Episode 375: The Sales Whisperer with Wes Schaeffer

Welcome to another episode of the Above the Business Podcast. My name is Bradley Hamner, your host. I'm really excited about today's episode. We got Wes Schaefer, who started the Sales Whisperer in 2006 after 9 years in the Air Force and a decade in sales. Since then, he's written 2 books, published over 700 podcasts, and for me, we've done 375, almost 400 now, but to do 700, wow. That's impressive. He's helped thousands of entrepreneurs in 29 countries master the profession of sales with style, grace, and dignity. He's a father of 7, a brown, a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, the president of his HOA— God bless him for that. So mow your lawn, sit up straight, and pay attention to what this grandfather of 3 has to say. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Wes Shafer.

Wes Shafer, welcome to the Above the Business podcast.

Thanks for having me.

Excited to have you. So we always start with background and origin stories.

I want you to take us back and let people know how you got to where you are.

I am— I'm not an Alabama fan, let's just get that clear. Let's go get it out in the open. Uh, but yeah, I grew up in the South, joined the Air Force, I went to the Air Force Academy, and then Stationed all around the world, met my wife out in California, and after 9 years of, uh, couple of assignments and then civilian world, moved back, uh, when we had our 5th child. We figured, yeah, maybe we want to get back to family, get a little help, and we had 2 more. But I have lived out here in California since '04 after being stationed here in '94-'95, and, um, I was in high tech for a while, a lot of turmoil in the early 2000s after the dot-com implosion. And, um, I kept investing in myself and, um, found a mentor and started the Sales Whisperer in 2006. And, um, been on my own since '07. And, um, you know, helping small and medium businesses, um, sell more at higher margin with less stress and actually have a little fun along the way.

Having fun in business, that's— that seems to at times be a novel idea for sure.

Yeah, why is it a grind, right? You talk to people, oh, it's hard, oh, I'm busy. I'm like, was that your goal? You set out to be a grind, like to go work for a tyrant? You know, stop doing that.

Well, you and I, before we got started, we did talk about— we did talk about a tyrant that we both are on the same side. And so if you didn't pick up the notion, he's a, he's a Tiger, I'm a Tiger, we just happen to be opposite Tigers. He's an LSU Tiger and I'm an Auburn Tiger. So we were happy to have the tyrant in, in Tuscaloosa out of the helm. But honest to goodness though, Wes, do you think that in with building sales organizations and sales teams that there's a default, like there's actually not fun intentionally placed into the organization? And what are your just general thoughts about the things that people can do to actually try to, try to make it fun while at the same time achieve success?

Yeah, it's— I think we have been lied to for generations. We, we've been lied to about what success is. Yeah, if you look at social media, success is having a Rolls-Royce drive you to your private jet with half-naked women in the Rolls-Royce, half-naked women in the jets, fly to a tropical island with more half-naked women. Uh, and I don't know what they do, get a laptop and do a little bit of business in a hammock. And it's like, what? Yeah. And so, so it's crazy. I mean, it was always, hey, earn 6 figures. Hey, become a millionaire. And it's like, what about having a life? You know, I tell people like, I train jiu-jitsu 6 days a week and they're like, what? You know, like 2 hours at a time. It's like, that's how I define success. You know, my wife has stayed home for 29 years. Uh, we have 7 kids. That's how I define success. Um, So it's, um, you know, the old adage is if you can get them to ask the wrong questions, it doesn't matter what the truth is. So everybody is asking the wrong questions. How do I scale? How do I— how do I get 10 employees? How do I get 100 employees? How do I get to a million? How do I get to $10 million? How do I get to $50 million? How do I have offices in London, Chicago, New York, LA? You know, okay, maybe Um, how do you sleep well at night without sleeping pills? How do you go to sleep without drinking yourself half, half stupor, you know, uh, every night? Um, how do you stay in shape so you can still— I mean, I, I trained jiu-jitsu with two of my sons, you know. How do you— how can you be 54 years old and still beat up your sons in a good way, right? I, I just saw a video of this guy He, he races his kids every birthday, like in a sprint, right? So he's, he's always beating them, you know, up to a point. And, uh, and I, I remember, I remember beating my dad in a race, you know, 12, 13 years old. I was tall, lean, quick, you know. My dad, he worked construction, not sprinting, um, so he could still beat me up, but I could— I was faster.

