Clip from Episode 40: Top Cintas Sales Executive – Paul DiVincenzo – Relationships, Focus, Adaptability and Action:

What we’re really doing in sales Scott to me is engaging with people. I don’t really know where I pick that up. But what I really try to do for example I always try to engage with people and that sounds very people might be thinking. Of course you do. But I think a lot of times if you’re an experienced seller especially but even new people you can become very apathetic where you’re really just intently focused on what you’re trying to sell and what you’re trying to accomplish whether that be your number or your goal or your KPI or whatever. And I try I really try not to ever allow that in my mind because I think that it clouds the way I operate. So for me selling I don’t get very many moments to engage with the customer initially. So my first meeting with them has to be memorable and it’s also got to be real.

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Clip from Episode 40: Top Cintas Sales Executive – Paul DiVincenzo – Relationships, Focus, Adaptability and Action:

I think it’s not that difficult Scott. I mean meaning that when I say it’s not difficult me it’s not easy to attain. But I think what most people don’t realize is that they’re going to have to sacrifice. There’s no there is no option other than that. I can guarantee it that if we dig in with the average reps that are hitting you know I don’t know what the names of them are but achievers club or summit club and those are the ones where they tell them hey you made your number. You’re hitting quota this quarter or something but you’re not a presence club base. I think if they just if they know that they’re doing a good job. But if you’re just doing a good job you’re going to get poor results. So you’ve got to really you’ve got to at the end of the day you have to push yourself and that’s the only thing that’s going to make it happen. And you have to decide I’m going to go to the gym an hour less. I’m going to not go see that movie if I’m not ahead of my number. I don’t go do those things because I know that there’s there’s work to be done and that’s what it comes down to to me is putting in the work. And they have to sacrifice something to get there and if they can get it without it. More power to them. They’re just better than me. But I think putting in hard work is what it comes down to.

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Clip from Episode 40: Top Cintas Sales Executive – Paul DiVincenzo – Relationships, Focus, Adaptability and Action:

I think that what I would do more. I have I’ve read a lot of books so I guess I would call them my mentors. But I think I would really seek out more in person mentors and try to listen more on those things. So for me I’ve always and it’s work. So I mean it’s kind of almost going against the success I’ve had. But I think that I’ve always tried to find my own way. So it’s funny because I don’t know how many other people listening think like this but I hope a lot just because I don’t want to be alone on it. But you know even from I’ll just give you an example. I’ve been at companies that have pretty great training programs and a lot of times as I’m seeing things happen on that. I’m always trying to find my own way and sometimes I’ve done it for no other reason than just to say I found my own way. And I think I would really try to find some mentors that I really really respect and that could be a personal items whether it be investing or in other things but sales in general I would just find more in-person mentors and really try to engage with them. I haven’t done a good job of that. Mostly what I’ve done is find my own way and then execute. And I think I could have benefited and have started to search those out in the last few years to really find great mentors.

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Clip from Episode 40: Top Cintas Sales Executive – Paul DiVincenzo – Relationships, Focus, Adaptability and Action:

What I’ve noticed is the average sales people at least in my industry. I can only speak to that is they are not a team player is the best way for me to describe it. I think that the average rep thinks that they are a lone wolf. They can do it all on their own and that they don’t want anybody to take their glory whether that because they got credit for the sale or whatever it is. But I think that to me is what the definition of average is and I’ve seen it specifically on performance. So you know we’ve got many many reps and that’s always what I see is they feel like they can do it all on their own verses. Even though I guess I wouldn’t call it mentorship but being a team player at least in most many sales organizations today you you have to be a team player and you have to be great at it. To really get the largest accounts and largest deals to come together and finally be done and that that team player mentality is what makes you win and then you and your whole team win. And the numbers reflect that.

