Latest / The ROI Online Podcast / Sales Leader Joe Paranteau on How To Stand Out in Sales: The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 114

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Sales Leader Joe Paranteau on How To Stand Out in Sales: The ROI Online Podcast Ep. 114 · The ROI Online Podcast

• 0:03
  Joe Paranteau: No one ever talks about the obstacles that you'll encounter even within your own company. In a sales career, some companies you might have to sell internally harder than you do externally. and navigate, you know, uncharted waters with changing. You know, some people might have three sales managers and given your, they might have to deal with different layers of sales management in addition to customers.
• 0:31
  Steve Brown: Hi, everybody.
• 0:31
  Steve Brown: Welcome to The ROI Online Podcast where we believe you, the courageous entrepreneurs of our day, are the invisible heroes of our economy. You not only improve our world with your ideas, your grit and your passion, but you make our world better. I'm Steve Brown and this is a place where we have great conversations with winners just like you while we laugh and learn together.
• 1:04
  Steve Brown: Joe Paranteau, welcome to The ROI Online Podcast.
• 1:09
  Joe Paranteau: Glad to be here.
• 1:09
  Joe Paranteau: I appreciate you having me on this morning.
• 1:12
  Steve Brown: So I got a question for you. It's like, Where does someone that's a member of a Chippewa tribe? The little shell tribe, okay, ended up working for a big giant company leading sales, a company like Microsoft, how does that story happen?
• 1:35
  Joe Paranteau: It's a great story. And for my family members, they know me as as omaka. Brown Bear. I'm really the first generation to grew up outside the reservation, my dad and aunts and uncles, everyone, you know, spent, you know, half their life on the reservation left. And so I'm a product of living in two worlds. And one of those worlds I discovered, you know, college and education.
• 1:59
  Joe Paranteau: That was the first one to go to college. What's interesting is, I may actually be the first Native American business author in history. Most Native Americans, when they write books, they don't write about business, because when you think about it, it's a byproduct of, you know, education, they haven't been. This stuff didn't it's not history that we read about in books, my aunts and uncles, you know, were put into boarding school against their will, to learn new language and to forget their old language. So this was something that happened in you know, kind of my lifetime. In the 50s. And 60s, this wasn't, this wasn't long ago. And so for me, my trip started, nobody told me go to college, I was in the military, I had bad grades. I was a one to six High School. So I was a, I got great shgs. I had, like, you know, 1460 sa T and a 1.6, grade average. So colleges had no idea what to do with that they were like, but I want the military.
• 3:03
  Joe Paranteau: And I found that all the officers were driving BMWs they had the officers club, and I said, What's an officer? How do I get to become an officer in the Air Force. And I learned it was all about going to college.
• 3:13
  Joe Paranteau: So I had some some officers who mentored me, helped encourage me too, to go to college. And I started right there when I was in the Air Force. So after I got out of the Air Force, I just continued college, found out that I had a, you know, had a background in technology from the Air Force, I used to fix air traffic control radar and navigational systems. Didn't like that, as much as I liked being the Public Affairs Office, you know, coordinator for our our unit, loves talking to people. And I got a degree in communication. And after I got out, I found out you know, it was technology was hot software was, you know, enterprise software was coming into its own and people were needed, who could talk technology and, you know, engage customers. And I found at home there was great timing. I got to work with Silicon Valley companies when they were first starting out. So companies like Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Borland SEO, Unix, those were awesome. My early customers Adobe, when they were startups, HP, Intel. Some of the biggest companies we have today.
• 4:26
  Joe Paranteau: I knew when they were not so not so big.
• 4:31
  Steve Brown: So your your book is titled Billion Dollar Sales Secrets, superstar selling tips for all seasons. So this is as a designation that I didn't know until you told me that, amazing.
• 4:50
  Steve Brown: So in here, you talk about you've sold a billion dollars worth of stuff but and that's with Microsoft, you've been with them so long time and it's like could you not have picked a more difficult competitive industry that just grind salespeople down?
