Episode 264 with Jeff C. West: Sales Strategies for Small Business Owners

On this episode of the Ready Yet podcast, I'm thrilled to be joined by Jeff West, the co-author of 'Streetwise to Saleswise'. We chat about the art of storytelling in sales, the concept of 'fusion points,' and how emotions and logic collaborate in decision making. Jeff shares incredible insight from his book, drawn from his vast experience in sales, including a fascinating story about how a moment in New Orleans inspired an entire storyline. We also dive deep into handling objections, the importance of empathy in sales, and the impact of building genuine relationships. Jeff even gives us a sneak peek into his collaborative event, SalesWise Live. 

GUEST RESOURCES

Jeff West is the coauthor of the business/sales parable, Streetwise to Saleswise, along with international bestselling author and sales authority, Bob Burg. He’s the coauthor, along with Direct Sales Legend Lisa M. Wilber, of the bestselling business parable, Said the Lady with the Blue Hair. And he’s the author of the heartwarming business/sales parable, The Unexpected Tour Guide. All three parables earned accolades; two from Axiom Business Book Awards®, two from The National Indie Excellence Awards® and one from The American Bookfest Awards. 

https://jeffcwest.com

www.fusionpoints.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffcwest

https://x.com/JeffCWestAuthor

https://www.facebook.com/jeff.west.330

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Transcript

Episode 264 with Jeff C. West: Sales Strategies for Small Business Owners

Transcribed by Descript 

Erin Marcus: All right, welcome, welcome to this episode of the Ready Yet podcast where I was excited and also sad to hit the record button because I don't know about you, Jeff, but I'm just enjoying myself. Today's guest, Mr. Jeff West. I can't wait to get in this topic. I can't wait to just have more of a conversation with you.

Erin Marcus: Can't wait to talk about what you're doing. 

Jeff West: It is just a joy and an honor to be on your show, and you hit the nail on the head, we were having such a good time in the conversation behind the scenes that, that it was okay, yeah, now we got to go to work. 

Erin Marcus: All right, fine. We'll make it official. We'll put some bumpers in our gutters and have a conversation with some framework, right?

Jeff West: Absolutely. 

Erin Marcus: Awesome. I want to jump in. I want to jump in because number one, your book, Streetwise to Salewise. for having me. Love the idea of having Streetwise in the name. You're the only other person, like I was telling you, who used street smart in your concept. Give me a little bit of a framework on that and then we can jump into this idea of overcoming objections because I want to get more on your opinion on that.

Jeff West: Thank you so much for having me on your show, and thank you for that question. I love talking about how stories germinate with me. In this particular case, my co author, Bob Berg, who is one of the co authors on The Go Giver, which sold over a million copies, he had some material on becoming objection proof that he's had for decades.

Jeff West: And he had I became friends years ago, and he reached out fourth quarter, I think it was of 2022. And he and I talk sales all the time anyway, and it was one of the things he said, Hey, I'm about to put this out on LinkedIn, wanted to get your thoughts on it. And I replied, but the last sentence of his email was, by the way, keep this because when we write our parable, this could be some great material.

Jeff West: Now, I have written two award winning parables before this came out, and so I had some exposure and experience in that. But Bob and I had, even though we'd been friends for 20 years, had never talked about doing a book together. And so I replied to him and I said, Oh, and by the way, if you're serious, Oh, heck yes, we're doing that.

Jeff West: And we were actually sitting actually my wife and I were sitting in new Orleans. After that conversation with Bob and I happened and I knew where I was gonna go as far as the material we were teaching. 'cause as I love to write business parables. I wanna take a really great fictional story and I want to teach the principles in there.

Jeff West: . 'cause I don't, I can write and have written just your basic topical nonfiction, but I prefer the other because I enjoy reading it better. So I enjoy writing it better. My wife and I were in New Orleans. It was somewhere around New Year's Eve 22 into 23. We're having a late afternoon, early evening dinner.

