The Entrepreneur DNA - The Sales Reset: Why Scripts Are Killing Your Closes | Wesleyne Whittaker

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

Get your copy of The Sales Reset: Forget the Script. Trust Yourself. Win Consistently https://a.co/d/0e4l9gwt Most salespeople lose deals long before they ever ask for the close. In this episode of The Entrepreneur DNA, I sit down with Wesleyne Whitaker — a former chemist turned sales strategist — to break down the science and psychology behind consistent revenue. We dive into why scripts are hurting more than helping, why the fortune truly is in the follow-up, and how fear of rejection silently sabotages even talented entrepreneurs. Wesleyne shares how she transitioned from working in a chemistry lab to scaling a struggling sales territory from $50,000 to $500,000 in just one year — without formal sales training. What changed? She stopped focusing on tactics alone and mastered the mindset behind selling. About Wesleyne: Wesleyne Whittaker is the creator of BELIEF Selling, a sales strategist, international speaker, and the founder of Transformed Sales. A "recovering chemist" turned top-performing sales leader; she built her career leading field sales teams in complex, technical industries before launching her own consulting firm. Today she equips companies and sales professionals to break internal barriers, align mindset with skillsets, and create customer-centric strategies that drive measurable results. Drawing more than fifteen years of experience across manufacturing, distribution, and global markets, Wesleyne blends data-driven sales expertise with deep empathy for the human side leadership. She coaches leaders to see the world through their employees eyes and challenges conventional wisdom that prioritizes tactics over belief. Connect with Wesleyne: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wesleyne/ X: https://x.com/Wesleyne_ Website: https://transformedsales.com/ About Justin: Justin Colby is the host of The Entrepreneur DNA and The Science of Flipping podcasts and a best-selling author. He is a serial entrepreneur with over and a seasoned real estate investor with over 20 years of experience. Driven by a passion to help entrepreneurs thrive, Justin created the Entrepreneur DNA community to support business owners in building wealth, systems, and long-term freedom. Through his podcasts, books, education platforms, and hands-on mentorship, he continues to help entrepreneurs scale with clarity and confidence. Connect with Justin: Instagram: @thejustincolby YouTube: Justin Colby TikTok: @justincolbytsof LinkedIn: Justin Colby Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What is up the entrepreneur DNA family? This is going to be special. I have a recovering chemist. Yes, she was a chemist. Self-proclaimed nerd turned into sales expert because she understands the science of sales and actually has a formula to be an incredible salesperson. Wesleyan Whitaker is here. Thanks so much. I'm having me. Yeah, this is a pleasure. Listen, I know there's a lot of people out there that would think that they're nerdy or they're into science or math and they're not the outgoing salesy they don't got it but you're here sitting here with a book by the way the sales reset about to launch um so get that book right now um talk to us about chemist to sales and in the gap in the bridge and how we even get going there so as a chemist I was a failure analysis chemist so that means that all these plastic parts that were broken

would come into the lab. Okay. And I had to figure out why. So I'd get this broken cooler that was cracked. And they'd say, why is this cracking and tell us what we should do? Yeah. So I got to use all my chemist sense and figure out this and this and that. And I really realized I like that curiosity.

And then the salespeople would go see their customers. And as soon as they were back in the office, I'm in their office with a notepad like, okay, what happened? Tell me about it. Tell me about it. And I said, I want you a job. So I got into sales and I finally figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Because I loved everything about selling and sales and the whole process.

Interesting. Now, most people would say, like, science and math, like, not outgoing people, not salesy people. They're a little more concerned. You would think, right? Yeah. Who were you growing up? Who were you going through school? Why did you get into chemistry, right?

What drove you there? Because I want people to understand, like, iteration, innovation, adaptation. that's good, right? To be someone new today who you were yesterday, all that's good, right? Talk to us about like that trajectory for getting into chemistry, whether it was grade school, high school, college, you know, post grad, whatever all that kind of stuff is to get into that say. So I always had a passion for science and math and I... Were you naturally good at it? I was. I was. So I grew up here in South Florida. I went to school in Fort Lauderdale. I went to a medical

magnet school. And so throughout my life, I thought that I was going to go to grad school and become a doctor because I just really liked science and math. Like, even now, my oldest son is a senior and he's taking calculus and I'm still excited about calculus. Like, I'm still excited. Like, I still love it. I still love numbers. I still love math. I still love science.

And so I never, ever thought about anything in the business world. When I was in college, I was like, those business mates, what are they doing over there? Like, what is that? This is the hard work over here. This is the hard work. And I think that, you know, and I also always had a very, very good, I think it's kind of like an inherent trait for writing and reading. So when I was in college, I took two semesters of English and both of my English professors try to get me to change my major. I was like, what are you English?

Yes, I was an English major. And I was like, what am I going to do with an English degree? I don't know. I like to write. Exactly. Right? I like to write. I like to read.

