43: Office Equipment Solution Sales Specialist – Nicole Miceli

0:08 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Nicole Miceli. Nicole is the top solutions sales specialist at at Des Plaines Office Equipment in Chicago. Welcome to the show, Nicole.

0:35 Nicole Miceli: Hi, thank you for having me.

0:36 Scott Ingram: It is a pleasure. And we always jump right in and try and front-load the episode with some immediate value. So Nicole, what are the top 3 things that you think have contributed most to your success?

0:48 Nicole Miceli: I would say that the top 3 things for me anyway would be one, to have good sales mentors. I think that really helps contribute to getting you on a right path and to having people that are doing, are achieving things that you wanna achieve, just to kind of mirror yourself against that. One of the other things I would say is that I have what I would call a hustler mentality. So that to me is just, you're always out there connecting and meeting people and just, you know, you gotta hit the ground running, I think, in this industry. And the third thing is, is that I'm passionate about what we do here. And I think that's really important because if you don't believe in what you're selling, you're just not going to do well because your heart's not in it. And really, that's probably the most important one, I would say.

1:30 Scott Ingram: So, talk a little bit more about that. Why do you feel that way?

1:34 Nicole Miceli: If it's not something that you enjoy doing, you're not gonna be successful regardless of how hard you try because you don't believe in what you're selling. To me, that's a big part of it. I don't know if I could sell somebody something if it wasn't something that I believed in myself.

1:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and we'll come back to kind of what the hustler mentality looks like for you, but when you think about the sales mentors that have had an impact on you, how did those relationships start? How have you leveraged that over the course of your career?

2:04 Nicole Miceli: Well, I'm really lucky that I come from a family of sales professionals. So my father and a lot of my aunts and uncles, they all do sales in some kind of capacity. And I am Italian, so I have a huge family of people to look to. And probably I got, I feel like I got really lucky when I started in this career because the very first manager that I had in sales, she was a hustler. And so everything I learned, I learned from her. So I definitely would credit a huge, a big part of my success to just having that type of person in my life. So at the beginning of my career.

2:40 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And did you luck into that or were you able to be sort of intentional about who that was and the impact that it had?

2:47 Nicole Miceli: Oh no, I lucked into that. It was kind of one of those situations where I had already been hired at the company and my goal, because our corporate office is in the suburbs, my goal was to work downtown Chicago. I just always knew that that's where I needed to be in order to be successful. And she got hired on, it was like 3 months or so after I had started. And so I had an interview with her and go through that whole process. So nothing, it wasn't like, oh, she already works here, you can have her. I had to go through the interview process with her and everything else before she, she picked me to be on her team.

3:23 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Well, let's, let's get into a little bit of the context there and Talk a bit, if you would, just about your role, what you sell, who you sell it to, that kind of thing.

3:32 Nicole Miceli: So we focus on all office technology. Basically anything in your office that plugs in, we do it. So anything from your copy machines and your printers to your conference room whiteboards and video displays and video walls, all the way to the IT side of things. When it comes to IT, it's more of like a tiered program depending on what people want. Or where they need help in, in that regard. So my, my job is to bring on new customers in any one of those realms, wherever they need help in their office, and to sustain the current ones.

4:07 Scott Ingram: Excellent. And how did you get into sales in the first place?

4:09 Nicole Miceli: That was also an accident. I was looking for a career. I was at a point in my life where I had been waitressing for most of it, and I was about to get married and figured you know, it might be time to look into getting a career and to do something more. And so I came, the owner of the company is my father, so I went to him and I was like, all right, I need a career. What's the best way to kind of develop something like that? And surprisingly, because that was not my intention to continue to work here, he was like, well, why don't you try sales with our company and we'll see how that goes. And so 6 years later, you know, it's going well.

4:48 Scott Ingram: Well, and quantify going well for us. I mean, what, what has it taken to get to number 1 there?

