Full transcript below. You can find the condensed show notes.
Intro: You are listening to the sales success stories podcast, where we deconstruct world class sales performers where we provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at topone.fm. Here is your host, Josh Mueller.
Scott Ingram: Today on the sales success podcast, I am joined by Josh Mueller, who is one of the top producers at Cutco Cutlery for the last 8 years. Really excited about this conversation because here we are in the 15th episode and this is the first time I am talking to someone who isn’t in B2B sales.
I think this diversification is important because there is a lot we can learn from what other are doing on their industries and their different approaches. Thanks for inviting me to your office to talk with you Josh.
Josh Mueller: Yes, thanks for having me Scott, it is a pleasure.
Scott Ingram: So let’s start like we always do with the 3 things that have allowed you to get and stay at the top and then we can take a step back and provide some more context about your history and a little more about the Co and for those who aren’t familiar.
Josh Mueller: Sure. I love this question; it is such a good question. I would say that 3 things that I have added the most value or I could credit my success to is one, just the focus and commitment to personal growth and development, never seeing a ceiling at the top or feeling like I have arrived.
Always knowing that there is another edge, every time you come up over the next Plato, there is always more mountains that you can climb. Just being really committed to being myself in communication, business skills and being hungry for learning.
I love to learn in a way where it feels that I am drinking form a fire hose all the time. The second thing I would say is just to focus and commitment on building solid relationships and coming from the perspective of contribution. A willingness to share, a willingness to help others.
[00:02:00]
When I first got into business, let’s say I had no business skills getting into business. I have never really sold anything before and I had to learn from a lot of people and there were a lot of mentors that I had that lifted me up along the way.
When I started to see success and being able to share that success with other people, that’s that over the years I never expected this or it has never been the reason I have been a contributor but I have just seen that pay dividends over the years as a result of just being willing to be open and share what I am doing.
The other thing is just energy management. Being in a place where you are an entrepreneur and where you are a successful sales person, the reality is there is always more to do. There are always more clients and there is more business out there.
I wear multiple hats in what I do right now because I sell [Inaudible 00:02:57] or run a company and we have a whole team in the office that works with us.
I did consulting coaching, there are multiple things and having to do that I have to show up every day and just have a super high level of energy and really believe that I owe it to myself to take care of my body, take care of my mental energy, physical energy and just my physiological energy.
The world I believe is being robbed of energy right now and I pay very close attention to make sure I show up every day and have the highest level of energy so that I can do everything I need to do and just be present with every customer, every client and every staff.
You know anybody that I am working with and anybody that I am influencing or that is impacting or influencing me. It is awesome.
Scott Ingram: We are talking a lot about this and a lot more dept. that I know and that I can tell that you are really organised and that you manage your time really well. I have read a Harvard business article a number of years ago and talking about managing your energy
[00:04:00]
Not your time. I mean if you had to choose between those two, do you think your energy piece is more important than the time management piece or how do you feel about that?
Josh Mueller: Yes, that is an awesome question. I think it takes time to manage your energy right so you have to also be great at managing time in order to be able to manage your energy.
I would almost say one is not more important than the other but they are both equally as important as each other.
Scott Ingram: Yes, that was a great quote. And you talk about the relationship piece, let me take a breath there. That is a perfect opportunity for me to thank our primary sponsor which is Nudge IA and Nudge IA is all about those relationships and helping people understand the strength of relationships they have with their prospect and their customers and maintain those over time and bring relevant insights to them.
You can sign up for free if you go to topone.fm/nudge and trying to double check my timing on this. We are actually going to have a bonus episode and have a great conversation with their chief technology officer, Steve Woods.
That is going to come up next week, I think after we release this episode so keep an eye out for that, there are a lot more great stuff coming from Nudge, topone.fm/nudge. Josh, how did all this start, what is your origin story? How did you originally get into sales?
Josh Mueller: I was in college and working 60 hours a week in a restaurant industry and going to school full time and I basically didn’t have much of a life, I hung out with some friends late at night and I didn’t get a lot of sleep.
I had taken a summer to get away from all of that and I moved a sail boat up the east coast for a couple of months and when I got back to go to school again in the fall, to re-enrol in school, I was looking for a job.
I was looking in the restaurant industry; I thought I wanted training to become a chef
[00:06:00]
I know you mentioned earlier that your wife is a trained chef. That was a thing for me and I realised that nobody is going to hire me just because I worked at Applebee’s and Taco Bell. To become a chef, not culinary excellence.
Exactly and so I had a friend who sold [Inaudible 00:06:24] for a summer and I didn’t know what Cutco was and my roommate had some Cutco knives in the drawer, he didn’t even know they were Cutco, but I never even noticed it before.
My friend knew I was looking for a job and he knew I was hard up for cash and he said hey I can’t guarantee you a job but I can get you an interview. I did this for a summer and he had a lot of success with it. I really didn’t want to sell knives but he showed me a pay check and he made a good amount of money in a week basically what I needed to make in a month, he made in a week. That just blew my mind.
Money was my main motivator in the beginning, it has not been a motivator for a very long time now but in the beginning that is what I needed and I saw the opportunity to make money. I went for an interview and got hired and the rest is history.
Scott Ingram: The history from there was, talk about the transition because you didn’t start out obviously as number one so talk about how you got to number one in the early stages.
Josh Mueller: I had no experience and Cutco has world class level sales training for college students and people that are wanting to get into entrepreneurship. I love that you are in business for yourself and you are not in business by yourself. They have a corporate structure that is very supportive. I got bit by the personal development bug because Cutco really fastest that kind of culture comedy encourage it. They held multiple seminar for our sales people every year.
[00:00:00]
In the beginning I was Average and I would probably see below average. Below closing ratios were, my average orders were low but I had a program and I was willing to follow the program because my trainer said if you do what we teach you it will work. We have been doing it for 50 + years now, it’s 67 or 68 years that they have been doing it. They have been doing this programmer for all these years and if you follow the program it will work. I’m just the type of person that if you tell me what to do I will go and do it and I did that. I worked really hard, I didn’t know anybody where I was and we had to start with her own network of family and friends and I learnt how to get referral from there, build a referral Network. The network that I knew, my family and friends left about 3 hours away from where I went to school, I would go to school on all day Tuesday and all day Thursday, Wednesday was my homework day, Thursday night after I got out of my last class then I would go straight to the office and I would make phone calls for two and a half hours for appointments for Friday Saturday and Sunday and Monday. I would Drive 3 and a half hours home and starting about 9 o clock call my phone calls with end at 9 and drive 3 and half hours home, get home grab some sleep and do my appointments the next day. I would do 5 to 8 appointment every day and with Cutco it is business and consumer, it is one on one presentations in the beginning and that is the way it work. I did that for months until I had worked up through to the commission skill to make enough commission and I worked my referral to get closer and closer to school. Eventually I ended up in a position where I was able to work 20 minutes from where I was going to school and I was getting referrals around that area. I did that for months and that was in Michigan where I went to school and grew up and I move to Oklahoma after that.
[00:00:00]
In Oklahoma it was Starting Over from scratch and luckily I knew how to connect with people. I’m naturally introverted and back then I was the guy that showed up in the class in the semester and see all those people and think Wow I’m going to have new friends, and it’s going to be great. For the end of the semester I had no new phone numbers and No New Friends because I didn’t have the confidence to introduce myself to people I didn’t know. It was Cutco told me how to get comfortable which scene and striking up conversations with people that I didn’t know. When I move to Oklahoma it was a lot easier to jump-start that referral Network and just get things going again. I have actually done that multiple times around the country now and places that we have lift. Over the years I have built-up one of the largest Distributors through the company and and we have a big customer base that we have systems and approaches to serves as people. And they are very loyal clients now and we are very fortunate.
Scott Ingram: Has it been over time that gradual progression that you have invested in enough time in enough years that you have found yourself in that top 1% with a third largest distributorship in the company or was there a point where something flipped and there was a big acceleration in your move to the top?
Josh Mueller: Absolutely I would say it was more the shift. I was a guy that would always before. I was in the top 100 every year.
Scott Ingram: of how many again? Put this in context
Josh Mueller: with Cutco it is difficult because it is a college recruiting program so the majority of the people working with us, they will work without a semester or to as an internship to get some experience and they will use that experience to move on to something else. There is it true that is now 500 strong
That are more of a professional Focus. We are building a business building a book with clients and taking a long term approach to it. Back then I was top 100 out of 200. I have always been right in the middle basically, I would perform in the top so why was the number one guy in the business of 20 or 30 sales reps in the office. Then I became the number one guy in the region and that was back in 2004 or 2005. That is a non-State region around the southern part of the United States. I got a taste of that was like I got and I got some influence and I got to speak anti teach people what I was doing to be successful. Then I set my sights are number one in the nation and that was in 2008 after I went to my first Tony Robbins conference. It was interesting because I used to tell myself that I was just a mediocre guy, not the number one guy looking at the national standings. People would have these reports and I would be like I’m good, I’m where I’m at and I’m fine with that and that is just not me. I went to the Tony Robbins Conference and that just shifted my mindset like that can be me if I wanted to be and I decided I wanted it to be so I went for it. Within 12 months I finished number one in the company and I have done it multiple times since then.
Scott Ingram: Wow what a great story and put the rest of those result in perspective like you started with number 1 in 2009 and talk about the adventure since then because I do no you do more and I know it’s not just Cutco in your world right now.
