Humanize Your Sales Approach Using The Wes Method with Wes Schaeffer

00:00 - Wes (Guest)
I can't force you to buy from me, but I can force myself to pick up the phone and call you, to email you, to drop by, to send a letter, to find you on social media, connect with you on LinkedIn, engage with you online. So your number one job is to prospect and when you're prospecting, your number one job is to disqualify. Okay, only a small percentage of people are ready, willing and able to buy right now, today. So I need to have the right expectations. If I have a decent list and I have a decent offer and I'm not selling then it's all on me.

00:32 - Mike (Host)
My name's Mike Lander and you're listening to Higgle the B2B sales club podcast, where we bring you actionable insights about sales, rfps, negotiations and difficult procurement discussions from sales leaders, brand leaders and procurement leaders. Please subscribe to get updates when new episodes are released. Wes thanks ever so much for joining me on Higgle the B2B sales club podcast.

00:55 - Wes (Guest)
Mike, I'm sitting here wondering what is Zen? You said you're going to count as Zen. You can't use that kind of language with an American. Okay, I'm doing a Google search over here saying what is Zen? I didn't know. This was like a meditation podcast. Are you a British?

01:11 - Mike (Host)
monk, in fact you're on the meditation podcast. Absolutely I need it. Sales is all about meditation.

01:20 - Wes (Guest)
Hey, it is about clearing the head trash. We can get into that. It's definitely about clearing the head trash.

01:24 - Mike (Host)
It is about clearing the head.

01:25 - Wes (Guest)
We can get into that it's definitely about clearing the head Before the listeners think.

01:28 - Mike (Host)
actually, this is a program about meditation and tune out. Wes. Who are you, what do you do and something unusual about yourself.

01:36 - Wes (Guest)
You know we mentioned the Air Force before we hit recording. You're near an air base and I spent nine years in the Air Force. I did too. All right, jumped into commission sales in 1997. I worked in various industries. I started at the Sales Whisperer in 2006. Been at it ever since. You know I've written a couple of books. I do a lot with marketing, automation software, help people, you know companies find the right tools, optimize them. I started in sales but I do a lot of writing, copywriting, consulting around marketing, getting the message correct, because sales and marketing are just two sides of the same coin. You know they really should get along and they usually don't. So I get involved in all of that right the technology, building out the cadences, training the team, making sure sales and marketing are in alignment Very good. So what people may not know about me is I was once duct taped to a bar in Korea and if we have time I'll pull up pictures and share it. Why was that?

02:37 - Mike (Host)
Just out of interest what happened.

02:39 - Wes (Guest)
I was in the Air Force and the things you do in the Air Force. When you're stationed overseas and you're 23 years old, it's 24 years old. It was a different time.

02:49 - Mike (Host)
It was a different time. Probably many things we don't want to talk about exactly. So let's get into the questions Wes. So first one very simply just kind of like expand on your origin story a bit and how you got into sales, because going from the military into sales, I do know quite a lot of people that have done that and gone into also CEOs and agencies, but it's not a usual journey. So how did that kind of happen?

03:12 - Wes (Guest)
Yeah, I just did it. You know I wanted to be in sales, I wanted to be in control of my future, of my earnings. You know, the thing I did not like with the military, at least back then, was you had to spend a certain amount. You know they call it time and grade. You know two years as a second lieutenant, two years as a first lieutenant. You know five years as a captain.

03:37
But I mean in business, if you've got an idea like you know well, zuckerberg was what? 20 years old, you know, when he launched Facebook. So there's no time in grade, right, if you have an idea and you can execute, you're in control. But that can be uncertain. You know I'm working with a sales team now and a lot of young, new guys and they don't know what they're doing. The good thing is they're young and they're hungry and they're coachable and are literally implementing things, like the moment I tell them. So that's fun and to see them go hey, that script you gave me, it worked. I'm like I know it works. So, yeah, I just did it. Interesting.

04:15 - Mike (Host)
Not many people elect or choose to go into sales. Often people say to me they fall into sales, they fall into it exactly. You talk about kind of humanizing sales. So what do you mean by humanizing sales?

04:29 - Wes (Guest)
You know, a long time ago, 50, 60 years ago, david Ogilvie, you know, a great ad guy said don't talk down to the prospects, don't talk down to the customer. And that's still true today. To succeed, I think digital marketing has skewed the work and the impact that the marketers or technicians think they can have. We're slicing and dicing the database so much. Everybody's just a number. Now what's the demographic? You know? Instead of just truly thinking what's going through this person's mind right now? How can I connect with them at a human level?

