How to Sell Podcast: Make How You Sell, Why You Win

Michael Miller Guest 00:00
One of the secrets to sales is to convince. Not to tell somebody what you have to sell, but to tell them what you can do for them. The brand here is to do things a little differently than other people do. So not only do you have to convince them first that they should be doing something different, and then they have to decide to do it with you. So there are all these different stakeholders and people who, by the way, they may all be aligned around this organisation and what they're trying to achieve, but they frequently have very different views about how to get there.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 00:27
Welcome to another episode of the Scalable Growth Podcast. I'm your host, Luigi Preston-Enzi, and as always, I'm pumped on it and excited that you have joined us for what is a very special episode, and the reason I say special is because you probably see I'm sitting next to a gentleman here. It's a live podcast that I'm doing all the way from New York City in Manhattan, in a beautiful place right in between Central Park and Times Square. But before we jump into today's episode and I'm eager to introduce this week's guest I just want to say thank you for showing up. If you're a first-time listener, we hope you take away some actionable insight that leads you coming back every single week, and if you're a long-time listener, thank you for always showing up. We produce this content to help you be the very best sales professional you can be. So the long-awaited or would like to introduce today's guest, mike. Thank you very much for joining us on the Scalable Growth Podcast. My pleasure, luigi.
Michael Miller Guest 01:24
It's great to be here with you, yeah.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 01:26
And mate, just before we jump into today's episode around sort of selling without selling but building relationships, do you mind telling our audience a bit about yourself, what you do at Crucial and, yeah, a bit about sort of your history in working in the investment sector? Yeah, sure?
Michael Miller Guest 01:45
So my name is Mike Miller. I'm Chief Investor Officer of Crucial Partners. We're New York City based, as you said, Investing advisor largely to nonprofit institutions that do all kinds of great things: foundations, endowments, community foundations, a variety of organisations. I joined Crucial in 1986 when I was in college.
02:04
So, I've been here a long time, which has been great for me, a wonderful journey and our job is to help these great institutions that we work with have more impact in the world. And our small contribution or big contribution, depending on the day to what they do is to invest their capital. Help them invest their capital as wisely as possible and to generate the outcomes that they need to tackle the issues that their organisations have been set up to address. Yeah, awesome.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 02:30
And just for those that might not know the endowment space, do you mind sharing a little bit about the sort of thing you say to invest their money? Just give our audience a quick understanding of when you say their money, is that their savings, is it you know? Just talk a bit about you know what does that mean and how do you help them grow the money that you invest?
Michael Miller Guest 02:52
Yeah. So a lot of non happy to a lot of nonprofit institutions either were originally endowed. Someone passes away and says I want to create a foundation or even live. They want to create a foundation. They give money they've earned to pursue a charitable purpose Yep. Others are more like fundraising organisations, so we're all. If you're a college graduate, you've probably gotten hit up for acclimations from time to time from your university and they pull that capital. Some of it they spend and other parts of it they save.
03:21
And this part they save is what we call endowment, and the idea of endowment is a really cool one, which is like you know. You can say I'm going to give $100 to my organisation. This organisation I care about and I and I care about battling. I want scholarships to go to disadvantaged students, and what we do essentially is that pool of money, try to invest in such a way that it can support students today that need a leg up financially and also do the same thing 10, 20, 50 years from now. And it's the power of a gift and the power of investing it wisely, fantastic.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 03:55
So essentially, you help take their initial investment or their initial pool of funds and continue to grow and compound the fund that they have so that they can continue to contribute to their community and achieve their mission and impact and what they're trying to achieve Precisely, yeah, fantastic. So we'd love to know, like I know for a lot of our listeners, we have a lot of sales professionals that listen to this show because they're looking to find that extra 1% well, that extra half a percent to improve in their role, some selling products worth, you know, $5,000, some are selling products worth a couple of million dollars. Do you mind walking us through what's been one of the biggest accounts that you've won and do you mind sharing what was the size of that account?
Michael Miller Guest 04:43
You know it was a foundation on the West Coast, United States. Yeah, this all actually happened about 23 years ago and this has been a while, but it was one of the biggest and most impactful ones for me, and that account was, at the time, approximately $500 million of invested assets.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 05:02
Wow.
Michael Miller Guest 05:03
So a lot of money.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 05:04
Yeah, and we'd love to get your. How did you go about finding that opportunity and what's the process look like to get them to trust you, because that's a huge amount of trust somebody's putting in you to take five hundred million dollars of their money and invest it for them.
