Close More Clients With a Two-Call Sales Process! with Wesleyne Whittaker

Episode Summary

You can find Wesleyne Whittaker at:
Website: https://transformedsales.com/speaker/
Book: https://books.google.com.ph/books/about/The_Sales_Reset.html?id=LMmb0QEACAAJ&redir_esc=y

Wesleyne Whittaker Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Kris Ward: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour Win The Day, and I am your host, Kris Ward. And today we have Wesley Whittaker in the house and she’s gonna talk to us about sales.

And so let’s just get to it, Wesley, because boy, sales is something that we all either struggle with. Or we could always do better. Like you can never stop learning sales. So let’s talk about, one of the things that I find interesting with what you say is, let’s go deep, not wide. Welcome to the show, Wesleyne. What do you mean by going deep? Not wide. 

[00:00:34] Wesleyne Whittaker: Thanks so much for having me, Kris. So when I talk about going deep, not wide, it’s in a multitude of areas. I think the very first and the most important one is when we define who our ideal clients are. So if you say, I can help anyone with my services, anyone’s a good fit.

What you’re doing is you’re diluting your voice in the marketplace, right? So you look like a generalist. [00:01:00] I like to say you’re a jack of all trades. And a master of none. So what you really wanna do is you wanna think about who in this core demographic has the biggest problems that I can solve, and where is the market not as flooded with other people who are offering a similar service?

[00:01:17] Kris Ward: Okay, let me jump in for a second. So I’m gonna say hopefully. Because most of the people listening to the show are experienced entrepreneurs. So I like to think that, they’re not making those rookie mistakes of saying, I help anyone you know that has that breath. Here we are. But I do sometimes see that you could be on LinkedIn and you’ll see somebody that says, I’m a marketing strategist for lawyers. And you think, oh, that’s specific. That’s interesting. Now, of course, they could be a marketing strategist for accountants and other people, but you must think they must really understand lawyers if that’s what they do.

I think even niching down to your point, sometimes you don’t realize how much we can niche down. 

[00:01:58] Wesleyne Whittaker: Yeah. Yeah. Because even [00:02:00] just saying lawyers, is it personal injury attorneys? Is it a family attorneys? Is it ’cause all lawyers are not created equally. If you are talking to business attorneys versus a family attorney.

That’s almost two different ends of the spectrum. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s really important. I like to say niche down until it hurts, right? Oh, so what is the smallest addressable market that you can get to? Not the largest, not the total addressable market, right? The smallest niche you can get to. 

[00:02:27] Kris Ward: Okay. Till it hurts. I’m just now sitting here reflecting on my own life. So we, I always just, we work with service-based entrepreneurs, and I’m not even still sure that I say that primarily people know us for finding, hiring and onboard… onboarding virtual assistants and putting them in our leadership program for entrepreneurs.

But I would probably, I would say service-based entrepreneurs. So I think I’m going too broad with entrepreneurs I should at the very least say service-based. 

[00:02:54] Wesleyne Whittaker: Yeah. Say service based, say how many years they are, like you mentioned the people who listen to the [00:03:00] podcast five to 10 years, right? Yeah.

Because, so the more specific we can be, you can say something like entrepreneurs, but maybe, and it’s service based entrepreneurs, but maybe it’s the amount of revenue. The number of employees they have, how long they’ve been in business, what is the distinguishing factor? And the reason we wanna do that is, one, it’s important for our marketing messages, but it’s also important for us in our sales conversation because everyone who’s within that demographic.

They’re gonna have similar challenges. So your pitch, your questions, it gets better every single time because you’re saying the same thing over and over, you’re hearing the same problems, and so you really do become a true expert in that area. 

[00:03:41] Kris Ward: Yeah. ’cause we don’t work with new entrepreneurs for so many reasons.

So I think that’s in my some of my content somewhere, but that’s more really a negative and a pushback instead of saying, we work with experienced entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs who have been in business at least five, 10 years. So that’s a good point there. So even when you think, oh, I think I’m being [00:04:00] clear, what does clear look like?

And is that the end of the road? Can we be more precise, more clear? 

[00:04:05] Wesleyne Whittaker: Absolutely. The okay, more clear. You are the better. And as I said, how this works in sales is. I call it your sales muscle.

[00:04:13] Kris Ward: Okay. I love that. I like that. 