Yeah.

So, so like, how do you define success, right? And so I think, I think we know it intuitively, um, when we're doing something wrong, but we don't know what else to do, so we just do it begrudgingly, you know, and we grind away. And then, and you see it all the time, something happens. Maybe it's a, a health issue, a health scare, maybe a loved one, you know, maybe a, a grandfather, an uncle, a parent falls ill or drops dead, and they're like, hey, this was a wake-up call, you know? And it was what they needed to just be shaken out of their, their grind. And they're like, I gotta do something different. Like, we're afraid, you know, we're afraid to fail. Like, even in jiu-jitsu, guys will do the same moves over and over again. And like, the new guys, I'm like, try something different. Don't— in training, don't hold on to one move. For minutes at a time trying to get the submission. If you don't get it in 10 or 15 seconds, transition. We are training, you know. Yes, you did something wrong because that submission didn't work. Okay, we'll break it down later. But your opponent has a say-so, you know. Nick Saban may want to run it up the middle and the defense is tough. Okay, he's going to run it outside, he's going to throw the ball. He's not going to just keep running it up the middle. You know, so you got to figure out— and then at halftime, he'll figure out why he can't run up the middle, and then he'll run up the middle, you know. So you got to be willing to, to change things up. Um, but we don't, we don't take the time to master anything. You know, the old adage is, um, you know, an amateur will practice until they get it right, professional will practice till they can't get it wrong. And we're always joking in jiu-jitsu when somebody does try some fancy move, we're like, stop doing that TikTok stuff, this ain't YouTube, you know. So it's a catch-22. You got to do what works, but you do have to, you know, Google tells their people spend 20% of your time on a passion project during working hours. I mean, that's how Gmail was invented. Somebody was a passion project, so You have to go to the well, okay, while it's producing, but you better be digging another well. So, you know, life is full of dichotomies, right? But you, you do have to, you gotta be so good at what it is you do that you can then break the rules. When rookies break the rules, it's cuz they're bored or they just don't know what they're doing and they break 'em on accident. When a master breaks the rules, it's because they know, they know it's the right thing to do. It's time to do that fancy TikTok move because the guy's not expecting it, you know. But you don't, you don't get to the top by doing all these fancy moves. You get to the top because you've truly mastered all the basics. But that's boring.

You bring up a good point. I would love your perspective on this. When do you know when to pivot and when to persevere?

Yeah, it's hard. Um, it's really hard.

It—

you know, are you pivoting because you're scared? You know, are you pivoting because you're bored? You know, I had a— one of my mentors told me, and it was a shock because I told him I was bored. I was bored with what I was doing. And, you know, he says that's when the breakthroughs come. And when I, and I pondered it for a moment, you know, because people, they'll bag on routines, and it's like, we all have routines, you know. I can, I can, and I do, I get up early, so I can brush my teeth, get dressed, you know, calm my hair down a little bit in the dark. Right? Everything's in the same place, right? My toothbrush is in the same place, my toothpaste is in the same place, my hand towel is in the same place. You know where I keep my clothes? In the same place, in the same order. You know, you're not— it's not like you rearrange your home. Like, you don't leave and pay somebody to come, hey, come change everything up. You know, put my hairbrush on the stove, get my pots and pans, put them in the bathtub. You don't do that, right? You know, routines free you up So our brains are literally wired to keep us alive, and they keep us alive by conserving energy. We conserve energy by connecting the dots. Oh, I've seen this before. I know where this is going. I don't have to pay attention to it because it's not a threat. Save energy. Focus on what's important. Focus on what's a threat. And so if you're bored then you need to understand that's the time for a breakthrough if you allow yourself to be bored. We don't allow ourselves to be bored, right? We're on our phones the moment our eyes open to the moment our eyes close. We never have any downtime. So, so why are you pivoting? You know, if like my son's in real estate, and fortunately for him, he's young and doesn't have a lot of expenses, you know, when he got started. And so while everybody else was crashing, He was growing, but he was growing from zero, right? So I've got a couple of clients that are mortgage brokers. They, they have to pivot. The, the market changed. Houses went way up, then interest rates went way up simultaneously. There's just less deals being done. So you have no choice. You have to pivot. In that case. Okay. Um, now it doesn't mean, like, my mortgage broker clients, it doesn't mean they now go to med school, right? It's like pivot how you go to market. I'm telling them create affiliate offers, add additional revenue streams to to augment and supplement what they're doing right now. Some of them had, had to get out of the market, had to leave altogether. But those are people that made mistakes. You know, I've had the Sales Podcast now for 11 years and almost over 650 interviews, and everyone, every entrepreneur that made it, they saved up for that rainy day and they kept their expenses lower than their income. Okay, so if you're out there on the bleeding edge and, and expecting and needing perfection to survive, then it's going to come crashing down, right? So if that's you, right, if you're in that bleeding edge and it's like, man, it's all crashing, you know, stop trying to catch a falling knife, you know. Again, you know, with jiu-jitsu, it's like you have an attack. If that attack is being countered, you have to know Like, like when do you punt? Do I punt or do I go for it? Right? You have to know how to retreat, to recover so you can, you know, attack again from a better position.

