get returned phone calls.
Curt Mercadante:
And to start it all off, in order to get people to make that call or for you to make that call, you had to get over your belief that I'm not supposed to do this. You had to be dumb and excited. Just pick up the phone and get in your reps. Right?
Joe Pici:
Well, I'd like to tell you that I had all that psychological stuff going on, but I'm not that way, okay? I'm not interactive. I don't believe in trying to sell from charisma and talent, because that's where you get your heart broke. That's where you get emotionally involved. Everything I do is processes, messaging skills. So, for example, I do call blocking and have a thing called a focus board. The focus board is also on this course, how to use the focus board. So, every day, I'm going to make X amount of calls. I have a script, even though I write scripts, even though I invented my scripts, I still have my scripts. And so, all I do is I just do it. And I don't worry about what the response is because it's not personal. They're not saying no to me, they're saying no to what I deliver.
Joe Pici:
So, one of the key ingredients in being successful in sales is self-discipline and consistency. And so, that's something I would work on. If I were out there and I'm listening to this and I'm saying, "Does this guy give any value at all?" If you can develop yourself consistency, that self-discipline, that ambition, and you can be really successful in sales.
Curt Mercadante:
Again, if you want to learn more about the Rapport Mastery Virtual Sales System, there's a link in the show notes, wherever you're listening, wherever you're watching, go find the link. It'll be on freedommediametwork.com as well. It'll be right on top as you listen as you watch this.
Joe Pici:
Yeah, I also want to I want to offer your guests a gift of anybody who wants a complimentary Cup of Joe. Just call me 407-947-2590. I promise you I will not hammer you. I won't use any cheap closing techniques, but I will give you a complimentary Cup of Joe.
Curt Mercadante:
Yeah, I was going to comment on your mug there. I love it. I love it. I'd like to end with this question. Because you see a lot of this crap on LinkedIn. And I always like to say, when you see people sharing this type of stuff, look at what they're selling, right? And there's a reason for it. And I call them, in some cases, they're usually vanity vendors, I'd like to call them, right? They're selling video. They call themselves sales experts, but they're teaching you how to do a video.
Curt Mercadante:
They call themselves sales experts, but they're teaching you how to do your logo. Or branding, right? They're vanity vendors. And there's nothing wrong with that. They might be very good at what they do. Cold calling. If you get on LinkedIn for a week, and all you do is believe everything you read, you would walk away saying Cold ..." It's 2022. Cold calling. That's dinosaur stuff. It doesn't work at all. Oh, my gosh. They said don't cold call. You're just hammering people. That's interruption, blah, blah, blah." What do you say to that?
Joe Pici:
Well, first of all, I think as professional people, we shouldn't put down other people's methodologies. In the world of branding, there's a million different methodologies. You have yours. In the world of sales, I think anybody that puts down somebody else's methodology, and I see them out there, too. I think also, we need to be authentic in that if we're not doing it ourselves, we shouldn't be training it or teaching it. And it's hard enough to be authentic and know what you do. I watch you and I've watched you, I followed you before you knew I was following you, because you are so good at driving leads through so many different mediums but it's all wrapped up in the way you build that individual's brand.
Joe Pici:
And as you and I were talking the other day, a personal brand has a 561% higher view rate than corporate brands. You bring that to life. So, when I think about you, and I know you're so talented, but all I think about this guy helps people generate great exposure. And one of the ways he does it is through that individual personal branding. So, you're the real deal.
Curt Mercadante:
Thank you.
Joe Pici:
And I think one of the hardest things to differentiate out there when you get on LinkedIn is who's real and who's not. The only way I can find out who's real is I'm going to pick up the phone and call them. Because there's some people that they look really good until you talk to them. You think, is this the same person? So, I think that you and I get along really well because we know what we do well, we know what we don't do well. We don't do what we don't do well. We do what we do well.
Curt Mercadante:
Wow. That's like a Yogi Berra. I think it was like a Yogi Berra out there.
Joe Pici:
He is my favorite player. I grew up in New Jersey. I used to go Yankee Stadium. Watch this. Watch this. You're ready? 1958 Yankees. All right? Yogi Berra behind the plate. Whitey Ford on the mount. Clint Boyer third base. Tony Kubek second base. Bobby Richard sits second. All right. We got right field Roger Maris, centerfield Mickey Mantle, left field it was either Bob Cerv or Doc Blanchard. Moose Garen was on first base. Now, tell me, if you could do that with the team today. You can't?
Curt Mercadante:
They keep changing.
Joe Pici:
That is like inconsistency of sales.
Curt Mercadante:
Interesting. I could do it with the '05 White Sox. And by the way, I have somewhere in storage, because we put everything in storage when we traveled. Moose Garen played for the White Sox and had a bar on the west side, kind of Southwest near west side of Chicago and would show up and I think the White Sox had him on retainers. I have a Moose Garen and he would show up at events, an autograph of Moose somewhere. And I don't know if you know this, Curt, C-U-R-T, is my name. I'm named after Curt Davis, who was on the Dodgers. My dad grew up going and walk into Dodgers game. So, yeah. I said, "Of all those guys, thank God it wasn't Peewee."