• 5:10
  Joe Paranteau: Yeah it's a challenging industry but I've been thankful to be with Microsoft for a long time and through many different iterations of my career but the story for Billion Dollar Sales Secrets in in my career here i've decided to chase bigger and bigger quotas who does that I mean that's a salesperson who says you know i'd really like to get the experiences of running more businesses at scale as a seller so when I, and I also love startups you know kind of an intrapreneur inside of microsoft so this business that I was part of I had the opportunity to work with most of the healthcare providers in america and my quota was anywhere between 250 million to 400 million annual, when you break that down that's like you know two and a half million dollars a day from a selling day perspective and afterwards you know not a knock on Microsoft but you know this is a spoiler alert in selling a billion dollars over a five year period obviously I didn't get paid you know 1/10 of 1% of commission because it just didn't happen I didn't make the king's ransom there but it was a learning experience for me and I had to reflect on this after after that five year period i'm like wow I just sold a billion dollars asked people, who else has sold a billion dollars? I found out that it was a pretty rare accomplishment in and of itself many people you know in Microsoft will run businesses that are billion that's kind of an easy you know easy thing to do but they've got teams of salespeople and it's not to say that you know I didn't do this you know with the help of hundreds of people I did however it was my number this was my number that i was staring down and it's a number that's big you know to put it in reference when tablo got purchased by salesforce.com their annual revenue you know was this amount that i had sold so it was an entire company with their salesforce and sold this you know this amount of revenue and i was doing it solo so it's kind of something that i was proud of but it made me think about sales and what did i do consciously and unconsciously and what can i give back to people you know, what's the learning that you know i've been through in all these seasons ups and downs through hurricane katrina through 2008 financial meltdown it's difficult being out there you know not only in just technology lots of industries going through the grind of the ups and downs in sales and so how could i share something with the audience's that they would find valuable that they could take and actually leverage.
• 8:07
  Steve Brown: So your sales career started off when you were a little kid you would take rocks and paint them and sell them as paperweights
• 8:21
  Joe Paranteau: Like this, it's my rock, I did we didn't grow up with hardly anything i remember as a kid we'd go to the grocery store and if anyone grew up poor they can relate to this but we've got to get cereal and it was the the generic grocery store so literally the cereal would be in a white container it would say cereal it gets something else it would say potatoes but it was always like puffed wheat it was horrible so when i went in the military i remember i found like fruity pebbles that was my favorite
• 9:08
  Steve Brown: So where does this sales desire come from? Is it from your grandmother is it come you know where where did you inherit it for me selling at that age i recognized the state of affairs i knew we didn't have any money and i recognize people who did have money for anyone who's listening who grew up like this if they're honest they learned at an early age how to you know how to covet and be jealous and it's a powerful emotion because you some of my earliest thoughts and dreams were changing my life and not not living the life that i was Growing up in having something extra, you know, we had a car that we drove was a Pinto. They were notorious for being unsafe cars, but ours was probably doubly unsafe. on the passenger side, it was rusted through at the bottom. And as we would drive down the road, I remember I would put my legs, you know, kind of on the sides of the car, because if I did it, I could actually look down and my foot would go through to the floorboard to hit the ground, I could see the ground running, it was kind of like a Fred Flintstone car in a way. Very dangerous. You know, but you're taking your life in your own hands when you're driving that car. But I see things like that, that would encourage me and motivate me to do something more. So I was always hustling and doing things. One of my other schemes, if you remember, Columbia house, this, this company would advertise them in magazines, and they'd say, Hey, get you know, this many records for a penny. I'm like 10 years old, and I get on to that thing.
• 10:59
  Steve Brown: And I decide, hey, I'm going to set up a record shop and resell these records, I'm going to get them for a penny, I'm going to resell them for a buck apiece.