Right. What do you do with that? And so, but like, so all of those things, like if I think about where I am today, It's like my love of science, my love of numbers, my love of writing, even if I think about me as a entrepreneur, as a content writer, writing a book. It's like all those bits and pieces came together to build me to the person that I am today. So that is a deeper, deep dive of that. Now, I'm not going to get in how old you are, but I do believe most listeners or viewers of this

need to understand it's actually okay to have this level of change, right? I just made a post about this. Like, change is good. You don't need to, the analogy I give, there's a front door. So for you, your front door, the love of math and science, that was your front door. Like, it was natural for you. Yeah. You then, through learning, through being around, through experience, realized I have more skill sets and I kind of like those too.

Yeah. So talk to us about that journey. Like, so you graduate college. Yep. Did you go straight into chemistry specifically? Or what was that journey right after college? So I took a small hiatus into grad school. And so I had a full assistantship to get a PhD in chemistry.

Wow. And after a semester, I said, I hate this. Yeah. I'm going to pull my eyes out. I cannot imagine doing this for the rest of my life. And so the thing that you said, I think it's so important because I feel like, so again, I have a senior in high school right now. And the 18-year-old brain doesn't know what you want to do for the rest of your life. So that is what I thought I wanted to do.

But one semester in grad school, like, it was, I couldn't do it. So then I went and got a job. So probably six, eight months after I graduated, I went and I got a job. And it was really easy for me to get a job, right? Because I had this chemistry degree, lived in Houston, the mecca. Yeah. And so for me, like, taking that step and going to grad school saying, I don't want to do this. Like that, I had to do a lot of soul searching because ever since I was a little girl, I used to say, I want to be a doctor and a mommy.

Like, those were the only two things that I ever said I wanted to be. And so I kind of felt like my dream of becoming a doctor. was gone, right? And so I had to grapple with that in myself. And so even as I was working as a chemist in the lab, and I spent about six years doing that, I kept searching. I was like, this feels like a step on my journey, but I don't know, right? Like, I don't know what I really want to be when I grow up. And so for me, it took trying different things. Do I want to go to pharmacy school? No, do I want to get a master's in engineering? No, that doesn't feel right either. And so I came to a point of my life where I was like, Well, I want to get out of the lab.

Yeah. And so let me class the wide net. So I apply for jobs in supply chain and recruiting and sales, like everything. And the coolest thing about the first sales job that I got, I applied for something online. And three other recruiters reached out to me for the same exact job. Stop. The same job because they were looking for somebody who had a technical background without sales experience. They specifically wanted that.

And as we all know, very few people want somebody with no sales experience. It's like that is unheard of. Right. Absolutely unheard of. But they were looking. It was like the perfect job for me. And you took it? Absolutely.

I took it. I love that. So I think there's a lot to unpack about what you just said. Yeah. Self identity. You clung on to mom, doctor. Yeah. And you had to break your own identity.

I did. And by choice, by the way. No one did it for you. You said, I don't know if I'm meant to be a doctor. Yeah. That's a hard thing to do. And you did that now. Now, again, we don't have to get into your current.

Like, what age was this like self-realization and actualization of like, mommy, I'm in. Doctor? Eh, probably not. What age were you at that point? I was in my early 20s, yeah. So it was very, I mean, because it was pretty quick after I graduated. It's probably like 22-ish. That's when I had to really grapple with, like, who am I?

Yeah, sure. What do I want to be? And I think that question of who do I want to be when I grow up? So whenever I talk about myself and I introduce myself, I say when I got it to sales, I finally figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up because it literally took me stages and steps to say, I want to do this. I want to do this. But I could do say it like every single day. I'm in the grocery store and I'm listening to somebody.

I'm in a restaurant. I'm listening to somebody. I'm like, hmm, I bet if they did this, this and that, it would change this, right? Like, I just love it. But I think that we don't allow ourselves to do the things that we love, right? We do what society says, be a doctor, be an engineer, be an accountant, do this, do this, do that. follow this path instead of saying, what am I good at? Because even when I was in elementary school,

I used to get in trouble for asking to any questions. And I tell, like, when I go talk to elementary and middle school and high schoolers, I'm like, well, you used to get me in trouble is what pays my bills now. Because I teach people how to ask better questions. But like, again, my teacher was trying to quiet that girl inside that was so curious. And so I was like, well, I shouldn't ask so many questions. I should just be quiet. I should just be, you know, what they tell women, be seeing.

and not heard. And so again, coming out of that place, that's really what allowed me to step into this space that I'm in now. Fenomenal. And I think we all know anyone who studies sales, it's a question-based skill set. Yeah. Right. The reason why I actually believe women, why I love this episode and so happy you're here, I believe if women could harness one thing, they would crush us in the income space, in men, meaning. And that's just having a little thicker skin to hearing no. Just a little. Like you don't need to be some badass like to, no.

Just don't think someone just called you ugly if they say, no, I don't want your thing. Yeah. They didn't call you ugly. Yeah. They just said they didn't want your thing. Yeah. But the next layer of that is you guys have empathy. Not a lot of men have empathy, right?