Jeff West: We're sitting on the balcony of a restaurant and we're just enjoying the time and the waitress comes out and says, Oh good, you guys are in for a treat. And she pointed down to the street and there was a young street busker, a young singer who was getting ready to perform. And she says, she's awesome.

Jeff West: And I said, we'll go, we'll stay a little longer. So we ordered another couple of glasses of wine and we sit there for another hour. And it was so good. And I looked at Laurie after we did that, and I said, you know what? The entire storyline for the book just came to me. And the hero of our book, Thaddeus Tucker, it's a smart aleck kid from the streets of New Orleans.

Jeff West: He's a young adult now, but this story takes place, but he wisecracks his way out of a job and into a sales career for which he is completely unprepared. I had a lot of street smarts, but not a clue in how to go do this. And so we take him from that novice journey where basically runs his mouth and loses his job and how his mentor Andre in the story takes him under his wing and makes the magic happen.

Jeff West: And it's, it we really do. Try to, in the storyline itself, put the reader in the, we really try to sit the reader down in the middle of New Orleans with the flavors and the music and the storyline. And it just with Thaddeus being such a not having the greatest judgment on what he says early on in the story but it was a, it was an excellent transition to watch him go through all that.

Erin Marcus: I love it. I love, I, I think you are dead on with story having such a bigger impact than if I just give you a list of things. 

Jeff West: Oh, absolutely. And what happens is there's a concept that I teach when I'm speaking in front of sales audiences or working with a company. I teach a concept called fusion points, and we do dive into that a little bit in the book, but the basic idea behind fusion points is every decision that we humans make pretty much happens the same way.

Jeff West: Neurologically speaking, there's a part of our brain that generates our emotions and it connects. With a part of our brain that processes logic. Those two have to connect or the decision doesn't even get made. People can't, people who can't decide, it's a fallacy in that, or a fault in that connection. But when the two come together, when we're facing a decision, emotion touches with logic and together they produce a decision.

Jeff West: With the emotions, if it's a negative emotion, like fear, a sense of missing out it creates a feeling inside us. The brain, when it doesn't, has an emotion. It shoots an electrical charge down into our torso, it's called a somatic marker. It produces something. We feel differently because of it. If it's a negative emotion, we don't like the way it feels.

Jeff West: We want to push back. We want to say, no, we don't want to do anything with that. So when that combines with logic. People push away. That's why a lot of salespeople struggle getting their career going sometimes is because their process is doing that. But the good news is the opposite is true as well. When a positive emotion is generated in our brain, like love, joy, a sense of belonging, security.

Jeff West: When that happens, it still shoots that signal down and it still produces the somatic marker. But in this case, what it does is it produces a feeling that we like, we enjoy, we want to, that we want to repeat that process. So when you incorporate that into a business model or a sales model, your clients are comfortable saying, yes, I'll move forward with you on that.

Jeff West: So 

Erin Marcus: I've got to get your response to this because you're going to think I'm crazy.

Erin Marcus: Yes. And by the way, if you can learn to pay attention to those physical feelings, they will tell you everything you need to do. So I've given my names.

Erin Marcus: You're like, of course you have! I've literally labeled these, and the first one you described is DREAD. If I'm thinking about something, to your point, if I'm going to make a decision, and I feel DREAD, which is in my stomach, I don't do that thing. Don't marry that man. Don't take that job. Don't walk down that dark alley.

Erin Marcus: Contrary to that is buzzy rollercoaster. Buzzy rollercoaster means we are on the right path. I'm going to end up in one of your books. I will consider it an absolute odd. All right. Hear me out. Buzzy rollercoaster means I'm going in the right direction. Buzzy rollercoaster is a vibration in my chest.

Erin Marcus: Because when I'm in line for the rollercoaster, I'm fine. When I'm on the rollercoaster, I'm very excited and I'm fine. When they slot me in like cattle and I'm next. I am terrified and excited at the same time. To the point where I am absolutely vibrating and That's how I know that's the right step.