05:12 - Mike (Host)
So, in terms of selling, why is that so important? When we're engaging with prospects, it is remote. Most of it now is remote first Prospects normally up to 11 touch points before they talk to a salesperson. So that first interaction, when they actually want to talk to someone, is really important. So how would a more foundation salesperson, someone younger in their career, what would you recommend in terms of just being more human With someone that you don't know? It can be tricky If someone's quite formal they're quite senior salesperson's relatively junior, new to role. Where do you start without being flippant?

05:56 - Wes (Guest)
Yeah, it can be hard. And the younger generation for sure, everything is. They talk fast, they may talk low or too loud, and like is like, every like, every like, like, like. Every other word is like, it's like, like, like you know. Oh, man, you need to understand how you come across and there's little phrases you know, over here, right now at least, where I am 100%. Oh yeah, absolutely, 100% for sure, oh yeah, absolutely 100%. Stop repeating yourself. You need to understand how you're coming across.

06:32
When I was in corporate America, I had speech training. We would give a short talk. They'd give us a little assignment get up, give it, record it. We'd leave the room, go to a little cubicle, pop it in, put on a headset and watch ourselves. Oh, you talk about brutal, but you get better fast. But so if you want to get good record yourself and this is where, like when you're young, you need mentors, you need coaches, advisors, somebody looking out for you, because you don't know what you don't know, and so you're just kind of bebopping along and always tell people we must adjust how we sell to match how the prospect buys. But we have to be attuned to that.

07:11 - Mike (Host)
Moving on to your, you've got something called the Wes method, I believe. What does that mean? Can I expand on it? What problems it's solving, Wes? Can I be honest with you?

07:23 - Wes (Guest)
Can I let you in on a little secret? Always, you got to name it to claim it, right, I assume, like Dr Seuss is popular in the UK. It is yeah, okay, dr Seuss was not a doctor, right? He gave himself that name, right. So you gotta name it to claim it. Creating the west method is is claiming my process. Yep, and I tell people like when, when I was learning golf, I had one golf coach at a time and I stuck with that golf coach until I moved. You know so it would be years I'd work with the same person. Now, remember, I was just doing it as a hobby. So it's not like I'm trying to go pro, you know so, but most people would bounce around. Let me get one or two lessons from this guy, one or two lessons from this woman over here, and nothing gets grooved and becomes second nature.

08:31 - Mike (Host)
Yeah, yeah.

08:32 - Wes (Guest)
Right, the difference between a professional and an amateur is an amateur practices until they get it right. A professional practices until they can't get it wrong. Mm-hmm, okay, until they can't get it wrong. Okay. So none of those coaches really do anything. They're not teaching anything really any different. To be good at golf, you must hit the ball with a descending blow, with a square club face and accelerate through impact. That is it. That is golf. Okay, but who can click with you with your learning style, with your budget, with the time allocation that you have? Maybe some physical limitations, some injuries or whatever? So find the one that clicks with you, right? So I've created some unique naming methodologies and concepts to help you remember, help to accelerate your learning and remember it and apply it.

09:27
But I didn't invent anything, right? Right, I did not invent any type of persuasion method, hypnosis, nlp, nothing. But I'm good at explaining things in bite-sized chunks that are proven. I don't teach anything I haven't done myself for a long time. I've got five girls, we've got two boys, I've got seven kids, I've been married for almost 30 years and I've been in sales the whole time and my wife has been a stay-at-home mom the entire time. So the things that I teach. This is put food on the table and put four and a half kids through college.

10:03
So the West method is the humanizing approach. You know I combine sales, I combine marketing, I combine technology and all affordable stuff. You know I show people I was explaining this just yesterday like I'll use unlisted YouTube videos as like my thank you page when you opt in, because it's quick, it's easy. But when I teach others, like I don't want them to say, well, I don't have the money for this software, for this landing page software, for this crm, and like I'll show you hubspot for free, free crm, everybody has access to youtube. You know you can use mailchimp. I think it's free for up to like 2,500, 2,000, 2,500 customer. So it's like money should not be a problem. So that's the West method, right, helping you connect with humans affordably, effectively, so you can scale.

10:57 - Mike (Host)
Okay, what kind of salespeople is it most effective for? So what kind of situation would you go? Actually, this approach is going to work for me. Is it B2B? Is it selling B2C automotive? What's the kind of context?

11:16 - Wes (Guest)
It's everything. I've sold B2C for years. I don't dwell on that, though. The popular sales trainers you see online today are the B2C guys and they got the slick, overcoming objections and it sounds really good. Right, it's like the Kung Fu guy on the commercial or the movies. Hey, look at that, he beat up 27 dudes in a row. Okay, like, okay, it looks good. So I do. I have objection handling scripts and role playing and whatnot. So I can help B to C, but they're not going to get what they have gotten with others Because, again, I'm putting it more on the holistic, human side of things, see the prospect as a human and approach it in that regard.

