Mike Mirarchi 0:19

Welcome to the Toilet Paper Salesman Podcast. My name is Mike Mirarchi, and I'm pleased to have Josh Brown today with us. Josh is what is a self-professed soaper. So we're going to learn about what a soaper is today. And uh Josh works for TMA Chemnet Systems. And so today we're going to

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Mike Mirarchi 0:39

learn a little bit about the chemical business and we're going to learn a little bit about Josh's story as he got into it and how he got started in the chemical business. And so, Josh, uh welcome to the Toilet Paper Salesman Podcast.

Josh Brown 0:53

Thanks for having me, Mike. I appreciate it.

Mike Mirarchi 0:55

So tell me how you got started in this business. I think you have a pretty interesting story.

Josh Brown 1:00

I do, yeah. I like to think I do. Um actually a second generation soaper. So uh my dad left the farm back in 1983 and went to work for Ecolab and uh moved his way up through the corporate ladder. And when I was 13, he decided it was high

Josh’s Start In The Business

Josh Brown 1:17

time for me to learn how to work. So I went to work for the company he was at, a little company called World Labs up in Fenton, Michigan, where I washed buckets uh for a dime apiece after school and on the weekends. And uh I know you like to say who says selling toilet paper is not glamorous. I'll tell you, washing buckets in the back of a chemical plant is not glamorous. But but it really taught me a nice understanding of some of the stuff that went on behind the scenes, you know, other than just selling the soap to the customer. After that, through high school, I worked my way as a service technician on the weekends for that company, which put me in front of customers, taught me you know that chemicals were only a part of the program and that if equipment and uh dispensers weren't working properly or the employees weren't trained properly, the customer's not gonna get the results that they expected. And I did that, like I said, through high school. And then um after high school, I went to work for a company called Candy Tex out of Chicago, which was part of JF Daily. And I worked there as a full service in-house representative for uh their customer in Wixam, Michigan. It was Alliant Food Service, and I did that for about a year until they were bought by US Chem and her US Foods, and they brought US Chem in for their business. So I was kind of looking for the next adventure, and Candypex offered me a spot out in Oregon, uh, handling Unisource and McDonald's food sales. So I went out there for about a year, and at 19, living in Eugene, Oregon, right off of campus, I had we're gonna say way too much fun.

Mike Mirarchi 3:02

Okay.

Josh Brown 3:03

I had way too much fun. And after about a year of that, I decided uh it was time to come back home and go back to Michigan. So I moved back and I went to work for a small independent Jan San house called Brighton Cleaning Supplies. It's still around today. And I basically did everything there from street sales to blending product, uh installations, delivering product. You know, we were a small company, so you had to do multiple things, had to wear multiple hats. But it taught me a lot as far as direct sales, right to be the costumer and what you do and don't want to do. And what it taught me most at that time was that I didn't want to be a sober. I didn't want to do what my dad did. I saw the way he traveled his whole life and uh the way he ate on the road and everything, and I just didn't want to do it. So I moved to Virginia at that time and I sold gym memberships. Something totally different. I was

Trying To Quit And Getting Pulled Back

Josh Brown 4:03

21, I figured I can do this, I'm in shape, why not? It was when I was there that a woman by the name of Chris Morris, who used to be one of the higher-ups at ADS, American Dish Service, she was contacted by a gentleman by the name of Tony Johnson, who was the founder of TMA Chemnet, and he was looking for a young kid that either knew the business or was willing to learn the business. And she put him in touch with me, and he flew me out to Kentucky, interviewed me, and we couldn't come to an understanding on numbers. We we were about three grand apart, and keep in mind this was in 2003. I thought for sure when I got up and walked out, he was gonna stop me. We'd come to an understanding, but uh grumpy old Tony, he let me walk right out the office. So I went back to Virginia, I continued selling gym memberships for a little bit, eventually found my way back in Michigan where I was delivering hot tubs. And I'll tell you, if there's anything that makes you yearn for the days of being a soap, it's delivering a hot tub on a second floor patio in the middle of winter in upstate Michigan. Okay, you've never yearned to be underneath a dish machine so badly. And I was up there one day and uh screwing around on an old AOL email account that I hadn't been on for well over a year, where while I'm on there, Tony Johnson sends me an email saying, Hey Josh, I can afford to pay you what you were looking for. And my response was basically, well, the cost of living's gone up in a year, Tony, but I'll talk to you. I drove down on a Wednesday and I interviewed with Tony. We came to an understanding, I accepted the position. And Thursday I went out and I found an apartment. Friday I went home and packed. Saturday I loaded the U-Haul. Sunday I moved moved down to Kentucky, and Monday I started working. And this December, it will be 22 years since I've been here.