I mean, you have to have some high emotional IQ to have empathy. So what you guys do, especially in the sales space, if you can ask questions and listen and then empathize, it's closed. Guys like bulldoze people into sales, right? More often than not, unless you're really skilled. Yeah. And so you're in your young 20s. You're going through this self-actualization, self-realization, which for the most part kind of happens to everyone after college, right? You're like, the hell am I going to do when I grew up?

You're right. And that's when you made the change? or was that a little bit later in the journey? Because you went into chemistry, you got jobs into chemistry. When did the real, like, I'm out on chemistry, I'm going to go get a sales job. When did that? How old were you there? I got into sales when I was in my late 20s.

I think I was probably like 26 or so, 26, 27. Okay. And so that's when I, like, it was just like a light bulb switch. I just loved everything about it. And that very first sales job I had, they sent me to Germany for two weeks. and they said, okay, we're going to teach you about how amazing these products are. All this engineering speak. And then they sent me back home and they said, now go sell.

I said, what? I have no idea. What are you talking about? What does it even mean to sell? I was excited. Yeah. So I went from the top of the mountain and I crashed because I didn't know what to do. So they gave me no playbook.

No sales training at all. They taught you the product. Yep. So that's where they wanted the mind that you have, the math, the size, that whole thing. Yes. they didn't give you a playbook to go actually execute on a sale. Nothing. It gave me nothing.

Sweet. Nothing. So you had to learn alone? I did. You made it up by yourself. I said, okay. I was like, here we go. Okay.

So in my book, one of the things that I talk about is like I talk about this journey. Because unfortunately, it still happens today. Unfortunately, so many people, especially in business to business sales, they're taught product knowledge, but they're not taught sales skills. So going back to that little girl in the fourth grade that was so good at asking questions, that's what I did. Yeah. There were existing customers in the territory and I sat down in front of them and I said, how do you use this piece of equipment? Tell me what you do.

And so I would listen to them and I'd ask questions and I would go into the lab with them again because I'm a chemist. I'll put my safety glasses on lab code and I'm in the lab with them watching them use their thing. And then they're showing me this is what it means. This is how we interpret data. This is what we use it for. And so I reverse engineering. that to go find their competitors and to talk about how I could help solve their problems. So being curious, using what I learned in school, because again, it's like chemist to salesperson,

I use the scientific process to figure out how to sell. And then I invested in myself. And a lot of people don't do that investment in themselves, right? And I listen to books. I back then it was still CDs in the car as I'm driving between customers. I'm paying for seminars out of my own pocket. Yeah. Because, again, my company, they didn't care. They just said go sell. And so in that first year in sales, the territory for the previous three years had only produced $50,000 annually. And I got it to a half a million dollars in 12 months.

Really? In 12 months. Okay. So how do you, what framework? Obviously, you were a big student. So something that everyone needs to rehear, and I'll say it, invest in yourself. It is by far the best investment you can make. Who cares about crypto?

Who cares about stocks? Who cares about real estate? Who cares about these tians? tangible investments to some extent. Like, you are the actual horse behind the horsepower, right? And so regardless of being a chemist sales expert, it doesn't matter that vertical, investing yourself first will actually lead to the income, revenue and businesses that you're going to want. So I'll say that again. It is the most important thing you could possibly ever do. So you started investing yourself, started getting a skill set, you started refining that skill set,

and you just said, I'm going, right? Like, I'm going to go show them type of attitude. What Was that like you were scared to some extent because no one gave you any leadership? Nobody. But you were just like, fuck it. I'm going. Yep. Okay. I literally I said, I got to make this work.

Yeah. Because, you know, you see, you get this total comp and you have this little base salary, but you don't really make money in sales unless you sell. And so I was like, I need to sell. So I was selling instruments that they used in labs to test stuff, right? So essentially the kind of stuff I use as a chemist, I was selling. Nice. And so I was like, I got to get this stuff sold.

And I had this ridiculous territory. So I was based in Houston. And I covered all the way up to the Dakotas down to New Mexico. They called it Intermountain. It was crazy. Yeah. Crazy. And so, again, I wanted to get out and see people.

So I would fly to Colorado, Denver. I'm driving over to Laramie, Wyoming. I'm flying up to North Dakota. I'm going over to Montana. Like Denver was my hub. Still to this day, I feel like the Denver airport is the second home. Because from Houston, that's a place to get up to the northern part of my territory. And I would literally go sit and I would talk to people.

And then I was like, okay, now I know a little bit of something. So I'm going to do some lunch and learns. So I would call up a customer and say, hey, I'm going to be in your area. Can I host a lunch and learn at your facility? Sure, why not? I would invite customers from around. I would invite grad students. I would invite post-I would invite anybody.