Josh Mueller: It has been fun
[00:14:00]
It has been the school experience. I remember there was someone in catch that did a couple of thousand dollars a year and that is big. You are in the top rank of the company if you are doing 200000 sales in a year, it is a lot of knives. We are selling hundred dollar knives basically. in 2009 I have set a goal that nobody has done 300000 dollars in sales in a year on the residential side of things so and we had a couple of guys in the business you worked mainly be to be, Tony Austin, he Pioneer the realtor gift closing program where we help realtors closing dates and there is a whole system in program that supports that, Realtors and lenders. John Rowland, famous for gift ology in the Rowland group, he Pioneer the business side of things where works with big companies and sells gifts that’s why. There are multiple people around that do that but they were the only guys that solve 300000 or 400000 in a year of knives. Nobody has done it residential I and I was at the conference and Toni said that you have to be to be to make this happen to hit the levels and I said that is not true because we have a pass for how we do that. So in 2009 I was the first person in the company to do over 300000 in sales and over 2 years later I was the first person in the company to do over 400000 in sales, in residential sales and then and then the year after that I did have a million in residential sales. Sims then we have people do 600 to 700000, one guy in our b2b department did over 1 million in sales 1 year. Take me back to the question again.
Scott Ingram: What else?
Josh Mueller: So I have my Cutco business consistent now where I have got the book of clients that I have got and we are consistently doing 3 to 400000 sales a year
[00:16:00]
Justice our existing clients plus another 20 to 40% in addition to that every year in new business. From referrals and new clients at events that we do, that he meet at events. In 2009 my wife and I started a business that we call vast Action because of the success that I was having I was doing consulting work and I was doing coaching work, I was doing the Cutco side of things. What I realized very quickly was that I need to build systems in place to support my ability to do the Cutco business and I thought I could Focus energy and time into other priority projects. Those systems are the reason that I’ve been able to travel a lot, Save a lot and just do well personally and in sales but live a great life style to and not break my back with a business. As a result I was having a lot of success with my past customers I just systemizing the business and we had a lot of people coming to us just saying hey you are teaching us what you do and that is great but I don’t want to do all the work to do that. Can you just do it for me what we said no for a really long time and we realized we had a business opportunity that he would just saying no to, my wife is amazing she is my partner in life and in business. She was saying let’s start a business where we can do the same for other people that we are doing for you and I said ok let’s do it. Fast action became a company where we serve entrepreneurs by helping them Master their sales processes through quality sales training. We help entrepreneurs install systems so that they can leverage their time and scale their business. Communicate effectively with a client in a consistent way without it being something that takes up all of their time. Build lifelong loyalty that is the goal.
[00:18:00]
Then we also help people scale the team building through team building strategies that allow you to find the best people and keep those people engaged. Train them well and keep them engaged she can steal your business and leave your lifestyle while you are building it
Scott Ingram: talk about your results they’re too because you are having a lot of success why do you are still maintaining what I’m sure is a top 1% at least.
Josh Mueller: I am number three for the year so far right now who’s that Cutco side of things. We are only 3 months in the year and I have worked, I was talking to somebody else and I only worked 15 days this year so far and I already sold over 100000 dollars off cuts go for the year. While doing that with the Vast action side of things and we just hire of first full time, just through referrals just working out existing Network and we just hired our first salesperson two actually go out a network in the community help with what we are doing and help us bring new, or pursuing new business. We are excited about that and we got a team of 10 in here right now, we help companies design their email marketing and the CRM program that we do as well. I decided to contract a company to build the custom CRM for my Cutco business so that I can track my clients. I communicate with my clients, track follow up for my clients and basically platforms that I was using to manage the whole data-based and manage the follow-up and manage my time and calendar. I was using multiple platforms and had to move things around from place to place.
So I just said this should all be in one place so we build a custom company that allows us to take out email communication and out text message communication and all of our customer data notes, all of order history and everything you ever wanted to keep on customers that arise and information wise, I’ll follow up and data to put it into one CRM.
Scott Ingram: Was that the Innovation because it really sounds like the way you broke through in the previous mindset this is a transactional business, this is how we do it and we sell our set a move on and you really turned it into a relationship and sales. Was that the shift and the systems around it?
Josh Mueller: Yes, I would say that is a big one for sure and I have always been on the service mindset. My philosophy is we should save first and see what we are doing past that, and then sell. That is my grand strategy and if I am serving at the highest levels and if I am consistently sharing myself with my client and I’m going to sell a lot as a result of that. I’m always working on my skills as a Communicator and my skills as a salesperson then I have always gonna be position so that people are loyal and pay attention feel connected and they want to buy stuff when I have stuff to offer. That has been the Focus and it’s all about how I set it up so I can scale the business but at the same time I have a great life style that is where the system’s game in. I have learnt that you can delegate something unless you have a system in place to support it getting done. Having hundreds of clients and then thousands of clients I have realized very quickly that if I was trying to do everything I that things were going to be slipping through the cracks. I spend years Lettings things slip through the cracks and not noticing that that was happening. When I started to acknowledge that I thought we need a better
System in place that was the big shift. In fact we build that system in 2009 and that was the year I had my first break through and I always said that was one of the five things that help us breakthrough.
Scott Ingram: Got it, we talked about the five things in the beginning but what was the three things?
Josh Mueller: absolutely, I would say it’s the Serum system and being online with that, it was shipped in my mind set like going to the Tony Robbins conference and just really understanding that I could be number one if I really wanted to be number one. number 3 was about honing my skills and really getting committed like hey if I’m going to be working that I need to position myself that when I’m working that I am able to do my best. It doesn’t make sense to just show up and have at it, it makes more sense if you are going to invest the time and energy in your calendar. The time is your most valuable resource and to invest your time you should do your best. Sometimes we got a swallow Ur pride and sometimes we think we are good, we think we are great and that we know everything. That was kind of what I was and I had a Pride issue that was one of those things they had to overcome. It wasn’t until I said hey I’m good but I’m not good enough yet, I’m not as good as I could be. I need to start learning from the other people to get the results that I want even outside of my business. I need to start learning more and honing my skills to become better and better. I was number 3, number for was just the system and going to Tony Robbins was getting committed to my own personal skill sets. The forth thing really for me was just dating dedicated and working harder than I have worked before.
[00:24:00]
Making just a commitment, and number 5 was making a high level of discipline. Being disciplined and everything that I felt with most important like priority. Like what is it going to take if it was planning? Basically I set up a goal and breakthrough 300k and nobody in the business has done it before so that was a roadmap for me to follow. I had to sit down and make a plan for that I had to be disciplined in not just making the plan but paying attention to that plan throughout the year and checking in with myself and seeing what was my progress on the way. Was I on track or of track and what can I do differently to move forward. If I was on track then what was working really well and to reinforce those behaviors and contain these things.
Scott Ingram: We took a while to get to that point, if you were starting over today and know what you know now write your back and knowledge, what would change and what would you do differently?
Josh Mueller: There is a few things that I would suggest call my number one would be I would invested more time in leveraging technology. Really to serve and communicate with my clients. For a long time I was the guy that said I don’t email my clients, I don’t call my clients to try and sell them stuff. I don’t know why but I had this negative Nation attached like if you sold somebody something one, if they wanted to buy more stuff they would call you.
Scott Ingram: Because they are just sitting there thinking about you like just…
Josh Mueller: exactly, that is the pride, it should be the most important thing in their mind right. I obviously was not a great salesperson. That is my lack of sales experience getting into sales that was getting in my way there. I had that limit in belief and it was when
[00:26:00]
I I realized I was in a big sales contest and one of my accountability partners were like you have got this girl and today is the last day and he said what are you gonna do? I said the only thing I can come up with, I had a goal of selling 40000 dollars in 14 days, and I was 6000 dollars away from that day. My first appointment was a no show and my second appointment was a nose sale, I had a sale on my third appointment for 1500 and I had a sale of 30 dollars on my last appointment. I still had 4 hours left in the day. My friend said what am I going to do and I was ready to throw in the towel, he said you can do that because we are accountability partners and he was number one at the time, we were both competing for number one and it was a big national push week. We are going to a conference and everybody is going to get recognized.
Scott Ingram: That is good competition though, the number one guy said you can’t beat me this easy.
Josh Mueller: exactly, it’s totally was. It was a huge accountability and I said I got to start calling my customers and I got a call some people to see if they can buy stuff. But I wasn’t that guy and I send out an email to my clients and I said we have this big contest and this is what going on, I’m going to do a sale for the next 5 hours and let me know if you want to take advantage. I started calling key clients and it was funny when I started doing that people were starting to respond to the email really positively. When I call people they were excited to hear from me and they were willing to help me out. That just speak to the quality and a service that we have been offering overall the years up to that. I realized there was something there, if I got this kind of response from an email and I’ve never sent an email before, what I could get if I started leveraging technology as an asset in my business.
[00:28:00]
This was before an email marketing wasn’t a big thing, online content marketing wasn’t a big thing. All the stuff wasn’t really is there and I was trying to figure that stuff out. We started studying online marketers came couple of years later and we have adapted a lot of approaches to help with that. We could have average that a lot sooner to get involved in that. I would have spent less time than looking at the grass that is greener on the other side of the fence philosophy. I heard you got one time that really stuck with me, the grass is always greener where you water it and early on in my career when you start having success, if you are listening to this you have probably experience this before. You become desirable to other people, other companies, other opportunities and I was always being approached by different people and different opportunities, the next big thing. I gave into that for a little while and always check things out and always keep things on the Radar. I invested in some things that never really panned out. It wasn’t until I realized that the grass is greener where you water it, I Dug in my heels and said I’m going to be the best at what I can be right now because I’ve already invested the time into it up to this point and make sure that I am the best at that. When I feel I can’t go any further or get any better that is when I will look at something else.