Mike Mirarchi 5:59

It's a great story. So you have to tell me where does the term soapers come from? Like, where does that come from?

Josh Brown 6:05

Yeah, that was a phrase that Tony came up with years and years ago. It predates me. It's basically somebody that just lives and breathes getting stuff clean for people, right? We're we're one of those that, yeah, we're sales guys, but we're also ones that will jump

What A Soaper Really Means

Josh Brown 6:20

behind the laundry machine and rip apart the wiring, right? We'll get down on the kitchen floor and tear apart the drain to figure out what's going on with the dish machine. So it's really just somebody that does it all in the world of soap. And we thought it was kind of catchy, so we stuck with it, but we never fully defined it.

Mike Mirarchi 6:36

It's amazing. It's uh I had never heard it. Uh, you know, I've been in the business for a long time, over 40 years, and I've never heard it. When you connect it with me on LinkedIn and I saw it for the first time, I was like, now that's interesting. I definitely have to have you on my podcast.

Josh Brown 6:50

So we did a lot of that. You know, we started displaying at the ISSA show about uh 11 years ago or so, I guess. And up on the top of our booth is a big sign that says, We're sopers, we understand. And we get so many people that come over just, what is a soaper? I I I guess it's probably high time we put an actual definition down.

Mike Mirarchi 7:11

I would. Yeah, you might want to get a trademark to boot, you know.

Josh Brown 7:15

Yeah, exactly.

Mike Mirarchi 7:17

Yeah, it's so cool. First of all, you know you can't get out of this business once you're in, right?

Josh Brown 7:21

You you do it. Yeah, I've I've learned that the hard way.

Mike Mirarchi 7:25

Yeah, yeah. So so when you're telling me about the gym membership, I just thought to myself, yeah, right. I mean, you know, it you just can't get out of this industry, and it's not a bad thing. People get into this business and they think, oh, well, maybe I'll be here for a little bit and I'll do something else. It never happens, it just doesn't. As you were coming up in the ranks, uh, tell me some of the good lessons you've learned in sales, things that you would say, you know, I I did something, maybe it was a mistake you made, maybe it was a big sale that you lost.

Josh Brown 7:54

Yeah, I mean, one of the ones that sticks out in my head, uh, we were going after a fairly good-sized uh distributor out in

Sales Lessons From Losing Deals

Josh Brown 8:02

uh Las Vegas. I didn't know who I was competing against, and they walked in with a whole bunch of real nice private label marketing material, wall charts, procedures, yeah, labels all done up real nice. And we just kind of walked in and hey yeah, we can do that too. The fact that they walked in with examples in hand, something that has always stuck with me. I'm never gonna walk into an account unprepared again. I'd rather be overprepared and not need it than need it and not have it. Yeah, that that's always been something that stuck with me. So I tend to walk into meetings with way too much information now. And then if I don't use it, I don't use it. But at least I had it, you know, that when they asked. Uh, the other big one for me, when I first started with TMA, I we were a small company. We were doing about four million a year in sales. So again, I had to wear a lot of different hats. We had four sales guys and the owner of the company, that was it. I did everything from customer service and marketing, product development, logistics. I used to go out every morning and I would walk our docks and make sure that all the orders were staged correctly, that they were clean, they looked good, shrink wrapped tight, everything was there because a customer will not pay their bill if they don't get their product. So uh I've always thought about it as your sale isn't complete until your customer gets exactly what they were looking for in a timely manner. You've got to follow through. Follow through to me is one of the most overlooked aspects of sales, sales process when it comes to younger sales guys, especially. They go out there, they talk with folks, they tell this good story, make all these promises, and then two weeks later, nothing's happened.