And I would talk to them for like 90 minutes or two hours. And that's how things like, that was the momentum, right? Because back then, social media wasn't as big. people weren't like using social media to sell it was still like feet on the street get out there get in front of people talk listen learn yeah and that's really what I did to build the territory so you took it on yourself to create a way where there was no way absolutely it kind of goes back to what I was saying like the front door is not always the right way like a lot of times that front door's locked bolted right board it up yeah you got to find a side door you got to find a back door you got to

sign the windows around the house and find a way when there's no way. Time, I interviewed a lot of people at this point. Almost all of them have a very similar story of like, it wasn't the front door that got me my start. It was the side door, the back door, the windows, wherever it be. So now you're creating these lunch and learns. Yeah. No one taught you that.

You just said, listen, the more people I can talk to, the more sales I'm going to make. It's just a number of law of averages. Yep. Was that, so what was you going through your head? It was the one to many, right? It's like if I can get 15 or 20 people in this room, the likelihood of at least six or seven of them having some kind of real business need is higher, right? And so it would happen every single time. Every single lunch and learn I made at least one sale on the back end, at least.

And I'm selling stuff that's like $50,000 to $100,000 a piece, right? So at least one sale. And the most amazing thing is, and so in the world that I operated in, a lot of people ignored. grad students. I was like, today's grad students are tomorrow's customers. So those grad students will get nurtured and nurtured and nurtured and throughout my sales career, they would come back to me. They would follow me in different companies because they remembered when I bought them lunch and I would answer their questions and I would help them with their research as they were doing things, right? Like people don't realize the impact of like planting these small seeds along the way.

So one day you hope to come back to sell them, but you might not, right? And I'm I don't think that we go into this planting seeds with the thought that, okay, I want to get something out of it. You did something. I talk a lot about sales. The one thing, and I'm sure it's all in the book, in terms of prioritization of your sales process, where does follow up and nurture land in that? Like one to 10, one being the most important, 10 being the least important in the sales process. Follow up and nurture. Where do you place that?

I say the fortune is in the follow-up. Like you win a sale, you lose a sale in the follow-up. In my current company that I have, TransformSales, we do sales strategy and training for a company. Where can they go to find you? Transformsales.com. Transformsales.com, obviously, Wesleyan. What's your Instagram? Is Wesleyan Whitaker and Wesleyan on LinkedIn.

Wesleyan Whitaker and Wesleyan on LinkedIn, transformsales.com. Back to you. So I say that because, A, I want people to get in your world. They need to understand some of this. And unfortunately, the sales industry tends to be so heavily mail-ridden. I was excited about this because she you are, right? All the aspects of who you are is awesome. So the fortunes in the follow-up.

There's a lot of salespeople would say, you know, one-call closes and all, like, you go away from all that. Yes. So I have a deal that I close, I think I close in December. It was open for 452 days. 400. That is over a year, just in case anybody wants to do the math, that is over a year. And the thing is, it was, it's a very large organization, right, like a Fortune 10 company. And what I had to do is I had to walk through their process with them.

And so I would continue to stay in touch. I would continue to build value. Every time we get in a call, the person who I was in contact was, oh, I saw your last email. It was so good. Blah, blah, blah, da, da, right? Like that nurturing, that follow-up, it's how you say. stay in front of people because the world is busy. There's so many distractions. And if they don't get your weekly newsletter, they don't see you pop up on their social media, then you're not in

front of them. Amen. And I think that the thing that we do wrong about follow up is we say, I'm just following up. Oh, I'm just checking in. Who cares about you? Like, nobody cares about you. Your customer, your prospect care about themselves. Give them value. So as I was following up with that person for well over a year, I'm like, oh, I just found this. I read. I read this, I saw this article, I have this thing that may be a value to you. You have to build value in your follow up. If you're not building value, you might as well not do it because you're in the noise. Give us, you just give us one. Give us one or two or three or five ways that offer value to a follow up prospect. So, and this kind of goes back to doing good discovery, right? So in the

first call that you have with someone, you should be extracting key information from them that you using your follow-up. And that key information is what are the problems that they're having? What are the challenges? What are the roadblocks? Who else needs to be involved in this decision-making process, right? And so as you're extracting these things from them, each one of your follow-up messages should address something that you heard in discovery.

Yep. Right? So I'm having a, I'm a new mom. And I'm not getting a lot of sleep right now. That has nothing to do with the product of the service you're selling, right? Yeah. But, oh, I just read this article. and here's some, here are five sleep tips.

Oh, I saw this thing on Amazon and I just wanted to send it to you because I thought it might help you go to sleep. It's some sleepy tea. I don't know what it is, right? Like, that is how we give valuable follow-ups because we have to step into that person's world. Yeah. They don't come into our world.

And so what is in their existence right now? So you send that mom, that sleepy tea, and she's like, wow, I didn't even realize I needed this. I got a good night's rest. Yeah, let's have that conversation. Let me bring my boss in. because you stepped into that person's world. And I think we so often forget about the impact of that. Another thing you can do is personal videos, personal voice notes,

like personalize things. Don't do this mass outreach. I'm working with a client right now that went to a trade show last week and he sent me his templates. I was like, what is this? This is horrible. No, no. It was so great meeting you.