4:54 Nicole Miceli: It's a, it's a lot of work. You know, it's not just something you wake up and you're number 1. You got to put in the effort. And you, and like I said, if you're not doing something you love, putting in the effort is going to be tough. So I enjoy putting in the effort and going to networking events and making sure that I'm surrounded by people who are also successful and Making sure that I'm building that pipeline of people that trust me. Because this is… what we do is the 3rd largest expense in a company. And that's a huge amount of trust to place into somebody to make sure that it's going to work so they don't have to worry about this area of their business.

5:29 Scott Ingram: Excellent. And can you quantify the results for us a little bit? I mean, what did you sell? How many sellers are there in the organization? That kind of thing.

5:37 Nicole Miceli: Oh, sure. I think right now we have a sales team of about 10. I'm the only one at the moment that works downtown, but we're trying to grow that team. And last year was my highest, highest revenue in sales. And last year I sold about $7,000. I think it was like $7,000 or, well, it was like $745,000 last year. And that was a combination of managed print and network services.

6:04 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And is that, are those typically kind of recurring type charges? Are these ongoing relationships that you have? Or that's, you know, equipment, that's services, that's kind of everything?

6:15 Nicole Miceli: Yeah, it's a combination of both. So, it's current customers. So, it's just upgrading their current fleet, whatever that would look like, and bringing on new customers and becoming their, their trusted technology source.

6:29 Scott Ingram: Excellent. So, how long has it been since you made the transition into sales? You said 5 or 6 years?

6:33 Nicole Miceli: Yeah, this is my 6th year in this position.

6:36 Scott Ingram: Perfect. So, over that time, what are you most proud of?

6:39 Nicole Miceli: I would say just the successes that I've seen and getting better every year. I think that's a huge deal for me is because that means I'm growing. And I think that's important. Last year was my best year to date by quite a lot. So I'm very proud of that, the year that I had last year.

6:57 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What do you attribute that to? Why was it so much better than previous years?

7:02 Nicole Miceli: As the years go on, I've been trying to set higher goals for myself. So it's always trying to achieve your goals. And 2, I think one of the other things that was helpful is that they hired on an inside sales rep for me. So now I'm not doing everything by myself, which is really helpful. It's always helpful to have that team because, you know, I just don't know that anybody will be successful in sales by themselves, trying to do everything by themselves.

7:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. So over that time, what's been the biggest challenge, or was there a specific period where you were really struggling?

7:33 Nicole Miceli: Well, when I started in, in this position, I had zero customer base. So this was not a position where we came in and they're like, here, here's an entire list of customers that you can call and that we already have this relationship with. I started with none. So, so it was at the beginning, it was a lot of figuring out how to succeed when you're literally starting at zero. It was trying to build up that pipeline and relationships and And seeing, you know, a lot of trial and error to see what works and what doesn't. And how do you go from base, from, from nothing to being successful?

8:09 Scott Ingram: So, and, and how did you get through that? I mean, what was the most impactful thing that you did to, to start to grow that book of business?

8:17 Nicole Miceli: I think it was a lot of it had to do with my manager at the time. I think if I didn't have that, I probably wouldn't be where I was today. She was a hit-the-ground running kind of woman. And I think that helped because she never looked at that as a negative thing. She always looked at it like we're starting at square one and we can do whatever we want with that. And we can take this wherever we need to go and everything we put into it is going to be because we worked hard to get that.

8:46 Scott Ingram: And what was it? I think a lot of, in fact, I'd say the majority of the folks that I talked to on this show, I mean, they're successful certainly because often because of, not despite of their manager. What was it about her and her approach and her style that really helped you? And maybe this is kind of in the form of what advice would you give to other sales managers to help them kind of help their team produce better results and get that kind of a foundation?