Scott Ingram: 10 years later you are not quite there yet.
Josh Mueller: I have been doing this 16 years almost and I’m still growing and still improving. People are saying to me you can sell this or do this or make that and I say I have invested 16 years of my life in this and I still haven’t accomplished everything that I want to accomplish in terms of my own personal growth and a contribution that I can have. I’m not going anywhere.
It is so funny when you cut off all their options, that commitment is really, I get the space and time and energy in your head to just go at it and do your best. You are not the opportunities and you are not one foot in and one foot out, just get to perform at a different level and I found that it help me perform at a different level. I would have been more humble too because when I first started having success, I let go of my head and it seems like I found out that the older I get the more I don’t know. I think there was a period of time or I didn’t intend for this that I just came across as a cocky Butthole and I knew inside that is not who I was and my intentions were in that. My actions we’re reflecting that and it was just because I had a lack of humility. I thought I knew everything and I thought I was right and I thought my way was the only way and because I was taking that a protean alienated some relationships that I created a perception of myself that wasn’t a line of who I truly was. A good friend of mine bought that my attention and I did to work to go back and correct these things. I just make sure that I got clear on who I was and what my intentions were and what I wanted people to know about me and make sure all my actions and communications aligned with that sooner so that I never had to go through that experience.
Scott Ingram: You talk about there is still more to accomplish but what you have accomplished to date, what are you most proud of?
Josh Mueller: The things that I am most proud of is building a business that is really service focused and service motivated.
[00:32:00]
I can honestly say through the work that we have done to build Vast action and the work that we have done to build one of the biggest Cutco Distributors in the world that we are consistently and positively impacting people’s live in a value added way. That is a thing that I am most proud of call my you know our products and our services call “my everything” is a line with our values which is to grow our selves and contribute through contribution to others and then show gratitude. Because we are aligned with those things that is the thing I am most proud of. I would also say developing discipline with really far below my means. I know a lot of people who are constantly chasing the new signee’s thing all live in the big beautiful house or drive a really nice car but they don’t have anything to show for the work at the end of the year. I decided a really long time ago because of some financial mentors that I had, I could drive a nice car but I don’t, I could live in a bigger house but I don’t. What is most important for me is that I build a secure future for my wife, for our company, for our family so we develop the discipline to deliver gratification, live really far below all means. We have a really great lifestyle, don’t get me wrong. We travel and we went to Hawaii for 2 weeks last year and we went to Mexico on a cruise, we are heading to Asheville, North Carolina next week. We do a lot but we just make sure that we don’t want to increase the quality of life the same way as income increases. We always increase out quality of life when our income increases but it is always at the smaller rate in our income increases. You are always gonna have extra left over and we use that extra to
[00:34:00]
To put away for a future and to invest in what we want to accomplish to build a lifestyle where we can do whatever we want with whomever we want. We are really proud of that.
Scott Ingram: Nice, what has been the biggest challenge through the journey?
Josh Mueller: It is a personal challenge, is that cool if I share that?
Scott Ingram: Go for it yes.
Josh Mueller: I would say that talking about the lack of my humility and letting success go to my head and things like that and I think there was a time where, I think the biggest challenge was my wife and I almost divorcing. It is funny because we were both having success in our business, I realize in my personal relationship that the thing that was most important that I wasn’t communicating really well. Neither one of us were really and we just fell into a place where we were growing apart and there were needs that I felt weren’t being met for me, she had needs that weren’t met for her and it just lead to us having a really hard conversation with each other. I said to her if things don’t change then I’m not sure I can do this any more and I did that one week before I was going on the road for 8 weeks. Stupid on my part and I was like let’s have this conversation and we had it and then I’m on the road for 8 weeks, have fun with that. It was interesting and I’m the luckiest guy on the planet and I have the best wife in the world, people tell I all the time and I tell myself all the time that that is true, and it is. She is such an amazing human being that in her mind she was like I didn’t get married to just get
[00:36:00]
Divorced, in her mind there was no option for that. She went to work on herself on becoming the person that I needed her to be so that we can have the best relationship that we could possibly have.
Scott Ingram: That is pretty awesome.
Josh Mueller: I know, I didn’t know this was happening. I’m on the road for 8 weeks and having record-breaking performances and jamming with customers and having a good time and also checking out my relationship the whole time, to me every day that went by I was chicken out further and further. Her every day that went by she was checking in further and further. Before the conversation I felt I was the most checked in and she was the most checked out. When I got home after the eight weeks, the opposite was true, we switched roles. It was a huge surprise for me and I learnt really quickly that she was becoming the person I wanted her to be and I was actually further away from that. I remember we went home for the holidays, we will with family and friends and we were in a moment, to us we were talking about divorce and separation and making arrangements for that kind of stuff. Even though we were home with family and friends that was really a raft trip for us. We didn’t let family and friends know that, we got home and I remember we were sitting in a fire stone in Texas. I was getting my tires changed and we talked about you was going to move to an apartment and who is going to stay in the house. I remember her saying to me, because I was checked out and she was checked in and she was saying to me if this is what you really want and this is what is truly going to make you happy, I’m totally cool with doing it because all that I care about is that you are happy. Then she said she knows me really well, she knows all my buttons. She said the thing that I know about you, this thing that surprises me the most is
[00:00:00]
I have never known you to be a person to give up on something once you set your mind to it. That is one of the things I have always loved about you and I’m just surprised that you are willing to give up on our relationship like this. You just touch me in the heart and this moment of Clarity came to me, I was like holy crappie ever going to find another woman that will be able to say that same thing to me? That changed everything, it was like a paradigm shift for me and I realized I need to check back in and do the work that is the person that she needs me to be so that we could have the best relationship we could possibly have together. Overcoming that challenge, the way that we broke through was that we made a deal with each other. No matter what, no matter how difficult things got we would always communicate Andover communicate if we need it you. We would make a commitment to overcome any challenge no matter what, it didn’t matter what came out we were like iron clad and we trusted each other 100% and nothing could ever get in the way of us. That was back in 2007 or 2008 and so and the 2007 to 2009 were a big shift for us, in our personal relationship and business. Everywhere. We got developing to get great communication skills and we started learning from other people like looking to others that we’ll respected for insights and advice and I remember we read the book love line that was a game shifter for us. It was such a simple way to look at, a simple lens to view relationships through. It was a huge thing for us and that was the year that we decided we are going to invest in Tony Robbins
[00:40:00]
And we started attending personal development seminar inside of her own business and learning from other thought leaders and he made a commitment to do it together. One of the best decisions that we ever made was we decided to go to our first Tony Robbins conference together because I said to her there was something that I was interested in and my friends are doing it and they are seeing results. I’m seeing big shifts in their lives and I think if it make a difference for us and I want to go. But I’m only willing to go if you are going to come with me and it again it was that open communication where I didn’t just say to her comma before you went through that process of getting a divorce and going through the process together, I would have just said I’m going to do this and I don’t care what you think and I’m just gonna do it. Afterwards I was like I want to do this and I wouldn’t have communicated with her effectively. Why I wanted to do it, I wanted her to come but probably assumed she didn’t want to come and wouldn’t even have given her that shot. It wasn’t until after we went through that that I learnt I just need to be open and communicate to what I want. I just need to have the courage to express myself to my wife like the way I want it and I know her and care about her and stuff like that. I remember having that conversation with her and she said it was a good idea and it is a lot of money but let’s find a way to do it. We went and did it and it was amazing. Every year we have a commitment where we go to some form of seminar together or some form of personal development that we do together just said that we are not just working on yourself but going to the Tony Robbins conference, the life mastery changed a lot for us. We have been really committed to not just changing our business and ourselves individually but developing our relationship together. That has been really powerful for us.
Scott Ingram: what I hear from that that the key to all of that is
Bean, to the result and that is a big driver to the success and not just in the business, you are committed to your core values and the other things that we have talked about. You are also committed to the relationship and the things you are talking about.
Josh Mueller: Absolutely, commitment to your goals and commitment to the process, commitment to your systems, commitment to your relationships and commitment to your values, all of that stuff. Commitment and discipline, those are two things that I really think is important if you are going to be successful in anything.
Scott Ingram: Josh, I have learnt to preface this question, are you a morning person or are you more of a night owl?
Josh Mueller: I used to be a night owl and even in Cutco I was always better at night and I was bad in the morning. I have learnt to become a morning person. I have to learn to honor what is true for me and just to become clear on what is true for me and honor that. There is sometimes that I need to be a Night Owl and then I will be a night owl and sometimes a morning person then I would be a morning person. Mostly nowadays I’m a morning person.
Scott Ingram: Tell me what your morning routine is then.