I was like, you're going to be forgettable. They met 50 vendors last week. No doubt. Right? Personalize it. Say, it was so good talking to you about one, two, three things, right? They're going to be like, ah, yes, yes, yes. That was on the top of my brain, right?

So personalization is king, is queen. It is the way that you really make that follow-up work. I'm literally listening, almost like I'm studying. And I'm like thinking of my own self about my businesses. And I'm like, dude, we need to do this. Well, nowadays, I just received one. I got a video letter in the man. And it's a video of the person saying, Justin Colby, I'm so excited.

right the whole thing and i go hold and i put it like and then you open it starts over and you're like right how much was this it's a friend of mine right he's inviting me to this really special dinner entrepreneur's only high level no cost right he just did this to make sure i felt loved whatever it is right yeah call him dude how much was this damn like you didn't need to spend you could have called me and said hey do you want to come to this dinner then he gave me the explanation which is exactly what you're saying he was like no no this dinner is I want you to feel the specialness of this dinner. Like you're invited because I love you and I want you to be there and I want you to know I love you and all these things, right?

He's like, dude, the video is eight bucks. Yeah. He's like, I'll buy you a drink for 25 at the bar. I can invest $8 in sending you a video. You know what I mean? And it just is literally such an emotional when you receive it. You go, oh, this person's genuinely thinking about me. Yeah.

This isn't happenstance. In that personalization of the video saying Justin Colby, what is up, dude? Right? Yeah. So these are the little things. You're talking about Sleepy Time team. Yeah, it may not be a video, but you talk to a woman and she can't sleep right now and she's stressed out. You're like, got it.

Let me go get my favorite Sleepy Time tea. You send it to her. Guys and girls, like this is just a masterclass right now. So now the fortune's in the follow up. You sell higher ticket stuff, right? Is there a difference between when you, and maybe you don't do a whole lot of, you know, smaller sales. But do you treat every sales the same? Is there just a formula for every single sale?

Do you, is there nuance to some of this at all? Or is it formulaic? It's math. It's science. You run the formula. You get the result. Yeah. You know, I think there's some science and there's some art.

Okay. I have worked with some organizations that do more business to consumer, right? And so like a doctor's office, a chiropractor's office, a real estate agent, right? And so the principles are they saying, but the way you apply them are a little different. So in a business to business sale, I, I always say there is no one, no such thing as a one call closed. You can't do it. You shouldn't do it.

You should always have at least two calls. And depending on how much money is being spent, you might need more calls, right? But if you're selling to a consumer, you can do a one call close. However, you need to be very, very, very cautious of the way that you're doing that. Because what happens if you do a one call close is you get very salesy, very quick, right? You listen to them, you ask them a few questions, and then you start. pitching. And as soon as you start pitching, what are you doing? You're removing it from them and moving it back to you. That's right. So everything that I talk about is being customer-centric,

right? Being customer-centric, so focused on the customer. And so when you, when I think about what is a sales process from a business-to-consumer sale to a business-to-business sale, it's really about the way that you execute, but you still do the same thing. You still need to listen to the problems that that prospect is having. You still need to step fully into their world, understand their current state. Where are they today and where they're trying to get to? And then your job is to take everything that you've heard and customize, I say customize their solution. And so a lot of people are like, I have to make a custom everything. I'm like, no, no, no. It's about 70% the same for everybody. And that 30% is what you heard from them. Yeah. So for instance, if you're presenting a proposal

in a business of business sale, you don't say, this is why we're so great. This is what we can do. you say, this is one problem I heard that you're saying, and this is the one solution that connects to that problem. Did I get that right? Yes. Okay, great. If I'm a chiropractor and somebody has come in and I do an evaluation of them, after when I'm presenting, this is what your treatment plan is, I do the same thing.

Okay, so this is bothering you. This is the solution to what's bothering you. Not you need 10 visits and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's here's a problem, here's solution. Yeah. You know, I heard Alex Formos, do you know who that is? follow him on social media and he just did this reel that I thought was so good. I want to take, I want to get your take on it. He's in a conference, so he's on stage. He asked someone their issue.

And he says, okay, here's how I'd present that to a client. Here's what you need. Here's the two options. You have this really expensive thing, which is it and it fulfills your need and it will solve it for sure, but it's really expensive. So what I would tell you is you don't need that. The other one is what I would suggest. It's going to be this and it has two components of it. It'll solve your need and do this. So I'd actually tell you to do this and I would do part A of this. And then he goes, like, give me your credit card. Right. So he wipes away the high cost of something, tells them what they need, shows them what they want is getting delivered by what they need.

And basically goes for the sale. I mean, I thought that was pretty brilliant. But like, here's something really expensive. Don't worry about that. Right. I think that buys. I love that part because I think it buys like trust. It does.

To say, okay, this guy's not going to try to go sell me the most expensive. of thing in the world. Yeah. Well, at the same time, I feel like how he positioned it. He bought their trust by removing that, but then he also gives them the answer, just like you're talking about. Yeah. All right.