9:12 Nicole Miceli: Yeah, well, I think one of the big attributes was, is that she was also a woman in sales in a manager position, which I think is probably a rare find. And her background, she came from, she was the vice president of of a copier company and she's helped start them from ground zero too. So she was used to building something out of nothing and her whole mentality was, you know, you just got to put the work in. I would think, and she, you know what she was really good at, once we did have a bigger team of people, she was really good at finding the individual strengths and she managed each person in accordance to that. So she didn't try to manage her whole group of salespeople the same, which I thought is probably why we were so successful as a team, because not everybody's the same and everybody has their different styles, especially in sales. And that would be my biggest thing for managers is to find out what your team's strengths are and help that individual really pull those strengths out and focus on what makes them unique and what drives them.

10:20 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. And so for you, I mean, what, what are those strengths? What did she pull out and develop from, from a stylistic perspective for you?

10:31 Nicole Miceli: She really pulled out, really pulled out my inner salesperson that I probably didn't really know was there to begin with, because I think I have a very laid-back personality. I'm probably not what you think of when you think typical salesperson. I'm very laid back and easygoing. And she really pulled out my confidence, the confidence that I already had headed within myself. She really pulled that out and was like, these are the things that make you good at this. This is why people trust you because you don't come at them like too intense or too crazy. And that's what gets people to trust me, I think, easier and more quickly really, which is huge.

11:09 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. Now, is there along those lines, is there a particular like sales philosophy that you subscribe to?

11:17 Nicole Miceli: Well, I really like… I follow Grant Cardone. He's one of the sales gurus that I like to follow. Something that he says which I really like is everything in life is a sale and everything you want is a commission. And that's how I look at life. I go, and this is just being comfortable in my sales ability and the income that I bring in, is I go to the store and I'm like, if I want that pair of shoes, I just buy them because I know that I make commission and I can make up whatever that cost of the shoes were on my next sale.

11:52 Scott Ingram: Nice. And you talked about, you know, your, your second top 3 was kind of that hustler mentality. How, what is, what does that actually mean? Like, how, how does that come about on a daily or weekly basis?

12:05 Nicole Miceli: Uh, to me that just means that you're out there working Or, you know, at least meeting people all the time. So I do probably 5 networking events a week on a slow week, which is kind of insane. But I just think you need to get out there. You need to be out there hustling, you know, hitting the pavement, letting people know who you are, what you do, who you're looking for, why, what's going to make you successful doing what you're doing. And to me, that hustle mentality is just people who are out there, you know, meeting people to help them be successful.

12:42 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And I mean, give us an example. What, what types of networking events are those that you're attending and what types of events tend to be most effective and productive for you?

12:51 Nicole Miceli: I'm a part of a few different networking groups here in the city. And I think, first of all, if you're just starting out, you have to go to every single networking event that you can find. And I say that because you need to find out what the group is about, who the group draws, if it's going to be beneficial for you. And if it's not, leave it. Like if the people that are there aren't going to help you get ahead in your career, if they're not the type of people you're looking to connect with, don't go back and focus your efforts on finding those groups that will. And that's not, you know, it's not going to happen overnight, but you just have to put in the work. You know, you have to hustle. You have to hustle. And you have to be out there finding these groups that work for you and to make sure that they're going to give you the kind of support that you need in order to put your name behind these groups in the first place. I think that's huge. If you can find those groups that work for you, stick with them. But, you know, you got to make sure that you put in the time and you put in the effort and the research to make sure that the ones that you're picking are the ones that you need to be a part of.

13:52 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So the ones that you have kind of settled on, right? It sounds like you've been a part of a lot of them. What is it about that, those groups that have really connected with you? And then how do you make the most of that type of activity?