Josh Mueller: It starts the night before, deciding when I need to get up the next morning and just being committed to getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night and making sure that I’m in bed by the time I need to be in bed to get the rest, to have the energy that I need the next day. That is the number one thing, also having a wind down routines and night before really helps me. If I go straight from work all technology to bed, I get horrible sleep. I usually don’t get the Sleep that I need, it’s not just good for me. Just to make sure that I know what I need to wind down at night time and it usually involve some sort of food, it involve some form of relaxation
And some form of unplugging then going to bed so that I get a good night’s sleep. Sleeping incomplete blackness with no interruptions and I don’t get technology in my room most of the time but I’m not perfect at that. When I look to see what time I need to get up the next day then I’m also looking at the rest of the day and then I think about what makes tomorrow a great day for me. Turning into that before I go to bed is really powerful. When I wake up, the morning routine you are asking about, it starts with helping out of bed and doing some breathing exercises, having some water and I drink over a gallon of water a day 99% of the time for over 5 years now. Half of my day I have over 2 gallons of water a day, it starts the slamming with water because I need to hydrate myself after 8 hours of not drinking water. Doing some breathing exercises, green tea, visualizing the day. I usually lay in bed and visualize what am I grateful for and what makes a good day great and what makes this week great. What am I working on this month and what is my big projects, doing some visualizing exercises. The other thing is doing some form of relaxing stimulating activity just lying in bed and I will go grab my phone and turn on a podcast. I will get out of bed Slam my water and do some breathing and I would get right back to bed and get under the covers, do my visualization and just put on a podcast so that I am learning something in the morning. Maybe I will pop open a game and play a game real quick where I am changing myself. I like brain games and stuff so I might do that first thing in the morning, just some form of stimulation activities. For me it is a relaxing simulating activity, reading a book or something like that. Gratitude is always a part, what am I grateful for?
You know what I am grateful for, I have a pad of paper, one of our friends Send this, it’s like a waterproof Notepad and pencil and we keep it in the shower.
Scott Ingram: that is really interesting.
Josh Mueller: Our hop in the shower and write down some gratitude and maybe I will tell her something I’m grateful for about her or she writes me little note and I write her little notes, we are just showing each other love and gratitude and the world. So we will just write that stuff down and when I really am on. I do some form of stretching, yoga or just something to stretch my body out. I’m not the best at that day. That is the main morning routine and I like to give myself an hour or two just me and that is what I need because I believe when you win the morning then you win the rest of the day.
Scott Ingram: Every time you mentioned morning routine I just think about reading a great book, so there is definitely some of that elements are here
Josh Mueller: I’ve been watching it for years, I love Hall, and it is just miracle morning. Com and he is impacting millions of lives around the world right now and what I love about Hal’s philosophy is that he teaches the miracle morning which is a very specific process and he she is use this and practice it and see what kind of impact it makes on you. Decide for yourself what your morning routine needs to be. I really love that owns that and it’s not about during at his way, he is just saying this is what it is for me and this is what is making a difference for a lot of people. Is working for you if there is something you don’t connect with resonate with, you don’t have to do it and make the morning routine like you want to do it. For him it is like 4:30 in the morning every morning and it’s an hour and a half long process. He is like if you don’t want to get up at 4:30 in the morning then don’t do it come on get up at 8, do what is best for you but just make sure you start your day right with the Morning Routine and take care of you first.
Scott Ingram: We have talked about the morning so are there other Habits or routine throughout the day that is a call to your success?
Josh Mueller: The first thing I like to do when I get to work is some form of strategy. Most of my days are actually pre planned or Pre-schedule and that is how I have to operate with all the different things that I am involved with. Maybe it is just strategizing what is the date today and what makes today they win, Sometimes I might have white space in my calendar and I would use it to strategize the rest of the week or the rest of the month. There is always strategy involved in the day at some point. The other thing that is really helpful for me and central to my success is just being mindful of my mind set and intentional about managing it. Managing it towards what I like to call it a championship mindset. Champions think a certain way all of the time, Champions understand that your thoughts and self-talk is the number one most impactful sting in your results. A lot of people think success is 99% mechanics and 1% mindset but I think it is actually the reverse. I remember I was listening to a CD series that I was listening to, the guy teaching on that share that success is actually 99% mindset and 1% mechanics. You can get mechanics anywhere but mindset, only you can fix that. Healthy eating, another big one. I use a mobile office and when I am on the road a lot for speaking, for training events, full Cutco business because my clients are all over the country and I’m on the road and then one thing I’m really good at is having a mobile office.
Been on the road doesn’t become an excuse at being graded my business. Then also mobile living, making sure my Lifestyle at home with healthy eating and energy richness and stuff like that, that I can take that on the road with me so I’m really good and disciplined at living on the road in that way So I can still be who I am even when I’m not at home. Capturing processes and really defining what is a process in some things, step by step and honoring that. Turning that into a system and then falling in love with leveraging. I think as a sales person or even an entrepreneur that we are so in love with what we are doing like it’s our baby, it becomes really hard to let go of and that was me for years. I always felt like nobody can do it as good as me. My good friend Tony said to me, if someone can do it 80% as good as me that is good enough for now. So that is I have never have to do it again, so that make sense. I realized I wanted to delegate and get other people’s involved in helping because great things can be accomplished alone and falling in love with Leve ridge is something that made a difference for me years ago and now it’s like a daily disciplines for me. Is that something I need to be doing an is my time best invested in in this and if not what is a process of getting it done and what is the system that would support that and he was the person best for getting it done for me. Just falling in love with that. Phone management, that’s a huge thing. Social media, technology that is important. Watching customers and seeing the world in general, I’m Amazed how many times I go out to dinner and see in everybody’s sitting at the table and all they are doing is talking on their phones and nobody is doing anything except hanging out on their phones.
[00:52:00]
One thing that that make you trip for me if I said I’m sick of my phone and I turn the ringer off and it started vibrating every time that a text or email came in. I said I’m sick of that too so I turned off the vibration and now my phone is off 99.9% of the time. The only time it is on it is when I’m expecting a phone call, I would flip the ringer answer that I know when it comes in and then I stupid right back off afterwards. I don’t get any rings, beeps, whistles or whatever you want to call them. None of that crap comes on my phone, it allowed me to take control of my time and take control of my life. It made a huge difference. The flip side of that is I learnt how to become disciplined by not taking my phone and checking my texts and checking my emails and voicemails and stuff like that.
Scott Ingram: How often do you do that?
Josh Mueller: I do it a couple of times a day but it is intentionally, I block time in my schedule. That is another big thing I block time in my schedule to manage my schedule. This is what I’m working on and I’m going to block the time that if it takes more times than that I don’t let it bleed into other things in the calendar. I will schedule more time for that project to get done. Email, text messages and checking the phone, those are things that happened on a day-to-day basis. The less I am on vacation and the less I am on plugs, they happen whenever I wanted to but sometimes that may not happen for a few days Or a week at a time. My goal is to be fully present in every activity and that is what led to that. I found I couldn’t be fully present in things with customers or whatever when I had all of these notification pop-up. I remember the first app that I downloaded and it said do you want to allow notifications for this and I don’t know why but I just said no. That was probably the best thing that I did in my life I don’t even know what caused it but I how to teach people
[00:54:00]
A lot of coaching clients, I teach them 2go back through all your notifications and turned them or off. That stuff is robbing you of your energy and focus and your ability to be the best that you can be if you are present with people.
Scott Ingram: so you have a lot of structure and a lot of discipline, is there a particular way that you structure your day or your week from the calendar perspective.
Josh Mueller: Good question, it is always changing for me, but what I did was learn from a mental Brandon Bashar that the best way to strategize is, he called it the daily productivity sheet. It’s like a worksheet and I think you can download it on the website. You download this worksheet and you fill it out, I don’t fill out a worksheet every day anymore but but this is how I plan my days. What are the three biggest projects that I’m working on right now and what are 3 must do things to get done on this project right now. You left this things out, who are the people that I need to get in touch with today and who do I need to reach out to remove these projects forward, and who are the people that I’m waiting to hear back from or I need to follow up with again. What are my priorities for the day, what are those things inside these projects outside doe’s projects and around those projects the days things have got to get done no matter what. All this things goes on a list and it cause it the daily productivity planner. It’s just about going and doing this things and working those things out. That is where that 15 minutes of strategy comes in configuring those things out and executing that stuff. If you have time left at the end of the day then you can do other stuff that you need to do, email or work on other projects. That is a huge thing and time blocking is huge, focusing on the one thing, I don’t know if you are familiar with it
This is a powerful thing and I remember getting introduce to a from the guys hair in Austin, Gary Keller and J popper and to book the one thing. It got me really sinking what is the one thing that will make the biggest difference today and everything else necessary. I always focus on what is the most important thing to work on today in order to move closer to what I need to achieve. This week, this month or this year. Focusing on one thing and the priority projects and then another thing is leading with Lifestyle. I think that as an entrepreneur and sales person the reality is there is always more work to be done. They are always more leads to follow up and more calls to be made, customer service issues that need to be dealt with. There is always more that need to be done and one of the tracks that we fall into as entrepreneur I found is that it is really easy that when you make all your decisions with a business first mindset, we tend to fall on a trap where we say I will go on vacation when I have time. Or I will start saving money when I have more money, or when I’m making more and there are so many other ways that you can paint that scenario or create a statement around that. But what we are doing is we are always putting the business First and we are always sacrificing our Lifestyle to the business. The reality is when you are an entrepreneur or a professional sales person then there is always more work to do when you have time to do it. It is really easy to fall in a trap when weeks, months and years have gone by we haven’t saved a penny, you haven’t taken a vacation and you haven’t giving yourself the time off that you need to rejuvenate and as a result we get burnt out. We get sick of our business or our business become something that we get Spike about.