So what I'm hearing from you is this is what's going to solve your problem. Yeah. Now, he goes in for like, okay, so let's move forward. Yeah. When you go for your clothes, when you suggest what you teach in the book, like, is it pretty much like assume the sale? Is it a lot softer? Is like, what do you think?

Like, I think the worst thing you could say is what do you think? Yeah. Right, gives them the way out. But what would you say, when is time to close? And like, you solve the actual problem. Here's the answer. Are you, give us your perspective. Yeah, I think that this is something that I find impacts women a lot.

Okay. Not asking for the sale. A hundred percent. Like, not, you just don't ask for it. Is it scared to hear, no. Right. In that opinion, right? Am I wrong?

The fear of rejection is probably one of the biggest self-limiting beliefs that people have. I see it a lot of women, but I see it a lot everywhere. But everywhere, everybody has that fear of rejection because no one wants to hear no. No one. Right? And so I, one of the things I talk about in my book is I call it a micro yes. So that's why when we're presenting solutions to people, almost like just what you mentioned,

it's, okay, this is the problem. Here's a solution I have. Does that sound right? Yeah, that sounds good. Okay. This, this. Sound good? Yes.

Okay. So by the time we're at the end, they've already said yes three times. So it should be hard when you show, okay, so this is what your investment is. They're like, yeah. because you said these are all the things that you've told me I have challenges with. And here's the solution. I feel like I'm on the promised land. So like that emotional connection that you need to have with somebody,

you get it through those micro-yesses. And by the way, you used a word that I don't know if everyone caught it. This is what your investment is. Yes. Not a cost. Here's what it costs, right? That is not the right word. It's not the right framing.

There's a whole lot of NLP that I think the best sales people understand. is you are investing in solving the problem. Yes. Right? You are investing in yourself. You're not, it's not a cost to hire a coach. It's not a cost to hire or join a mastermind. It's not a cost to solve a problem.

Right. It's an investment. Because if that problem does X, Y, and Z things, that business is likely going to make more money and be more profitable and it's an investment in your business. Yes. Solve the problem. You invest in that.

You make more money. Yes. To me, that's like a, now not a lot of people understand that. So that's why I wanted to regurgitate it in my way. Yes. But that's the answer is you make any investment in solving the problem. You're going to make more money. And the thing is, in order to make an investment,

a person must understand they have a problem. So again, like I talk about you win or lose a sale in your discovery. If you're not asking the right questions, if you're not understanding what their problems are, you're not going to get the sale. Because if somebody does not have what I like to say, the propensity to change, then you're never going to get them to move.

Because one of the biggest competitors that we don't think about is the do nothing competitor. Sure. Right? So I have this whole chapter about competitive intelligence, right? And that is one of the ones

that I hone in on that we don't think about because the cost of change is hard, right? I got to buy a new house. That means I have to move all this stuff. I got to get this house ready and then I got to move across town and move the kids. No, I'm not going to do it.

We're just going to stay here until the kids graduate or we're going to die here, right? Like, whatever it is. It changes hard. So it is our responsibility as salespeople to take people along the journey, right? So you move as fast or as slow as they want to move. And sometimes you're sitting in front of a prospect and kind of like in the example that you use with Alex, it's this isn't the right time for them. You're not the right solution.

I have told them many, many people like, okay, this sounds fantastic. However, I think you should talk to this person. You should talk to that person. or before we have an engagement, I think you need to do one, two, three things, right? Yeah. Because your investment is not going to be valuable to you today unless you work through these things. So again, when we have, I call it quote of breath, right?

Yeah. And when we have quota breath, it's like I'm just thinking about my number. I'm thinking about my commission. I'm not thinking about the human that's in front of me. Yeah. I used to call it commission breath when I was in sales is you have commission. You're desperate, right? Everyone can tell it.

They can smell it. And it's funny, maybe you'll appreciate this. I used to use like the dating analogy. And guys were desperate when we can feel it. Yeah. Like, oh, bro, you are too much. Like you are desperate right now. Yes.

And that repels people. And it's the same thing is build the relationship. I don't believe in the one called close per se. You'll get your low hang fruit. You make a call or meet with someone. They're like, I need the thing you have. Great. Here's the thing.

There's no salesmanship in that. I use my start in real estate. I got started when the times were great. 2006, right? Yeah. You literally could fog a mirror. You would make a lot of money, right? You didn't need a skill set.

But when the market crashed, so I was an order taker. I would sell new homes. I'd have 18 offers. I took the highest offer because I made the most commission. That was my skill set. Yeah. Who could pay the most? But when the market crashed, I had no skill set.

I had nothing to rely on. I had no process. I had no structure. I had no formula to go find clients, sell clients. I had no script. I had no value to offer them. If you have no value to offer the person that has an issue, or they don't even know they have an issue,

and you need to show them they have an issue, like, you're just lost. Yeah. There's a massive difference in a great salesperson who has a process and a structure and a skill set. Yeah. Or someone who just goes out there and is just desperate and like, I'm just going to go work,

I'm going to work until I make a sale. Yeah. That doesn't work. So talk to us about the book. We've talked a lot about the sales reset. Yeah. Super excited to have this coming out. Give us something that maybe not all people would expect is in this book.

