Bob Wheeler is a Financial Expert, Motivator, Author of The Money Nerve: Navigating the Emotions of Money. In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Bob offers a simple and effective framework for creating a healthy relationship with money and explains how emotions trigger our financial decisions.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- Bob’s LinkedIn
- Themoneynerve.com
- Book: The Money Nerve: Navigating the Emotions of Money
- Book: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
- Book: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Values, and Spiritual Growth
- Money You Should Ask Podcast
Transcript
Will Barron:
Hi, I’m Will. Welcome to the Salesman podcast. On today’s episode, we’re looking at how you can improve your relationships with money. Our guest is Bob Wheeler. Bob is the author of The Money Nerve. He helps people conquer their money shame and avoid making poor financial decisions by teaching them how emotions can dictate our choices. And with that Bob, welcome to the show.
Bob Wheeler:
Thanks a lot, Will, great to be here.
What’s Your Relationship with Money? · [01:00]
Will Barron:
Great job. This is one of those topics that we’ve had over experts on to talk about in the past, but it’s so important for salespeople to have a healthy relationship with money so that they can have success. Then also, hopefully we can transition to this towards the end of the show, it’s important for salespeople to be able to communicate effectively without emotional baggage when they’re talking about their prospect’s money, whether it’s the actual ownership of cash from the prospect itself or the money that they are, I guess, the company they’re representing called that they’re trying to exchange value or services or products for. People get weird about money pretty quick. Let me ask you this Bob, to get us started, is it likely, in your experience, right, that a majority of the listeners listening to the podcast right now, tens of thousands of salespeople, small business owners and everyone else in between, is it likely that they all have a pretty good relationship with money or is it more likely that we’re all a little bit messed up on this subject?
Bob Wheeler:
Well, unfortunately, I would have to say we’re probably all a little messed up on this subject. It just, but that’s not a bad thing as long as we get conscious about it, but most of us are working from some unconscious beliefs and money blocks.
Money, Emotions, and Why Our Relationship with Money is So Messed Up · [01:40]
Will Barron:
Why is that? If we could start from, if we can pull it all back and start from the beginning, right, are we born, as humans, just with money being a relatively new concept? I don’t know how many tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of years old cash in an exchange of value via a, like a stones, gold, paper notes, whatever it is now, our brain’s just not wired who understand it and we add weird emotions to it? Is it our childhood upbringing? Is it the media? What causes us to be all maybe slightly messed up with our emotions of money?
Bob Wheeler:
I mean, it might be all of that, but unfortunately, and I’m not blaming parents here. I’m not blaming the parents, but we are part of our upbringing. A lot of our decisions, a lot of our beliefs, a lot of our rules got formed when we were four or five and six years old. If we were shamed about money, if we watched our parents fight about money, if we were told we were greedy or if we were generous, we started to take all that on at four, five and six, and then we never update the information. We just keep working with it as we go into adulthood. We’re still operating with that information we got at four or five and six, which may or may not be helpful or true.
Understanding Our Subconscious Beliefs About Money · [03:00]
Will Barron:
Is this because it’s all based in our subconscious? Because it seems like if someone has an issue of money, and I’m thinking of a specific friend of mine, right, who is just a, excuse, my French, just a cheap bastard, right? He doesn’t want to spend money. He doesn’t really want to earn money. If there’s money and he is bank account, he wants to get rid of it as quick as possible. Now, I know his mom. I know his family. They’re all very like, and this is painting a broad brush strokes here, but they’re all hippies, right? They’re all from a place of, which might be healthy, of, “Hey, I value experiences and friendships as opposed to nice cars, big houses.” But in the modern world, some of that doesn’t quite work because you need a place to live, you need a way to fund your lifestyle kind of thing. So he’s a little bit messed up, but he doesn’t see it, right?
Bob Wheeler:
Right.
Will Barron:
I see it from afar. He doesn’t see it, understand it. I try to have these conversations with him. I need to hire you Bob to come in and sort some of this out for, but do we have these beliefs and are they stored in our subconscious? Is it difficult for us to see them internally? Or if we’re that messed up on it at some point, are we just choosing to live this way?
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, well, we are choosing to live that way until we decide we want to take a look at it. It is certainly not fun. I don’t have people running with joy and glee to explore their money past with me or to look at their debt or to look at their spending habits. It’s not something we get excited about, but we do carry this. We’re going around with our comfort level. So maybe if I’m a hippie-type and I’m comfortable with having no bank over draught, then as soon as I get a $1,000 or 10,000 bucks, I got to spend that money and get back to my comfort level. For some people that might be $50,000 or $100,000 or $2,000. It’s different for all of us, but we tend to go back to what comfortable. It’s not comfortable looking at the money choices that we’ve done that haven’t served us.
