Most Powerful Salespeople 2019: Pie Consulting's Mike Ermisch

The Most Powerful Salespeople is an annual list from ColoradoBiz highlighting the outstanding performance of nine salespeople around Colorado. The 2019 sales standouts were selected by our editorial board from nominations submitted over several months on Coloradobiz.com, based on sales performance, persistence demonstrated in achieving or surpassing sales goals, and factors such as challenges surmounted or indications of exceptional effort to get deals done.

Mike Ermisch, 59

National Director, Pie Consulting & Engineering

Ermisch transitioned in 2009 from a landscape architecture career to Pie, where he’s excelled at selling professional consulting services and mentoring others. Last year, he was promoted from sales manager, overseeing a team of one to two people responsible for approximately $7 million in sales, to a national director role. The sales team he now leads generates more than $20 million annually.

Projects that Ermisch has landed for Arvada-based Pie include DIA's Westin Hotel & Terminal redevelopment and, more recently, Google’s 1 million-square-foot headquarter campus in California.

Like other salespeople who have evolved to continue adding client value in an age when so much information is readily available to all, Ermisch welcomes his role as a consultant for clients who are better informed than ever but still need guidance.

“It’s a two-way street, as clients and consultants can both use technology to prequalify each other,” Ermisch says. “Great salespeople are inherently consultative, and we use these expanded tools to research and vet clients and prepare in advance for calls and meetings. The information we gather helps to identify the demographic and psychographic qualities of a prospective client, to recognize whether the relationship might be mutually beneficial.”

Favorite sales book:

“Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success,” by Colleen Stanley (president and founder of Denver-based Sales Leadership Development). “It’s a book about self-awareness that acknowledges the evolutionary leap forward in the world of relationship selling,” Ermisch says. 

Biggest misconception about your work:

“My friends know I’m a ‘What You See Is What You Get’ person. I don’t put on a special sales helmet or game face for sales. With a servant’s heart, I’m basically the same person to my clients as I am to my friends and colleagues.”

Are salespeople born or made?

“People who continually connect with their clients on a relational versus project-by-project basis are the ones who experience long-term success. It doesn’t matter if you’re gregarious or reserved. If you care more about the other person, understand their needs, and provide effective solutions-based communication, then success will follow as a natural by-product.”