Michael Miller Guest 05:23
So just to be technical for a second. So we're advisors. So, we don't always, in this case particularly, don't make the decisions, but they base their decisions on our advice. Yeah so it's important, but I just want to. I don't want listeners thinking yeah. It was. It was an interesting story. We were and have been trying to establish a reputation in a group of an area in the United States called community foundations.
05:50
Yeah these are foundations that exist to serve in different communities around the country.
05:53
So this was a West Coast one in California, and I had been speaking at conferences and networking a little bit with people who attended these conferences who were largely Chief financial chief financial officers of a lot of foundations around the country, and I met the guy who was the chief financial officer of this Organisation. Yeah, and at that time Our firm did not work with anyone west of the Mississippi because we're New York based for very hands-on and you know we didn't want to be flying, being our whole lives on aeroplanes. So I remember walking up to him and he was a real, obviously super guy friend to this day. And I said to him " goodness is like you and I can just have a beer and be friends because I don't want your business, yeah, because we don't work for that, and I will tell you it was very funny. So we really hit it off and, yeah, became good friends.
06:39
And then what happened was about a year later he sent me an email. I'll never forget it, actually, that the subject line of the email was Clemens for Miller. So there's a picture at the time of Roger Clemens.
06:51
Yeah, who had been traded away from the Yankees. I don't know where he went, and the joke was that this foundation wanted to take a nice coastal guy and bring him to the west coast, basically. So we want to trade Clemens for Miller. Would you consider breaking your rule? Yeah, and think about working for our foundation, and that's how it started. Wow, so started with a little bit of a creation of. We're not, I'm not selling you anything.
07:13
Yeah but let's get to know each other. Let's, let's see if this you know, a connection in terms of knowledge.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 07:18
That's really interesting. During that time where, from that first beer to the point that they send you there and email, was there any communication? Did you share some insight? Were you giving any reports?
Michael Miller Guest 07:31
Yeah, we had a report we were publishing at the time around community foundations and their returns and so there was a. There was a period where there was a reporter that went out, so you know he was consuming some of our content. He and I spoke once in a while about investing and what we were doing, what we were seeing, and so, yeah, that was. There was a lot. There was some information that flowed back and forth.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 07:51
Yes, so, fundamentally, you're the way in which you were. You didn't sell to him, you were just educating, providing some value, providing a particular point of view, and then, when he was ready, that led him to a point of asking would you do business with me?
Michael Miller Guest 08:07
Correct. Yeah, that's exactly it, and I think that's a good way to start a good, strong, trusting relationship.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 08:12
Yeah, and he's a blueprint. Is that sort of a blueprint that you've used over the last 23 years to win other accounts?
Michael Miller Guest 08:20
Yeah, I think it is, definitely is, and I think it's. It's not usually that stark where you say I'm not looking to work for you? Yeah, because we are looking to work for people that really we'll feel very strongly aligned with. But I do think that you know, someone taught me years ago that one of the secrets to sales is to convince, not to tell somebody what you have to sell, but to tell them what you can do for them.
08:40
Yeah and so the content is a really important way for us to demonstrate to people that there's something we can do that is useful to you.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 08:48
Yeah, because you know, in understanding what you do there can be a very long sales cycle, right, because Sometimes it is already in a partnership with somebody else. It could be two, three, four, five years.
Michael Miller Guest 09:03
Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, we happen to pursue a brand of what we do. That, I think, is the secret to success. Yeah, but the brand here is to do things a little differently than other people do. So not only do you have to, you know, convince them that you have to convince them first that they should be doing something different, yeah, and then they have to decide to do it with you. Yeah, so it is a, it's a. There's a process, it's a psych. It's a long cycle, like you said.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 09:25
Yeah, and I'd love to touch on that right, because you know what maybe you can talk about. Obviously, crucial partners do. This makes things a bit unique in comparison to some of the other players in the market. So, fundamentally, you've got essentially to Sales decisions that need to be made. You've got the first decision, where they need to be Change their mindset in the way that they invest, and then the second element is they need to change from how they're doing it to you, right, and in all of that there's multiple stakeholders that you need to essentially influence, because it's not just one person making the decision right. Exactly, yeah, do you mind walking us through? You know what that process looks like and how many people do you have to get to that point if you know the decision to choose you over the competition.