The Healthy Money Mindset and How You Can Adopt It · [05:10]
Will Barron:
Is it possible, and I’ve heard this band around, you better to tell me if, if there’s any evidence to support this, but I’ve heard this banded round that most people will earn plus or minus 20% of what their parents did via the conditioning of their parents or the upbringing or the people that they, I guess, if you are minted, you’d go like to go to a private school. You’re spending more time, so those things become normal. And so that’s where if you use, I don’t know, what would be a metaphor, like a thermostat. Your thermostat would be set at a certain point. If you are beyond that, you want to cool it down. If you’re below that you want to heat things back up. Is becoming wealthy as simple as just repositioning that, somehow that thermostat, and then making that your new normal and you’re so uncomfortable until you’re there that you’re going to hustle, you’re going to change things, you’re going to change your mindsets to make that happen?
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, absolutely. I think what it is it’s not just changing the thermostat so that all of a sudden more money comes in. It’s changing the thermostat so that your mindset gets slightly adjusted. If you’re in a mindset of spend, spend, spend, spend, and you adjust it to, “Oh, maybe I should save 20%. Oh, maybe I should start investing a little bit more money. I should save for retirement.” It’s those types of adjustments where we’re shifting our mindset, not necessarily, “Oh yes. I want 10 million more dollars to flow into my bank account.” Certainly that would be nice. It’s also, “am I willing to let that happen? Do I deserve it? Am I going to actually let my money start to work for me?” Instead of, “How can I spend my money so I can live in the moment.”
Will Barron:
I’m going to give you a super practical example now of something that I’ve bought that I feel I don’t deserve. It’s absolutely ludicrous, right? The audience will hopefully enjoy this as well. I’ve been watching a bunch of documentaries and reading books on this principle of minimalism, right? I’m not entirely sold that I need to live in a shack with one toothbrush and one pair of clothes. But I interviewed Greg McKeown, he’s the author of Essentialism as well. I interviewed him with a while back. He drilled this idea into my head of, less but better. That’s what I’m trying to lean into, right?
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah.
Will Barron:
As I say, this example is so, so stupid. I’ve got a cordless here in the office. I’ve got a cordless vacuum cleaner and I’ve got a corded one. I never use the corded one, because it’s a pain in the ass, because there’s cables everywhere and there’s camera equipment everywhere. So I just never use it. The cordless one is just a cheap, crappy thing that doesn’t pick up anything, so that’s pointless as well. Today I spent 500 quid on the best cordless Dyson that there is right or it’s coming tomorrow morning. Immediately, I was like, “Is that too much to spend on a vacuum cleaner?” It doesn’t matter, right? I making enough money that that is just so insignificant. It’s irrelevant. I wouldn’t even notice it coming out my bank account, right?
Bob Wheeler:
Right.
How to Overcome Your Money Guilt · [08:24]
Will Barron:
I still pondered on, “Have I been a sucker buying this cordless vacuum thing from Dyson?” The idea being I’ll have that’ll do the best of both worlds of the other two and I’ll just bin the other two, less stuff in the office, less stuff for me to think about, maintain, all that good stuff. What is the weird feeling that I’m feeling there about this ridiculous purchase? Then perhaps we can scale this up then to actual meaningful purchases that people either are making or holding back in their lives.
Bob Wheeler:
Well, there’s probably a bit of guilt there, right? Even though you’re making a lot of money, it still doesn’t feel, if we’re cheap or we’re tight with our money or there’s a scarcity mindset, who am I to go out and do this thing? There’s people out in the world that are hungry. There are people that are trying to get it together and I’m not going to go out and spend all this money on a vacuum cleaner just so I don’t have to plug it in.
Will Barron:
Do you know what, Bob? As you say that at me, the thing that comes to my mind, right, and this might be useful for the audience, is so I call my dad every day, right? Mom passed away four or five years ago, so I call every day we have quick chat about stuff. He he ran a small business, so we have intelligent conversations about marketing and all that kind stuff. I’m going to tell him tomorrow that I spent 500 quid on Hoover. He’s going to go, “What? Are you crazy?” And so maybe some of the guilt is being somehow tied to this flippant conversation that doesn’t mean anything. My dad’s not bothered about it really, but I know he is going to take the piss out on me tomorrow when I mention it because he wouldn’t spend that much, so maybe is that unravelling some of this further perhaps?