[00:58:00]
I saw that coming in my business at one point and said to myself I can do this. They are always some big rocks in my business that is nonnegotiable and has got to go into my calendar immediately after that, the next step is I wanted to side with my Lifestyle has to be first. The question that I’m always asking myself every quarter every year is what is the minimum standard I need to need to feel fulfilled personally this week this month of this year. Asking and answering that question consistently overtime allows me to put all the stuff that is important to me personally, you know I got the morning routine in my calendar and just being committed to learning what that is for me and it is always changing. Then scootering that stuff first has then make my business really exciting because I Design the whole business plan around that schedule. My priority in my lifestyle and my passion in My Lifestyle is what goes first. A day off with my wife, the weekend to hang out with my friends, a vacation to go see my family that I only see once or twice a year and personal development Seminar. Those types of things all go into the calendar first. Then the business plan goes around that, sales plan, the customer service plan and what I’m in terms of a project goes in behind Dad so it is always supporting the lifestyle. I can be fully present when I’m taking time off the cause I know the business is taking care of and I can be fully present in the business because I know that my personal life is taken care of as well.
Scott Ingram: Obviously you have invested a lot of time in your self-development and I’m really curious about what does your information diet look like and when do you consume that?
Josh Mueller: Personally I like life seminars the best
[00:60:00]
I learn am I get energized and I tend to implement more from those that I get there anything. The crazy thing is that it is also the most expensive thing that you can invest in but that is just my flow. Behind that I go to seminars and I got people that I follow. I followed Tony Robbins for my Brendan Bashar, I follow multiple thought leaders command John inaudible [00:60:26] all of those guys. Then there is podcasts, I believe you can overdo it so my podcasts are a few simple ones that I love. Inaudible[00:60:40] it is actually a number of podcast, planet money, Ted radio hour and I listen to NPR politics only because I don’t like to engage with the news but just to listen to the craziness that is going on in our political Society right now. I don’t have any opinions about it but I just like to listen to it for entertainment. Books, I have some favorite books and I do not read like to lot but I like to read. Once in a while I will pick up a book and learn from it.
Scott Ingram: hang on, on the show you can say you have some favorite books and get away with it. You have got a name some books.
Josh Mueller: Up here we are sitting in my office right now and here are some of my favorites. There are three books that I have read that has made a massive difference and I have red then multiple times, How do friends influence people and if you are in sales you have to read it, I don’t know why I did it but I did it and a red it, the first chapter was so good I went back and reread it and underlined all the good stuff I have did that with every single chapter in that book and I’ve done it twice, I feel that I Pride myself on being a good Communicator is because of that book. That was the first Bugatti ever red when I got into sales and it just change my life.
Another book I read by Matthew Kelly called the Rhythm of Life. This is where I learnt the importance of turning into your purpose and becoming the best. Getting on the Path and getting committed to being the best version of yourself. I think a lot of people talk about being the best version of yourself now but I think I actually claim the term years ago when he wrote this book when he became an international best seller. I read that book three times and I tell you every point in my life where I read that book and the difference that it made for me. Raving fans, another one, just the importance of customer service and a difference it can make. I remember John Rowland told me about this book called high trust selling by Tim Jenkin. It is a great book and it really helps you think about the importance of owning responsibility for your business. How you want to run your business from a sales perspective, and how to think about customers. He was the first person to introduce me to the philosophy sometimes the customer isn’t always right and it is ok to fire clients that, the importance of knowing what your standards are and what your boundaries are and then then honoring the standards and boundaries. Even when a customer is trying to push through them or disregard them will make you feel like you should sacrifice your values and your boundary. Just because they are a customer. I have taught people it is ok to fire a client, there is literally like one in a thousand clients but it is ok because sometimes people’s expectations don’t match with you can provide. You shouldn’t sacrifice your standard to sacrifice your values in order just to keep the customer. You can’t keep everybody happy, Todd Duncan introduced me to that and it was big. It is a big concept for me.
Scott Ingram: I will have to remember that,
Josh Mueller: I will snap a photo of the book shop
It is not overwhelming and it’s a manageable trunk and we will stick that in the shown at if you go to top 1. FM / 15 then I will have that picture in there.
Scott Ingram: Great, there are multiples on that self to so you can give some way to. Just a quick interjection here, we are in the halfway point of my conversation with Josh Miller. The number of resources and insights the Josh said over the course of this conversation tiger in Lee and accordingly we have show notes to date. I highly recommend you go to top 1.fm forward slash 15. It is the number one and the number 15 soap 1.fm forward slash 15. It might be helpful to follow along with hat and there is a full transcript available there as well. If you want to read through everything of the details that just shares. Also when you are there anywhere on top 1. FM you can subscribe to the newsletter and immediately you will receive the sales success community. This is a free resource that I have been building thanks to our sponsors Influitive and thanks to the show. There are a bunch of resources there and Josh has been generous enough to include too valuable bonus audio lessons. Again they are totally free just go to top 1.fm or if you are on the continent of the US, you can text top 1 to 444 999. Now back to make conversation with Josh Miller. I’m also curious about a different kind of tools and apps and I wish that you kind of could adopt some technology things earlier. I know you are not getting notifications from any of them but what are those cool apps for you especially with a mobile office setup and the things that you have got going on?
Josh Mueller: I anticipated this question was coming so I made a list. I’m just going to give you the list is that ok?
Scott Ingram: Yes.
Josh Mueller: So vast CRM that is my number one. Actually the custom CRM that we built that other and Japanese used and hundreds of people across the country uses well, but that is number one.
I live in that thing, I’m in my CRM day in and day out I don’t spend all my time in there but it makes a big difference. I can’t run my business all my life without it, Google Calendar it changed everything when I put my calendar online and got it off the paper. My calculator and my pilot G2 pens. These things, I’ve got one right here and I have got pain in my drawer right now these are written up every single order I’ve ever written for millions and millions of dollars in sales now… So is that right there…
Scott Ingram: that can change up a good thing.
Josh Mueller: Exactly, Google Drive, Dropbox Kajba which is our web platform where we use training and all the other things that we do. On my iPhone, group me. It is a group texting app and I’m part of different group apps and I could influence and impact people the way that I do if I wasn’t using this app.
It is not Facebook and it is not normal social media but it’s a way to get through text messaging and it’s really been very powerful.
Scott Ingram: What are those groups and give me example of how you should use group me.
Josh Mueller: Like a group client group for example, we will put all our clients in there and we will get their permission like we have got the text in group and we will share hot news and success stories. announcements and things like that will it be cool if we put you in that group if they agree then we put in in their group and we will post cool quotes and I will post hot news of things to celebrate. Where M power everybody in the group to post things as well it’s a great place to grab testimonials, it is a great place to interact with people and build relationships with people.
Scott Ingram: That is really interesting.
Josh Mueller: [Inaudible 00:68:02] that is an app I mentioned earlier and D & D. I couldn’t be on the road without those two things, same day bookings on price liner awesome and now I think B&B is even better. I am Db and my wife and I are movie Junkies and we are always like where we know that person from while we are watching a movie.
Scott Ingram: That is just a sanity check right.
Josh Mueller: Exactly, Amazon. Turbo scan, I have to scan a lot of documents and email them. It is a great 22 have especially if you have a team of assistant that help you organize things. Turbos can is like 2 bucks and you can literally scan a 30 page document while you are on the airplane and have it in the inbox Where has to go. A lot of contracts I sign that way, Uber, PayPal YouTube, my notepad on my iPhone and just keeping notes on there is very powerful. Those are the apps that come to mind first hand for me my Skype is a good one too by the way. GarageBand also, I record a lot of audios and I do that on GarageBand and it’s really easy to upload.
Scott Ingram: We have GarageBand running right now.
Josh Mueller: We do, awesome.
Scott Ingram: Is there a particular sales philosophy that you subscribe to?
Josh Mueller: Absolutely, I have the privilege of learning from and watching the world’s greatest sales people work. Where there is online marketers that I’m learning from or seminar Cutco people that I have the pleasure of working around. I really believe that Cutco has some of the best sales people in the world, world-class performers. Just learning and reading books you know Jeffrey, Zig Ziegler at all sorts of different people that teach and train in a sales environment.
[001:10:00]
what I have learnt is there is things that have in common and I have developed what I called the sales mastery formula which is what are used for training weather it’s true speaking or online courses, but we got to master a mindset First and we also have to master engaging clients especially in today’s World Wet full of destruction. They are engaged in a way where they are intrigued, they are very quickly into it and they want to learn more hear from you and see what it is that you are doing and selling. You have to become a master at engaging people in a respectful way where they want to spend more time with you. Is there have to be a master at solving, uncovering people’s needs and finding out what are the needs challenges and struggles and how can we help solve these problems. Connecting people with that emotionally, logically where the hell excited what we are running. We are coming from the perspective of understanding make him desire our stuff. And then closing, just understanding the process of closing and doing it anyway where doesn’t come across is pushy or pitchy like a lot of salespeople work but doing it anyway and where it stays personal. We have a great mind set and helping people undercover their needs and providing solutions to them where I think a lot of sale people make mistakes and they’re coming to the closing and it comes into the sales pitches thing and it is so easy to lose sales that way. My closing ratio is in the High 90s, partly because my closing is the most important, it’s the most personal process.
[01:12:00]
When I’m doing really great at keeping that Connection through closing that is where I’m really winning. It’s just getting them to understand Andy’s things make sense and making yes decisions.
Scott Ingram: Give us a taste, what does a typical clothes for you sound like?