Mm-hmm.

So it may be time to throw in the towel, right? Maybe you are that mortgage broker. You had too much. This is your wake-up call. Burn it down to the ground. Okay. Maybe you become a realtor. Maybe you become a mobile notary. You know, maybe you become an employee of someone and, you know, build up that, that nest egg. Uh, you know, maybe you totally pivot. Maybe you grew up as a handyman and you know what, you're gonna go, cuz that's a thriving business. Construction, uh, handyman repairs, building anything tangible, that's thriving, you know? And it's okay. I tell people like, look at, you know, if you remember in the '80s, 90s, people were like, oh, is this computer IBM compatible? Right? IBM doesn't make personal computers anymore. They sold it to Lenovo out of China. So the PC company no longer makes PCs, right? So if you're attaching and assigning your reason for living to your job, you've been lied to and you've accepted it.

You know, in my own, in my own journey, I had a moment, uh, health scare personally in 2015 because I burned out. And though all the writing was on the wall that I could have waved the white flag and walked away and hadn't had an opportunity to do so. I'm obviously thankful that I, that I didn't. But I think to your point, what I'm saying is, is just to give everybody kind of an example, is that the hard thing was, is that if I did that, that I was admitting failure to myself. And that was a real struggle to me because it wasn't— I did not believe this statement that businesses fail but people don't. They learn and move on. Like, I didn't, I didn't believe that. My self-worth, what I thought of me— that's not even talking about what other people I would, would think of me. Yeah, what I thought of me had I walked away was I would have always said, well, you're a failure. You couldn't do it, you weren't cut out, you weren't cut out for it, you didn't make the team. Those kind of—

does that make sense? I mean, that's just being real.

Yeah.

And so I just wasn't willing to, to, to, to do that.

I want to ask a question around sales.

So there's a guy, very popular on social media. He, uh, he goes under the, um, he has a lot of 10x stuff I was on the phone with a business owner. Uh, he's got a, he's got a portfolio fund. He helps people buy and sell companies. And he was telling me about an experience with one of 10X's sales team members. And he said, dude, man, he said that you can tell they're trained. They're trained. There's no doubt about it. He said, but man, that's what— this is literally, I'm not kidding, this is the conversation yesterday. He said, uh, yesterday afternoon, he said, that's what gives salespeople a bad rap. He said, because he was trying to— he had a hammer and everything, everything looked to him like a nail. He goes, what I actually need help with is not what they do specifically. Now, he said, I want to be clear, If I had worked with the top guy, sure, of course it would be incredible. But like, you, you're not going to get him, right?

Right.

And the reason I say that is for those of you that watch his stuff and get motivated, that's fine. The point is though, I think it gives sales a really bad rap when people have that experience. What is your general thought about why sales has just this, just at times, negative connotation?

Well, sales has always had a negative connotation. So, um, I have in my hands here— we'll do a little experiment. This is what I ask in any live training, uh, you know, say give me a word. When I say salesperson, salesman, used car salesman, What adjectives come to mind? So give me, give me like the first thing that pops in your brain.

Sleazy.

Sleazy. Okay, anything else?

Uh, unethical.

Well, give me one more.

Uh, unethical, sleazy, um, pushy. Pushy. Oh, look at that, pushy.