• 11:09
  Steve Brown: And didn't realize I was signing up for this subscription service that my parents had to cancel.
• 11:12
  Steve Brown: And, you know, remember my mom saying he's only 10? You know, what are you doing, you know, sending this stuff to a 10 year old. That was the story of my life. So I was always I was always selling, I was reluctant to get into sales. I wanted to go into public affairs, I thought, you know, after a communication degree, didn't think about sales, as is really a last resort. When I went to interview, I said, I think I like this job. But I don't understand if I'm right for sales. And one of my mentors, her name is Lorraine. She said, Well, sounding is really about helping people. Do you like to help people? Like Yeah, I love to help people. And I realized that through college, I was doing things that were sales activities, I worked for a stockbroker, I worked for a phone bank, I was doing, you know, tele telemarketing for for charities. And I got to see myself putting this career together had been already in place, I was already doing these things. Well, I enjoyed it.
• 12:12
  Steve Brown: People were blessed when I did it. And so I jumped in full, full force and started off my my technology, selling career and never looked back.
• 12:23
  Steve Brown: So you work for a company that I think most people default when they think of a business. They think of big companies like Microsoft, or GM, or AIG, or whatever. But the truth is, and, and I always say that the invisible heroes of our time, I believe, are the entrepreneurs, the folks that actually go risk everything, their family's future, their future, and they start a business. But the end of only there's 20 or less employees, and most of the businesses in the US and and when you think about it, what do they have to do, they have to start a business, they have to figure out how to run it, how to buy how to negotiate. But one of the things they have to figure out is marketing, but also sales. And you and I were talking before we started recording, and your book is actually to this audience to the folks that are probably the most ill equipped to hire and train and manage and expect a Salesforce to help them grow the value of their business. Why did you What? Where did you get convinced you needed to write a book for these folks?
• 13:37
  Joe Paranteau: I had started with the idea of, you know, it's kind of planted by customers and people you work with co workers and they're like, Oh, you should write a book, you're, you do things a little different than most people but it was hitting this this watermark of a billion dollars in sales over a five year period that I said, Okay, I must have something that's unique because I don't know anyone who's sold a billion dollars of anything. To to the market. So I've got something to contribute, you know, I just need to figure out what it is.
• 14:07
  Joe Paranteau: And when I started writing the book, I put post it notes all over my wall to organize my thoughts. Literally, my wife could have killed me because my my walls were posted notes, red, green, purple, pink, blue, every color in the world that I posted notes on my wall. And it was in that moment, because I'd also realized I was going to start back to school and get my MBA in entrepreneurship that this marketplace was ill equipped to, to handle the demands of selling nobodies, you know, entrepreneurs. They go and they learn about a lot of different things. The thing that they don't learn about is, you know, one of the most important, you know, two critical things that that entrepreneurs do is they network a lot and they sell.
• 14:53
  Joe Paranteau: They're selling their business ideas are selling for the banks.
• 14:55
  Joe Paranteau: They're selling for partnerships and A lot of these ideas will be helpful to them. It's it's kind of a handbook goes through all the all the key components that you would need as an as an entrepreneur to to be successful, you know, presenting offers, you know, working with partners, different types of things, and I really distilled it for that audience so that they could benefit. And the small and family businesses, you know, family, big family businesses are about 80% of the global businesses today. Yeah.
• 15:29
  Joe Paranteau: And most people don't realize that they think of, you know, the big companies, and actually some of those companies like Walmart, second generation company. Yeah, you know, I think the biggest company in the world right now, is a family business.
• 15:42
  Joe Paranteau: It really drives our economy.
• 15:49
  Joe Paranteau: For the listeners out here, they've been struggling with their business during this time, and this book was ready to go.