14:07 Nicole Miceli: So the types of people that these groups draw are business owners. Those are the type of people that I'm looking to connect with on a daily basis. And that's what draws me to the group is who these groups attract to their events. Not only that, but the people that run these groups, want you to be successful. So actually recently, this at the beginning of this year, I sat down with both groups individually, all the top people that run the group, to say, you know, how can I be more involved? How can, you know, how can DPOE be on your weekly newsletter? Or what do I have to do to get my name in front of everybody? And they're willing to help you do that. I think if you join a group and they're not willing to help you get your name out there, move on and find a group that will because they're out there. And I think that's important is to surround yourself with these groups that also want you to be successful and most importantly want to connect their members to other members. If you're joining a group where the members don't care if you're a member or not, to me that wouldn't be a beneficial group. I'm looking for people who are part of these groups because they want to connect with other like-minded people in Chicago who want to be part of these groups and want to get out there and and do business with people who do business with you and want to make sure that if I give you a referral or whatever, that I'm also going to get a referral return, that there's no one-way streets here. It's everybody just wanting everybody to be successful.

15:34 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Great stuff. So how do you structure your week? Like when you, is there a particular approach you take and when those networking events fit in and that type of thing?

15:43 Nicole Miceli: Yeah. Typically I'm very fortunate for being in Chicago, so If I wanted to do a breakfast, lunch, and dinner networking event every day of the week, I probably could, but that's a huge time commitment. But I try to focus on… usually it seems in Chicago that like Wednesdays and Thursdays tend to be the best networking events just because it's probably because it's in the middle of the week and people are ready to get out close to the weekend and they want to meet people. So you can usually tell that if you're going to an event on one of those 2 nights, it's going to be beneficial for you, for me anyway.

16:15 Scott Ingram: Well, and let's zoom in just a little bit further.

16:17 Nicole Miceli: I mean, what does, what is a typical day look like for you?

16:20 Scott Ingram: What are the activities? Walk us through kind of the details, the ins and outs of how you set up a typical day.

16:26 Nicole Miceli: Well, typically the night before, I try to make sure that my whole day's set up so I don't get into the office in the morning and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing. This way, when I get into the office, I know who I need to call back. If there's a list of people that I need to call back, you know, I section out a time to do that in the morning. Typically, if there's a networking lunch, that usually happens around 11:30. So I'll go do that. Like today I was at a networking lunch before this and then fitting in depending on the day and depending on how many appointments you have, you have to really be careful with structuring your day to make sure that when you are in the office for a brief amount of time, there's sometimes when I have so many appointments in the day where I come in, prepare everything I need for my appointments, go on the appointments, and I might not be back for hours. So you have to make sure that you're utilizing the time in between all of those things your advantage. Like, always try to prepare everything for appointments ahead of time. This way I'm not scrambling the day of to get everything ready, and this way I'm prepared, especially in the event that if my appointments are back to back and I don't come back to the office, that you're just ready to go. Your whole day set up, have everything that you're going to need to be successful in your meetings. And then I usually try to make it back to the office usually around 3:30. I'd say I'm back at the office to prepare my day for tomorrow. Or to make any other follow-up phone calls or prepare proposals or any other loose-end things I need to do to get the next day rolling.

17:49 Scott Ingram: Got it. And when you're doing prep for a specific meeting, what does that look like?

17:54 Nicole Miceli: It'll depend on what stage of the game we're in. So if it's a first meeting where you're just going out there to see how their office is set up and what kind of technology they're already utilizing, there's really not a lot of prep work that goes into that. Just because it's more of a discovery meeting. If I can, I usually try my first meeting to do a walk around to see what they have, do a pre-assessment if they have enough equipment for something like that. So there's not really a whole lot of prep work for an initial meeting. But anything beyond that, it depends on the situation because we deal with so many things. It's, you know, getting a proposal ready. This way you can, you know, after I've been in their office and I see what they have and I see how everything is operating, putting together a proposal and a plan. Based on how they would like their office to be running, whether it's streamlining things or consolidating. Especially we see this a lot in law firms with printers. Usually every lawyer has a different kind of printer, which is an IT guy's nightmare. So it's seeing, putting together this presentation so that we're giving them a better solution so that their office runs more efficiently. Depending on the size of the account, I'll put together, maybe, maybe they're coming in for an in-house demo. So I'll put together a demo presentation for that, which requires a little bit more effort, but But it's always worth it. I think the statistics in our industry, when you have somebody in for a demo, I think it's something crazy like 75% more effective than just presenting it on site at their office, which is huge. You know, that's, it just really depends on where we're at in the stage of the game and what the situation is and what they're looking to accomplish.