So I write it down ahead of time, right, so people know like I didn't make it up. I mean, but, but it's always, and you know, in, in some of the meetings, you know, you'll, you'll have the happy-go-lucky ones, you know, the, um, they are optimistic, hopeful, serving. I'm like, okay, yeah, yeah. What does your neighbor think about salespeople? Oh, pushy jerks. Okay, so that's, that's the, the demeanor because it goes back You know, they say, they say sales is the second oldest profession, and I say sales is the oldest profession because even on the what they thought was the oldest profession, they had to come to terms and, and the, and negotiate the price and services to be rendered. So the sale was made first. Uh, but sale, it's easy to get into sales. There's no degree, there's no certification, right? So you can, you can jump into it on purpose, you can fall into it on accident, and, you know, by force. And okay, and because it's— there's no really— there's no bar, you just, you just, you're in. Inexperienced people, um, led by, uh, really unethical people um, get desperate and do desperate things. And, and then everybody, they think that's what sales is all about. And, but it's like the old joke, we love to pick on attorneys, but when you, when something goes wrong, you're super happy to find a good attorney, you know. And so when you run across a professional, you're like, man, it was so easy doing business with you. I mean, to this day, and I had to go back and look. It was at least 8 years ago. I, I met a used car salesman here locally, works for BMW, and I've bought 2 or 3 cars from him and referred 2 or 3 more people to him. And he was a professional.

Mm-hmm.

Right. And so, but because it's easy to get into sales, people don't treat it like a profession. And so they just, they just meander. And, and we're lazy, right? People are like water. We seek the path of least resistance. Entropy is real, right? The universe tends towards disorder and just a static nothingness. So you've got to be disciplined and motivated to, to go against the grain, to push that rock uphill. And because most people aren't, and they get desperate, it's the end of the month, end of the quarter. Hey, man, what's it going to take to get this deal done? You know what? You know, how about if I throw in this, throw in that? Come on, man. You know, we're having a promotion. Hey, it's, you know, it's end of the month. I really need this deal. Then they turn into beggars. And, and so, so it's human nature. So then everybody thinks that's what selling is. And it's like, that is not what sell— that's not what professional selling is, you know? And so if you treat it like a profession, if you understand, you know, Zig Ziglar was right, you can get whatever you want if you help enough people get what they want. Selling is all about finding a need and filling it. It's not about overcoming objections. It's not about closing. You gotta get 5 nos. When they say no, that's when the sale begins. You know, it's like, hmm, maybe, maybe not. You know, it's, and certainly in a, in a higher ticket consultative B2B sales, you know, that stuff they teach, that doesn't cut it. You know, I, I sold 7-figure deals to Google back in the day. I sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting and training to Dell. There was no high pressure, you know. Yeah, there was no alternative choice tie-down closes. Um, you know, it's a different thing. And, and even now, these guys doing that stuff, man, it looks good on the TikTok, but people will cancel orders, they will do chargebacks, uh, they will go online And they will light you up. You know, the last thing you want to do is get sideways with my wife. She will call, she will, she will nag, and she will get online, and she will tell 100 of her best friends who are all moms and women. I forget the numbers, but women in households make like 80 or 83 or 87% of the buying decisions, you know. So if you're a high-pressure person belittling people, uh, man, you are not going to live long in your career. So tread carefully.

So I would love to know, when you think about, um, sales and the, the sales process itself What are some of the elements that you feel that get overlooked the most when an organization, a sales leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur is beginning to build a sales team? I happened to, I was on a call even this morning with someone in the medical device space. They are about to bring a new product to market and he's going to be onboarding in the next few months, 21, I think, nationwide sales reps, right? And so he's, he's, you know, thinking about what does that look like to onboard them, etc. But then also to, quote, get them up to speed, right? And so if you were working with someone like that, What are some of the elements that you, you know, most people would be like, okay, well, we need to put this in place and we need to put this in place. Sure. But then there's obvious, probably missteps along the way. I'd love to get your input. I mean, you've got so many years of doing this and working with people to do it. There's got to be parts of this that people miss.

Yeah, like in that scenario, well, most businesses do not have a culture of fruiting, you know. So like going back to Nick Saban and college sports, right? I mean, the longest a school is going to have a kid is 5 years, you know, a redshirt freshman, and they're going to play 4. The reality is the top talent leaves after 2 or 3 years, and the top talent doesn't even redshirt. So you're— they're going to get 2 to 3 years out of these top kids and then they're gone. And so in the SEC, you know, NCAA requirements, I think they can like reach out and say hi when the kid's a sophomore, then they can have some formal meetings as a junior, then it's a tight window to put, you know, full-court press as a senior. Um, so these schools, you know, it may be 8— if you have a 5th-year senior, that kid was identified 8 years before that. You know, potentially.