Mike Mirarchi 9:41

One of the things that I talk about a lot is first of all, the more prepared you are, the more confident you'll be. Confidence comes from preparation, number one. And number two, when you're selling new customers, when you're selling a new prospect, the consistency which is follow-through, which is you know, you say what you do and you do what you say. Consistency creates confidence. Confidence builds trust, and trust starts into relationships. But that all starts with the consistency. And I think that's what the younger ref, like you said. A lot of times they'll go in and have a great conversation and the customer might be genuinely interested. And then there's no follow through for two or three or four weeks, and then all of a sudden they try to re-engage stuff, but they've already lost because they didn't have the follow through, which builds confidence. If you don't build confidence and you don't follow through immediately, then the customer's gonna lose interest and move on, and now you've got to start all over again.

Josh Brown 10:37

No different than texting a woman the night after a good day, right?

Mike Mirarchi 10:40

There you go. It's the same process. I said that. Now I've been married for 41 years, right? I met my wife, she was dating someone else we just met and we started dating, and she had somebody, you know, we're in northeastern Pennsylvania, and she had someone who she dated since college in New York. Well, I had the advantage because I was home, you know, and he wasn't. But I would call her every day, same time, you know, and then all of a sudden it's just like New York, she decided to just go to your boyfriend in New York, right? She goes, and what I did is I sent her a dozen roses for when she got home. She goes, she has a terrible time, she comes home, sees a dozen roses, gets to get to the girl. And it's exactly the process that that you talked about. It's the consistency and the follow-up that builds confidence and trust and turns into a relationship. So what else? What else do soapers do? Like what's the what's the life of a soaper like?

Josh Brown 11:36

Well, life of a soaper uh is kind of mundane. Well, yeah. But yeah, the good the good thing is about it is we we run into all different types of folks. Uh, when you're in the back of restaurants, assisted living facilities, healthcare, correctional

Troubleshooting And Distributor Operator Alignment

Josh Brown 11:51

facilities, uh, you never know the type of characters you're gonna run into. And I'll tell you, some of the, believe it or not, some of the nicest people I've ever met in my life were people operating uh corrections laundry facilities. Just the nicest guys you ever meet in your life. You wonder why they're in there. Yeah. And then you run into a few you fully understand it. But uh just uh, you know, the life is really uh it's about troubleshooting. Yeah if we can problem solve for our customers, that's really what a soaper is is you know, our customer calling us saying, Look, I've got these type of problems with a customer, these floors aren't coming clean, here are their applications. Well, you know, what do we do to fix it? We've got to be here to be able to provide that education for them. And that is the vast majority of my day is putting out fires for my customers. Since we work mainly through distributors, uh, we really have two customers for every customer, right? We have to worry about our customers' needs, and then we have to worry about their customers' needs. And we have to make sure that we're there to kind of bring the two into synergy. That's one of our taglines. You know, we mentioned we're soapers, we understand. The other one is aligning the interests of distributors and operators. If it's important to a distributor, how do we make it important to an operator? If it's important to an operator, how do we make it important to a distributor so that everybody's happy? The distributor is obviously looking to make margins. The sales rep is looking to close the sale. The customer's looking for a cost competitive program that works. And when somebody calls, they answer the phone. Um, and I'm still one of those old guys, but if I had kids, they'd be embarrassed by me because I wear my phone on my hip. So I still have the old belt holster. So when a customer calls, it's right there, right? Yeah, I mean, that's a big part of it for us.

Mike Mirarchi 13:40

Our business is still old school in a lot of ways, but not in a bad way. I think it's in a wonderful way, is that we still, and and RJ is the same way, we still have person-to-person contacts. We build relationships. RJ, as big of a company as we are, family-owned, and we're still old-fashioned in a lot of ways. It's a Midwestern company in Wisconsin, and we still carry those values and we still believe in person-to-person relationships, which has helped us to build our business dramatically.