Joe Pici:
Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
Curt Mercadante:
But something you mentioned, I know I said I had one question left, but you know me. Branding and sales and exposure in sales. And I put up, I actually I'm sending out an email tomorrow to the people in my upcoming boot camp. And they're going to be shocked that I said this, which is why I like to shock people sometimes. There is this line that everyone repeats, stories sell, stories sell. And the first line of my email that I'm sending is, "Have you bought into the myth that stories sell? Stories don't sell, they attract." And the biggest thing, not the biggest thing, but I learned from you is you mentioned I was good at lead generation. I can bring people into my orbit.
Curt Mercadante:
What I didn't have was the system. I say they're in your orbit and people because of their behavior styles, fear, oh, it's amazing people, and I've had other clients say this, "Oh, I see Curt everyday. He's too big for me" or something. They don't reach out. They'll be in your orbit, like the moon, around the earth for years. And if you don't have that process to reach out, shake their hand, and have a conversation, which is that's what you teach. That's what this virtual sales system is all about. It's so important, because there's some people out there who confuse branding or marketing with sales and they're related.
Joe Pici:
Yeah. And I think you said something, and I haven't heard it said this way. But it's powerful. Stories attract. Stories are marketing. And I'll give you an example. Because you came through our behavioral training, when you're selling, you have to understand that 45% of people, their baseline is task oriented. Now, here's another thing. A lot of people who are people oriented when they're doing business revert to task orientation. Task orientation will not tolerate stories in a sales format, they don't have time for it. And whereas, I see so many people teaching people start every meeting with a story. You've been to our training. And when I stand up there, I get right to content. Because if you lose the task-oriented people, they're gone. People oriented people will stay around and they'll stay for the story. Some stories are powerful, but you have to be careful. The way you use them is through marketing and attraction. But the whole story thing, we have to be careful how we use it.
Curt Mercadante:
And it's interesting, because we've mentioned here and people maybe aren't familiar with the disk model we've mentioned. Oh, high interactive. And we mentioned that. I love to tell stories. It's interesting. I'm high I&D. Now, I'll default if I'm lazy to try to tell stories, I'll offend the task-oriented people. But it's interesting, and this is something you said. If someone's trying to sell to me, I default to D and I default the task granted and I lose interest, which is so interesting, because I love to tell the stories unless you're telling me the story.
Joe Pici:
People-oriented people like to tell stories, okay? That doesn't always mean and see, this is the thing about categorizing people. No matter what your model human behavior is, whether you're fast-paced task, fast-paced people, slow-paced people, slow-paced task, you still have blends. And so, we got to be careful. We don't put people in a box and the hardest person to evaluate is yourself.
Curt Mercadante:
Yeah. Yeah. I love that I, I came up with three A's. Awareness of your behavior style and their behavior style and communication style, appreciation that if I'm an S, and they're a D, they're not a jerk.
Joe Pici:
Right.
Curt Mercadante:
That's it and have an appreciation, and then alignment. I can't change them. I can change me. And I did a presentation this Saturday. And some people were like, "What's the difference then between influence, using that for influence and using it for manipulation?" I said, "Well, the difference is, if you're getting them, if you're tricking them to do something." If you know they're an S, and maybe they're easily manipulated, and you know they don't want that outcome, and you get them to do it anyways, that's like evil hypnotism.
Joe Pici:
Right. Manipulation doesn't last long.
Curt Mercadante:
Yeah, yeah. Well, Joe, I want to thank you for coming on the show.
Joe Pici:
Thank you.
Curt Mercadante:
I really appreciate it. I'm really excited with the launch of this virtual sales system.
Joe Pici:
Yeah, we are too.
Curt Mercadante:
For people like me who live now, I moved and I live across the country. I'm still going to come to some of your boot camps, but it's nice to be able to, "Hey, jump in. Do it virtually. I'm here in the Red Rocks. I kicked back." But I do love coming to Florida. So, I'm going to [crosstalk 00:39:57].
Joe Pici:
And I appreciate that because we're excited about this product because it's available to anybody, anytime. It's the equivalent of three days of intensive but people spread it out. They can do it all at once or they can spread it out as long as they want. Once they purchase it, it's theirs.
Curt Mercadante:
That's awesome. Well, everyone who's listening, watching, go find the link. It's in the show notes, in the social media post, wherever you're watching. If there's different video clips, we're going to be putting out throughout the week find it. We're going to plaster that link until it's programmed in your brain. Go check it out, 60% off. I think it's a little more than 60% off. I bet it is.
Joe Pici:
Yeah, it really is. It really is.
Curt Mercadante:
So, you get that link, you get that gift, Joe Pici, Pici and Pici. The number three ranked sales trainer in the globe. We'll get you back to number one next year.
Joe Pici:
Thank you.
Curt Mercadante:
Thank you so much for joining us.
Joe Pici:
Thanks so much.