ABOUT TODAY’S GUEST’S | AMIEE & JOSH MUELLER
Amiee & Josh Mueller have teamed up to create a formidable “power couple” in the Cutco/Vector Marketing sales organization. In his 20+ year career with the company, Josh has risen to become the #3 all-time sales rep in the history of Cutco, with over $7.5 million in career personal sales and three National Championships. Aimee has been influential in the company in multiple roles, and more notably, has elevated herself from very challenging circumstances in her early life to become a best-selling author and National speaker, while supporting Josh in his business for many years. Together, they run a successful coaching and training business called Vast Action, which helps entrepreneurs, small business owners, and direct salespeople scale and maximize their businesses through consistent, quality, multi-channel communication strategies.
Q&A WITH AMIEE & JOSH MUELLER
Q: Let’s start by hearing both of your personal stories.
- Amiee’s parents split when she was 2 years old. Dad had only gone to 8thgrade, so he was a cross-country truck driver. This left Amiee and her brother with babysitters or neglected. They lived in a run-down trailer park.
- Amiee had to figure out a lot of things on her own. She really enjoyed school, which was her “safe place,” and her way out of the poverty she grew up with.
- She worked as a waitress starting at age 14. Once she was on her own paying for college, she needed a better job and came across an ad for Vector/Cutco in her school newspaper.
- Josh’s background was very much the opposite. He grew up in a family with parents who have been married for almost 60 years now. Josh is the middle boy of 5 boys, and was a decent student.
- However, he was also a rebel, was involved with drugs, and was in jail multiple times before graduating high school.
- In 2001, Josh was suggested to check out the Vector/Cutco opportunity by a friend. Josh was highly money-motivated and was impressed by a pay statement that his friend showed him.
- Josh and Amiee met through the Cutco business.
Q: Josh, what have been some keys to your becoming one of the all-time top Cutco sales reps?
- It started with having a manager who really believed in me.
- Learning to trust the program was key in the beginning.
- Later, openness to growing and learning help him progress.
- Josh often interviewed top performers to learn some of their best practices.
- Josh asked a top rep named Jamar about how to stay motivated. Jamar gave Josh the idea of having longer-term plans and goals, and using those as leverage to create shorter-term motivation in the present.
- Earl Kelly told Josh that their Region needed someone to step up and lead through performance in personal sales. Josh decided to be that person.
- “How can I push what’s currently considered to be the norm … how can I push outside of that and become a person who’s not like everybody else … who’s in the 1%?If everybody else is doing it, I probably need to do something different.”
- Josh and Amiee have also invested considerable money and time in studying people outside the Cutco business who are leaders in various fields.
- Dan: “When it’s raining, you look for the rainbows. When it’s dark, you look for the stars.”
Q: Amiee, what were some of your transformational experiences along your journey?
- The most important thing for me was learning to trust people, learning that people were actually willing to help me without something being in it for them.
- I would reach out to the top managers regularly to get advice on success, and Region Manager Marty Domitrovich, recognized me as someone who was always striving to learn.
- Going to huge Cutco conferences gave me a chance to see a vision of who I wanted to be. Previously, I had realized that I didn’t want to be like the people I observed in my family, but I didn’t know who/what I wanted to be.
- The importance of putting yourself in position to have positive inputs.
- Culture: How do I make my office a place where people want to stay, where they feel cared for, thought about, heard, etc.?
- Part of how Vast Action evolved was through our understanding of how to also make customers feel appreciated.
Q: Tell us about Vast Action, the need that the company meets in the marketplace, and how you go about doing that.
- The biggest challenge we find clients face is that they either have never had quality sales training, or they don’t have a good sales support structure.
- Many entrepreneurs need to be taught how to create a best-in-class sales experience.
- Once you’ve learned this, you need to learn how to handle the greater demands on customer service. For many successful businesspeople, on the back-end, their business becomes not so successful.
- The easiest clients to earn more sales from are the ones we already have. We walk people through the process of earning clients for life.
- The pillars through which we operate are coaching & training programs, online training programs, a marketing agency, and an administrative team that entrepreneurs can tap into until they need their own full-time staffers.
- We have a customizable CRM platform combining email, calendar, follow-up tasks, and data all in one place.
- “Hard work leads to success, but also success leads to more work.”
Q: Amiee, tell us about your book, Destination Awesome. Any insights from the book that you’d like to share?
- I interviewed about 15 people who went through some really challenging circumstances, and there are a lot of great stories in the book.
- Being normal is NOT a characteristic for which to aspire.
- No matter what you’re struggling with as a person, you just have to know that no matter what anyone else thinks about your capability and your future, you’re the only one who can make happen what you want to happen.
- Find the master and follow the model.
Q: As we look into the future, what are you both most excited about?
- Becoming clearer and clearer on what our gifts are, and continuing to find way to bring those gifts to the world around us. Creating the best-in-class sales experience, earning clients for life, learning how to leverage this all in a way that enables us to live the lifestyle we want to live. Having our work have a positive impact and effect positive change in the world around us.
- Scaling Vast Action in a way where we are able to double the size of our team.
- Serving our clients by helping them serve their clients.
- Continuing to help Cutco. We’ll be dedicated and committed to the company for the rest of our lives simply because of the service that Cutco has provided to us. Cutco has changed our lives.
- Expanding our message beyond the world of Cutco as well.
- Ultimately, we want to help thousands of entrepreneurs provide the highest level of service, the best sales experience, and learn the process of how to translate that in repeat sales from the client base that they have worked so hard and invested so many valuable resources into earning.
- Since small businesses are so important to the success of our country, we want to help business owners create a culture where people enjoy their work and are more engaged.
FINAL THOUGHTS
- The importance of believing in your people is a concept that has been echoed many times on this podcast.
- The importance of learning and mastering your skills – Josh worked very hard to become a master in the Cutco business.
- You are responsible for your success. Amiee had other plans for herself than to follow in the path that other people thought I would head down. – Amiee
- Bringing our gifts to the world around us. What are the unique gifts, traits, attributes, qualities that you can offer to other people? Find a vehicle for doing that.
Josh and Amiee’s company, Vast Action
https://www.vastactioninc.com/
Buy Amiee’s book, Destination Awesome
https://www.amazon.com/Destination-Awesome-Life-Want-Even/dp/1630475033
Josh’s Book Recommendation, High Trust Selling by Todd Duncan
Show Notes for this episode provided by Carlo Cipollina.
To learn more and get access to all episodes, visit our podcast page!
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