Josh Brown 14:12

Yeah, and yeah, that that's a big part of it for us. There are a lot of companies out there that you can buy soap from. And if you're a if you're a true soap or somebody that knows how to make stuff work, you can get clean linen with just about anybody's chemicals. You can get clean dishes with just about anybody's chemicals. It's about the guy that's going to stand there and titrate the dish machine or titrate the laundry machine, the guy that's going to check the pH, you know, make sure everything's diluted properly, got the product knowledge to select the correct product for different water applications. Uh, those type of things really make a big difference in how you get stuff clean. And if you do the little things, you know, any soaper can really make any chemical work. It's about when they call, are you there to fix their problems? That's really what sets us apart is yeah, you can get your stuff clean with anybody's stuff, but does it take them two weeks to get back to you? You know, we're gonna get back to you unless we're on a plane within an hour or two hours max. We don't just ship product either. We are different in that way that, hey, we floor stock product so that when our customers place an order, we've got a three-month supply sitting in our warehouse and we just ship that out to them. In 24 to 48 hours, the truckload orders go out. On top of that, we get our hands dirty. So if we can do something better than you, we'll come out and do it for you. Do you need five, six, seven guys to come out and do a sales install or a sales blitz? We'll bring five, six, seven guys out and do a sales blitz with your guys. Once we sell them, we'll come back out and help you install them if we need be. Uh so it's those little value-added things that we're able to bring to the table that a lot of folks aren't that really help us be successful.

Mike Mirarchi 15:55

Uh, it really is those small things that make a huge difference. It's the extra mile that you're going that makes a difference. You have somebody who's in college or maybe just out of college, they can't find a job, or they're looking for a career in something. Why would a young person come into this business? My passion is to bring young people into this industry. I believe that it's a great industry. You know, we're on the disposable side. We do sell chemicals as well.

Why Young People Should Join

Mike Mirarchi 16:22

Uh, but you're truly a chemical guy or a soaper. What would you say to a young person thinking about getting into this industry?

Josh Brown 16:29

Yeah, I'd say as long as uh you're willing to work, it's and you've got a little bit of self-motivation, it is an ideal industry to get into. If you hit your numbers and you're being productive, you get all the freedom in the world. And I'll tell you, it's it's awfully nice being able to say, uh, well, you know, I've uh I've I've had a really exceptional week. I've closed four new accounts. Uh I'm gonna splurge and take off at three o'clock this afternoon and go spend time with my girl. If you're doing your job well, you get a lot of freedom and a lot of leeway to push as hard as you want to. And if you're one of those guys that really wants to push, you can make a very good living. I mean, I did not go to college, school was not for me. I hated school. And uh, my folks have six kids. And outside of the lawyer in the family, I'm up towards the top. So uh you can make a really good living in the world of distributor sales, whether you're selling toilet paper or you're selling chemical. If you want to go out there and work, you can really turn a good living. And on top of that, it's a different experience every single day, Mike. Like I mentioned before, one day you'll be in a frish's big boy, you know, back there talking to the chef about, you know, he was out riding four-wheelers over the weekend or whatever he did. And the next day you're talking to some 75-year-old woman in the back of the laundry room who is uh getting ready to retire. Or, you know, I one lady, she was a uh laundry manager at a hotel in the UP of Michigan. She hit the lottery for $80 million. You know, how often do you get to run into those kind of people? Uh so it's it's really is it's just a really nice experience. You don't have to be a chemist, you know, to get into the world of soap. I I am living proof of that. I made it through all the high school without taking a single chemistry course. And for 10 or 11 years, I was our product development team. But it really is. It's it's it's a life that if you want to work, it provides a lot of freedom and a way to really build a nice life for you and your family.

Mike Mirarchi 18:35

Yeah, I agree. I mean, the the amount of hard work it takes to make it in this business, there's there's no doubt. You you've got to work your butt off. But tell me an industry you don't have to work your butt off. If you really want to be successful in your career uh in any industry, you're gonna work your butt off. The the difference in our industry is that you truly get rewarded for it. There are a lot of people in our business that have made a lot of money, and there's no question about that, but you've got to be willing to work. And the other thing I say to young people as well is that you know, there's a bunch of old fat bald guys in this business right now, you know, and there's a lot of people gonna be retiring in the next few years, and we need to bring younger people into our industry in order to continue to keep it viable and vibrant, you know. The the younger people that come in bring a certain energy in, and I'll be curious to to hear your take on this. They bring a lot of energy in and enthusiasm and excitement, and it really helps an organization. So, what would you say to someone who would say, well, young people today don't really work? You know, we're having a terrible time hiring young people. What would you say to someone like that?

