Business Coach: Why Sales

The following article is a transcript that features Mickey Mihalec (top regional parmaceutical sales rep) and business coach Clay Clark (America’s Palest Man & US Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year) talking about why nobody wants to do sales, but it is vitally important to your business on Thrive15.com, one of the most practical business schools in Florida!

Clay:                My name is Clay Clark and I am the COO, lead business coach, and Custodial Engineer at Thrive15.com. Today, I am joined with seven feet of fun, the man with the plan, the guy who’s one of America’s top pharmaceutical sales people. His name is Mickey Michalec. He’s going to be teaching us specifically about sales, that thing that no one wants to do but we all have to do.

If you own a business, the chances are you have to sell something to stay in business, so today’s episode could be worth millions or thousands. There’s no limit on what today’s episode could be worth for you and your business.

We are here with Mickey Michalec. I’m pumped up. You are one of the top pharmaceutical sales reps in the region, in the country. You’re here with us today. Thank you so much for being here, my friend.

Mickey:           Hey, I appreciate it, look forward to it.

Clay:                I going to go ahead and go to my incredible chalkboard for a business coach here.

Mickey:           Awesome.

Clay:                Sales, the thing that no one wants to do but it’s the thing that everyone has to do. It seems like you and I, all the time, we’ll meet a doctor or a business owner or a business coach. Somebody who is, the doctor or the business owner, and they have a desire of making a ton of money or helping a lot people. Usually, it’s helping a lot of people or making a lot of money. It’s one of those two.

Mickey:           Correct.

Clay:                Yet they get here and they get stuck because they can’t do any sales without a business coach. They can’t sell anything. The sales just don’t happen. They can’t sell. Because of that it seems like their dreams go down and they begin to almost lay here on the ground defeated. They just die right there. What is the deal? Why are people so afraid of sales?

Mickey:           I think, first of all, they’re afraid because they don’t know what to do. They’re afraid to even start. It’s so intimidating, the word sales. “I don’t want to be invited to a multi-level marketing deal.” “I don’t want to be asking for money. I don’t want to be making people uncomfortable.” They say, “You know what, it’ll take care of itself.” It starts here in the classroom. That’s where it starts.

Clay:                There’s three ways we can get rich, basically, if we’re an entrepreneur. You have one, is that you can do work in a place that nobody else wants to be, so geographically, maybe we can go up to Alaska and we can go fishing. This is my Alaskan boat here. We’re fishing in Alaska. We could do that and we can make a lot of money because we’re in Alaska, we’re fishing without a business coach. Maybe we could be a contractor in Iraq, or some war zone. The second, is we can do work that nobody else wants to do, like sales. The third is, we can do work that nobody else can do.

You’ve had a little bit of both, though. Being a guy 6’11” a lot people can’t be 6’11” and can’t shoot a basketball, or don’t have the artistic skill to be a musician or artist or something. You’ve experienced both a little bit. How was it hard for you to transition into going from doing stuff no one else could do, being tall, to doing stuff no one else wanted to do, doing sales? How did you transition from star athlete to bottom of the barrel new guy in sales? How do you do that without a business coach?

Mickey:           That’s right. I think it starts out first, and I want to talk to the athletes out there because a lot of you guys are aspiring, “How do I become successful outside of my sport? I put all the effort, I ran the sprints, I lifted the weights, I learned the plays and I executed on here.” I think the problem is is most players for their entire life, if you’re like me, if you were a large kid, then ended being a tall middle-school kid, then a freakishly tall high school kid that got picked up to play college sports. Everyone told you from a young age, “Oh, there’s Mickey, he’s tall.” “There’s Mickey, he plays basketball.” “There’s Mickey, we’re glad he’s on our team.” “There’s Mickey, look at how tall he is. He’s bigger.” Right?

Clay:                Yeah. That’s tough without a business coach.

Mickey:           Your whole life you’re tall, you’re big, you’re a basketball player. You’re tall, you’re big, you’re a basketball player. Even into college, “There’s Mickey. He plays college basketball.”

Clay:                “Big Mickey.”

Mickey:           There he is, right? At some point that sport is going to stop, and when it does, who are you? Are you still tall Mickey that plays basketball? No, you’re not. You’re left searching. A lot of these guys and girls that are out there playing their sport, “I was a …  Well, I ‘m not anymore.” “I used to be … Well, I’m not anymore.” I think they have to stop and take that same fire and that passion that said, “I want to go to the top of my sport” and find something that can challenge them in the same way where you get to see your competition everyday and say, “You know what, either he’s going to win when he goes in that office or I’m going to win.”

Clay:                I see a lot of times people have the same thing you talked about, being the star athlete, to having to start a different career. I see a lot of times, too, people who are in mid-level management or they’ve been working in corporate America. Maybe you’re watching this and maybe you just got laid off. You found yourself going from the top to all of a sudden, “Uh-oh, I don’t have a job.” It’s kind of like when you can no longer do physical labor and you just lost a job, that’s usually when you have to do sales or if you want to start a business, you have to do sales.

Want to start or grow a business but don’t know where to start? We’ll show you the way many millionaires and successful business mentors have done it on thrive15.com, one of the most entertaining and practical business schools in Florida!

With so many people wanting to avoid sales, I think there’s a lot of people who do believe it’s a natural talent. Then people like you and me believe it’s a learned skill. How long does it take somebody to learn the skill of sales and persuasion, if they decide they want to dive in, starting today?

Mickey:           If you want to dive in today, I would give yourself a learning curve of about six weeks, and that’s going everyday.

Clay:                Six weeks.

Mickey:           Yeah, that’s it. It’s not a lifetime. It’s not years. It’s not something that I was born with. For those that think I was born with it, I want you to come ride with me when I get my teeth kicked in every now and then and go, “Oh, I thought he sold to everyone.” Every now and then I get my teeth still kicked in. It’s not fun.

If you start learning and putting the effort in, you’re willing the ask the questions. Even if the answer’s “no”, are you willing to go back and say, “Why was it ‘no’?”