• 15:59
  Joe Paranteau: Last year at this time on on March 5, I launched it a year later. And in that year, I knew last year, I couldn't launch this book during COVID. It was, I was calling in and talking to customers who were literally crying on the phone. This was one of those watershed moments that we'll always remember. And I felt I needed to, to add some extra things in there that help to help people during this time, not only to recover their businesses, but to really enact different strategies for, for working with customers. So
• 16:42
  Unknown: there's things
• 16:44
  Steve Brown: I grew, I grew up in, gravitated to sales, I was the one that that didn't mind, you know, being out there.
• 16:51
  Steve Brown: Here's the thing about a salesperson. They're the only ones that have this visibility of their quotas in an organization, at least in the small organizations, right.
• 17:02
  Steve Brown: They're the ones that it's on the whiteboard, how much they sold, how much they didn't sell, when they suck, it's obvious when a salesperson But meanwhile, in the background, you know, HR accounting, they don't have their numbers up for everyone else in the organization to see. But here's I spent a lot of time in there.
• 17:22
  Steve Brown: And I, you talk about quotas, but I think quotas are what's wrong with sales, it, if I'm focused as a salesperson on meeting my quota, then I don't care whether this product or service is good for this person, I just want to make my quota. So I just want to get them to sign on the dotted line and get out of there and get on to the next victim to make my quota. And I think most sales managers, I think most business owners suck at managing sales, that directing sales and yet one of your titles of one of your chapters in here sales managers suck. Okay, so I love that yours, you're saying that. But let's do something I want to I got, I got five little questions here. I want to ask, I want to see what your answers are. But so for the folks that are listening, you know, when we talk about a sales quota, just what is a sales quota.
• 18:26
  Joe Paranteau: I've always liked the definition. It's a it's a numerical value that takes excellent salespeople and makes them less excellent.
• 18:38
  Joe Paranteau: One of the things for especially for the entrepreneurs out here, Eric Reis wrote a great book that many people are familiar with for entrepreneurs called the lean startup. In it, he talks about vanity metrics. Big companies are great at vanity metrics. But even small companies can be great at vanity metrics, they might think, Hey, this is what I need to base my, my sales quota and my sales performance objectives around this concept of a quota and they lose sight of the customer. Your business should always have metrics that are customer base that look at, you know, are we growing customers, you know, are we growing number of customers, profitability of customers, those are the things that are going to impact your business.
• 19:25
  Joe Paranteau: When you start getting into to vanity metrics. You'll know them because they they look good people love to say hey, you know, I'm I'm doing this great, great thing for the business.
• 19:38
  Joe Paranteau: You always have to ask yourself, how is this helping our business be profitable, grow and win customers and if it's not meeting those objectives, then most likely your sales performance objectives are all are all sideways and that's one of the things that you'll find many sales managers are you know, they become great at is defending a business. That they know little about because they're, they're one detached or removed from it. And the sales people who get to, you know, be eyeball to eyeball and voice to voice with customers, they know a lot about it. So it's why I encourage everyone to, to go out and go on customer calls, it's a great equalizer to understand what, hey, what's working, you know, do we need to pivot away from this, you know, this direction and go in a new direction? Or should we stay the course. And it also helps build some empathy for you, as a business owner to your customers, you know, what are they experiencing? How can you help them? What's the market changing? What new competitors are, are emerging? Things like that. But yeah, the, the, the chapter sales manager suck was also built in there for salespeople, because sales books I've read most of them, they read like a metronome. You know, you can pick it up. And if you're a senior salesperson, you can thumb through the pages and go, I know this, I've read this before I read this, what Wait a second, what's this right in the middle of the book, I can relate to this. But no one ever talks about the obstacles that you'll encounter, even within your own company. In a sales career, some companies you might have to sell internally harder than you do externally, hmm. and navigate, you know, uncharted waters with changing, you know, some people might have three sales managers and given your they might have to deal with different layers of sales management.