Michael Miller Guest 10:22
Yeah, it's a lot. I mean you have to usually start with um and a finance or even an investment team that works for the client directly. They're, they're, they're, they're, they're part of the team there. Then there's usually an investment committee, uh, which could be anywhere from four to 10 or 12 people even. Uh, sometimes there's a group in that committee that kind of has a lot of the power and a lot of influence, Um, so they're the most important, but you wouldn't necessarily know who they were in advance.
10:47
So there are all these different stakeholders and people who, by the way they may all be aligned around this organisation and what they're trying to achieve, but they frequently have very different views about how to get there, and so you have to really navigate those waters, and there's some things you can do to me, yeah.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 11:04
I'd love you if you're open to share and cause. I think that's it. We look at some of the B2B data. I know it's a little bit different to the industry that you're playing in, but some data shows us 40 to 60% of decisions end up in no decision because the buying committee is so wide, there's so many people, they just can't come to a point of agreement. Yeah, um, what are some of the strategies that you've put in place? Like you said, when you're navigating those waters with all these different individuals? Um, do you mind sharing what you do to get consensus?
Michael Miller Guest 11:36
across that committee.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 11:38
Yeah.
Michael Miller Guest 11:38
So I think the first thing is, by the way, to be extremely um, um and forthrightly trans um, um. Respectful excuse me of the different points of you.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 11:49
Okay.
Michael Miller Guest 11:50
So walking the door and saying that's right and that's wrong is not a good strategy.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 11:54
Yeah.
Michael Miller Guest 11:55
Because people aren't going to coalesce around conflict. Um, the second thing you want to do, I think, is to provide, uh, and this is what you, what you try to do, I think, with anything. But when you hear the different points of you and you've kind of figure them out from the questions that are asked in the dialogue that you're privy, to try to find where the common ground is because there's usually a place where people can all coalesce around an idea, um, whether it's a specific fact or or a piece of history that informs the right way to think about a complicated topic.
12:27
So those kinds of things, if you can provide a roadmap for people around something they agree on fundamentally and then you can push away a few of the details they disagree on by keeping them focused on the big picture issue and not the nuances that may cause some disagreement amongst the group. But it's that idea of respect for the different people around the table that creates some kind of pathway for them that they can all kind of largely get around.
12:51
for the most part, and those are the ways that you get to a good place with a group of people. And then the last thing is, I think, when you're in a competitive situation where there are maybe four or five organisations like yours that are being considered, yeah, and our old use of we kind of jokingly called them beauty pageants, like they bring in each one for 40 minutes, yeah. And so how do you stand out in that? And one way you do it is to first of all, hopefully come off with a lot of energy and a lot of passion for their organisation and for what you do and how you can help them.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 13:20
Yeah, that's true. How important is it that you're aligned with the cause or you're aligned with the vision that the foundation is trying to achieve?
Michael Miller Guest 13:31
It's so important. But if you do that, if you may, if you've, when you express that, it has to be indirect. And it has to be indirect because when you walk into an organisation, particularly a nonprofit, they're pretty much used to people telling them how great they are and how important they do for you, and that can come off as lacking in credibility for you and you sound like you don't sound particularly deep. Yeah, um, so what you really want to do is you want to express a passion for the outcomes that you can help create, which then ties into their mission.
14:01
And that's how you very directly hit on what you do, as opposed to a more pandering type of oh my God, you're so great at what you do. I read about this in your report. Everybody can read the annual website. You need to have brought something much more substantive to the tape. Yeah, because otherwise you come across this ingenuous right Correct, and you know that's a quick way not to have a good relationship.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 14:23
Yeah, one of the topics or one of the questions that I'm really excited to ask, because when you look at investing, you could sort of say that it's a logical decision that people make when they look at some numbers and they say, well, this is telling me X. But sort of in the green room we were talking a bit about the emotion that drives people's decision. Okay, essentially, making a bit of a, it's not going in the way that I think many people would like. There's a bit of fear around what it looks like and, logically, I suppose for many that are taking the decision, while it's time to to retract, to maybe pull back on investing or hold making decisions, I'd love for you to talk to us about the, the motion versus logic, and and what people should be doing when things aren't necessarily going to plan. Yeah, absolutely.