Josh Brown 19:41

I'd say you could say the same thing about the hippies. That's right. I mean, I mean, you're gonna have good and bad in every generation. And I know,

Generations At Work And New Tech

Josh Brown 19:51

well, since the day I've been hired at TMA, I've literally been the youngest person in the company. We've never hired anybody younger than me. We would love to, but a lot of my distributors do, right? A lot of my distributors hire a lot of young guys. Those guys bring it, you know, they bring it every day, and they push us to be better every day. And you know, they have really pushed us to be better in a lot of ways, especially with technology. I had one distributor ask me if we have some sort of an app that would help them do certain things. We didn't. So back in October, I started learning how to build apps, and we're getting ready to kick that off now. Probably wouldn't have come along if that 28-year-old hadn't asked me, you know, I think this would be beneficial and started talking about it. Well, you know, that would be something we could use. So, yeah, they they really do bring a lot of energy and creativity. A lot of the younger generation, I hate to say it, we tend to lose some of that creativity as we get older. We get stuck in our ways, you know. Well, this is the way I've always done it. Why? Right? Where the young folks will ask us, why do you do it that way? And why don't you try it this way? And that's a big deal. And then on top of that, I'm getting tired of climbing up and down off of dish machines. I need somebody young.

Mike Mirarchi 21:08

There you go. So there's an advertisement, right? If so, if you have a young person out there who hears the podcast and you want to go to work and become a soaper, well, give Josh a call and we'll give you an opportunity to give your contact information at the end. If somebody wants to contact you, we'll definitely provide that for them. And we'll also put it onto the podcast. You'll be able to uh contact Josh directly or uh his company. And if you want to do business with them, number one, or if you want to maybe go to work for him and consider a career. What else do you like to do, Josh? What what do you like to do for pleasure? What kind of hobbies do you have?

Josh Brown 21:41

You know, I'm pretty laid back. Uh me, I'm married. I've been married for eight years. The wife loves to cook, so you you may not be able to tell I started the fat pill, so I dropped 50 pounds, but but she she loves to feed

Life Outside Work And Zen Habits

Josh Brown 21:55

me. We do a lot of camping, a lot of hiking. We've got a couple dogs, and I almost embarrassed to say it, but I almost live and die for fantasy football. I'm a die hard fantasy football guy. Yeah, on the flip side of that, it that's been very beneficial with work as well. Um, I've learned how to do an exceptional amount of stuff in Excel because of fantasy football that I'm able to turn around and put to work for work. But no, we're we're pretty laid back. I've got five acres out here in Ohio that keeps me pretty busy during the summer and spring months. And then when uh outside of that, I'd say we do some camp and hike and mess around with the dogs.

Mike Mirarchi 22:31

You do gardening at all?

Josh Brown 22:33

We do, yeah. I I built the oh I'd say we. She does.

Mike Mirarchi 22:38

Okay. That's fair. She she loves it. It is we because when you don't say we, then you get chastised for that, you know.

Josh Brown 22:44

Like Yeah, I and I guess technically I have. I I I built her I built her a couple raised boxes and uh I do all the tilling and whatnot during the springtime and some of the weeding, but that's her garden. It's her baby. She she does grow a couple things for me, but I don't do a whole lot of broccoli and cucumbers, some of the stuff she likes to grow.

Mike Mirarchi 23:06

So what do you grow actually?

Josh Brown 23:08

Uh she's got cucumbers, broccoli, zucchini. She does grow me some some red peppers. Spicy? Yes, spicy. Yeah, I'm not a bell pepper guy. So she she grows me some of those. She grows me some jalapenos. We do a little bit of corn, but nothing. We don't have that big of a garden, just enough to keep her interested in it. We'll probably add on to it, I think, and start doing some some of the seasonings. You know, there are oreganos and basils and stuff like that. I would like to have a little bit bigger selection.

Mike Mirarchi 23:37

I actually grow Calabrian chili peppers. So uh if you're interested in spicy peppers, we'll have to hook you up once they come in.