• 21:25
  Steve Brown: In addition to customers, sales managers. I think that you know, that quoted to me dehumanizes, the essence of sales is creating a long term relationship with the customer, and business. But quotas, make them nameless and faceless. And it's like they the human eyes, the process, and I don't think sales managers understand that because they're not out. They're not on the ropes, they're not getting their rejection, they're just wanting to crack the whip, so to speak.
• 22:01
  Joe Paranteau: Now, one thing I'm thankful for, in learning to perform, you know, from, from a sales standpoint, in a metrics driven way. I've learned to take those metrics, like quota, and apply them across my life, to really say, hey, here are my goals and objectives. Here are my own. Here's my own quota. And it's funny, Mike, my quotas are usually larger, because they're based upon the things that I really want to do. Not what the company wants to do. Right. So I always, I always lay down my, you know, what's, what's my objective? What's my goal that I'm in my dreams that I'm striving toward? And how can I leverage the company to help me get there?
• 22:47
  Steve Brown: So So I got a couple more questions. But here, I want to tease a question that we're going to do a YouTube exclusive question. And so this is what I'm excited about. But what what was the main purpose for Native American storytelling? Now, in your book, what inspired me to want to do this as an exclusive on YouTube, you won't be listening to it on this podcast, but if you want to go to our YouTube channel and listen to it, is that storytelling has a place in your book, and I'm really fascinated with story based sales. So just want to hang that out there.
• 23:27
  Joe Paranteau: But here's, here's so I'm a business owner.
• 23:31
  Joe Paranteau: I have to figure out a way to manage my Salesforce. So one of the things I there's this dark forest, I got to go through hiring a sales manager. How to hire a good sales manager.
• 23:46
  Joe Paranteau: What's your answer? hire somebody who is curious, who believes their best days are in front of them, that they recognize they can be an excellent coach. You know, how often do you see phil jackson going out there and doing you know, dunks or layups? No, he doesn't. That's the thing about a great sales manager is it's not necessarily based upon sales performance of that individual person. Many, many people enter the trap that Oh, because, you know, Susie, or john was a great salesperson, they were the star rockstars that they're going to be, you know, an excellent, you know, sales coach and sales manager. Because now you have to translate those experiences into coaching others helping them find their own way. That's usually not the case that the star performer usually ends up being the worst type of sales manager. People who are excellent are those who approach it with curiosity, compassion, they're great with people their understanding. They can really see the humaneness of the person and develop the potential. Those people there, they're good at, you know, kind of squeezing when they need to. But But understanding the, you know what that person's going through, and using empathy and motivation.
• 25:16
  Joe Paranteau: It's helping them reach their own internal path. And it's a it's a hard business, it's, you know, I'm, the truth be told, I'm a director of a selling team today. And it's, I've had good years and bad years, the bad years were ones that I just, you know, I had to look in the mirror and say, that wasn't my finest, finest hour, did I? Did I help those people become better? You know, and you know, you always have to continue growing and being, you know, developing yourself as well.
• 25:51
  Joe Paranteau: It's, it's a fun, it's a fun role. But it's one that many people think the directive approach is the best approach.
• 26:01
  Joe Paranteau: being in the military. Even people in the military Don't, don't lead by directedness, one of the best leadership behaviors that I learned early on, are you no officer and leadership teams in your leadership team said, Okay, everyone who's on our leadership team, mid level managers, and CEOs, officers, we would all serve people during the holidays, we take over the mess hall, we'd cook the dinner, everyone would line up, we would serve them and their families as they came through. And that is, is a long standing impression.
• 26:39
  Joe Paranteau: Many people probably don't realize that the military operates that way. However, when you put your life in each other's hands, you have to learn to be a good servant, and you have to meet those people where they're at. And that's stuck with me forever. as something that that I want to represent, you know, as a business leader.
• 27:00
  Joe Paranteau: Hey,
• 27:00
  Steve Brown: I wanted to pause right here and tell you about a book that you need to get today.