[00:04:16] Wesleyne Whittaker: Okay. We have this sales muscle, so if every discovery call I do, I’m talking to a different person, I am, I have to ask different questions.

I’m getting different information, and I’m not getting better because I’m exercising different muscles, right? So if I have a similar person that is coming on five discovery calls. I get better at asking that question. Yeah. I get queued into the things they’re saying. I’m like, ah, okay. I know what that’s leading to.

And so that’s why that really helps in sales. 

[00:04:49] Kris Ward: I think it helps in everything. I know back in the 18 hundreds when my business was new, that not only does, that’s a powerful imagery. I love that. Your sales muscle, right? [00:05:00] So not only does it help the sales process, but where I learned too is then you’ve got, if you acquire different clients that have different experiences and now you’ve gotta start providing different services you just dilute your, all your resources.

It’s just crazy. It’s reminds me of, I had family coming the other summer and god love them. Family of five, they’re my relatives, so yes, I’m gonna bad mouth them, but they know it. The two adults wanted to have all the seafood they could eat because I live in an area where it was lobster season at that time.

Then I had a vegetarian, then I had a very picky eater, like a child, like 10 wanted, frigging chicken nuggets or whatever. And then I had a regular eating person and I’m making dinner for these five people. It’s crazy. And we do that with our… we, if we’re not careful, our sales process leads us to that with our business.

And so not only are you not getting good at sales, but you’re really costing yourself a lot of time and money. 

[00:05:55] Wesleyne Whittaker: Absolutely. Yeah. Abso, everything that you said, and I think even thinking about the [00:06:00] family, it’s like the buffet, right? Yeah. So I talk about even having a buffet of services. Yeah. So even when you’re in those discovery meetings, when you’re offering things up to your clients, it’s, I say, give them a salad.

Don’t give them a buffet. It’s here’s your lettuce. Here’s your tomatoes, here’s your croutons. You don’t like croutons? That’s fine. Let’s take that off. Okay. And you still have the core offering. So again, when we talk about going deep knot wide, it’s as I’m thinking about the sales process, okay, I know who I serve, I know how I serve them, but what do I really give them?

What is that product? What is the entry point into my funnel? What is the entry point into working with me? Because depending on what the service you’re offering, sometimes it might be a couple thousand dollars. And that’s a huge barrier to entry for some people, right? So they just need to have a little sample plate.

But don’t give them too many options. Say, this is the thing that we do to get started with our engagement, or this is how you can start working with us [00:07:00] instead of saying, here’s a six month engagement for $10,000 a month. Yeah. 

You meet somebody at a networking event and they’re like, yeah, that’s gonna be enough.

[00:07:09] Kris Ward: Yeah, a hundred percent. ’cause we know the value ladder. Like even somebody said to me once, I thought it was interesting, the calories it takes for someone to make a purchase. So even getting somebody to buy something for a dollar or $10, you, I’ve seen jokes of this on Instagram where somebody, ah.

I have to get up and walk across the room to get my credit card. ’cause I don’t know my number on the back of it and I just wanna make this purchase. So getting somebody to the calories it takes to get them to get up and get their credit card. Plus then, okay, now we’re working with them and we do wanna make sure that we’re not inundating them with all these offers because I know too, I’m sure you know this. The studies have shown again and again in a restaurant, the restaurants that have more options than the menu have lower sales per table. 

Yeah. 

So even when you’re hungry and you’re already sitting in the restaurant and you’re what we would call a hot lead, you are [00:08:00] there to eat.

You have been sat, you’re sitting at a table with people you like, this is a treat, and you just still don’t make good choices because there’s too many options. 

[00:08:08] Wesleyne Whittaker: Absolutely, like really within our business, I have two core offerings and I say we do outsource revenue operations and outsource sales enablement, and that’s it.

And there’s a lot of stuff that we offer within those things. We’re doing playbooks, we’re doing training. Okay. We’re doing leadership development, we’re doing all those things. But when I’m talking to people, I’m like, these are the buckets. Okay? This, these are the two buckets that we fall into. And so what it does is it allows people to easily make a choice.

Like we want sales to be easy. It’s the easy, yes. And so as busy entrepreneurs, maybe we’re selling a little bit, maybe we’re doing a little bit of the consulting work we’re doing, we have our hands in many different pockets. And so one of the key things that I think is important is you make it easy for your clients to say yes.