What is something that would be refreshing? So in a book, I introduced my framework. It's called belief selling. And so what belief selling is, it's the way that we as adults need to learn new things. And that framework includes, first we have to break a barrier. And in order to break a barrier, we have to identify it. Then we have to embrace the hard, embrace the work, embrace growth, growth is uncomfortable.

It doesn't feel good. And then we learn new skills, right? And so oftentimes we just run to, I want to call. I want to get more people in the top of the funnel. Let me learn how to call better. I'm going to go do this. But if you haven't gotten over your fear of rejection, if you haven't gotten over your call anxiety,

then you'll never call more people, right? It doesn't matter how much money you invest in the tactical pieces if you don't do that work. So in this book, it is literally a mindset and skill set combination, right? It's the what do I need to do to really push through these self-limbing beliefs? What do I really need to do to push through the hard to learn how to love myself, to have positive self-talk? Like, that's in the book. Yeah.

And then I'm like, okay, and now here's how you negotiate. Here's how you do a good discovery call. Here's how you plan how to meet your customers in your territory. So in the book, it's that skill set and that mindset combined. For all of you, this is the book. Is it out yet or is it? February 10th. February 10th.

On Amazon? Amazon. Amazon. Yes. February 10th. So part of this, you have the subtitle. Forget the scripts. Trust yourself.

Win consistently. Yeah. Let me ask you. What do you think about scripts? I know you're saying forget your scripts. Like, how valuable are they to the salesperson? They're not good. I don't like scripts.

Okay. So there's a difference between scripts and preparation. Okay. So for me, if you're just sick, sitting in front of a customer and you're reading a script. Like a robot? Like a robot. You are practicing your skill on your prospect.

And that is not what you need to do. You need to practice. I like to tell when I do sales training. I'm like practice on people that don't matter. Your colleagues, your parents, your kids, your spouse. Practice on them. Don't go practice in front of life prospect. And so when you sit down in front of a prospect and you're doing a discovery meeting

or you're doing a proposal review, whatever you're doing, you should only have one question. Yeah. And that's the question you. open the meeting with. And after that, everything needs to come from them. Because if you have these scripts, then you're again focused on yourself. Yeah. And our goal, our job is to be customer-centric. I have to step into your world. And if I'm thinking about the 10 things I need to say, I am focused on myself. So yeah, no scripts. I love that. I think too many people, especially over the phone, they think about a script, right? Oh, they can't see me. So I'm going to read my script. I think

all people should go in with the human component of it and have a conversation. Do you agree with that? Like if I have a conversation with Wesleyan versus like reading about the value of the podcast, whatever it is, you're just going to feel like I'm going to try to sell you something. If I say, hey, why do you want to be on the podcast? What's the idea? What are you trying to do? What are the problems you're having?

What are the things you're wanting? Now I'm just talking to you. I'm asking questions. Right. The script is what I think hurts more salespeople than it actually helps. It does because you're so focused on being perfect, right? So one of the limiting beliefs that I talk about in the book is perfectionism. So a lot of times salespeople are type A, which means they like to be perfect, right?

And so because we want to be perfect, we have crafted the perfect script. People are using AI and it's like, okay, this is what my AI tool said I need to say, but this is what I need to do. And so you're trying to be so perfect, you forget to be human. And so when we're so focused on perfection and we forget the human element, like you said, we're missing the person that's sitting on the other side of the table from us, right? And every human being wants to be seen and wants to be heard. And the salespeople that crush it, not just one month, not just one quarter, but year after year after year, they have cracked that code. It's more about being human and providing value, stepping into their world,

knowing that they may not need you today, but when they do need you in six months, there is no competition. That's it. It's just, send me a quote, I'm ready. Yeah. Because you help them with what they need today. Yeah.

I think, again, we started the conversation off by follow-up. If you just are good at saying hi and checking in and being relevant, it really isn't complicated, right? I mean, you even took it to the level of, like, remembering that they aren't sleeping well and buying them tea. But even the simple, how are you today? business going well right like just saying hi yeah no real agenda now you're top of mind again the squeaky wheel always gets the oil absolutely there's a chapter in here i love it's called the um revenue or i'm sorry resistance to revenue so let's let's get to the people who are scared let's get to the people that when they hear resistance when they get that like they shut down yeah how do they not do that how can we empower people how can you empower people to keep going when even in the face of resistance.

Yeah. What are some things that they can do? I like to say it's okay to lose, but it's not okay to lose the same way twice. So what does that mean? That means that we all have losses. We all will fumble a ball. Things will happen. But what we need to do after every single loss is we triage it.