• 27:02
  Steve Brown: It's the funniest book on marketing. It's called the Golden toilet, stop flushing your marketing budget into your website and build a system that grows your business. And guess who wrote it? That's right. I wrote it. And I wrote it just for you. Because I want to help you get past the last hurdles of setting up your business and getting it squared away. I wrote it so that you can avoid time wasting time wasting money, wasting frustration, get the book on Audible. You can get it on Kindle, you can get it on Amazon, but get the book take advantage of the insights in there. And let me know what you think. And now back to this excellent episode. Yeah, one of the most unenlightened organizations that was sales focused. That was a part of the when I say sales focus, they learned, like make a quota and cold calls, how many cold calls do you do? That was the essence of their their sales focus, but their inspiration?
• 28:12
  Steve Brown: They put someone in charge us salespeople that was selling against us, it was like, how, like, here's the recipe for how to destroy us. Sales is like, let's put the, the salesperson that's getting commissions as well, in charge of managing you and deciding what leads you get.
• 28:39
  Steve Brown: I'm not bitter or anything, I'm over it. I've had therapy. And I think there was a movie that they made like that was like Glengarry Glen Ross.
• 28:50
  Unknown: So, okay,
• 28:51
  Joe Paranteau: here's the next question. I hear all the time, how to be an effective sales manager, you talked about it being a service serve, service based or leading, serving, what's another thing that you think, how to be an effective sales manager is important. I think selling you know, empathy is one of the one of the best things you can have an empathy doesn't mean, I feel sorry for you. It's, it's putting yourself developing a perceptual position to put yourself in the other person's shoes. Literally, understanding what happens to this person when they leave, you know, where did they go? Did they go home? Do they have a family? What's life like that for them? What struggles do they have? What are their hopes and dreams? Once you understand who that person is, and what they're motivated by? Many people try and take broad brushstrokes and apply them across their entire business. It's good to have goals for your team, but you have to inspire them. You have to start with your you know, what's your mission? What's your vision? Is it contagious? How are you going to enroll them into that and do it in such a way that it makes sense for them you know i might have a mission that we're going to go you know make you know $300 million this year as a business how do i make that real for for you know that team of people they don't care about that how do i make them care and you make them care by connecting it to their life you know who are they going to be serving why is it important what do we offer that company as a value proposition that that means something you know if we're if we're in business just to make a buck you're gonna make a buck but you're probably not gonna make a buck 50 because you know customers are inspired by your vision as well and your vision has got to be bigger than than you you have to have you know something that matters that changes their life and you have to believe it and if you're selling you know in sales management and you don't you know you're not on fire about what your team is selling how are they going to be on fire about it if you're not on fire love that quote if you're in business to make a buck you're not going to make a buck 50 here's it so how do you manage sales activity i think sales activity comes from having strong goals like one of the things that i would i've always started with is that dream you know being you know coming from the background that i've had i had i've had big dreams and there's people out there who will squelch your dreams and say ah you can't do that even writing this book i have people who are like oh you shouldn't write a book you're kind of putting yourself out there you know it's a you're exposing yourself do you really want to do that like yeah i kind of do want to do that i think that there's an important message that i could share with people that is going to be helpful to them and i know these experiences right now are going to help people get back to work they're going to help their businesses grow there and help them be more effective i've read every i've been trained i used to sell to sales leaders as my my target market as part of that you know selling orientation i had to get trained in pretty much every sales methodology out there and i've had success and actually been a study group for different sales methodologies where people had said hey we're gonna base our sales methodology and some of the things that you're doing that's when the light hit me that may be what i do deserves to be something that i could i could use to help people on and that's something that i was wondering about when you're reading these sales books you're like has this person been in the trenches have they looked customers eyeball to eyeball have they been rejected do they know what it's like to be in a competitive situation have they dealt with sales managers and all the litany of other things that that you have to go through in a sales career and with me they don't have to wonder because i've been through it seen it done it got the t shirt and the bruises okay so here's here's another question one of the ask somebody fill in the blank at the end a good sales manager knows that
• 33:18
  Unknown: blank what motivates his people
• 33:25
  Joe Paranteau: how do you figure that out spend time with them ask them questions the the answers will come in between the things that you're actually doing when you prep for a meeting ask questions hey come tell me about the meeting that we're gonna have tomorrow great what do you want to know we'll just you know what's the plan you know how have you been prepping for it tell me a little bit about what their business pain is and in how you see our our outcomes that'll tell you a lot you're asking questions you're being curious a lot of times this is how the prep will go hey we've got this meeting tomorrow let me see your call plan you know and then it's all judgmental oh this call plan is not very good would you do drew this up with a crayon you spend 10 minutes on it and the salespersons like what you know that's what i get but when you're engaging you're curious you ask questions you're seeking to learn and understand and view the world from their position you'll learn about them as a person they might say you know i've waited until the last minute to approach this because just pausing and they're like oh actually because i was taking care of my grandmother who's dying of COVID Oh, I feel really small now because, you know, because I didn't ask that question. But how often does that happen to where people are suffering? And you don't know.