Josh Brown 23:45

Yeah, absolutely. I am a uh hot sauce and chili fan, that's for sure. So yeah, I'll certainly send them my way.

Mike Mirarchi 23:53

You'll like those. They're very uh they're spicy, but they're they're very flavorful, but they're not too spicy. Like you never need milk or anything like that, but but they definitely have a kick. If you if you eat one whole, you'd find out, you know. But uh yeah, so I've been growing those for I think this is my fourth year. And then, you know, I'll do something like I have some cucumbers in. I I did some green onions, some basic stuff. Like I don't do a lot uh a lot of planting. I'm only focused on my chili peppers. I find it really relaxing and it's really good to go out and just tend your plants. And the amazing thing is to watch something go from seed to a plant, and then you eat it, and then it goes back to seed and that that whole process of planting, because I do my peppers from seed as well. Uh it's just a fascinating process to watch them. And then I keep each year, I'll keep my seed from each year and have a kind of a record of the plants.

Josh Brown 24:44

And we all need that zen activity, right? Something to just let us zone out and get out of our own minds. Luckily for me, mine is mowing the lawn. And with five acres, and it takes me about four, four and a half hours to get it done. Uh by the time I'm done with that, my mind is as clear as I want it to get. Yeah.

Mike Mirarchi 25:01

Goodness, you can come over and do mine sometime. Oh god. I'm always looking for help there. Yeah, great. Anything else you want to add? Any other sales tips or leadership or anything like that that you feel like you want to share?

Josh Brown 25:16

Yeah, I got I I mentioned to you when we talked beforehand off there or in the emails, uh, I am not the most polished sales representative. I'm not the guy that's gonna go out there and wow you with my sales presentation and close a deal

Show Up Follow Up And Find Mentors

Josh Brown 25:30

on the first day. And I know that there are probably more sales reps out there like me than there are Don Juan out there selling used cars, right? So, I mean, the biggest thing I can say is, and I've heard you say it in other podcasts, show up and follow up. Those are the two biggest keys. If you do that, if nothing else, Mike, you're gonna run into some sweet old man that just wants to buy something from you. So, you know, eventually you'll sell something. And if you show up and you follow up, the rest of the stuff will come naturally to you. You know, don't be a jerk, be polite, do what you say you're gonna do, and answer the phone. And you know, you're pretty much there.

Mike Mirarchi 26:12

Yeah, that's true. It it's not that difficult. I tell a story of when I went to see Zig Ziggler. I don't know if you know, remember Zig Ziggler's I do, yeah. Yeah, I mean, incredible salesperson, sales trainer for a long time, one of the top guys, right? And I went to see him, and this is probably around 2000, somewhere in there. And, you know, I'm growing like 30% a year over year. I'm just killing the numbers. Uh and I see him and he's given all these fancy clothes and all these things, and I'm sitting there actually feeling bad about myself because I'm like, I I can't do that. Like, I can't be like that. That's not who I am, you know. And and then the realization is, well, I must be doing something, right? You know, I'm growing like crazy every year. I'm knocking over new accounts left and right. So even though so what I learned is even though I can't sell like Zig, I could take one or two things from his presentations and some tips and pointers and add them to my presentation. And then that's how we get better, right? You always want to continue to learn and get better. And, you know, I I learned something today. I was on a uh a call with someone and he mentioned something, and I was like, oh, that's pretty good, you know? And you just add it to your repertoire and you continue to add, even as old guys, you know, we could still learn some things. And and so that's really what it is. It's about being, you know, I I love grinders. A lot of my sales team, if you if you would meet my sales team, uh, we're a bunch of grinders, you know, we're out there hitting the payments, we're hitting it hard every day, we're working our butts off. You know, we might not be zigzigglers, but you know, we're we're out there taking care of the customers and and really make sure that we care uh about customer success and that we're doing everything we can to help them be successful. And that's it, right? If you do that, then you're you're there.