Michael Miller Guest 15:20
I think, always the word to remind yourself of when you think about investing is cycles. Yeah, everything is a cycle and and there's an old expression in investing that be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy. Yeah, and that really is another way of talking about cycles, and and so the beauty of an endowment fund or a long term fund like ours. So, yes, we need to generate returns over shorter periods of time that are satisfactory or better, but what we're really thinking about is how do we get the long term outcomes we want? Yeah, and the way you do that is what you're asking about, which is that when markets are dropping, we're all very fearful of this because it makes us who we are, we're now poorer than before.
16:06
And we're also very much afraid that we're going to get even poorer, because people assume that what's happening now will continue and that, if you think about that, that's exactly the opposite of what a cycle is.
16:18
A cycle is something that goes down and then it comes back and then it goes now hopefully up and up to the right eventually, and so the thing you have to do is not retrench when bad things are happening in the market. You need to be, of course, thoughtful. Yeah, you need to be prudent. All those things are very important, but don't use those as excuses to become defensive and fearful. And it's so important I mean, I think, the biggest and best advice we've ever given our clients. You know, there's lots of little things that we get right and some of we get wrong, but the biggest thing that we almost always get right is to be steady, be consistent, and being consistent means I need to earn this return. Yeah, when prices are lower, my chances of earning that return just went up, not down, and when prices are higher, I had to be more careful, because now I just got paid tomorrow's return today and then I mean it won't be there tomorrow.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 17:05
Yeah, interesting, and I think what you're sharing is a strategy that should be applied across every element of business, right, like if the market's turning, it's a good, there's a good chance your competitor will retract, so there's an opportunity to grow market share if you can double down and invest in growth. So I really like what you're sharing. But do you mind talking to us a bit about the psychology that drives people to think that I should be retracting? Where it's the emotion driving? I mean you mentioned the bias around that.
Michael Miller Guest 17:40
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of psych. So what I love about investing is there's an intellectual side to it, which is, you know, what does a company do? How do you do that? What's their competitive position, all the things that you were referring to a minute ago. But it's also a very strong psychological and emotional side to it, because we are, you know, we see numbers and we have an emotional reaction to them, sometimes positive or negative. And so, getting to what you're asking about, there's this thing we call it's not our term, it's a term term it's called recency bias and it's this idea that whatever state we're currently experiencing will persist. And that's what drives us to be fearful when things are not going well and maybe, by the way, to get a little sloppy, you know, maybe a little lazy, when things are going well because, like, everything's fine.
18:25
Yeah it's not fine. It's going to change, but mostly it's changing the right direction.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 18:29
Yeah, so that's essentially what's really driving people. There is emotion, right, it is, it is, and yeah and you can't.
Michael Miller Guest 18:38
The hard part for anybody with this is if I say to you, it's going to be fine, your logical next question is going to be well, when?
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 18:48
Yeah.
Michael Miller Guest 18:48
And I have to if I'm going to be honest with you tell you I don't know.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 18:52
And that's a lot of uncertainty and people don't like uncertainty.
Michael Miller Guest 18:55
Let's be clear. We like to know that things are going to happen and they're going to happen a certain way, when the reality is that's not how the world works right. There's a lot of uncertainty and there always will be.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 19:03
So how do you work through that? So when you've got whether it's a prospect that you're talking to, they've got the you can see there's a heightened level of emotion. That bias is kicking in. How do you work with them to manage that emotion, to drop that tension, so that they can be confident in the decision they're about to make?
Michael Miller Guest 19:23
So the first thing I mean is that you need to first establish that you have some domain expertise and that they should be listening to you like that. You have a message that's worth hearing.
19:30
If you don't do that, then the answer doesn't matter, right? The second thing is you need to establish a rapport and a trust with that person, where they know that I'm here talking to you about X and advising you on Y, because I believe it's in your best interests and my best interests which, of course, are going to always be important to me too only flow through from what's best for you. And if you establish that kind of trust, then you can go to the message from before, which is to say oh listen, I understand that this is happening and this is bad and this is bad. But what if I told you that history has proven time and time again that when this happens, this always follows, and we have had this experience and we have facts to support the idea that this actually is going to happen every single time and you can count on it. And all those things come together and hopefully you walk away and say you know, maybe I should think about this a little differently, and I think that's that's the secret.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 20:32
Yeah, I mean, I'm just, I'm summarising in my head. I think I love what you're saying. You've got to have you build that rapport and trust through the little of expertise, your domain expertise, that you've had, you have, but then you calm them by actually showing what the past has occurred and pretend and showing that there is a, there is a way out of this. It's about navigating through this Exactly.