Yep.

Uh, and so do you have a machine in place that's identifying talent, right? And very few companies do. Um, and so, so then they're reactionary. Uh, they're paying recruiters top dollars to find people, full-court press on HR. Uh, so now they kind of rush through things, you know. They make the mistake, oh, you have experience, you have a Rolodex, so you'll be great in this. That's, that's hardly ever True. It's just like investing, right? Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Just because somebody did sell doesn't mean they will sell. Yeah. Okay. So you've got to have some processes in place there to sort, sift, and separate these folks. And then very few companies have sales training. They have product training. You know, hey, here's our new gizmo. Look, it's got this screen and all these cameras and infrared distance and You can put a case on it, you can silence it. Uh, you know, starts at $999, goes up to $1,599. Go get them. Who buys this thing?

Hmm.

Uh, people. People buy these things.

Oh, wow.

Can we narrow that down? You know, and, and I tell people all the time, I give me half a day of training and I can sell anything. I, it's I can at least get started. Okay. Yes. This medical equipment, you get their top salesperson, they're going to beat me because they're top for a reason. But I can pick up the phone with, you know, and I sold tech into, into the healthcare space for years. And when you understand the value proposition and who who that resonates with. So in my case, I was selling to CIOs and IT directors in, in hospitals, and I knew the value proposition, and every single individual in those positions had pain that I addressed, period, because we solved a unique problem. And so it now was a matter of, was it a priority to them?

Mm-hmm.

Because we all have limited bandwidth. I'm, I'm HOA president, right? This morning I had to drive over to the clubhouse cuz I'm literally firing every vendor we have. Everybody's taking advantage of us. The pool company, the cleaning company just got caught in a lie. Just put the alarm comp, 20-year alarm company, 20-year cleaning company, whatever, 30-day notice. Uh, 20-year alarm company, they're being fired. They're already being replaced. Everybody's taking advantage of us. Yeah, okay, but I have, I have limited bandwidth. Like, okay, I can't take on any more side projects right now. Like, yes, thanks for the call. Yes, I know it's important, but I'm at 101%. I just gotta hang up right now. I'm sorry. So, so that happens, right? So, but the person didn't say no. They didn't say you're off your rocker, why are you contacting me? They're like, I'm just swamped right now. Okay. So if you understand the pain, really enter, you know, David Ogilvy, you know, we, we must enter the conversation going on in the mind of the prospect. Hmm. Okay. Um, so, but very few do that. They, here's our Gartner quadrant, whatever, you know, all this stuff that does not matter. So like, hey, Mr. CIO, do you have a problem with cleanliness in the operating room? Do you have an issue with HIPAA compliance, with, uh, having devices, uh, exposed, uh, ports exposed, even the hardware being stolen, uh, and violating HIPAA, being hit with huge fines, loss of goodwill, huge PR hit? You know, are you concerned about uptime? Is it in— are operating costs increasing? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Can you help me? Maybe. Would you like to invite me over? You know, we go over some things. There's a fit. I'll kind of— I'll show you how we work. Yes.

Okay.

I mean, done, right? How do you do that? Well, me, I mean, we do a lot of things. Is that of interest? Yes. That's it. I'm not talking gigahertz and blinky blue lights and speeds and feeds and throughput and No, right? When you have a bleeding neck and you go to the op— to the ER, do you say, well, what kind of scalpel are you going to use? What size needle is that that the anesthesiologist is going to use? You're just like, make the pain go away. Yeah, make the bleeding stop. Yeah, yeah, right. Well, what kind of CIO are you? How do you run in that place, man? I bet your time— I bet you're bouncing around. I bet turnover is terrible, man. That place is filthy. I bet Good luck with that. 10x in that close. No.