Erin Marcus: That's my growth edge, right? That's how I identify My growth edge. 

Jeff West: See, that's awesome. And the reason that works so effectively and why you whatever you're doing when that happens, whether it's making a decision, whatever, it works effectively because of how it puts everything together. That's why stories work in sales.

Jeff West: That's with the idea of a business parable. What my goal is to write fiction that is so strong that it touches people's heart. Yeah. We're gonna let the character as my writing coach, who's John David Mann, he's written like 40 books, nine New York Times best sellers. He's just awesome. He says, what we do is we're get, we get the hero up or heroine up in the tree.

Jeff West: We throw a lot of rocks at them and then we get them safely back down. Yes. . Yes. When that happens in a parable, if I can create those emotional contexts, especially pulling them toward the main character, and then the main character wins, the lessons that I'm teaching in the process 

Erin Marcus: stick. 

Jeff West: Stick.

Erin Marcus: Emotions is what makes things sticky. 

Jeff West: Absolutely. 

Erin Marcus: Every single time.

Erin Marcus: So I have to ask you, because I know this is part of the talking points and in the book, is this idea about objections? Because, you're teaching sales through your parable. This idea of objections. And, one of the things I know that you talk about is don't fear objections. I totally agree with you.

Erin Marcus: I totally agree with you. But I want to hear your take on it. Sure. 

Jeff West: When it comes to objections that whole That what happens inside a salesperson or an entrepreneur or a business person when someone does say I'm not sure I want to do that. And they're for whatever reason, it sets off the collision point.

Jeff West: It sets off a negative emotional response that says, Oh my gosh, I really need to make this sale. I got to feed my family. I got to build my business combines with logic. And so what a lot of salespeople do is that immediate collision point. Gives puts fear inside them and they almost will find themselves.

Jeff West: I hate to use the word arguing in this case but maybe debating the prospect and it's because a lot of times traditional sales training In my opinion missed the boat with how to work with an objection because it said It says okay if they say this you say that it's they say this you say that the trouble is multi multifaceted on that sometimes You when a prospect gives an objection, they're not even sure really why they're objecting it.

Jeff West: And so they may throw out anything. Your price is too high or this or that. They just know that inside that negative emotional context is there. And so when it combines with logic, they just push back a little bit and they don't even always know why. So if you do that thing that a lot of sales training does and you say, she said this.

Jeff West: So I said that. You might find yourself giving the perfect response. To the wrong objection because they didn't even know what the real objection was. And so what what Bob and I teach in the book is that you don't have to fear objections. You need to think about them differently. And the, as in the, so that instead of thinking about overcoming an objection, which is what a lot of people teach, we don't teach to overcome an objection.

Jeff West: And the reason is pretty simple. Nobody wants to be overcome. 

Erin Marcus: And I'm not trying to win. So you lose. So why would I? Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Jeff West: And when it comes to that whole idea of overcoming the objection most people an objection is like their opinion and you need to look no further than our political climate in the U.

Jeff West: S. to know how much people just love having their opinion argued with or overcome. It's like an 

Erin Marcus: employer, it's our number one pastime at this point. Oh, 

Jeff West: it's crazy. So what Bob and I teach is rather than trying to overcome the objection, Let's work with that objection side by side with them in such a way that when you're through, not only have you helped them resolve an issue that needed to be resolved for their benefit, not yours, but when you did that, you created a bond with them and you created a fusion point.

Jeff West: And there's a step by step process. If you'd like for me to go through it, I will, but there's a step by step process that we do that with. 

Erin Marcus: And I've always, not always, I finally learned that sales is of service, right? Sales is about the other person. Sales is problem solving for them. It's not about you.

Erin Marcus: And too many times the second someone has an objection, the seller switches to make the entire conversation about that. And right. And all your prospect is doing, like you said, is sharing their opinion. I see this really strongly with real estate agents. They're at a listing agreement at a presentation and they'll say something like, Oh, I think we should, my estimate, your house would be worth 300, 000.