Josh Mueller: It’s just to understand once you start asking me trying questions, how much is this or how does it come and how do I do my work with you? I feel you have a need for my product so I just have to make sure the offer that I’m giving to you make sense for you. It’s helping someone understand and it Cutco for example, I’m just going to make sure that the set of knives that I am offering you, I’m just going to make sure that the set of knives are because of blank, blank and blank and it’s what you have told me already. This will cover all the bases with the cooking that you are doing at home. What’s the after make sense I just have to go into price positioning and making sure that the price make sense to you. The price is a logical thing and that it just helping you understand that my prices compared to the market price for or what do you think I should cost or not. The value is far greater than the price and why my price does makes sense. After that I just have to make time in make sense. One thing that I really think is important because I think sales circles get stretched out a little longer than they need to be. a lot of files can be made right now and it’s a customer feels the need for something and if they see a problem that can be solved to what you are offering, then if you have the decision makers in the room then and shouldn’t take too long to get to The Point.
[01:14:00]
There has to be some agency and why right now makes sense but at b2b can be a little bit longer sales process. There might be two meetings instead of 5. I just provide why it make sense for today to be the day why they buy their knives because I just kicking the can further down the road like they have been doing up to this point. Maybe it’s just the special all the conversation that we have had and we are all busy people and we are hard to get hold of. Creating some form of urgency and why it make sense for now. We are walking through a process making different things make sense, everything’s got to make sense and now it’s just about you. As a customer you just have to understand why it make sense for you. There you make confirmation questions and I say hey do you agree with me that you could see yourself using it. If you say yes to that, then that is great. If you say no or is it at that moment then there is something that you are still unsure about and I need to dig deeper and figure out what might still be holding you back. If I have done a good job after that point Recommending for you and recommending what is in your best interest then you are going to say yes to that question. What about your budget, is that something it would feel comfortable budgeting for today and if you say yes to that we are good to go. If you say no to me or if you are unsure then it is a signal to me that I can’t keep pushing and I need to dig a little bit deeper and find out what is going on if the value is not there all there is something in your budget that I need to know about. Ultimately a sales people we need to make the people feel secure of a talking about money. If we can do that on a regular basis then you can find the right package
[01:16:00]
And find the best deal with a client. The closing process is always about me helping them make sense of the offer, the pricing and the timing and the need for making sure that this is something that you would use and you agree that this is something you can budget for. After that it’s high five and welcome to the family so let’s rock and roll. It says in his attention and that then I need to continue the question and ask more questions to discover and find out how can we find a different option or a different offer, different pricing or different timing that will work best for you.
Scott Ingram: I cut you off but that is not the end of your process.
Josh Mueller: What is the end of my process, right sales mastery and the last two steps, it’s like a six-step formula, mastering is a mindset, mastering engaging, mastering solving and mastering closing. So then it is about observing and once you said yes and I have a sale, and that’s when the soil get started. There’s only one other person that knows if the budget is right and there’s only one other person that knows whether there is extra value that can be added and from my perspective I’m the person who knows all the value and you are the person and know how much money is left if any at all. It is my job and responsibility to re-engage in the process and go through the process of observing. A lot of people call it up selling but I call it up serving because of my perspective it’s about serving the client through and making sure that I maximizing the value from every side experience.
There’s a strategy to that and it’s one of the best things I feel I invest in my business under the last Step is the philosophy I subscribe to. It is at the end when everything is over
[00:00:00]
making sure there is a certain communication with a customer, you’re going through certain steps and perform their decision today to buying something or you instruct them with moving forward so that you are recognizing them for the time, not fair that trust and for multiple things. When they walk away they don’t think about the money they spend, about making the right decision, they feel honored and respected at the High Level and their know what The Next Step. I’ve had customers that come up to me that I just make 5 minutes ago that is pending 10000 dollars with me. And b2c by the way. What I love is they are walking away loyal and very excited about investment at a maid and I believe it’s about the famous ghetto and that they walk away thinking about that. That is what I believe is team up, the most valuable asset in the business is your ability to follow up with. To serve anti continue to sell to your clients over the course of their relationship that you have with them and to me is a lifetime for us. We are in this for life and I tell my clients we are here for you for years to come, weather we are selling Cutco or vast actions. It is a partnership for us and we make sure I customize know that and we are very clear on what that means moving forward and we just then follow through on making sure these things happen.
Scott Ingram: how would you describe your style on how U deliver that or just your style in general?
Josh Mueller: plan eccentric, client Focus and what is in the business.
I don’t care if you spend 50 bucks with me or if you spend 50 thousand dollars with me, whatever is in your best interest that is what I want to figure out. I want to make sure you take advantage of it, I am laid back, I have high energy and I have connection and presents but I’m not like in your face, crazy, enthusiastic salesperson. I’m very direct and I have no problem saying what needs to be saying and asking with needs to be ask and I don’t like to beat around the bush. I think one thing that is very important is being question orientated, I Pride myself and quality questions and using questions to learn about people 2 guide conversations and influence decisions. I’m just making sure of what you are thinking and feeling and needing so that I can navigate that conversation in a way that serves you.
Scott Ingram: Motivation perspective, how do you think about motivation, how do you motivate yourself? What is that?
Josh Mueller: I like this question because people as that a lot. How do u stay motivated? It is something that people feels happen, it’s like the motivation happened to me and what I realize it is something that I am responsible for it is not an outside source, it is something it comes within me. I learn how to stay motivated, if you want to read a book read a book by David Randall about motivation. That is a good one. My perpetual motivation really came from through turning into my Why’s. Not knowing what I want to accomplish and achievements I want to have
[01:22:00]
But actually why. John Roman said to me years ago, behind every what, behind every great goal is an even greater why. When you get clear on why I want to do something it can get motivating and I believe it comes from three different places. Let’s say you have a girl to make a certain amount of money every year, if you can turn into why it is important to you like what is the external reward you get from that? Get clear on that and write it down, it can be just one big thing. I remember the first day I wanted to say 100 in one year and wasn’t just make 100 Grand it was save 100 Grand. I ask myself why that is important and what is the external reward, 100000 dollars in the bank is a really external reward. What is the internal reward that come from achieving that goal? Who do you become in the process of what happens to you internally and when you get turned into that it is a really big deal. I remember the 100K goal because I want to prove to me the discipline to save that much money in a year. I want to feel the sense of pride that comes from that and a third thing which I think is the most important thing, if you can try any goal to the impact of it will have, if you can turn n y that is important it becomes really powerful. You lost that enable them in a place where you can see them all the time and you remind yourself of them all the time and you go from there. For me the big why is why we are running out business the way we are running it and why I’m so passionate about stuff, it’s about the future that I’m creating, it’s about being the best version of myself and seeing other people around me succeed as a result of that. I’m turned into the listings and every decisions that they make to do something or not to do something it is either because it is aligned with those three things or not.
[01:24:00]
If it’s not aligned I don’t do it and if it is I do consider it. The main thing is to allow myself to do that is me living the personal life that I want to live. Recognizing through my business all the other things that I want to be doing outside of the business. Those two things go exist comedy all live together vs this is the stepchild and that is the sister, it’s not a good analogy.
Scott Ingram: let me up this in the perspective of the world you know best about most Cutco sellers. What is a thing that you believe the average salary thing is crazy?
Josh Mueller: I don’t believe there is right or wrong, I just leave it best to worst and I think when we tried to put things as right or wrong it get in the way of what is most important? What is the best thing to do if you find the right thing to do, the best thing to do, if you find that you are going to win. I really believe in the law of attraction and I know a lot of people think it’s crazy. Napoleon says what the human mind can perceive and can’t believe they wanted cheap. If you can perceive it, start their and believe it. Whatever your girl is, even if it is something that you have never achieve before, work it out and break it down to the daily activity and if you can do that then you can come to believe it and it’s just about getting out there and taking the action to believe it. Earl Nightingale says we get what we think about most of the time
[01:26:00]
I used to think about negative stuff all the time but now I’m thinking about the things that I want to attract in my life and if you visualize and think about things over and over again there eventually they are going to show up the way the energy of the world works. i read a book by Matthew Kelly called off balance read a book by Matthew Kelly called off balance and I always used to strive for this work life balance thing that is out there but Matthew really put in his book that the world’s most successful people are also the world’s most unbalance people. So there are people who are really engaging on what are doing at the time to the highest level where the point where the rest of their life would be considered out of balance from the normal and traditional perspective of balance. What you will find it a fully engage in that activity to the fullest and then go to the next activity. When they are on vacation, they are on vacation and their businesses for or whatever. When they are in their business, they are in their business and performing at the highest level and giving their full attention so they can perform at the highest level then they can go home and be fully engaged and present with their family. It is ok to fire a client, I talked about that earlier it’s just the idea of aligning with your values and being very clear on what your values are and now I find new sales people that think they need to sell everything to everybody all the time. That is just a lot of pressure with put on ourselves and I believe you don’t have to sell everything to everybody all the time, it is ok if a customer is a suspect and not a prospect. It’s ok if you have a nose sale or you have a no show for an appointment, these things are ok and they happened to all of us.