You make it easier for your fulfillment team to fulfill the things because everything isn’t custom, everything isn’t okay. We’re gonna [00:09:00] do this here and that there. And it smooths out the sales process as well as that order fulfillment process. 

[00:09:06] Kris Ward: I think something you just said, which I think really clarified is probably reassuring for a lot of people, is you’ve got those two buckets or those two doors that they can go through and you’re saying, look, there’s a lot of things that can be in E in either path, but for simplicity sake, we say do you wanna go through door number one or two?

Do you want bucket A or B? And then when they make that way, they have one decision to make, yes or no left or right. And then once they make that. Then in the sales process or the journey there are different value ladder options. There’s different things that they can acquire. And so it’s like not a matter of, you can only have two things, but there are two paths, and so that way it’s not overwhelming.

[00:09:45] Wesleyne Whittaker: Absolutely. And I even. Because, I’m the queen of the niche. I really, I even boil it down to because I have two key ideal client profiles and those different offers. One is for each of them. So most times my clients get one [00:10:00] door and I’m like, here’s the door we’re walking through and I lay the path out for them.

I’m like, this is what happens with this door. And when I say you give them a salad instead of a buffet. It’s, this is what I recommend for you. And if they say, okay, I wanna work with you, however, it’s a little bit outside of my budget range, let’s take this off. Let’s take this off. Okay. Because you can take things off the salad, right?

But when you start piling things back on. It’s really hard. It’s oh wait, I thought you said it was gonna cost this much, and now we’re three months in, and you’re saying I need more. So when you have an offering in that way where you’re like, these are all the things that we’re gonna do, or these are all the ways that we can help you.

If it’s a retainer model, an hourly model, a package, whatever it is. It helps your clients focus because we don’t want them thinking about too many different options or too many different things that they could do. And I think some of the SaaS companies, so software as a service, they do this well. It’s like this is what you can get.

Oh, you want an [00:11:00] add-on? Oh, okay, you can do this or you can do that. And that’s really what the key to streamlining that sales process is. 

[00:11:07] Kris Ward: That’s interesting to me. So I would say the big divide that we have right now for us is, we find, hire and onboard virtual assistants and put them in a leadership program.

And then, a big part of what we do is work with the entrepreneurs and get them ready for the VAs. ’cause most people, they, oh, I haven’t found a good VA. But the reality is you’re not set up for this. So the two current paths we have is the one-to-one work or the group work. Right now there’s a lot included.

In both. My fear has always been, let’s say we’re doing one-to-one stuff. Really essentially, unless you ask for something, I wanna say outrageous, but really huge. The way we have it set up most of the time is it’s not possible for you to spend more money because we, the whole idea of going to resort, I know you’re a traveler, you like the peace of mind of once you get there, this is all inclusive.

It’s fine. So are those two paths in your [00:12:00] expertise, enough of a distinction? Without saying, okay, here’s the bonus things you can buy. ’cause we’re trying not we just want them to focus on the problem that we’re solving and feel safe and not have all these little glitches that you have to pay for.

[00:12:14] Wesleyne Whittaker: Yeah. So thinking about your ICP, which is entrepreneurs. 

[00:12:18] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:12:18] Wesleyne Whittaker: And I would really say they fall into two buckets. The one who’s I want fast and I only want you, I don’t need other humans. Yeah. And then you have the people who are like, no, I love the group. I love that I wanna be around people. Or it’s a budget thing.

So I don’t think, I think that the way that you have it laid out is perfect. Okay. And again, it’s just like me. I’m listening in my discovery call. Yeah. And that’s why you never go to a discovery call with your deck and all your slides ’cause you don’t know which path.

That somebody needs to go along.

And then when I get to that point, I’m like, okay, this is where, what you need. Okay. And this is what I’m gonna offer you. Okay. So for me, I don’t I would say that I wouldn’t offer both of them, right? 

[00:12:58] Kris Ward: No, I don’t offer both of them. I [00:13:00] just didn’t know when they went down that road. Yeah, that the fact that there wasn’t a lot of places for them to make additional purchases, just because I don’t like that.

[00:13:08] Wesleyne Whittaker: Yeah. No. There is no, with, when working with us, there are very few things that people will ever add on. Okay. Maybe if they need assessments or third party tools, but No, it’s, and that’s a simplicity. Okay. And I think that at times business owners that are in that five to 10 year span, you’ve had some good success, you’ve done some good things.