Erin Marcus: Oh no. It's got to be worth at least 500, 000. And then an insecure agent would get very defensive. I know this and I did my research and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But when all that person, all that prospect really did was. express the fact that they're disappointed that what they thought was a half million dollar asset is probably only worth 300k.

Erin Marcus: So why don't we have a little empathy, let them process, and not argue with them. 

Jeff West: Oh, absolutely. You packed it a second ago, sale, excuse me, sales at its very best at its core is being focused on someone else, what their needs, wants, and desires would be, and then helping them get it. We're like professional matchmakers in sales.

Jeff West: We find someone who has a need. We put them together with a company that has a product or a service, or sometimes it's our own company, our product and service. But we put the two parties together. It's a great fit and we get paid because we made the match happen. And so when you're focused that way How much 

Erin Marcus: nicer does that sound?

Erin Marcus: How much nicer does that sound? 

Jeff West: Exactly. And it's a great, it's not just some altruistic thing either. It's a great way to live your life, but it's also a great way to do business. People are attracted to business owners, to salespeople who they genuinely see have their best interest at heart. And so that it's a huge thing.

Erin Marcus: My one of the craziest things that happened to me, I used to own a business. And I don't even know why this came out of my mouth at the time, but we've already learned that's zero filter. I used to have a company that worked with families with aging parents. So our clients were people who were downsizing out of these big huge houses they had lived in for decades into apartments, condos, assisted living.

Erin Marcus: Sometimes people passed away. So estate liquidation was one of the things that we did. And the one of the things that I have learned through that process is Americans suck at bartering. We have not been taught how to do this, but because I live in Chicago where there's people from every country in the world, other countries have taught their citizens bartering.

Erin Marcus: And there's there's ways. And one of the most common ways that I found for people to barter is to insult the product, okay? You barter by insulting the product. So here I am in this beautiful house. We have this gorgeous sail set up and there's this crystal set up on a black tablecloth and a very fancy woman in a fur coat walks in and she gives me the big arm sweep over the crystal and she says, this is crap.

Erin Marcus: Cause she's waiting for me to argue with her. My response was then you probably shouldn't buy it. And she just didn't know what I didn't engage in the argument. 

Jeff West: The wind got out of the show. 

Erin Marcus: I just, I'm like then you shouldn't buy it. And I just asked what are you looking for? I just need two wine glasses for, my evening wine, not fancy.

Erin Marcus: I'm like, Oh, I got a whole kitchen full of those are two for a buck. 

Jeff West: Love it. 

Erin Marcus: Greatly. We're too many people are taught to argue. Their way to the solution 

Jeff West: and in a sales process The person who loses every time in a sales process when there's a debate or an argument is oddly enough both parties because what will happen is if you have a prospect who gives an objection and instead of working with that objection you Debate it or you rebut it.

Jeff West: Then what happens is you're not going to win the sale and they're not going to get your solution So you both actually lose when that happened, you know in the book Bob and I teach a little process And we as a precursor to working with an objection, we always say, number one Learn to handle your common objections up front in the conversation itself because if you do it there It becomes education as long as you're giving a solution.

Jeff West: You're saying, this is the here and then that's the solution It's education But if they do it after the fact it literally becomes an objection and it sets off that collision point But we teach You know, do that first. Don't try to overcome an objection. Work side by side with them instead of overcoming it.

Jeff West: But then we teach them a little process and it's basically just in its simplest form. Control your own emotions first, because if you get wrapped up in the way you're feeling, you will respond poorly. Number two, empathize. Realize that their objection is their opinion and give it the validity it should be.

Jeff West: You don't have to agree with it, but you can at least communicate that you see their opinion as being something of value. You could understand why they would want to consider that. And if you do that the right way, what happens is you start the process of the relationship. And then you dig a little deeper.