[01:28:00]
The goal is not like my biggest thing to be perfect. I have learnt through my coaching business that a lot of us put this pressure on our self to be perfect all the time and my goal is not to be perfect. Tony Robbins says it is the lowest standard to what we can achieve or stripe fall and I really believe in that. My goal is to me that you do not need to be better than Perfect. It is good to strive for perfection because then you will always be improving and becoming a better person of yourself. To expect to achieve it is kind of crazy. I believe in progress and I’m making progress. If I’m doing better today at what I was doing yesterday then I’m making progress and that is a win. Having high standards, I think about it like this my bar from my Standard is high but then my bar for Celebration is super low. The goal is to celebrate as much as possible and a lot of sales people I work for, in Cutco he believes that we have a 60 dollar sale. Then we have this thing called the ultimate 2500 dollar sale. A lot of people treat the trimmer differently than they treat the ultimate in terms of how they view it and in terms of the value. Timmy I celebrated timber as much as I celebrate ultimate. There has been times I have celebrated the trimmer more than the ultimate because it was that much more difficult to get that sale. It was a bigger award to get that sells in the ultimate easy one. In my mind the reason that it’s important to me is because I give myself permission to celebrate every bit of progress. Every order cows and every client accounts, every experience
[01:30:00]
That forward progress experience counts. It becomes a lot more fun that way and when I don’t celebrate the tremors that aren’t that good enough. Even though they are making progress has still not good enough and if I have consistently telling myself that anything is not good shape or form is good enough then I’m negatively reinforcing it. I want a positively reinforce any progress and that goes back to the initial. my goal is to make progress and not to be perfect. What is perfect? No it wasn’t perfect and I could have sold them more but it wasn’t right for them. I’m going to celebrate what they dead dead and most people may not consider it is perfect.to me it is progress and that is why I’m celebrating.
Scott Ingram: What about the flip side, is his things that the average seller believes that you think is crazy?
Josh Mueller: Sales is a tactic for my likes sales in success is a tactic and I don’t believe that. I think a lot of people especially people get into sales, they are getting into it reluctantly because I believe sales people are sleazy, that it requires a skill say that has negative stuff to it. I don’t believe that it will, in fact I believe we are all sales people.
Scott Ingram: You gave an example of your wife being an excellent sales person
Josh Mueller: she is awesome right, she saw me on staying with her for the rest of your life and that is a big one. She is one of the best sales people that I know and she makes me to take out the trash in the Rain sometimes. Like parents, you’ve got to hide your kids are doing homework and somebody has to sell toilet paper from the store that you are buying it from. Everything needs to be sold and I believe sales people are the backbone of the world, without asking nothing happens.
[01:32:00]
It doesn’t have to be pleasing or pushy, it doesn’t have to be what people think of sales then what it was 30 or 40 years ago. The things that were used to Get Away with years ago and you were the only guy and tell that had something that people need it, doesn’t work in today’s world anymore. Sales in today’s world is making personal connections and they can kill people It’s about the relationship and not about the result, It’s about sharing and yes selling but that is the byproduct of the other things. One of my sales processes is we are just here to connect and consult people. See what is best for them and convert them into clients if it makes sense for them and percent’s for us. It is ok to say to a customer that you are not a good fit and let them go. The other thing is people believe I need the newest shiniest thing the newest shiniest piece of Technology, the newest shiniest software or the newest shiniest car. That’s what makes me look good as an entrepreneur sales person.
My wife has been driving the same car for 15 years and she is one of the best sales people i know. Nobody is judging her by her car. They are judging her by her character. I’m driving a Toyota Camry that is one half left on it and it’s got dates and it’s got 200000 miles on it and I sell a lot of products and services. It’s not because of the car I’m driving and the soup that I’m wearing, to most of my meetings I show up in a jean and button up shirt or even a Polo because it is not about that stuff. It is who you are and how you connect with your clients
And can they really tell that you are there to serve them and if you have the best interest in mind and if so you are going to be great. It doesn’t matter how you look for what you drive.
Scott Ingram: I know we have talked about a lot of these and you’ve got more in there but what is the most important lesson that you have had to learn through this journey and we have talked about some of this in the shift but what else has created a Stepping Stones to your journey?
Josh Mueller: I read a book by John Maxwell called failing forward a few years ago, that is a lesson that was really powerful for me. Embracing failure, and you write a lot of books on leadership and I believe if you want to be a top performer you have to learn how to delete. Nothing great can because I can’t be alone and learn how to be a great leader. Learn from John Maxwell that being a true leader is actually being a servant to others. The importance of setting an honoring our boundaries, just understanding what you will and won’t stand for, what is important to you and what is your values. For a lot of years I didn’t do this work and most people I found don’t sit down and say “what is my values?” what is most important to me personally and professionally. What are the boundaries that you need to keep in order to honor those values and then stick into this Down Text. Having integrity with that, being a person of your word and following through what you say you’re gonna do in all things. None of us are perfect with this but the more you pay attention they better you’re gonna get it all the better you do at it the more respect and credibility you’re gonna have in the world.
I want to be a person to lead and I want people to say that is a guy and you can always count on me and he did what he said he was going to do. The power of giving with no expectation of getting anything in return, I think a lot people who give because they only give if they get something in return and I have just made its way more powerful to give with no expectation and Zig Ziegler said help in our people to get what they want and you will get everything you want. I like to take on that and more because the experience that I found as you get way Mall in return. I have mentioned this but it’s all about the live room experience, I want to develop lifelong loyalty with my clients and if I want a lifelong loyalty I’m going to willingly play the game. Just Letting the power of thinking further ahead and anticipating what a sacrifice is now for how long term relationship. If I give four example in this podcast now and I don’t know you, I’m so glad you reach out and got in touch with me because it’s great to meet you and talk with you. This is so into it and sharing. I know through this someone is going to be impacted and as long as that happening it’s all that matters. There were people who were where I wanted to be a long time ago and they said openly with no expectations in return and I am where I am today because of stacks and stacks of those people. Why would I want to receive from others and not exchange that energy and give back to their. Learning that lesson was powerful. Investing and coaching, it makes sense to invest.
If you know somebody is getting results that you want and they have the ability to go to through that, invested as it might hurt in the beginning it is always worth it in the long run if you are willing to do the work. One of the concepts that we talk about earlier is 3 level meter ship. The idea to have someone that is at your same level, he hold each other a countable and a mentor each other and you just dance of each other. Have someone that is not at a level that you are at and that you can reach down and raise up to your level. And make sure you have someone that at the level where you want to get to and make sure you are creating the relationship with them so they can help reach down and pull you up to their level. If you got those three strings placed at all times then you are going to be indestructible. What does that look like for you right now?
Scott Ingram: what do you actively seek out, at what level do you get the clear level and the lower level find you, how does that manifest?
Josh Mueller: I’m always seeking out a mental that I want to work with and Amy and I call it something that we speak about in a training. find a master and follow the model. You need to find a mental and get the results if you want and which it out of those people. Having the courage to reach out to them and you would be surprised. I know people who wanted to be a bestselling author and somebody said to them reach out to your favorite author and writing a letter and see what happens. And they were like a boss they don’t want to talk to me and I don’t know who I am but you would be amazed at the number of authors, if you send them a handwritten letter but they are going to get back to you. I would do that with my 20 favorite authors, if I want to be a bestselling also I would ask them can I learn from you.
[01:40:00]
It is one of the highest compliments when somebody Reach Out asks if they can learn from you. You should have the courage to reach out to people, I’ve done that for years and John Rowland was one of my first metals and the guy is amazing. It’s all over TV and wrote amazing books, he is just amazing human being. I how to reach out to him over and over again until he finally said this guy is serious. That is turned into a lifelong relationship and he was at my wedding. A family that even travel together but having the courage to reach out and grab those mentors. That is huge. I’m always looking for people who, for example right now I’m building a coaching business and I’m entering with one of the world’s best coaches, highest-paid coaches for my most impactful coaches and I had my eyes open for a really long time for somebody to mental in there. It’s a really good friend of mine who is doing awesome with his coaching business but he is at the glass ceiling and ready to break through to the next level. We are setting up mental relationship up right now and we are working on moving forward and I can help raising up to the level where he wants to be. With his coaching business to be at the level where I am right now. I’ve got other people were just like me which we are networking with and bouncing ideas off and they are my accountability and we talk about what we are doing. A lot of people look for accountability, like I need someone to help me a countable but I don’t buy into that philosophy… Ultimately if you can’t help hold yourself accountable, accountability really in. When you get hit it is when you are ready to share with people what you are doing and why you are doing it, what’s your goals are and what is important to him. So the people that are going to check in with you and ask about it and actually your Peers are doing the same thing as you. My sales business is always being true.
[01:42:00]
I am always looking for the person that is getting better results than mean which of these people learning from these people and implementing what they are teaching me and, find the master and follow the model. Then I’m always training people in our business weather it’s my team other people or other places that want to learn and master the sales. I’m always shine without a sales people what is going on and just say this is what are goals are on this is what we are doing. Making sure I’m putting myself in those places where people are weather it’s conferences or seminars or conference calls or whatever. Just making sure what they are and I’m inserting myself in this community and becoming a part of them. Sick at the people you want to mentor and seek out the people you want to mentor with. If people are coming to you seeking guidance just say yes to them. Your time is available resorts and you need to be aware of how much you need to dedicate to that.
Know those values and the boundaries and honor the boundaries. But always be willing to help.
Josh Mueller: let’s narrow that down a little bit, what would you suggest to somebody that is just getting started in their sales career. You see that a lot, that elements of Cutco’s models.
Scott Ingram: the first commitment is have fun, just make it fun and honor the struggle and make a contest ways to bring joy to the process. I’m always telling the people that I teach and train that you will get out of this what you put into it. That is one of my daily mantras, I’m going to get out of this with a put into it. If I do it have then I’m going to get have results, if I give it my absolute best then I’m going to get the absolute best out of it. The other thing is learn like you are drinking from a fire hose.