How much? Um, well, first of all, I love— it was a, it was a huge insight for me when I first heard. Don't know where I heard it from, but to your point, the difference of product training and prospect training. To your point, we default way too much on here's how this product works. Here's all the ins and outs of the thing. Here's these options you have on that product. Okay. Clearly, of course, they need to know— a salesperson needs to know how the actual product works, the ins and outs. What are they getting? How do they switch over? Yes, absolutely. But where I can look back on and say, I literally did zero previously, is on the prospect. Who is buying this and going into what is the pains that they feel? Ultimately, they may not know what their problem is, but they, but they experiencing the pains. And then what one other thing that came, um, to mind is when someone gave the analogy of How much bigger is the pain pill market versus vitamins? Right. So like the Advils and the Tylenols as opposed to vitamins that we know we should take. Where do you, though, in a sales conversation, a sales process, though, do begin to flip it a little bit and share what a future outcome could be? So what— so it's gone from here's the problem that you're— or the pains that you're feeling. Into here's a future result where you would be able to experience— I don't want to say pleasure, but, but, but a, a better state.

Yeah. So for many, many years I sold this software called Infusionsoft. Oh yeah, wrote a big old book on it, um, and I sold a bunch of it, uh, back when it was $2,000 down, $300 a month, Uh, I sold a lot of it. I sold it quickly.

We use that now. Yeah, or what it is now.

Yeah, yeah, I still got it. Uh, and people that— how do you sell it so fast? How do you sell so much? Like it was just like a snap of your finger. Like, it would be like me saying, how do you code, develop APIs so quickly? You know, it's like lots of practice, you know. So Infusionsoft does a lot. You know, HubSpot does a lot of things.

Yeah.

You know, the Ford F-150 does a lot of things. Uh, but the curse of knowledge is a real thing.

Hmm.

When you know too much and, and not too much, you can never know too much. When you know a lot, when you're well-versed on something, you tend to either downplay the value of that knowledge, right? Or you get too excited and think everybody's just as excited. And they wanna see everything. Like, oh no, Mr. Prospect, you can't get off this call until I show you all 700 pages of my book.

Hmm.

And so it's like, no, whatever you're selling, people buy it. There's gonna be one main reason that they buy it and then two or three secondary things. And then. 5 to 100 ancillary nice-to-have things, you know. And so, and, and a lot of times the prospect doesn't even know exactly what it is. Like my son in real estate, you know, they say you sell the neighborhood, right? The husband says, I want a 3-car garage. Wife says, I want a big kitchen. You know, the husband says, I want an acre of land. The wife says, I want sidewalks and communities and clubhouse and They go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Oh, it needs to be within 10 minutes of schools, and one, it needs to be under 15 minutes commute to work. Oh, and it needs to be under $500,000. Like, okay, then you go looking and you find a house that has 7 of those requirements, or 8, or 6. And like, what do you think? Because 10 out of 10 doesn't exist.

Mm-hmm.

Right? So then you're like, what is really important? Well, it's gotta be the kitchen. The husband's like, okay, I can, I can do with 3/4 of an acre, half an acre. Okay. I can do a 25-minute commute. If, if the wife's happy, the kids are safe, it's a good community. All of a sudden compromises are made, right? Because when they're finally faced with making a decision, they're like, okay, this is what's really important. So when that prospect comes to me, say, we're considering the software, say, fantastic. Why? You know, what do you mean why? Why are you looking at the software? And then I hear things like, well, I saw that Tony Robbins uses it. I'm on his newsletter. I want what Tony has. You don't need what Tony has.

Yeah.

You know. Yeah. And so it's like, I can't sell you that. So what else? What other reasons? We start diving in. Then I make them rack and stack. I call it process before login. Define for me your ideal process. And they walk me through it. Say, okay, what is your budget? And then we go through it. Say, okay, so you're saying if it does 1 and 2 and it's under this amount of money, that's what you're looking for. Okay, boom. Let me show you how that works. And I show them. Now they were either lying or they're buying, right? And so I, I would, when I have them map out their process, I literally write it in, in a text editor, boom, boom, boom. And I keep it next to the window. I open up the Infusionsoft window and I build it for them, like while they watch in like 5 minutes. Hmm. I'm like, and, but I solved one small pain, right? It's not, it's like, it's like you, you know, you, you're bent over, you know, you can't sit up straight, you can't stand up straight, you know, and you go to the chiropractor and, and, you know, it's like, okay, I just, maybe I can't get you walking straight day one, but maybe pop the neck and your headaches go away. You're like, there's hope, right? It's like, I look, it's going to take 3 months. You got to come in 3 times a week for 3 months, and when you get home, you got to stretch. You put your head in traction. I'm going to have you— don't walk— I'm have you swim, walk in the pool. We're going to fix this. But I got to give them a victory, right? I give them a small win and they go, okay, this is possible.

