About Joseph Rockey: Joseph Rockey is the founder of Elite Business Conversations, a company that provides cutting-edge training and coaching to entrepreneurs and business leaders. Their coaching methods are relationship-based, meaning they focus on building strong, trusting relationships with their clients. This approach has proven to be highly effective in helping clients improve their sales, develop positive company cultures, and achieve success in ways that are meaningful to them. Joe has extensive experience and expertise in the business coaching industry and has a proven track record of success. Since 2011, Joe has launched over 15 different entities in multiple industries – to name a few: podcasting, business consulting, personal growth coaching, keynote speaking, and real estate investment. Check out the latest episode of our Conversational Selling podcast to learn more about Joseph.
In this episode, Nancy and Joseph discuss the following:
- How is it humanly possible to launch 15 different entities in 12 years?
- What makes a person a master of anything?
- How do you go about fixing a stalled business?
- The difference between educated cold calling and uneducated cold calling.
- Joseph’s point of view on building a winning culture phenomenon.
- How can my people find you?
Key Takeaways:
- Many people in this country live essentially under a sales system taught to them in the 60s, if not older.
- Salespeople are the ones who are going to heal the world.
- I do make a solid line between educated cold calling and uneducated cold calling.
- Let’s have an educated conversation background, where I can leave an intelligent voicemail that gets someone to call me back, and we can move forward.
- Once you have a system, the simple fact of life is to pick up the phone and make it happen. Because staring at the phone and thinking it’s going to work does not work.
- It doesn’t mean we don’t like the person doing that job. It just means we need to recalibrate the job in a way where it’ll be productive.
- And now, everything about this job is an opportunity for me to improve my life rather than a place just to be and show up.
- The best people make the best companies. And that’s the fact of life.
- Every position has elements of their job that are tied to it and that are untied to it. And we need to get them tied to it, but in a way where it’s beneficial for everyone involved.
“In allowing your employees to have freedom by the fall, you are also allowing them to have innovational opportunities so that they can come out and say, you know what, for me, it works best if I do this, that, and the other.” – JOSEPH
“There are three elements of any company’s revenue cycle. The first one is we have to have people know we exist, and they have to want to come to see us. The second one is when they’re actually with us, do they feel comfortable enough to exchange resources in exchange for the promise of a future product? And then part three is the future product. So, we’re a lot of salespeople think it’s only about that middle part. I’m with the individual. Can I convince them to give me resources in exchange for this future project? And the reality is, if you fail your business at any of those three components, you will be hung back by your weakest of those three links. It’s just the way it is. So how do we fix a sales process? We start with which of your three links is wrong, which one is the worst, and whether we are not getting people to know that we exist. And have people want to find us? Well, what’s our model for doing that? Is our model a passive or proactive?” – JOSEPH
Connect with Joseph Rockey:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joerockey/
- Elite Business Conversations: https://elitebusinessconversations.com/
Try Our Proven, 3-Step System, Guaranteeing Accountability and Transparency that Drives RESULTS by clicking on this link: https://oneofakindsales.com/call-center-in-a-box/
Connect with Nancy Calabrese:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/oneofakindsales
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/One-Of-A-Kind-Sales-304978633264832/
- Website: https://oneofakindsales.com
- Phone: 908-879-2911
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ncalabrese/
- Email: leads@oneofakindsales.com
Voiceover: You’re listening to The Conversational Selling Podcast with Nancy Calabrese.
Nancy Calabrese: Hi, everyone. It’s Nancy Calabrese, and it’s time again for Conversational Selling, the podcast where sales leaders and business experts share what’s going on in sales and marketing today. And it always starts with the human conversation. Today we’re speaking with Joseph Rockey, founder of Elite Business Conversations, a company that provides cutting-edge training and coaching to entrepreneurs and business leaders. Joe has extensive experience and expertise in the business coaching industry and has a proven track record of success. He provides customized coaching methods that are tailored to the specific needs of each client and places a strong emphasis on building trusting relationships with his clients. And since 2011, Joe launched over 15 different entities in multiple industries and to name a few podcasting, business consulting, personal growth, coaching, keynote speaking, and real estate investment welcome to the show Joe. This is going to be fun. [1:24]
Joe Rockey Jr: Yes, thank you for having me. Yes, thank you indeed.
Nancy Calabrese: All right, so how is it humanly possible to launch 15 different entities in 12 years?
Joe Rockey Jr: You have to be able to build systems is the primary element. And you also have to be willing to, uh, the build it in a way where you’re not responsible in the sense that I need to be here for every single decision. You need to hire people and then actually trust your people and allow them to take off and dominate. And that’s what I’ve done. Not to mention a couple of them. The answer was, I just got bought out of them and I’m okay with that too. [2:04]
Nancy Calabrese: Got it. Okay. So, yeah, but you’re like a gorilla man then. I still can’t imagine having to juggle all of that, but kudos to you. Now, you and I…
Joe Rockey Jr: It is certainly a challenge. There’s a lot saying it’s easy, but it’s doable.