Jeff West: You ask some questions to make sure you understand their perspective. And then once you understand the perspective, if you've handled it they'll mentally relax and give you permission to see if you can reshape it for them. And you just do that with a simple shifting of the frame. Here's where I see that, but maybe we could do it a slightly different way.

Jeff West: And then you offer your solution. And if you've done all that they want the solution or they wouldn't be talking to you. You'd be done by now. There's 

Erin Marcus: so many times. There are so many times. Where I've been in a sales conversation where the person has said let me think about it. I need to figure it out.

Erin Marcus: And my, all right, fair. What do maybe I, where are you stuck? Maybe I can help. And they'll just say to me I can't, I don't think I have, I don't think I can make that whole payment. If I wouldn't have asked, I never would have known all they needed was a payment plan that I was happy to provide.

Jeff West: Exactly. And had you said it's the price is not too high or what do you think you need to think about or put your, I remember the funniest and although it's totally inappropriate thing I ever saw someone, Talk about in handling an objection or working with an objection is some, I need to think about it.

Jeff West: They stuck their arm up, had a watch on their wrist and said, okay, go . You think about it right now and give 'em, and, but it was funny, but it's not the way to do this. You handled that perfectly. You asked questions, you controlled your emotions you empathize with what they were doing, and then you ask questions so that you could help them find a solution.

Jeff West: And that's your goal because I, you can actually close the air. 

Erin Marcus: And your thing about the point about controlling your emotions, I think that's the hardest part because so many of us are so in love with our perfect little baby that we've created. So why wouldn't everybody else think that was the high value, perfect little baby.

Erin Marcus: And then the other thing that I say will mess up every decision you ever make, whether it's in your business, in your financial finances, your health, your relationships is insecurity or desperation. If you are insecure, if you are not confident in your ability to deliver on your offer, you'll make, or if you are desperate for the sale, I watch great people of good things to offer.

Erin Marcus: The price is 20, 000, but I know you, so it's 10, 000. And then it's February, so we're doing a discount. So it's 2, 000. But if you act right now, I'll give it to you for 500 and you just lost 9, 500 because you didn't breathe. 

Jeff West: That is so spot on. It's hilarious. 

Erin Marcus: You would have come up for air.

Jeff West: And when it comes to the whole idea as a solopreneur, or, I've worked for myself for now, what, 30, 31 years, and in the mix of that, You learn things, you learn what your own tendencies are, but in in the role that I've done for the last 10 years with speaking and writing and workshops and keynote addresses and all that, I know based on the value of what these things did in my life, that I could do I could easily try to, I could justify charging seven figures for what I'm doing when I'm coaching somebody because I know I, what I did with what I learned.

Jeff West: But in the context of your pricing structure, I've watched so many people that when they give the pricing out there, they're almost afraid to give the price. And that's one of those things you should, in my opinion, I go against every sales trending concept that people will ever see. Sometimes I want to get the price out of the way in the beginning.

Jeff West: I want to just get it out because in the, my, my original background I've been in sales for, 40 plus years, but before I worked for myself, it was another industry, but when I began to work for myself, it was in the insurance industry. And I know that all the sales training says don't do that.

Jeff West: But what I would do when it was an employee benefit program, I would, when I got in front of the employees, I would say, you know what? Your employer already provides you insurance. Number two, you're already spending as much money as you want to spend on anything. You're sitting there right now thinking, I gotta go to an insurance meeting, I won't spend any more money, I got insurance, why am I here?

Jeff West: And I said, but the question's really good, but so is the answer. And I said, and with everything that I'm going to show you today, You're going to spend less than one hour's wage to two hour's wages per week. You can afford anything I do. I would just get that out on the table. Just get it 

Erin Marcus: out of the way.

Erin Marcus: Yeah, 

Jeff West: and then those were never objections that I got at the end anymore 

Erin Marcus: the way that Don't ignore the elephant ride the elephant. 