• 35:10
  Joe Paranteau: My dog's not suffering. She's.
• 35:16
  Joe Paranteau: Yeah. She's telling me she wants to come in. What's your dog's name? Luna?
• 35:21
  Unknown: Luna.
• 35:23
  Steve Brown: She's a border collie. She is a border collie.
• 35:27
  Steve Brown: She's smart. I got a border collie. She's the smart, smartest Border Collie and marketing. She listens to every single one of these calls. Yeah, Luna does my taxes. She's great.
• 35:40
  Steve Brown: That's how smart she is. We're having a great conversation on the ROI online podcast with Joe pronto. He's the author of billion dollar sales secrets superstar selling tips for all seasons. And so Joe, this has been a awesome conversation. So we're going to do a YouTube exclusive, we're going to talk about what's the main purpose for Native American storytelling, because you talk about storytelling and how it impacts sales. But we're going to do that on the YouTube channel. For those of you that want to find it. It's at the ROI online YouTube channel. But But here's the question I want to ask you is, what's one question you don't get to answer? Because no one ever asks it?
• 36:26
  Unknown: Hmm.
• 36:31
  Joe Paranteau: The question that I finished my book with is a question that I've never seen in any sales book. And it's one of those questions that I felt compelled to, to answer. And it's what do you do if you're successful? It's a sale. It's one of the missing elements in sales, mentorship, and leadership. Because no one talks about it. Some people like sales because it's performance based.
• 36:55
  Joe Paranteau: I found early in my career, that there was no one to tell me what happens when you go from the kid who painted rocks door to door to make a buck, to getting more bucks in your bank account in 30 days than you ever thought you could. And you make you live the Rockstar life and you make some of those dumb mistakes. One of my mistakes was okay, I think I'll buy cars, you know, monthly. Wow. So I bought a car this month, next month, I bought a car and went out to dinner all the time. I flipped completely from what you would expect me you know me to do. And it took a lot of work to get to a place that you know, I approach things with gratitude. I learned to live hungry, cheaply. Like, like the kid with the rock again. And be grateful, you know, invest for the rainy day and have your rainy day fund. So that's a question that people don't, I think ask enough and talk about enough is let's let's develop a success plan here. But it's important because especially if you're trying to motivate yourself, your company and your vision, having that plan of success. And what you're planning to do is is crucial.
• 38:26
  Unknown: I'm in there. Yeah, I'm in there. I'm I was one of those companies that you were talking about. I was buying
• 38:36
  Joe Paranteau: big chunk of stock and one of those companies that disappeared after the crash. But you know, I was investing that money and when buying cars necessarily, although I probably will. I did buy some cars, but not one a month. But all of a sudden, things change. They dry up, companies go away. Investments disappear. But at least you're investing in an asset. No, like, Rich Dad Robert Kiyosaki goes, an asset puts money in your pocket, you know, a liability takes money away. And it it strikes to financial education.