19:29 Scott Ingram: Got it. And then what does your prospecting look like? I mean, it sounds like there's a, there's a lot of networking, so I imagine you're relying on a lot of referrals and introductions and things like that. But what, what other prospecting are you doing and what percentage of the businesses coming from the networking work that you're doing?

19:45 Nicole Miceli: Well, one of the other avenues that we do is cold calling. So I don't really want to say old school, you know, way of just picking up the phone and dialing people because I think that's still really relevant in today's game is you have to make those phone calls. So a huge part of our business, especially net new business, comes from just making phone calls and calling people and trying to get that appointment and trying to show them enough value over the phone as to why, you know, it's beneficial for them to have this meeting with you in the first place. As far as networking goes, I don't know exactly how much of it comes from networking, but I would say that's probably like, I would say that probably is my second, second highest way that business comes in is through networking. Phone calls first, then networking. I just want to make sure that people know phone calls are still important.

20:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. Well, when are you doing that? I mean, how much of your week are you spending making those calls and how do you, how do you structure kind of your cold calling work?

20:45 Nicole Miceli: Typically I'll do that in the morning when I get in before I get into appointments and things like that. And like I said before, I'm very fortunate to also have an inside sales rep and we work as a team and his whole job is to make phone calls. So I'm, it's, I'm really lucky to have that kind of support. So the amount of phone calls I'm making are usually, some of them are first-time cold calls because maybe he's got ahold of somebody or maybe we just need a different approach. But we work as a team and I have to really attribute a lot of that to him because it's a huge help to have that kind of team structure where I don't have to worry about doing everything, making the phone call, going on the appointment, you know, putting together a proposal. I have a whole support team that helps. Helps ensure that we're successful.

21:31 Scott Ingram: Now, does, does he only help with the meeting setting portion, or do you have other support systems to help with the proposal? I mean, obviously you're doing the meetings, but are there others helping with the other pieces?

21:43 Nicole Miceli: Uh, it depends on what it is, uh, but for the most part, after that initial appointment, um, I'm pretty much doing the majority of the work on my own. So I create the proposal. I'm the one that goes in to see how their office is operating, help them come up with a good plan to move forward, and then present that plan to them.

22:02 Scott Ingram: So are there particular tools and apps and other things that you're using through that process that, that really make a difference for you?

22:11 Nicole Miceli: Probably our CRM system helps keep track of everything. It's like any typical salesperson, you know, you're not going to remember every single detail of what happened on the appointment. So having a tool like that where you can keep track of your appointments, what happened on that specific appointment, what the next steps are, being able to create follow-up activities to make sure that you're on track with the process. We actually have a pretty short sales cycle, so having these alerts to make sure you're staying within that timeframe is helpful. This way nothing's falling through the cracks.

22:46 Scott Ingram: And Nicole, what, what CRM system is that?

22:50 Nicole Miceli: We're using Forza.

22:51 Scott Ingram: Oh, I'm not familiar with that one.

22:53 Nicole Miceli: I think it's pretty new, honestly.

22:56 Scott Ingram: Got it. It works well for you, it sounds like.

22:58 Nicole Miceli: It does, actually. One of the real big benefits of this program is that it incorporates every aspect in our business into one program now. So if you have a customer that calls in for a service call, I can see that now from my end, how many service calls a specific customer has, or when the last time, you know, maybe they had a toner shipment or everything now that's going on in the account I can see, which it's a huge help to be able to know, okay, XYZ customer has been having, you know, maybe the same service call for the same thing a lot recently. And it's nice to see because then I can see, well, why is it happening? Is it the machine? Is it maybe they just need extra training? Something that, you know, I can go out there with the tech and help with. Not fixing the machine because I'm not skilled to do that, but to see, you know, what's happening and where can we help them, you know, fix these issues if it's more than just a mechanical thing.