Michael Miller Guest 20:57
We actually have a cool chart so anytime you can have some data to support your case and historically we have some of our longstanding clients. So you take a client crucial for 30 years they've had at least six or seven times where their portfolio dropped 10, 15, 20, 25 percent in values.
21:14
And these are really, really disturbing and difficult periods. So we have this cool chart where we show them here's the 10 times, seven times that happened. Here's how quickly you made back the money, and usually it's in months and not in years. Yeah, eight months later you had made back your loss. And then we show them another really cool thing, which is what was your five year return? Because, remember, we think long term and five is not even that long, but let's just use five. What's your five year return from the worst moment just before the drop? Yeah, five years later. And every single time is positive and that helps people say OK, wait a second.
21:48
Yeah, this history is telling me something, yeah, and I'm telling you, as a trusted advisor, that that history is something you should be paying attention to.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 21:56
Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean there's a couple of things there, right, because I was just about to ask before. You mentioned that when a client has had a major dip in their portfolio and they pick up the phone, they say Mike, you know, with the stress to the hill, is that your strategy to manage through that by showing evidence? I mean, what do you do to help manage that stress that they go through?
Michael Miller Guest 22:21
Yeah, I mean the first thing you have to do is you have to connect, yeah, and you can't come off as it's no big deal, don't worry about it. You can't patronise people, especially when, by the way, they're not afraid of anything. They're afraid of something that's very, very real in their lives, right? So empathy is a really good place to start. I understand how hard this is, and then you start to switch, but this is why we've designed your spending policy, if you're a charity, so that you're not going to have to cut your spending overnight because of this drop. In fact, the opposite is probably possible. Then here's your portfolio strategy and then here's the history. And so, just very calmly, after you have established that, yes, I understand why this is very disturbing, but here's the things that I know help me feel less worried about the future. Maybe they'd help you as well.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 23:07
Yeah, okay. So the underlying premise behind that is the empathy that you show and actually showing that I do care. I'm not discounting your concern, but let me walk you through what's actually happening so that you can get a bit of understanding of what the future should look like Exactly.
Michael Miller Guest 23:26
There's a human connection and you just described it.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 23:28
Yeah, so fun. And again, I know that I could sit here and talk to you for hours. We have a limited amount of time today but we'd love to get it, given that you've been working in this space as a trusted advisor for so many years. You're essentially selling, but not selling. What would be your definition of sales from the eyes of somebody that has worked with so many people and so many organisations over the past 20 years?
Michael Miller Guest 23:58
I think it's a wonderful thing and it's interesting when you talk about sales. When I was a younger man, I thought sales was the idea of convincing someone to hire you and that's part of it. But the sales are every single day. Every interaction you have with that organisation or person is about. Here's why we're a good partner for you and so it's a constant process of making that happen.
24:21
And to me, I think the greatest thing in the world and I know and everyone gets this, but I hope most of your listeners do. Like if you actually believe in what it is that you are trying to convince someone else to do, or buy and service the product, etc. Then you know you really, I can look you in the eye and I can say to you I think this is really going to be great for you and, of course, explain why. And to me that's like the that's sales right and convincing you that that is true, and then I can do it better when I actually you know I might be wrong, but I think and I believe, I know that it's going to be good for you and you're going to be really happy with that five or 10 years from now, or even longer.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 25:00
So having that conviction and that excitement for what they can achieve, is pretty important right.
Michael Miller Guest 25:08
Yeah, I think I don't think anybody. I'm sure there are amazing people who can sell anything, whether they believe in it or not, but I think for most of us, mere mortals. I think if we, if we really believe in something, any of us can be great salespeople.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 25:22
Well, Mike, this has been an awesome episode and, as I mentioned, I think I could. I could continue to talk to you for hours on end about this subject. Right, because you're a wealth of knowledge, you've got such an incredible experience. But just before we wrap up our show, what's the best way for people to connect with you?
Michael Miller Guest 25:38
LinkedIn or they can look at the crucial partners website I guess will provide that link, but feel free at any time. And so we have a great global research effort so we get to travel around the world like you do, and so love to connect with people.
Luigi Prestinenzi Host 25:52
Awesome and I'll make sure that your link is in the show notes or where they connect with you, but I just want to say thank you very much for giving up your time. I know you're incredibly busy coming on the scalable growth podcast. Oh, it's been an honour and a real pleasure to thank Luigi.