Jeff West: There you go, 

Erin Marcus: right? And so I have an insurance background as well I was at the corporate level putting these big fancy deals together my big fancy life between banks broker dealers financial planners and the insurance companies that produce the product It was all long term care insurance and I used to put Life insurance companies would get these contracts themselves.

Erin Marcus: I would convince them to let go of their contract so that we could help them with our niche product. Because 100 percent of zero that they were selling is still zero, but if they get 80 percent by working with me, and the thing that I used to say all the time, because it was true, math is too hard to be a secret.

Erin Marcus: Math, like I have a journalism degree, math is too hard for me to make it a secret, and I would literally put a three million dollar deal together and show them the entire grid. This is how much we're gonna make, this is how much you're gonna make, this is our bonus on your thing, this is what you're gonna get as a bonus, and this is what your agents are gonna get.

Erin Marcus: You wanna do it, you don't wanna do it. Absolutely, because you can just be honest with people. I think that's one of the problems. There's so much history in this country and in our media and in our movies and in our every pop culture that sales is tricky, that someone's trying to be manipulative. And it's almost like if you just lay it all out there, you remove the resistance.

Jeff West: It's one of my favorite things about my co author on Streetwise, Bob Berg. He and John David Mann wrote The Go Giver back in the mid Forever ago, right? Yeah, so it's probably been 15 years now, maybe? And basically they took Bob's book, Endless Referrals, which quite frankly changed my whole world.

Jeff West: They took that book. And they turned it into the parable, The Go Giver. And it's been a huge success. But the whole principle behind the book is get the focus off yourself, get the focus on others, and help them get what they need. And what you'll find is the attraction that comes in them toward you makes it where your business grows like crazy.

Jeff West: It's not some philanthropic thing, although we should all be charitable. It's not some mystical thing. It's just, if you make the other person genuinely feel great about themselves and in the, what in the context of what you're doing. You create that fusion point. They didn't have the concept back then, but you create that fusion point that makes them tie in with you.

Jeff West: And it develops a loyalty, both in a sales team. I used to be the state sales manager for a fortune 500 insurance company here in Texas. And it was the thing that I did. I've been gone out of that industry now for 10 years. And I saw the guy recently that does the job that I used to have. He said, man, you've been gone 10 years.

Jeff West: Your people still love you and talk about you. And it's because of that process where your focus is, 

Erin Marcus: where your focus is. I don't know that there's a better way to land than that. We'll just have to have you come back and have more conversations. 

Jeff West: Anytime you're hanging out 

Erin Marcus: with me today and sharing your insight and we're going to make sure we have all of links.

Erin Marcus: But if people want to find you. What's the easiest way for them to reach out? 

Jeff West: If you're just wanting to find out or read my books, go to jeffcwest. com. If someone was interested in having me work with their sales team, that would be fusionpoints, plural, dot com. Oh, and there's one other thing, if it's okay, if I mention it, Bob Berg, Kim Angeli and I just completed, just finished up a two and I say two and a half.

Jeff West: That's really a two day sales mastery conference in West Palm Beach, Florida. It's called SalesWise Live. And It was amazing. We had people from all industries there. We had lawyers. We had we had sales people. We had people in insurance, people in real estate. It was just a nice varied audience, but it wasn't the kind of thing where you just have speakers on the stage.

Jeff West: You literally we, yeah, we're all these things, but then we're getting down there. We're working with you, giving people time to do it. We work where you help them understand it that way. It was a great event. It's held in West Palm beach, Florida. Is gorgeous right on the intercoastal waterway and we're staying at the Ben hotel, which is a boutique place, but we just finished that one up and the response was so great.

Jeff West: We're going to do another one in September September 22nd through the 24th. And if anybody's interested in checking that out, they just go to saleswiselive. com and then get the info on that. 

Erin Marcus: We'll make sure all those links are there. Thank you for hanging out with me this afternoon. 

Jeff West: Oh, you've been a joy, Erin.

Jeff West: Thank you so much for having me on. It's been an honor.