23:56 Scott Ingram: Got it, got it. Cool. So switching gears a little bit, what does your information diet look like? What are you listening to, reading, and watching?

24:04 Nicole Miceli: So right now I'm really focused… I do a lot of following with Grant Cardone. I really like his I just think the information that he gives out and his style really resonates with how I am. So I think it's beneficial to see, to find somebody like that, that you like and gives out good information. And actually recently they have been in our sales meetings, they've been having us read sales book and then having to give like a 5-minute presentation on the book to the sales group about it. And we actually just read Fanatical Prospecting, which is a good read. I mean, a lot of the information in that book is common sense, but I think it's definitely, definitely a good place to start in sales because a lot of the things that I took out of the book, like I said, a lot of it's common sense, but a lot of the things I took out of that book I can utilize moving forward. And that's important to me. And I like to actually read. So I do a lot more reading of a physical book than I will Yeah.

25:06 Scott Ingram: Are there any other real standout books that have had a big impact on you, sales books or otherwise?

25:11 Nicole Miceli: So that one, it's called Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount. I really like The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone. Really any book by Grant Cardone, you can't really go wrong, but that's probably my favorite book by him. Other things in the industry is just like industry blogs. We have Crain Chicago and I subscribe to that. So I'm constantly getting all the updated news that's happening in Chicago business, which is something that, you know, I need to stay on top of. And you can also, the other one that I subscribe to is Jeffrey Gitomer. He sends out a weekly sales newsletter too that's full of different information and that's free. I mean, a lot of these guys send out free weekly emails, so I would recommend just you know, finding somebody that you like, seeing if they do something like that and subscribe to it. You know, if you don't like the information, you can unsubscribe always, but that's a good place to start.

26:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Good stuff. So we'll have links to all of the books and all of the websites where you can subscribe to those newsletters if you go to top1.fm. I've also been working on, we'll see where we're at. Um, we're recording this a ways before it will release. I was actually just texting back and forth with a previous guest of mine that has some connections to the Cardone organization. And we're working on getting an interview set up with one of his top sellers. So that would be pretty interesting. Nicole, from a motivation perspective, what is it that motivates you and how do you think about motivation in general?

26:40 Nicole Miceli: Well, this is going to be a very salesy answer. I like to be the best. I like going into the sales meeting every month, having the most amount of sales so that my name is on the top of the board every month.

26:53 Scott Ingram: So, you're a little bit competitive.

26:55 Nicole Miceli: I am very competitive.

26:56 Scott Ingram: Yep, absolutely.

26:58 Nicole Miceli: That's why we don't have a foosball table or ping pong or whatever in our business, because that would get out of hand. And that, and you know, that just really drives me. I like to be the best.

27:11 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. I don't, I don't think that's uncommon at all. So, is there something you believe that the average sales professional would think is crazy?

27:23 Nicole Miceli: Yeah, I'm sure they've heard this before, but persistence really is key. There's, you know, I got one of my top deals because I called the owner 4 times in an hour because it was, it was just an account that I knew had potential. I didn't know the kind of potential that the account had until I got in there, but I called the owner and I talked to the owner 4 times in an hour before she agreed to meet. 'Cause I just think it's one of those things, especially if you're going after owners, they're not easy people to get ahold of. So, in that case, I knew she was in the office, so I just wasn't gonna give up on that one.

28:01 Scott Ingram: Oh, what a great story. Well, what about advice that you might have? What would you suggest to somebody that's just getting started out in their sales career today? What should they do to build a really good foundation for themselves and start to see those results?