Nancy Calabrese: So, you are a master in sales. I am totally honored to have this conversation with you. What makes a person a master of anything? [2:32]
Joe Rockey Jr: Well, proven results, that’s how I look at it is, are you consistently going to step up and produce or are you not? Easier in the world of sports, right? They’re a hall of famer, they win a lot, or they don’t. And that’s how I look at it the same way with sales.
Nancy Calabrese: Yeah. You know, I speak with many business owners that are frustrated because their businesses have stalled. You know, they’re trying to grow, and they just can’t get to the next level. How do you go about fixing a stalled business? [3:07]
Joe Rockey Jr: Yeah, so it starts off with Why did we stall? And in general, there are lots of reasons we can get there, but the paraphrase of the two of the more common ones is either A our sales force is not delivering in the way that it should be, or our overall structure of our company is not correct. So, I’ll start with the second one because I’ll go through its quicker cause this is not necessarily about the show per say. If you don’t know what you were supposed to be doing specifically as the business owner, and you have even less of an idea of what your employees are doing, and by knowing what you’re doing, I mean, like, you could write their complete job description, and this matches exactly what their day-to-day activities are. If that’s not the case, you’re going to have a pattern disruption that’s going to create inefficiencies and eventually stalling out at some point down the road. [4:10]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow.
Joe Rockey Jr: And what we do is we help analyze that problem is and how to fix it and how to incentivize our employees to get them doing what we want. And, to realize is the task they’re doing actually helpful for the business? Or is it just something that we’re doing because we think that we should because that’s what everyone else is doing. And part of what makes my training in helping people cutting edges, we don’t really live and that this is what everyone else has been doing and what everyone else should be doing. We just go with what is successful and the rest can go away. And that’s where the sale side of the world, so many people in this country are living essentially under a sales system that was taught to them in the 60s, if not older. [5:01]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Joe Rockey Jr: And it’s the mentality that when I present to colleges about when I tell people you should really look into sales, I could glaze over like almost horrified looks. Like why would I want to go to college to become a used car salesman that’s going to be scum baggy and put pressure on people and make people feel bad? Like that’s a waste of me. Why would I want to do that? [5:23]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Joe Rockey Jr: And my true passion and belief is salespeople are the ones who are going to heal the world. And that notion is incorrect. So, it starts with a culture reformation of why is our sales process not working? It is a true process. There are three elements of any company’s revenue cycle. The first one is we have to have people know we exist and they have to want to come see us. The second one is when they’re actually with us, do they feel comfortable enough to exchange resources in exchange for the promise of a future product? And then part three being the future product. So, we’re a lot of salespeople think it’s only about that middle part. I’m with the individual, can I convince them to give me resources in exchange for this future project? And the reality is, is that if you fail your business at any of those three components, you will be hung back by your weakest of those three links. It’s just the way it is. So how do we fix a sales process? We start with which one of your three links are wrong, which one is the worst, are we not getting people know that we exist? And have people want to find us? Well, what’s our model of doing that? Is our model a passive or a proactive model? [6:46]
Nancy Calabrese: Right?
Joe Rockey Jr: So, you know, a passive model being the old school, we just put a bunch of advertisements in the newspaper or on TV and just hope things work out. Whereas, you know, an active campaign can be something like direct marketing, direct emails, trying to go through people on Facebook all of the spam type approaches that don’t really like and I don’t encourage but it’s an example of active marketing and that also includes the umbrella of uneducated cold calling as well. I do make a very strong line between educated cold calling and uneducated cold calling. [7:23]
Nancy Calabrese: Oh, now you’re talking my language. Let’s take a dive into that. Tell me what the difference is.
Joe Rockey Jr: So, essentially the way that I classify uneducated cold calling is you’re given a name and a number and you’re just calling this person with only your sales pitch, your sales script in tow. You don’t really know anything about this person aside from their name, maybe if you’re lucky a pronunciation guide of their name and their phone number. And you just come across essentially as useful as a robot except hopefully you don’t have that couple seconds delay after they pick up to talk to you. So, unfortunately many people’s cold-calling experience is just that. I know nothing about this person. I don’t even know why I was selected to call them or anything like that, but it’s as uninformed cold calling as you can get. [8:24]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay.