Josh Brown 28:02

Yeah, and you know, you mentioned, you know, going out and getting training from Zig. Uh, you know, that's something I could I would recommend heavily to the young kids getting into the industry. Because, you know, even if you don't want to go out and go to a sales training course and pay the 300 bucks or whatever it costs to get into the darn thing, partner up with a couple of the old gray hairs in your organization, right? I mean, when I was a young kid, my dad used to take me out on sales calls with him. I think part of it was he'd get pity from his customers, they had to deal with me all the time. But yeah, part of it was so that I see the process. And then, you know, I'd go out with former bosses, my Tony Johnson, the founder of TMA, would go out with me and make calls. Uh, my current boss, Tom Fine, who's the president of the TMA, is a great individual. And uh, you know, he's always willing to go out and make calls with you. And if you the more joint calls you make, hey, two eyes are better than one, you know, two sets of eyes are better than one, and you will learn a lot about what works for them. And it may or may not work for you, but at least you've been exposed to it and you've got it in your bag if you do need it. And find a mentor, you know. I mean, I've got a group of guys here in Cincinnati, like to refer to them as the Cincinnati Soapers Lunch. We get together once a month, and they're all all gray hairs, all of them, but one of them are retired. I mean, I'm literally 20 years younger than any of the rest of them. But we sit down every month, we have lunch at the same Chinese buffet, and we bounce stuff off. Some of the times we're just talking about who's riding their motorcycle this weekend. Some of the times it's, hey, I saw this on a Hobart machine. Help me out, right? How do I fix this? Or it's you know, business ideas bouncing back and forth, and they will learn more from the old gray hairs than they will an MBA book they're pulling out of the library.

Mike Mirarchi 29:46

I mean, you can learn from both, but certainly I would prefer someone who's been there. I get contacted by a lot of sales trainers. And I always look them up and try to check and see, you know, what they've done. And what I find is that a good number of sales trainers are failed salespeople. They couldn't make it in sales, so they become a trainer, you know. So it and I'm not saying all of them, I'm there's there's some excellent sales trainers who have been very successful. There's nothing like experience to teach you, and especially some of these older guys that are in the industry, tap into all of the resources that you can. And you know what? The older guys don't feel shy, like they know they're not going to have time for me. Don't feel like that. I guarantee if you go to an older guy and you say, Hey, I'd love to buy you lunch, could would you go out to lunch with me? I'd be shocked if most older veterans in this industry wouldn't do it. As a matter of fact, they'd be thrilled to do it. And it'd probably be one of the best lunches you've ever had.

Josh Brown 30:41

Who doesn't like feeling like the smartest person in the room? Right. And you know, get to sit there and just teach somebody, right? I mean, it it's a nice thing that you know, especially as you get older, you like to pass on some of that wisdom. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I mean, and most of the time the old guy's gonna end up buying you the lunch anyway.

Mike Mirarchi 31:02

That's right. That's right. But always offer, right?

Josh Brown 31:04

Yes, yeah, always offer.

Mike Mirarchi 31:07

Always offer. You're probably right. Great. So, Josh, how do we get a hold of you? If you if there's a restaurant out there or a distributor or somebody who wants your services, or a salesperson, maybe a young person who is interested in becoming a soaper, how would they contact you?

Josh Brown 31:22

Yeah, you can email me at uh brown, just like the color, the letter J at chemnet

How To Reach Josh And Closing

Josh Brown 31:29

chemn e tensystems.com. Or you can always just reach out by phone tune and call me at 859-250-7809. And unless I'm on a plane or in a meeting, I'll answer the phone.

Mike Mirarchi 31:46

I do too. I actually answer the phone, which is how many times I get people to say, wow, you actually pick up the phone. And it's like, of course. You know, if I'm if I'm not in a meeting, if I'm in a meeting, I'll usually send a little text back saying, hey, I'm in a meeting or I'm on a call, I'll call you back. And then I call them right back. Or if I'm available, I pick up the phone. Like, why wouldn't you? Uh but you'd be surprised. Great discussion. I I really appreciate you coming on the podcast. Look, if you want to become a soaper, I welcome it. If you want to get into the toilet paper business, I welcome it. If you're looking for a job in the food service industry, get in touch. We'll put you in touch with the right people. There's tons of opportunities. There are many, many distributors, manufacturers looking for good salespeople, people that want to work hard, people that want to dedicate themselves to being excellent, people who want to create a great career. We're all open for it. So, with that, who says selling toilet paper isn't glamorous? Josh, thanks so much for being on the podcast and have a great day.