28:17 Nicole Miceli: I think the most important thing is to find a job, one, that you're not going to view as a job, and two, that is selling something that you're going to be passionate about. If you don't have that passion, you're just not going to be successful. To me, that's the most important thing. If you're not going to believe in the product that you're selling, you know, don't bother.

28:38 Scott Ingram: Yeah, totally, totally agree.

28:40 Nicole Miceli: I think just if you're starting out and you're looking for a sales job, To find out what it is that's going to make you happy and in a product that you can get behind. Even if you have to go on tons of interviews before you find that, because maybe you find it in the interview process with a company that was never even on your radar, you know, because that happened to me. I just kind of fell into this. So I think you have to just… this is again going back to that hustler mentality… is you just have to be that way all the time, even in your interviews, to find out what it is that's going to make you happy. That would be my biggest, biggest advice is just to make sure that whatever you're going into, that you're going to be passionate about.

29:16 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Now, what about for somebody that's a little bit further into their career? And let's assume that they, they are passionate about what they're selling, but they're not the best. They're doing okay, but they're not, they've not gotten all the way there. What would you suggest to them to kind of take it to the next level? Because it sounds like you, you did some of that. You've, you've grown in your career, in your own career. What, what was the difference between the middle-tier performance and getting to the top?

29:38 Nicole Miceli: You know, my advice to them would be one, to look at who the top producers in your company are and see what they're doing that makes them successful and to see what kind of tips that these people can give you. I think in our industry, because everybody's so competitive, sometimes we get scared to ask somebody, you know, what are you doing that makes you successful? Thinking, you know, oh, they're not going to tell me because why would you give me your secrets? And I think you'll be surprised that even though we are so competitive by nature as a group of people, we really do want you to also be successful. I mean, there's enough business out there where you don't have to be clawing at each other to get it. And I would always, I mean, if somebody asked me, somebody in our industry or in our company asked me for advice or whatever, I would be happy to have them shadow me for a day or ask me whatever questions that they have. I would be more than open to that. And I would think a lot of people, a lot of other top producers that you know or in your company would also be open to something like that. And I would think the other side of that too is the people who you surround yourself with. Even though I do a lot of networking, a lot of my, not that you can see me, but my air quote friends from networking groups are other salespeople in different industries who to me also have this hustler mentality. You know, they're out there hitting the pavement, see how they can be successful. And those people can help you just not only by watching, you know, how they go about their sales career and what they're passionate about. I just think you just need to surround yourself with people who are doing it well that, you know, you look up to and make sure they're in your inner circle.

31:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I love the idea of doing a ride-along and, you know, maybe that's even something if you are networking and there are, and especially if you're selling locally, Nicole, like you are, you know, trade that, right? Like, how about I follow you around for a day? I want to see a day in the life of your world. And then, you know, next week, why don't you follow me around for a day? I've actually thought I need somebody to steal this idea from me. Um, cause it's, it's just, I'm already too busy. I don't have time to do anything else. But I thought about starting a show called Ride Along where, I mean, the interview format is great, but what if we spent a day or multiple days with a sales professional and just captured everything that they did. You know, what does that phone call sound like? What does the pitch meeting sound like? And what it sounded like to me was like a lot of work and a lot of editing. But, um, I think that even if you're not able to do it in, in that format, if you can find other people just to spend time with them, and even if it's just a single call, right? Sitting in on calls of other sales professionals is, is incredible in your industry, outside of your industry, you're always going to learn something.

32:23 Nicole Miceli: Yeah, I agree. I would definitely, if you can do that, do that. Even if it's not with somebody in your company. Yeah. You know, like you said, you're always going to learn something. And especially maybe coming from a different industry or a different sale, if it's somebody who has a different sales style than you do, you're going to learn a lot.

32:42 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely.

32:43 Nicole Miceli: Or even just surrounding yourself with those people. I mean, one of my friends, he does sales in a different capacity in the city and just in the short time I've known him, The amount of just sales style and pizzazz that I've learned from him has been incredible.