Yeah. And now you either wanna work a little less or you wanna pivot or you wanna do something. Okay. So really honing in on this is what I like to do. 

[00:13:38] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:13:38] Wesleyne Whittaker: And this is how much time I wanna invest in it. 

[00:13:42] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:13:42] Wesleyne Whittaker: And building pricing based on that the some people do hourly pricing, project pricing, and maybe if that works for your business.

That’s okay. But I really like when you have just retainer packages. 

[00:13:58] Kris Ward: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:13:59] Wesleyne Whittaker: It, and it works [00:14:00] better because maybe it takes you 10 hours, maybe it takes you a hundred hours, but it’s better for your client. Yeah. And it’s the client experience that we’re really thinking about on the end of the road. 

[00:14:09] Kris Ward: First of all, I think we skimmed over the fact that you said what I was doing is perfect.

Everybody write that down. She used the word perfect. Perfect. You get an A plus. A plus, that’s perfect. And not to get deep into that, but I do think most packages should be a package price because even if you’re doing something simple, if somebody comes into my house to gimme a quote on painting, painting a wall.

You’re painting this room, how much does it cost? Per hour. How do I know how hard you’re working? You know what I mean? Why don’t you have done this enough that you can tell me this room should take you one day. If you have to tell me an hour, like that’s just a bad setup. All I don’t, I think hourly rates, it’s just not a good plan.

Okay, so we’re going deep, not wide. What are some other things you think we skim over and misunderstand that when we’re trying to go deep, not wide?

[00:14:54] Wesleyne Whittaker: I think that, at times as service-based businesses, we try to do too [00:15:00] much too quick. And I think that when we are, so people are hiring us for our service, right?

Yeah. And in them hiring us for our service, we are there to fix problems within the business. So what I often see is we start engagements and we’re like doing like 50 million things. Oh, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing that. Instead of this is the deliver for the month of this month, this is what we’re working on.

Yeah. Yeah. And really being good and focused and delivering that thing in excellence. And the thing is, it’s not, and some people say are you taking advantage of your client? No. But it helps make your engagements last longer. Yeah. Because if they see that you’ve really done an excellent job in this area, then they’re really not gonna think about the renewal term.

They’re not gonna think about canceling you or whatever because you focus, you’ve honed in and you’ve done that thing really well. 

[00:15:54] Kris Ward: I think something, what you’re talking about is really what we lean into with streamlined [00:16:00] processes and making sure that anything you do once you can do 50 times and you should be able to do it in less and less time and just efficiency and the business supporting, you should have business that supports your life instead of cons consume it.

So it’s the fundamentals of everything I do. And to your point, what happens though is a lot of people before they work with us, you get a new client, you get so excited about that new client, they’re like your new, newest, best friend and you onboard them. In a process that’s half put together, just excited.

So you start sending them all this stuff and it’s like they’re your new pen pal. Yeah. And then you’re trying to throw everything at them so they can see that they made a good decision. And so really it’s like the newest client gets your deepest and newest love. And that’s not a process. And it’s also short-lived because then if you get when you get another new client, then they don’t no longer the hot ticket because you’re just trying to impress somebody, like right off the bat you made a good decision.

I want you to love everything we do. And it, it just doesn’t, it can’t be sustainable. So I think it’s, forgive me for using this word, but it’s immature. It’s immature and it [00:17:00] has a shelf life. 

[00:17:01] Wesleyne Whittaker: It does. Yeah. And I really think that when you have, when you onboard new clients, it’s your responsibility as a consultant to lay out what are the list of deliverables like.

Yeah. And be very realistic with your client and with yourself. 

[00:17:17] Speaker 9: Yes. 

[00:17:17] Wesleyne Whittaker: If you lay out the list of deliverables, if you have other people working with you in your organization, they all know what has to be done. Yeah. And they all know because with my team, we have our listed deliverables. There’s somebody on customer success.

She’s checking those things each week. 

[00:17:33] Kris Ward: Yeah, 

[00:17:33] Wesleyne Whittaker: we’re making sure we’re sending the updates to the clients. And this goes back to what I talked about before and having the salad instead of the salad bar. Yeah. Because again, when you have core offering. It’s like a semi homemade kind of cake. I use all these food analogies.