[01:42:08]
Learn, Learn Learn. Leave It All of the resources that you have available and if they are inside your company or outside of your company just learn as much as you can and most importantly don’t just learn but implement. Keep practicing and don’t give up, I really believe that patience pays so we have to keep at it. Michael Jordan with the crappiest player on the team and he got cut and you would never be great at basketball. He didn’t buy into that philosophy and he wanted to be great at basketball and he’s short basketball every day until he made a 100 free throws and that is how he became one of the world’s greatest basketball players of History. Keep at it and be patient with yourself and give yourself permission to make progress and not to be perfect. No matter what say the percentage of every paycheck and never touch it, as your income gross don’t increase your quality of life at the same place that you are increasing your income. In sales it it easy to get extended beyond your means based on money that you don’t have yet. Say within your means and Treat Yourself well but spend less than you make. Then you will be making progress and like I mentioned earlier build your business around your personal life. Make your personal life your priority and figure out what your values are personally and professionally and then honor that and build your business to support that. Another thing that I learnt just because I represent a world class product with world-class service, Cutco is best in class. If it’s not best-in-class don’t sell it. It is easy to sell cheap stuff but there are a lot of high quality stuff out there.
[01:46:00]
We are doing the world a disservice by selling cheap stuff and if you are selling sell the best in class. If you want to be the best in class sales person then it starts with the best in class products. If you are and you feel that your product is not best in class, then you need to go back to work and figure out what are the steps that need to be taken to make it the best in class.
Josh Mueller: Awesome, we are working on making this the best class podcast.
Scott Ingram: You are doing a great job.
Josh Mueller: How does that advice change when you talk to somebody was a little bit further in their career and they are not just starting out. No not at the top that they have way more potential for my what advice to have for them?
Scott Ingram: Are they struggling?
Josh Mueller: Do you want them to struggle, they can be. How much does that impact your answer? Let’s say yes, this is hard I’m struggling.
Scott Ingram: First you got to ask yourself do you want to make it to the top, and what is a top for you? I believe the top is different for everybody and a lot of time to compare yourself to other people around us and my good friend says comparison is the thief of all joy. I learned a long time ago that the best thing for me to dot the top is to stop comparing myself to everybody else and start to compare myself to my best. You would be a maze what you got inside of you if you turn into your potential and just make the decision to commit to being the best. The reality is we can never be like anybody else because we are all independent human beings.
[01:48:00]
There are no two human beings on the face of the earth that is exactly alike. Why try to be everybody else when you can just be your best. It takes a lot of pressure off me just focus on. If you are on a plateau now and if you are struggling can I get honest why you are at that plateau. What Habits are in your way of making that progress? Figure out what the next level island why you want to achieve that next level. Turn into those whys, find somebody was better than you and getting the results that you want and have the courage to get in touch with those people. What are their Habits, what their mindset is and what are they doing on a day-to-day basis. What are the actions and find out what you resonate with that you learn from those people and then a line your actions with a new habit. Make the decision to becomes a better version of yourself that you know you need to become in order to what is you want to achieve. That is the way that you get off that plateau and practice, practice, practice. A lot of the times the reason we are in the middle of the Pack have some success and we have become complacent. When U re commit to something bigger and you are willing to humble yourself and realize you have still time to grow, that is when you can start to get back on the progress Wagon. That is when you can start breaking through the next level and achieving and sustaining that next level is really about making the decision to become real with my you are on that plateau and why you are struggling in the first place. It starts with taking ownership over your results, good and bad. I found with me at least there were times when I wanted to give myself all the credit
[01:50:00]
For the success but like everybody else for the struggle.it wasn’t until I decided that if I was going to give myself to put it for the success then I also have to give myself credit for the struggles. I have to take responsibility for both. When you get real about your struggles and take responsibility for that it becomes motivating to do want to change it. Always stay connected with the whys. The most important thing especially if I experience and you want to break through to the next level for my stopped racing results for my stop chasing money, recognition and start chasing things like contribution impact and growth. If you Chase those things than everything else comes as a result of that.
Josh Mueller: I don’t feel like I’m doing a good job if I don’t turn him into a fan of the show, as I am talking to others you at the top of their brain and organizations, we will keep looking for more folks like yourself. What would you want to learn from them and how could I improve the questions that I am asking?
Scott Ingram: I think you are asking great questions and I love this question too because it’s a great way to compile great questions. Here is what I want to know, I want to know what are people’s biggest struggles, what are their sales philosophy and I’m always interested in hearing other people’s perspectives and I think those already great questions that you are asking. Where is a question that I would like to know the answer to, what support do other people West that their company provided but isn’t and why do they feel that is important I just think it is like
[01:52:00]
What is missing out there? The times you are trying to figure things out on our own. I would like to know what is missing from other people’s perspectives. What is the coolest sale story and how have they use that to help them get even better at selling. I want to hear for sale stories about people’s best customers and how they got the deal. I think we all Learn best in storage I need to be cool to hear some really great sales stories and figure out what was the lesson plan and and how are they leveraging those lessons to help them to be even better right now.
Josh Mueller: It would people, what is your favorite?
Scott Ingram: That is the evil trick; I get it at all there is around on you.
Josh Mueller: I think one of my favorite sale stories and if you are a Cutco person then listen to this heard it before and if you haven’t, I love the story. I met a guy named Donny and Donny runs a company that test peoples pee for drugs. He has the best sense of humor. If you are in the pee testing I think you should have. The best sense of humor comes from the morticians that I have met and then the people I meet that do pee testing for truckers. That is what Donny does, he is one of those get to the point kind of guys. I am standing at a trade show and selling my stuff and I knew from somebody I met that Donny was a good prospect. He was a good prospect and he said show me what you got and I showed him everything.
[01:54:00]
He said show me something else and I showed him something else and he bought it and I thought that was easy. Because it was so easy I then had the confidence to show him more. I was since you are getting that; let me show you another thing. We went through his process of him shooting me down and we both asking questions and I kept showing him more stuff. I just kept selling him more stuff. I sold him something else that was a gift package with company logos. He said he would take it and that was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I just kept convincing myself it was easier than it should be and I just kept showing him stuff. We got to the point where he added 10 different things and at the end he said he is done, don’t show me anything else. So I counted it all up and he asked how much did he spent? The amount he spent was exactly what I told him the whole package was at first. He said he is not spending that but he was excited about it. He asked how much and I said the amount, and he was oh my gosh how you did that. I was like thanks. At that time it was the biggest sale I had in my career. I never work alone at trade shows and the guy standing next to me and his mouth was on the floor. My mouth was on the floor. I spend that night going home and remembered something special happened there, you had your best sales day and best order ever. I like to ask myself questions, what happened, what did I do right and what can I do better? Were there opportunities that I missed and I would like to reevaluate the situation?
[01:56:00]
I realised I used a step by step strategy, I don’t think we have time to cover it today, it’s an hour long training, but that was where I learned there was a process to up serving, and when you do it right most people will let you sell them more. It is just understanding the step by step and having fun. Ever since then I have developed a discipline to every customer that says yes, more stuff. That has helped me sell far more in the same amount of time than I ever would have. I just sold somebody something bid and I had the confidence to sell them more stuff. When they said yes, I had the confidence to show them more stuff till the point when they said I am done. I saw it as my responsibility to show them all of the value they can take advantage off. I let them determine when they fare done. There are people all over the country doing that and it is impacting their business in a positive way. I do it every day.
Scott Ingram: It reminds me of a book [Inaudible 01:57:41]
Josh Mueller: Yes, if you watch the DVD.
Scott Ingram: Yes I would check it out.
Josh Mueller: Great people, Andrea. I was going to call her out but I don’t remember her last name. Her partner is Brain; we will put it in the show.
[01:58:00]
Scott Ingram: Go to topone.fm/15 and you can go and find it. I also through my pen in your book case so I can take the picture on my way out. I guess we haven’t talked about your biggest struggle, but what is the biggest day to day struggle?
Josh Mueller: I would say saying yes to too much. A good friend repeated a Garry Keller quote to me and he said protect every yes with a thousand no’s. I overextend myself and take on too many projects at once. My biggest daily struggle is tuning into my project and what to say yes to. What aligned with my values and what doesn’t? Also being the best leader that I could be for my people. I think that is a lifelong challenge for everybody.
To me it not much of a challenge comma in a really good way. My people working I’m challenged with a responsibility to keep my people working and keep them employed. I have a team and a staff that sell our services and support
Clients and I have a responsibility to keep that goes so that they have jobs and pay that I will every week.
[02:00:00]
I have a responsibility to make sure there is money in the bank to not lay people off. It is a really awesome challenge to have and i am really grateful for that. I have great partners and staff in my life anew every client that we get to work with. I think all have this new change bring this business. Finding new customers and building new relationships I’m keeping our products and services in Centre with them I’m making sure that understand the value. We are not just somebody who sells them something and then hit the road. Beating that drum and keeping that message out there that is one of the positive challenge.
Josh Mueller: One of the have questions I need to ask is who the most successful salesperson that you know is. You send me a long list and I’m going to ask you to narrow it down. You can still read them off and I think there is some great shout outs but pick your one and why?
Scott Ingram: My number one, John Bird off because he’s one of the most intelligible human beings I have ever met my singing take multiple organizations, multiple individuals and 3000 Sandston and guidance and through is commitment of doing what is best for people. You’ve been able to accomplish and amazing t and he is completely genuine at the percent and one of the smartest people that I knot summaries I really want to see that list and what are some of the behind-the-scenes feel better part because it’s a proper commitment that my guests good for it. In the last episode I did The Soil we get a longer conversation and for the actual interview is actually fantastic. It is similar to this, you took the time and have some serious thought that these questions. But I will do if you think like this in the show notes well.