Mhm. Mhm.

Then we're off and running, right? But I'm not showing all the software. I'm not showing all the reporting. I'm not showing webhooks and APIs and HTTP POST and No, no, no, no. Unless they come to me for that. It's a super technical person. Like, look, hey, we've been using this, we've been using HubSpot, we've been using Ontraport, ActiveCampaign. It doesn't do this, this, or this. Okay, I got you. Let's get in the weeds. You know, they're like, I don't need to see the CRM, I don't need to see custom fields, show me the API. Okay, we can do that.

Yeah.

You know, boom, it's a 10, 15, 20-minute meeting, not 3 hours.

Sure, sure.

You know, it really is that simple if you let them tell you why they want to buy. But you, you have to help them. They have to verbalize it. Most people have never, like, said it out loud. Yeah. You know, that I need this, that, or the other. Let me turn my phone off. Uh, you know, there was one thing to verbalize it.

There's one thing that I saw whenever I was preparing for our call that I really loved, and it's a statement, or it begins with a statement that many of, many people have heard before. Nothing happens until a sale is made. And that's usually where it stops. But I have to read this.

This is, uh, what you had sent over to us, and I really love this. This is a great paragraph.

Nothing happens until a sale is made. A sale cannot be made until a prospect has been identified. A prospect cannot be identified until a business owner informs the marketplace that they are in business with a valuable offering. I think it's such a, a, a great addition to something that we've heard before. Nothing happens until a sale's made, which, which I fundamentally do believe, but it's all of the other steps. It's the sequencing and the lining up of all of that to be able to make that happen.

Yeah, I always tell people, you know, to make any sale, you must make every sale, you know. And there's a bunch of little bitty sales. And I, I have one of my main slides I always talk about. It says sales equals dating pipeline, you know. And I tell the story, I met my wife at a country bar. And so before I even got to the bar I'm making a sale, right? I showered, you know.

Yeah.

I made sure I had clean clothes, put on deodorant, put on cologne, but not too much cologne, you know. All that is the pre-sale, you know. Then I see my wife. How do I approach her? You know, I, I literally make clients go watch the movie Hitch with Will Smith.

Oh, that's a great movie.

And you know, how do you approach? It's like, oh, the Q-tip. Like, no, no, don't ever do the Q-tip. Oh no, I got the Q-tip, man. Don't ever do that move, right? So, you know, people say, well, that's manipulative. Is it? Is it? You know, my, my wife, I don't know, she showered, she did her hair, she put on perfume, she had some tight little jeans on. Was she manipulating me, or was she putting her best foot forward? You know, am I stacking the odds in my favor to meet someone, right? How did I approach her? How do we dance? How did I ask for her phone number? All of those are sales, man. So your logo, your email signature, the verbiage that you use, the pace, the tonality, how you leave a voicemail, all of those things are— you're being judged. Yeah.

No question.

You care enough to, to refine each and every one of those steps, and most people don't.

Well, if people want to work with you, they want to connect with you, Wes, where would you point them to, to be able to connect with you and someone on your team?

Um, everything is at thesaleswhisperer.com. So I've got links to the Make Every Sale program. I gotta pick my brain. Got a free PDF on the process before login, kind of sequence and planning. So all my social media is there, and, uh, and I manage all that. So you're not gonna, um, there's no intermediary, there's no overseas VA that's gonna— you'll be communicating with me. Awesome.

I got last question. What do you think getting above the business means to you?

Um, yeah, if you know Jocko Willink, you know the Jocko podcast. Yeah, uh, an ABCU, and I've gotten to actually train a little jiu-jitsu with him a couple times.

I was going to ask you that, given where you are.