Sorry. So it’s like most of the clients fit into this 70% and that 30% is the customizable stuff. Okay. And so you talk about the processes and [00:18:00] scaling, 

[00:18:00] Kris Ward: here’s the cake. Do you want ice cream or cool whip? 

[00:18:02] Wesleyne Whittaker: Exactly. Okay. Exactly right. And so it helps you as a service-based business because like this is what we offer our clients.

This is what we do really well. And that’s the benefit of niching down, knowing who that ideal client is because divorce attorney. Pretty much are gonna see the need. The same thing, whether they’re in California or they’re in Florida, they’re gonna need the same kind of marketing. 

[00:18:24] Kris Ward: Yeah. Yeah.

And to circle back, I think I just wanna tap into where you talked about having no slide deck. I think aside from the fact I’ll let you explain. I have ideas why I don’t think that’s a great plan. Why do you not like the no slide deck part when you show up? 

[00:18:39] Wesleyne Whittaker: So first meetings, no slides ever. Okay. And I always.

I always say you need at least two calls to close. Okay. The reason that I say no slide decks is because se selling is truly about helping your prospect solve a problem. 

[00:18:56] Kris Ward: Okay? 

[00:18:56] Wesleyne Whittaker: And when you show up with a slide deck, you’re focused on yourself. So you [00:19:00] take your eyes off of the prospect and you focus on your company, your skills, your talents.

Why you’re so amazing in that first meeting. It is to gather information. You should be talking 20% of the time or less. Yeah. Yeah, and just listening to them, and I say two meetings because we don’t email proposals. 

[00:19:17] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:19:17] Wesleyne Whittaker: We present proposals. Okay. And your proposal should be based on what you heard.

Okay. So I heard that you have a problem with consistently putting content out. Your website seems really slow. Going to, with the marketing example, your website seems really slow and you are really curious about getting a into some SEO. So let’s say those are the problems that the person has. So you’re a marketing person, you can do a gazillion different things.

They don’t need to see the gazillion different things that you can do. Yeah. They need to see these are the three problems that you they highlighted, and these are the solutions that you have that you’re going to use to solve those problems. So we connect problems to solution in our proposal deck, [00:20:00] and you can’t do that without having a conversation with them.

[00:20:03] Kris Ward: Okay. So for some of us where we might, let’s say we’ve, I totally agree with everything. Say you should not be doing most of the talking at all. You should be gathering information, it’s all about them, not you. ’cause you, whatever. We could talk about that all day. So we agree on that.

And then in a case where, let’s say we’ve got. In my case, we got individual or group work. It’s not like here’s the two options, here’s the two packages, here’s what it looks like, here’s the involvement when they, and here’s your fit in that case I tend to, I don’t need I agree with you. I’m not emailing a proposal.

First of all, when somebody asks me for that, given the nature of my work, that’s just them being polite to get off the call. It’s that’s fine. I’m not, I am not sitting here like a fool putting a big package together. Just so you can get off this. Quietly that’s fine. We, if you wanna talk more, we can meet again, no problem.

But in my case, I don’t think it’s as itemized and significant as your breakdown. So in the call, if they ask for the price and the package, and it’s going to be, [00:21:00] here’s it. The work is customized. We do meet our clients where they are, so you might, you know it, it’s getting you back time in your schedule and you may be working on a big, you may have no time to be on podcast, or you may know of time, you may have different things you wanna have time for will help get you there.

So that part is customized, but the deliverables are very similar. So in that case, I’ve been comfortable doing it in an hour or do you think there should still be a follow-up call for questions or just whatever? 

[00:21:29] Wesleyne Whittaker: So you do, so if you’re doing an hour now, I would actually encourage you to break that into two 30 minute sessions.

Okay. And do the 30 minute discovery, say, Hey, this has been fantastic, this has been great. And I just would you be open to scheduling another meeting so I can share your customized solution with you? Oh, okay. And and you can do what you’re doing. But again, the key piece, and this is a piece that really increases your close rates.

It’s when they know you’ve heard them, you use their words like I actually have a slide that says [00:22:00] problems or challenges, whatever. I think I say challenges and I literally pull that out of the transcript and they’re like, oh my gosh. That’s right. And I go through them and I say, I just wanna make sure that we’re on the right track.

And they’re like, you got it. Exactly right. But I would also add this, and that, and I’m like, okay, good. Yeah. 

[00:22:16] Kris Ward: Yeah. 