Joe Rockey Jr: And where I invite people to do intelligent cold calling being I know that this person at least has an interest or a need for my business. And I want to introduce myself in a way where we’re going to create a relationship and a connection. Because every relationship starts with a cold introduction, whether we realize it or not. It can be the first time we meet in person and it’s a combination of being introduced across hands. Well, still, it’s a, the new relationship hasn’t been established yet. It’s fresh and open. So, this is where I see a lot of business-to-business opportunity that people fail at. You know the type of companies that buy your product, and you know where you have been successful at or not, and the type of titles that the industry has. [9:20]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Joe Rockey Jr: So, let’s do instead of just giving me a straight list of these are all of the heads of security that I’m calling up to try to give my upgraded security package to. Rather than just having a cold list, let’s go and say, this is the actual company, do a little bit of thought behind it. And instead of trying to call 100 cool calls a day and getting a 2% result rate, so two meetings out of it, let’s have educated conversation background where I can leave an intelligent voicemail that gets someone to call me back and we actually can move forward. Not a gimmicky one but an actual successful that’s personalized to the individual to the strongest degree that we can. And if we can. [10:10]
Nancy Calabrese: So, may I politely disagree with what you’ve been saying?
Joe Rockey Jr: Sure.
Nancy Calabrese: Okay, see my experience in cold calling, the reality is you are going to wind up in voicemail land, correct?
Joe Rockey Jr: Oh yeah, yeah,
Nancy Calabrese: And we recommend not doing heavy research before each call because it’s a time suck and each call counts, you get closer to somebody picking up. But when we approach a cold conversation. We don’t go in with the feeling that we’re going to sell them something. Our approach is we’re going to make this a discovery call. Because if I have 100 of those security managers on a lead list, number one, I want to know if I’m speaking to the right person, if they are indeed my target audience. And number two, at the time of the call, they are experiencing a frustration or a concern that we know our clients can solve or One of a Kind Sales can solve. So, I think we look at it a little differently. [11:23]
Joe Rockey Jr: No, I must be explaining this wrong because I agree with everything you said. I think that the differences is when it, when I’m trying to articulate is, is that you’re still knowing that you’re calling a specific realm. You know, you’re calling, you know, people who are going to be eligible and purchase able to buy my product rather than straight. I just bought a list of people who might or might not be interested. You at least. So what? I’m saying is that you need to have a guided start. You don’t want to be just blanketing it. But yes, I’m not saying you waste hours upon hours figuring out every detail this guy’s life. No, not at all. The goal I agree with you, it’s to create a discovery. But what I’m saying is, if you’re calling upon a corporation, you at least are starting in the right ballpark of where the decision maker is going to be. If I’m calling to sell something that is say a mid-tier type product. I’m not trying to get the CEO on the field, even if the entire goal is to have the entire corporate, the entire company eventually incorporated. We’ll talk to the CEO later. [12:39]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Joe Rockey Jr: So that’s where I try to draw the line of, because for where I’m coming in, and I think this is the difference here, I’m coming with people who have never created a cold calling system before, then trying to ease them into it. And you were talking about we already have a system, because once you have a system, the simple fact of life is pick up the phone and make it happen. Because staring at the phone and thinking it’s going to work does not work.
Nancy Calabrese: Yep, I totally agree. And you know for all those businesses that don’t incorporate this channel in their marketing, they just leave money on the table. It does work overtime. You’ve got to be on the call at the right time with the need. And a NO in our world is not now. If they’re in your target audience, so then you move on. I know you speak about building a winning culture. That is so important to the success of anyone in sales and in business. What does that mean from your point of view? [13:44]
Joe Rockey Jr: Yeah. So let me dive into that. I just want to put one last point on the cool calling thing. Cause you’re a hundred percent right about the value and growing with it. But there’s another almost as important effect as finding the new piece of business is that when you are going through the process, especially when you’re calling, call it more than 30 calls in a session, you are developing a skillset and a resiliency to your own. That cannot be replicated in really any other way. And it makes you better in every other aspect of life. [14:22]
Nancy Calabrese: Yep.
Joe Rockey Jr: I started my career being forced to in cold calling and the benefits that I’ve got from it in the long term have vastly outweighed the short-term sale that I got at that time, and you know, it, to me, this is part of what I got convinced people to do about why you put yourself through it. I’m not going to try to lie, but it’s worth it. So, that does tie into how to build a culture though. And this goes back to when I was saying in the beginning about how businesses can fall apart is, are our employees doing the activity that we want them to do that will lead to revenue? So, going back to the three options of revenue, having people find us, when people are with us, are we able to have conversations that eventually lead to exchanging resources for a product and having the product delivered on the back end. And what I tell people upfront is unless there’s a legal reason to have something that’s not directly attributing to one of those three events, the position is by default a drain on your business. It’s just the way it is. So, it doesn’t mean we don’t like the person who’s doing that job. It just means we need to recalibrate the job in a way where it’ll be productive. So that’s, you know, every position has elements of their job that are tied to it and that are untied to it. And we need to get them tied to it, but in a way where it’s beneficial for everyone involved. So, if I can give you an example here really quick, I think it’ll tie it pretty well. I think that you owned a hotel and that your most important concern about your rooms were that they were clean to a specified degree of cleanliness and that they were all done on time because if they’re not done on time, you can’t have people check in. And if they’re not clean enough, it’s going to hurt your reputation in the long run. So, you can do the same old same old that everyone else does saying hourly rate, go clean the rooms and effectively yell at people if they’re not good enough. [16:33]]
Nancy Calabrese: Hahaha.