Yeah, him and Echo, and I mean, good dudes. But he talks about detaching, you know, because like I said, my process before logging, I ask people like, what's your ideal process? And most people are so stuck and head down and grinding, they, they can't see the forest for the trees, right? And, um, and Jocko talks about like not being right in the middle of the platoon, you know, back up a little bit, detach, see the big picture. You know, your job is not to be the technician Your job is to direct the technicians, you know. And so you, you can't do that if you're just slaving away. And look, Steve Jobs understood, right? He went and found himself a CEO to run the company for a while. Maybe you have to do that. Let someone else be above the business if you truly love it. If you are the heart and soul of the business, okay, maybe hire somebody to be above it, but somebody has to have their head above the clouds, uh, seeing the big picture, okay? Or what you're doing, the level that you're producing, is the, is the best it's ever going to be. So if you feel like you got more that you can do, it probably means you got to detach, you know, get above the business a little bit, and, uh, you can see, uh, the bigger picture.

I love the tie to those things. Yeah, I think I had not connected even above the business to, uh, Jocko's concept of detaching. I think that's fantastic. Yeah, Tim Cook, big Auburn guy, by the way. We went to Auburn University, just so we know.

Jocko did?

No, Tim Cook did.

Oh, Tim Cook. All right, well, you know, yeah, he, he took over just fine. He didn't crash the ship. Fine. Okay, Auburn. And you know what, like, are you a Tiger? You're a War Eagle. Y'all got to pick one and just burn the other one, okay? You can't have two mascots.

We're not two mascots. It's not two mascots. One's a mascot, one's the battle cry.

That's weird. Okay, we're going to end it on that. That's weird, man. Go Tigers!

War Eagle. Thanks, Wes.

Well, I really enjoyed that episode with Wes.

You know, I think at the end of the day, there's so many different takeaways, but sales is such a critical skill for us all to have.

And especially it's one of the hats that we wear as the business owners and the entrepreneurs.

Is it the only hat that we wear? No, it, it's not, but it is an incredibly important hat.

I think that at the end of the day, nothing happens until a sale is made. I really enjoyed that episode with Wes. Hopefully you connected with him. Find out more about him, go to his website at The Sales Whisperer and check out what he has to, um, check out all the things that he has. Check out his podcast as well. Appreciate Wes coming on the podcast. As always, shout out to our podcast sponsors: Autopilot Recruiting, Coach B Consulting, Club Capital, and Today App Pro. I was just speaking to someone about technology and software just a couple days ago, and they had started a software company, and they were talking about how difficult it is to, to do, and just to create a one that's functional, let alone one that is user-friendly and beautiful. Well, TodayApp Pro has done that, and it's a critical tool in your tool belt. So if you're using Google Sheets, Excel spreadsheets, or maybe some of those other clunky softwares out there that don't really integrate with your corporate-approved CRM and also just don't have the flexibility to put not only track bonus and commissions, but to also be able to put put in customized word tracks, go to todayapppro.com. In one of my programs, Boardroom, I was talking to a business owner the last few weeks. We've— he's jumped on and we've really been working through him understanding how to use his financials as a tool to make better decisions in the business. You've heard me say that quite a bit, but if you ever, never haven't ever spoke with someone at Club Capital. I urge you to do that. And the reason is, is because it can be intimidating at the beginning whenever you don't know how to read financial statements and even why you should learn to read financial statements. But similarly with, you know, the hat of sales, having the hat of understanding how to utilize your financials is critical to be a successful and strong business owner and really build a business that simply works. In my opinion, works like a well-oiled machine. It's one of those critical skills. And they can give you access to the tools that you need. Go to club.capital. I believe that the most finite asset in the business, in any business, is the owner's time. It's the most valuable and the most important. Here's why. The reason why is because you only have so much time. Second to that is the asset of your team. I've heard, and I said for a long time, that your team is the most important asset. But first, it starts with you, who you bring on, who you hire, etc. So therefore, you are the tip of the spear. And that doesn't mean that we're special snowflakes by no stretch of the imagination, but everything is downstream from us leading ourselves first. But also, second to that, the most important asset that we have and one of the most precious resources is our team and who we decide to hire, who we decide to fire. Bring in on true A-players. Two of our podcast sponsors you've heard me talk about for years can do an incredible job, best in class, to help you to be able to attract, develop, and retain A-players in your business. Go to autopilotrecruiting.com, talk to somebody, um, on Alex's team, and also reach out to David. Go to coachpconsulting.com, see how they can help you in training and coaching and developing your team once you get them on board. Autopilotrecruiting.com and CoachBConsulting.com. All right, everyone, till next episode, lead well.