12:05
But yes, most of my life has been business to business. Most of it has been in high tech, software as a service, selling to big companies, selling big ticket items, selling complex things. You know, selling SaaS right, it's kind of complex, you know it can be. You know I've sold tested measurement equipment for telecommunications and data centers. Google was a client. You know I did a million dollars with them in one deal. I've sold to Sprint and Dell. I did sales training for Dell. So, short answer a B2B, complex high-tech maybe. For sure, help those folks, for sure, help those folks. But if you're a human and you're frustrated with the gimmicks and the high-pressure tactics and the old-school methodology and mirroring and future pacing and all that stuff, it's like if you want to just get back to basics, I'm your guy.

12:58 - Mike (Host)
Excellent. So Wes just to kind of close off. If you were talking to someone in their sales career relatively early on not brand new, they're not fresh on day one, but they've been in sales for like a year or so and they're not hitting quota, they need to improve their jobs at risk if they don't and they're in, say, b2b in tech what are the kind of couple of things where you'd say start here to help them move along that journey and start to hit quota.

13:27 - Wes (Guest)
The number one job of a salesperson is to prospect. Okay, that's it. We cannot control. I can't force you to buy from me.

13:35 - Mike (Host)
No, exactly.

13:36 - Wes (Guest)
Okay, but I can force myself to pick up the phone and call you, yeah, to email you, to drop by, to send a letter, to find you on social media, connect with you on LinkedIn, engage with you online, right, so your number one job is to prospect, and when you're prospecting, your number one job is to disqualify. Okay, only a small percentage of people are ready, willing and able to buy right now, today, exactly. So I need to have the right expectations. If I have a decent list and I have a decent offer and I'm not selling, then it's all on me, okay, something's wrong with my tonality and whatnot. And so if they're struggling, cause, like you know, I'm like you.

14:13
I don't follow scripts like beginning to end, but all of life is a script, All of life is a play, right, you know? Hey, mike, how are you? And Mike says I'm good. Thanks for asking how are you? I'm good too. How's the weather over there? Right? This is a script, ok, so we need to understand how we come across. And so, if I'm not connecting with people, if they're not calling me back, they're booking meetings and not showing up. If they're showing up and cutting them short. If they're showing up and asking for information and then ghosting if they're getting a quote and they're not buying. I'm doing something wrong. So but the problem is like golf. I can sit here and send golf balls out into the woods, into the water and chunk it. When you're new, you don't know what the hell you're doing. Yes, you can figure it out on your own, but it'll take a lot longer.

15:03 - Mike (Host)
Yeah, exactly.

15:04 - Wes (Guest)
Okay, so get somebody at the office that you trust, have them listen to you. Even the most basic, newest person can listen and go. Oh, I didn't like how that sounded. They may not give you the right answer on what to do, but if you eliminate, you know, a hundred bad things, you're going to be left with one or two good things. Yeah, exactly. So at a minimum, right, if you have no money, find a peer to listen to you and start to narrow it down. If you have a little bit of money, right, find someone that you can invest in. You know, buy my book, join the inner circle, get my free email newsletter. Go to YouTube, but don't go find 12 people. Find one. You know.

15:50
I used to listen to Zig Ziglar and he would say you know, listen to this seven, eight, 10 times, listen to this until you are finishing my sentences, then you will own. You will own the content, you will own the concept, you will own the process, you know. And so to this day, I still and I quote him things just come out because I've literally done that. Right, so you got to find somebody that you can emulate and then then you can go off script. But you know, before you can break the rules, you must master the rules, but very few put in the time. Tiger Wood doesn't practice putting one leg up on the grass, one leg down in the bunker. You know, holding the club all the way down with the metal hacking it out of there. But because he's mastered the game, when something unique comes along, he knows enough how to adjust. You know so, practice the fundamentals. But nobody wants to do it. It's boring, but you know, that's where the money is made.

16:57 - Mike (Host)
It is Exactly being consistent, wes. It's been really good, thank you. Thanks for joining me on the show. Excellent, you've given some good insights and practical things, because I always believe you've got to walk away with some practical things that you can try tomorrow morning, and I think practicing the basics is a really good technique and I think finding a mentor finding either a mentor or a coach, or someone that even is just like another salesperson slightly ahead of you, that will give you feedback, I think is really important. So, wes, where can people find out more about you.

17:28 - Wes (Guest)
Go to fixerwestcom and right at the top there you can opt in for my daily email. You can find all my social media there. There's a contact us. You can get on my calendar if you want to talk. So just go there, fixerwestcom.

17:42 - Mike (Host)
Perfect Wes. It's been a pleasure, Thank you.

17:45 - Wes (Guest)
Hey, thank you.

17:46 - Mike (Host)
Thanks for listening to Higgle the B2B Sales Club podcast series with your host, mike Lander. Please subscribe so that you'll catch all the next episodes.