[00:22:16] Wesleyne Whittaker: And so it’s in the process of presenting the proposal, I call it getting the micro. Yes. So do I have your problems highlighted, right? Yes. You have them perfectly. Then you move through and you’re asking them those small questions.

So you get to the investment page and it’s oh yeah, you know what the issues are. I see all these things, like I feel a stress relief already. I’m ready to sign. So that’s why I like to split the discovery and the proposal up because it allows you to take that human element, like you said, it’s about them, and really customize it for them.

And mind you, my slide decks are pretty much 70% the same, but the 30% is based on that discovery call. 

[00:22:59] Kris Ward: Okay. I [00:23:00] do think there, I was gonna tell you there’s some really good points here, but of course you know what you’re doing. So I think it’s ironic sometimes when I have guests on the show and then I say, oh, I think you’re right.

Of course I’m right, bitch. I’m right. But anyhow, I think also two things. One is then. You have time to think about that. You are not dancing on your feet. So they tell you all this stuff and now you’re not just giving a quick shoot from the hip response. And then you’re right. When they see their words, it doesn’t matter.

You take their words off a transcript and put it in slideshow. Suddenly it’s like angels are speaking. Do you, do they ever get, like I get to the end of the half hour and I’m like, okay, great. I’ve got all this information. Do I? Do they ever get frustrated that I’m still not giving them a price and now they have to meet with me again?

[00:23:49] Wesleyne Whittaker: So what I give them a range. Okay. ’cause sometimes they wanna know how much it can be. Yeah. And it’s a ridiculous range. So I’ll say it’s anywhere between 30 [00:24:00] $520,000 a month. Yeah. Just depends on where you fall. Yeah. And they’re like, oh, okay, what? And I was like, if you would just gimme 30 more minutes of your time next week, I’m happy to lay this out for you.

Okay. Most people aren’t at 20,000, most people aren’t at 3,500, but I do say whatever the bottom of your pricing is the low range and then the high end at about 20%, just in case name needs to go over. So that’s the range you give ’em and you give them that range and you give them that because they wanna know are we in the same ballpark?

Yeah. So that’s okay. And if they say no, I don’t want another meeting, that’s fine. Okay. Because that means that they weren’t well qualified or they weren’t ready to make the investment. And that’s okay. 

[00:24:43] Kris Ward: Okay. So they don’t want another meeting. You’re still not gonna give it to them today.

You’re like, we’re meeting again. We’re not buying now. No. What? 

[00:24:49] Wesleyne Whittaker: So I don’t wanna say there are no absolutes. There’s art and science for sales. If they. If they want pricing right then. Yeah. 

And I let people use their own [00:25:00] discretion. Okay. For me, a lower value client is like somebody who just wants a couple sessions of coaching.

’cause I do ad hoc coaching. Okay. So I’m gonna give them pricing in that one meeting because it’s not worth my time. To actually have another meeting with them. Okay. And so I tell them what it is and they usually say yes or no right then and there. Okay. And I’m okay with that. But the thing is, if they say no, it really doesn’t hurt my feelings because that’s not what’s really paying my bills.

So I, it frees my time up to go to the higher value clients and pay work more with them. But if somebody is pushing you really hard for pricing or they’re like, I’m ready to get started today, you say, I know. I know. And I’m so excited. I wanna get started with you. Okay. But just please allow me 30 more minutes because I wanna make sure we’re aligned before we move forward.

[00:25:45] Kris Ward: And I wanna do right by you. I want you to get all the information. Yes. I, you know it, in order to serve you best. I wanna make sure I get everything. Yeah, 

[00:25:54] Wesleyne Whittaker: Exactly like you make it about them. And then again, on the proposal I put their logo on it so [00:26:00] it, they feel it is there.

Yeah. They feel like you spend some time on. 

[00:26:03] Kris Ward: Yeah. Oh, that is very good. I must say, we talk with sales, all the, I think sales, you could never, ever be done learning sales, ever. I don’t care how good you are, how successful the company is, it’s just every, everything in life is sales. How you get a date, how you talk somebody into whatever.

It’s all sales. But I have to say in all this time. I’ve never really heard, I the follow up call is if they have questions or they didn’t buy, Hey, let’s hop on a call next week, just so if few final questions because they didn’t buy. But I do see the value in breaking it up and you are doing, it’s less rushed.