Joe Rockey Jr: That’s option one. So, everyone does, you know, let’s just go with the crowd. Or option two is say, you know what? We’re going to give you the freedom of doing it and cleaning the rooms in whatever desire you feel fit. And we are going to compensate you accordingly to how good the room is when you’re done. So, if the room is an A plus, you get this. If it’s a B, you get this. C, so on and so forth. [17:02]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Joe Rockey Jr: And what we’re going to do to make it fair is we’re going to have two different evaluators evaluate the quality of your room. So that way there’s no favoritism or anything like that. And what we are doing as managers is a lot of things in this decision. First is we’re allowing our housekeepers to have the freedom to explore their own order of operations. Do they want to vacuum all four rooms first? Do they want to do one room all the way to completion and then do another? What is their choice? And in doing so, in allowing your employees to have freedom by default, you are also allowing them to have innovational opportunities so that they can come out and say, you know what, for me, it works best if I do this, that, and the other. [17:58]
Nancy Calabrese: Right.
Joe Rockey Jr: And this is my order. And as the owner of the business, are you going to end up paying more on a per hour basis? Absolutely, you are. Because you’re going to only end up with employees that keep putting up A plus scores B plus scores and the other ones are going to phase themselves out. And the other part is because you’re now paying them directly to what you want them to do, you know, what you want to do is getting accomplished, but you’re also allowing this housekeeper to have more freedom of their life because if they can walk in and say, I get all four of these rooms done, they don’t care how long I’m here, I get paid based upon the results. Now I’m getting done faster. Now I have more time to be with my kids. And now everything about this job is now an opportunity for me to make my life better rather than a place just to be and show up. [18:56]
Nancy Calabrese: Wow.
Joe Rockey Jr: So, to build a culture, it starts with empowering and trusting everyone around you. And yeah, there’s some certain elements that you’re going to do training and you’re just going to teach them this is how we want the toilets clean and the bath stalls or whatever. But you’re letting them have the freedom involved that no other hotel would let them have. And I specifically choose housekeepers because most people can understand this concept when we’re talking about a CEO and their compensation. [19:23]
Nancy Calabrese: Okay.
Joe Rockey Jr: But the point is you can do it to every single position in your company all the way down to what most people would consider the least important being their cleaning staff and every position in between. That’s how you build a successful culture. And that’s really how you take off and you end up with the best people. And the best people make the best companies. And that’s the fact of life.
Nancy Calabrese: I totally agree with you on that. And now I have a whole different level of respect for the house cleaners. Yeah, the room cleaner. So, Joe, I can’t believe we’re up with time and we just like chipped at the iceberg. You’ll have to come back on for sure, but how can my people find you? [20:06]
Joe Rockey Jr: Yeah, you can reach out to me at elitebusinessconversations.com. And in there, we can have, long story short, we set up a 10-minute chat. We’re going to see if we’re a good fit for you and you’re a good fit for us. And the things that we’re a fit for is everything you outlined in the beginning. We help businesses that have stalled out, and we help them get back to the success of the business owner once. I help people, well, I’m keynote speaker, so I do all the speaking engagements that involve anything around this topic and one of the areas that I absolutely love doing is at universities where I’m teaching people about the importance of sales and why to embrace it because I do believe that salespeople will heal this world. It’s the way that it is. If I’m bringing equal value, you’re bringing equal value and we’re selling correctly through relationships, you will heal the world. [20:54] So I love doing that and the other thing is depending upon what time of the year looking you were looking at us, if it’s the second half of 2023, my first ever bestselling book, which is going to be coming out will be available on my website as well. So those are our key reasons to go check us out at elitebusinessconversations.com. And I look forward to speaking with you there. [21:24]
Nancy Calabrese: Wonderful, wonderful. And hear that you are being offered an opportunity to speak with a master in sales. Again, I go back, Joe, we could go on and on. And I hope we will do part two relatively soon. But thank you so much for coming. And make it a great sales day, everyone.