32:59 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great stuff. And, you know, when most of the work that I do now is, uh, I travel a lot, so there's very little local work that I do, but there was a time that I sold for ADP and also did a lot of networking. And I'll tell you, you know, the other thing that's fun in addition to being able to build those kinds of relationships is a lot of times you'll find complementary salespeople and you get to co-sell, you know, let me introduce you to one of my clients. And you go in there and just be on the appointment with them, right? It supports them, it reinforces their message, and vice versa. There's, there's so many cool things that, that you can do if you're in that type of a position where you're selling in a, a local geographic market.

33:37 Nicole Miceli: Right. Yeah, I definitely agree with that.

33:39 Scott Ingram: So Nicole, what would you want to know from top sellers in other organizations, or what are the questions that you ask them?

33:47 Nicole Miceli: I would think my first question is, how do you stay motivated every day? You know, because we do hear a lot of nos. So it's how, how do you stay motivated and get past those nos to continue on with your day? I think that's, that's the most important question to me.

34:02 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And I mean, what, how would you answer that question? How do you get through the consistent or the constant nos?

34:09 Nicole Miceli: Well, you just have to remember that it's nothing personal. They're not saying no to you because they hate you, especially on the phone. You know, you maybe you just caught them at a bad time and you know they're too busy or until you're just getting a no because it's an instant reflex from people. It's kind of like, you know, when you go into a store and the salesperson comes up to you and asks if you need help, if you're looking for anything specific, most people's instant reaction even to this person is no, no, I'm just looking. So it could just be that is that that's just their instant reflex. So you just have to, so you have to gauge, okay, is this an instant reflex? Is it, why am I getting this no? And I think once you can figure that out, it helps you get past them a little bit easier. Not always, because, you know, a no is still a no, but that doesn't mean no forever. That could just be no for right now.

35:01 Scott Ingram: Yep. Yep. Or no to that question. You know, can you ask another follow-up question and just continue the conversation?

35:06 Nicole Miceli: Right. As they say, every no brings you one step closer to a yes.

35:10 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So Nicole, as we get ready to wrap up, is there anything that you were hoping to share or some secret sauce that you had in your back pocket that we haven't had a chance to talk about yet?

35:21 Nicole Miceli: The only other thing I think would be is to know, to really know what you're selling. For me, so we deal with a lot of products, copy machines, whiteboards, smart, you know, all those types of things, is to know everything about it. Know the inner workings of the machine, how to work, how it works, how to give a demo. Um, all those things are really important to my success is that it's not only can I talk to you about a copy machine or a digital whiteboard, I know how to use it and I know how it works and I can give you a demo on it.

35:54 Scott Ingram: Beautiful.

35:54 Nicole Miceli: Yeah. I think that resonates with people just because in our industry I'm dealing with people who are users. And so if you also come off as yourself as a, as a knowledgeable user of the equipment, It's just, I think, going to be really helpful.

36:08 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Great stuff. So we always try and wrap up on something that is actionable, right? Lots of great ideas. But if you were to craft a 2-week challenge that the person listening to this could take on to improve themselves and improve their results before I talk to somebody else who issues them a new challenge, what would you have them do?

36:27 Nicole Miceli: I would think my challenge would be just to try first to get yourself out there. And start creating a name for yourself. And you could do that quickly through networking. You can do that so quickly, not only through networking, but your LinkedIn profile and just, you know, get your name out there, start posting relevant things so that people start, you know, associating your name with being the expert in your realm. So I think that would be my challenge is just try to hit the ground running and get your name out there so that when people are like, Hmm, you know who? I need a new copy machine. Who am I going to go to? They're going to think of me first.

37:04 Scott Ingram: Excellent, excellent, Nicole. This has been a lot of fun. Thanks for talking with me today.

37:08 Nicole Miceli: Yeah, thanks for having me. This was great.

37:12 Scott Ingram: Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.