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Clip from Episode 40: Top Cintas Sales Executive – Paul DiVincenzo – Relationships, Focus, Adaptability and Action:

For just getting started. It’s funny because I think a lot of people come out and there you know especially now with the environment of entrepreneurialism people really want to try to be a great business person from day one. And a lot of times you just can’t do that. So for news sellers I really tell them to focus on becoming an expert in what they’re doing and then really learning how to how to excel at that. And so the reason the focus on that in the beginning is because you cannot be successful unless you are really great at what you’re doing. So I think a lot of people skip over that. And in the world that we live in right now it’s easy to swipe this way or click on that thing and really studying what you’re doing and becoming an expert at it leads to credibility. It leads to building your reputation. It leads to building your internal brand. It bleeds to all those things that allow you to be successful. And I haven’t even talked about work ethic.

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Clip from Episode 40: Top Cintas Sales Executive – Paul DiVincenzo – Relationships, Focus, Adaptability and Action:

I dove in and I literally learned what was going on so that I could better understand it. And and then being able to adapt and take action. So for me that’s that’s kind of a story that goes along with selling to me because I feel like selling can be more than just what it is meaning people can talk about tools and tactics. But I don’t care if it’s business to business sales really to me we’re a people to people and that for me is what I keep in the forefront of my mind.

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Clip from Episode 40: Top Cintas Sales Executive – Paul DiVincenzo – Relationships, Focus, Adaptability and Action:

I had not grown. I would call it for a couple years and I didn’t realize it. I just had allowed it to happen without really paying attention and I think that’s you know probably can happen to anybody. And so if you get to that point you know the really the thought is and I’m sure people that have been around you kind of always have this push and pull of you know hey is it time to go into leadership. You know I’ve been an individual contributor role for a long time I’m well respected in that role. It’s not like I can’t go into leadership but is that what I need to push myself to the next level. And what I really thought was you know I just I it was back to that mentor piece where I could start searching out mentors and really find if that’s the right way. But as I was looking at that you know I decided that for me just to jumpstart the scenario I decided to look for a coach. And so I ultimately found that I ended up hiring. And there’s probably many of these. But just because his CDs helped me in the beginning of my sales career I found out that the Tony Robbins organization has coaches and so I set up an interview and an ex executive from the Hyatt Corporation had become an executive coach and so I talked with him and kind of interviewed him he interviewed me and decided that I liked the interaction and that I wanted to engage him for to be my coach so that’s been going on for about a year and a half now and I’ve really enjoyed it. And the reason I enjoy it most personally is because I think you can find it other ways by the way. But that’s why I encouraged it in the beginning of this conversation is you get you’re not getting just pure industry perspective so an example is I could have got an executive from Cintas to be my coach. But there’s always going to be a slant towards something. And so this independent review has really helped me because I’m just like everybody else. You go through your ups and downs and and you really get to talk through it with somebody and they get to either call you on your B.S. or say you know hey you know you might want to look at it this way. And I’ve really found high value in those engaging conversations where my perspective my mindset back to that that portion has been twisted in many cases because I’m too involved or too emotionally hijacked by this particular scenario. So I talked with my coach.

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Clip from Episode 40: Top Cintas Sales Executive – Paul DiVincenzo – Relationships, Focus, Adaptability and Action:

And you can use business books to do this so I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you want to get into a company and you’re a seller and you you. You don’t know how you’re going to get in. You can do a couple things right. You can go on LinkedIn kind of figure out the organizations structure find out who you think your decision maker is. But one of the things I think people don’t do if they’re covering a local territory they can do this physically or if they’re covering a wider territory they can do it virtually. But in today’s market I think it works really well and you can get a business book and you just write inside the jacket of the business book. Something like I hope this makes a great addition to your business library. I would love to chat with you about what we can do for your business at some point in the future. And you write your name and your phone number and really making a connection with somebody a business to business especially you know those things stand out. And so you send that out or you have it dropped off to that executive and then you make a phone call in and ask to chat and it may not be the right time for your product or service or it may be and it just wasn’t on the radar yet.

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