We figure out, did we make any missteps? Were there signs that we missed from that prospect? Was a person really not ready? Like, what did we miss? What did we learn? and you take what you learned and you apply it to the next one. Yeah. And if you find yourself losing the same way over and over and over again,

then that means that there's something in your process. There's something in the way that you're selling that isn't aligned with the way that your buyers are buying. It doesn't mean that you're a bad salesperson. It doesn't mean that you're not good at your job. It just means the way that you're selling isn't aligned with your buyers. And so when we take the emotion out of it and use the data and use the facts, that's what helps us get over that rejection. That's what helps us move past where we are to move to that next step.

Because, I mean, I teach sales for a living and I still lose sales, right? And what I do is I'm like, okay, well, what happened? What didn't go well? Sometimes I realize, not sometimes I can, the most recent deep dive I did into my lost sales was it wasn't the right type of people, right? So what I've learned is my ideal client is, somebody who is doing well in sales, actually, but they want to scale and they realize that if they don't fix some of the process, some of the training, some of the things, they're not going to

hit the next level of growth. So they realize it, not the struggling company who's like, if we don't make a sale now, we're going to have to shut our doors next month. Right? And so that desperation, it doesn't work with the way that I teach, that I go in and I strategize with organizations. And so I had to learn that through losing sales. It didn't mean that I wasn't a good salesperson. It didn't mean that I didn't know what I was doing. It just meant that I wasn't speaking to the people who had problems that I could solve. Understanding your avatar is really important. Very big. Right. I mean, that's why so many companies spent so much money on finding their avatars. Yes. Because it does no one any good to talk to the masses of asses when one out of a hundred is actually their avatar. Just go find more of

the one. Right. Yes. Now, I'm not. I'm going to ask you a silly thing because I found this to be frustrating in someone who's been in sales my whole life. Note taking, CRMs, where does this fall on the level of like if you're an expert salesperson, you need to have good notes, small notes, doesn't really matter. Where do you land on all that? You got to have, you got to be an avid note taker. Avid. Avid? Like crazy amount of information from your prospect.

When I was a salesperson, I would have at least 150 opportunity. at one time because I understood the power of having a very full pipeline. And what I tell salespeople is there's no way that you can remember what's happening with every single prospect. And if you do, you don't have enough people in your pipeline, right? Like if you remember that much, you don't have enough people in the pipeline. And using the power of the CRM, oh, I reached out to them three months ago. Ah, it's been a little while since I talked to them. Oh, let me see.

Last time we talked, they said this, right? Like, you need to use the tools. Yeah. Like, if you're not using a Sierra or something, then you're forgetting. Yeah. I recently signed a construction company. They're a $30 million company. They were running their company on Google Sheets.

Ooh. I was like, that doesn't shock me, by the way. Being in real estate. Like, yeah, this is that. But those are my kind of people, right? Like, I love those because they're like, we need to do something. And again, they're printing money. Yeah.

And their goal for a 20, 20, that I sat for them, I'm like, we're going to double your clothes right. We don't need any new customers. We just need to talk to the ones that we already have and we need to nurture them. We need to follow up and we need to not just quote and run, right? And so without data, though, we don't know those things. You don't know the historical information in the past five years ago. A new salesperson will come in eventually. If you're doing founder-led sales, one day you're not going to do it. How is a person who comes behind you supposed to know everything without asking you questions? And recording a process, standard operating procedure.

Like what do you do and how do you do it? Not script. Procedure. Procedure. Right. Managing versus leading salespeople is drastically different. Managing your KPIs and your numbers is totally different than leading a salesperson. Let's have a quick snippet about that.

How do you think organizations, management, leadership should be looking at salespeople to getting the most out of them? I think the number one thing that organizations can do are is to remember that salespeople are human. They're not just a number. They're not just disposable. One bad quarter, one bad gear doesn't define them. And really take the onus on themselves. So I ask leaders when they want to get rid of somebody or somebody's underperforming.

Have you given this person 100% of what they need to be successful in this role? And 100% of time, I've heard the response to know. Yeah. So I'm like, that's your fault. That's not on them. Yeah. It's not on an underperforming salesperson when you haven't given them what they need to really be good. So we have to invest in our people.

If we want to have top performing salespeople, we need top performing coaching, top performing training. And it's not just looking at their numbers. It's not just looking at their call reports. It's what are they doing? So when I go in and I really deep dive, I'm like, Like, let's look at this sales team and where things are messing up. We look at the sales process. I'm like, things are falling out between discovery and the proposal.

So what's happening? They're doing that discovery. Let's go fix discovery. Not look at the whole pipeline. We don't need to drop prices. We don't need to increase conversion rate. Let's fix discovery. Right?

So go deep. Don't go wide. Wesleyan Whitaker. I mean, ladies and gentlemen, go follow her everywhere, right? Book coming out February 10th. Yes. February 10th. the sales reset forget the scripts trust yourself win consistently this is wesleine whittaker i'm

justin colby this is the entrepreneur dna if this was helpful you know someone who might be okay at sales needs a little bit of help maybe you have the science or math person that would like to get more into this world make sure you share this episode with at least two of your friends appreciate it see you on the next