You’re not dancing as fast as you can to nail down this date. So I think there’s, yeah I can really see where that would make a difference in your conversion rate. 

[00:26:47] Wesleyne Whittaker: It absolutely does. And don’t let them leave the call without booking that meeting. Okay. Don’t let them say, oh, I gotta check my calendar.

Nope. Book the next call in that call, right? Okay. Like you need to get it on the calendar and if you can send the calendar invite [00:27:00] right away, but you need to book the next call on that call because you need to get them locked in and you wanna make sure that they are they’re bought in and you tee them up, say, so on our next call, I’m gonna present your customized proposal and your plan so that I can help walk you, so we can walk through the challenges that you’re having.

And I know, and if they say something about oh, I really just wanna know today. You say, we’ve had, you’ve given me so much information and I wanna make sure that we customize your plan specifically for you. So just give me a few days so I can weave all the information, however you wanna say it, but what you’re doing is you’re hand learning how to handle objections. Yeah. And I think that’s another part of sales that a lot of people don’t really think about when we’re in this proposal stage. Like, how do I handle a pricing objection? How do I handle the give me references objection? How do I handle those types of objections?

Yeah. And the way that you handle them. Is in your proposal when you’re presenting [00:28:00] your proposal. So I ask specific questions as I’m going through. So the one about do I have all of the challenges that you feel like you’re facing? Yes. Then you might have a slide that may talk about. And I guess I can give you the breakdown of how I do my proposals.

So first we start with the challenges. Then I have video testimonials from previous clients that I insert right there because I need them to see like what somebody else said. So I play that quick 20 or 30 set second video. Then I’m talking about what the core offering is. 

[00:28:33] Kris Ward: Okay. 

[00:28:34] Wesleyne Whittaker: Then I say, okay, so these are your problems.

These are our core offerings and this is how we’re going to solve those problems. And finally, I have the investment slide. And so as I’m going through each of those slides, I’m asking them questions. I’m making sure that we’re on the same page. When I get to my, where I’m talking about my core offerings, and it’s three to five things max, like three to five.

Service offerings, features, whatever the thing [00:29:00] is. But it doesn’t need to be a whole list, three to five things max. So I’m asking them specific questions. Is this the thing that you feel like you need? Is this resonating with you? Yeah. Does this feel like this is gonna solve your problem? No, not really.

I wasn’t really thinking that I wanted to get on podcasts. I just really wanna include get my exposure up. 

Yeah. Ah, okay. I understand that, but let me explain to you a little bit more about how this podcast pitching thing works, right? Yeah. So you are asking them those questions in the moment, and you’re catching the objections right then.

Okay? You don’t wait until the end when they’re like, no, I’m not ready to move forward. What is it? Oh, you’re too high on price. It’s never priced. It’s something else that we missed. So when we take that time and we slow walk it through the proposal, that’s really how we increase our close rates.

[00:29:49] Kris Ward: Oh my gosh I could talk to you all day. Okay. All right. I am so smart everyone, because I invited her on the show and we got a waiting list and I was just like, Hey, let’s talk. So anyhow, [00:30:00] oh my gosh. Share this episode please with your business buddies. ’cause do not have them bang around this, there’s.

A really great takeaways here, Wesleyne, and we talk about sales all the time, but I really do think you’re right. We, in a very short period of time, we went deep and I’m telling you, listen. Oh my gosh. Okay. I don’t even wanna end. I just wanna keep talking. But we have to end the show. We’re ending the show.

Let’s see if I get her to come back on. We’ll see what we can do. And everyone else. Thank you again, Wesley. Thank you so much, and we’ll see everyone else in the next Oh no. See, I’m so distracted. I’m thinking about sales. I’m like, this isn’t right. I always say to the, I say, where can people find more of your brilliance after all the goods you gave us?

I’m like, okay, let’s wrap her up, because I’m thinking about sales. I’m not listening to myself talk. Where can people find more of your brilliance? 

[00:30:46] Wesleyne Whittaker: Your sales reset.com. Okay. My book, the Sales Reset It, we have a whole chapter in the book about exactly what we talked about. Okay. Proposals, how to do them, and it is a full guide to selling. So that is the best way to [00:31:00] connect with me. 

[00:31:01] Kris Ward: I’ll be reading that book this weekend for sure. Just all kinds of great stuff. All right, Wesleyne, thank you so much. Everyone else will see you in the next episode.