• 39:12
  Joe Paranteau: In our country. It's horrible.
• 39:12
  Joe Paranteau: Nobody ever learns about hot money. And they definitely don't learn about selling. And these are two fundamental things that I think I know that are crucial to life. So we, you know, people who have experienced these things need to know to be good stewards and to trust others with the knowledge that we've learned. So Joe, what's of great way for people to connect with you that obviously they should buy a book, spend a little time with you there but how can they connect with you? I've made it easy, because you want to think that with a name like paronto just spelling it is difficult for everyone who's out here who wants to Connect with me I really enjoy it. You can find me anywhere on social media by the J par. J par is something that at Microsoft, they didn't want my, you know my name to be this long. So they're like they started calling me j par. It's much easier to say than paronto.
• 40:21
  Joe Paranteau: But you can find me at the J par, that's a website, www dot j par. It's also my handle on Instagram, Twitter, pretty much most of the social media platforms, Facebook, reach out to me I have a different personality on any social media platform. I try and let people in on my life and what I'm doing but I really love to hear what they're doing, how I can impact you know, their business and questions and things that they learn some of the greatest joy that I've had in writing the book is having, you know, say sales leaders who I used to work for turn around and scribble their notes I put I put things for people to write on this book isn't just a book you read it, you can write in it and come up with your own ideas because that's the point of it. Point is not me. point is you what's what are you going to do with these ideas and turn it around to make you know, your billion dollar secret or reality? Jame par? p a r.com. j Parr. Joe pronto billion dollar sales secret superstar selling tips for all seasons need to get the book.
• 41:32
  Joe Paranteau: Imagine it's on Amazon. It's Amazon. It's Barnes and Noble.
• 41:39
  Joe Paranteau: It's even walmart.com around the world I found I've got readers in New Zealand. So for all my Kiwis and Aussies out there, shout out but people in the UK, South Africa, Morocco, sold books and in some pretty unlikely places that I never would have guessed. So it's it's wonderful learning about the experiences of people in their businesses do reach out, I'm happy to hear what you're doing and if anything I can do to help you. I'm all in sales, the universal equalizer the universal skill that all entrepreneurs need to develop another book on sales. I don't think you can read too many books on sales. Join Is there any as I can, and I, you know, it's like, it's like Chiclets, you know, I pop them in all the time. I've I want that's why I wanted to make this one a little different, including some things that, you know, most sales books might not have. So I'm, I'm curious to know what people think of what they're doing.
• 42:52
  Joe Paranteau: It's from the people who've read it so far. They've said, Wow, this is this is a very different type of sales book. You really, you really hit the, you know, the nerve with me. So awesome.
• 43:02
  Joe Paranteau: Joe, you've been a great guest on the ROI online podcast.
• 43:12
  Joe Paranteau: Well, thank you, you've been a great host. And this has been an awesome audience. I've really enjoyed my time. Really have it's, it's one of the things that I've come to enjoy is connecting with the audience and learning, you know, talking and but but yeah, the conversation still still out there. You've heard from me And now I'd love to hear from from you and your audience. And I appreciate you for having me on today. My pleasure. Follow us on over to the YouTube channel where we're gonna learn about what was the main purpose for Native American storytelling from Joel pronto.
• 43:45
  Joe Paranteau: And that's a wrap.
• 43:50
  Steve Brown: Thanks for listening to another fun episode of the ROI online podcast. For more, be sure to check out the show notes of this episode. And feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn where we can chat and I can help direct you to the resources you're searching for.
• 44:04
  Steve Brown: To learn more about how you can grow your business better. Be sure to pick up your copy of my book, The Golden toilet at surprise, that golden toilet.com I'm Steve Brown, and we'll see you next week on another fun episode of the ROI online podcast.