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, absolutely. Because we also either do things to support our parents. Mom and dad, you’re always right. Or we do things in defiance of them. So if you have a great relationship with your dad and now you’ve done something he wouldn’t have done, like maybe you’re not a good boy, maybe you’re not the good son that you thought you were. And so that may come into play, like I’m still a good guy, even though I didn’t follow what you would’ve done.
Will Barron:
And so this is weird though, right? Because it’s meaningless.
Bob Wheeler:
Right.
The Emotions That Dictate Our Relationship with Money · [10:29]
Will Barron:
I don’t know if that is true for me, what you just said, unless it’s so deep in my subconscious that as an adult or maybe I’m just refusing to believe and agree with that. Maybe that is the case. But why do we have this, why do we form a relationship with money, with objects, with spending things, with death? Why is there emotions tied to what is essentially a very logical thing, right, which is numbers on a screen or pieces of paper in our pocket? Why do we tie emotion to all this? Why am I now feeling embarrassed and guilty about sharing this story on the podcast that thousands of thousands of people are going to see, hear and probably email having a laugh about?
“When it comes to money, we’re all judging and we’re all getting judged. And so the question is, can we tolerate the judgement?” Bob Wheeler · [11:45]
Bob Wheeler:
Well, here’s the thing. We start off early, “Hey, I want that present. I want a bicycle.” “You’re greedy. You’re a selfish little kid. You don’t think of other people. If you get good grades, I’ll give you some money. If you misbehave, I’ll disinherit you. If you do this, you can buy my love.” And so we, early on, start attaching values to good, bad, evil, greedy, and so now, “Am I going to be greedy if I ask for this, if I ask for too much? Do I ask for just enough? How do I self advocate?” It becomes this whole mind game of, “Am I good enough? Do I deserve to ask for these things or go for it or do I need to apologise so that other people don’t judge me?” We’re all judging and we’re all getting judged. And so can we tolerate the judgement ?
Will Barron:
Do you know what’s even funny as I think about this? I’ll leave the analogy at this, Bob, cause I’m not sure it’s the best analogy that I’ve ever come up with or analogy, metaphor, wherever this is. I’m going to go back to the house after this from the office. Me Mrs. bought the last Hoover for the house and that’s a Dyson, like V8. Well, I’ve just bought this Dyson V15. I can’t wait to show Emily tomorrow that I’ve bought a way better Hoover for the office than what we’ve got there. As you said then there’s this idea of like comparison, this idea of competition, there’s like a different relationship with me Mrs. misses than what I have with me dad. And so this is incredibly com-, this is more, I didn’t, I didn’t mean to go into the show with this analogy right? But this is, even for someone like myself, who I thought I had some of this nailed, this can go pretty deep, right?
“Here’s the funny thing, many people in relationships are in competition. They’re actually like, I beat you. I got you. I did better. It’s not conscious, but it’s amazing how many times I ask couples, are you on the same team or are you trying to beat each other? I just get this blank look.” – Bob Wheeler · [12:41]
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, absolutely. Here’s the funny thing, so many people in relationships are in competition, right? They’re actually, I beat you. I got you. I did better. It’s not conscious, but it’s amazing how many times I ask couples, are you on the same team or are you trying to beat each other? I just get this blank look.
Will Barron:
Me and my Mrs., we have, I’d say we have a healthy element of competitiveness to our relationship, right?
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah.
Will Barron:
The best way I describe it, I think it was the road less travelled, it’s Scott Peck. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that book.
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, that’s a great book.
Will Barron:
Something’s stood out to me in that, and this totally sidetracked, but I’ll come back to sales in a second. Something that really struck me from that book was this idea of you should choose to be in a relationship as opposed to be in a relationship because the other person fills a whole that you think you have. The reason I bring this up is that I think this translates well to sales. It translates well to your friends, your family. You want to work with customers who value you, being there, as opposed to you solving a problem that’s they’re so desperate to solve, that they desperately need you because then things get a little bit weird and you get people asking for refunds or being overburdened on your time, especially if you’re in a consulting type role.
How to Overcome Your Money Shame · [14:00]
Will Barron:
With that all said, we’ve used me as an example here. I’ve looked silly. I’m happy to do that for the audience. Let’s imagine that 99% of the audience all have been people who’ve worked with you directly, Bob, also have these issues, right?
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah.
Will Barron:
How do we solve them? Let’s get practical about this. Do we need to sit there on a bed, lay back and have someone go into our, Freudian style, go into our subconscious and unravel all these issues that we had with our parents inadvertently saying money grows on trees or all these other notions about cash? Do we need to go through 25 years of therapy to get back to baseline or is there another way to go about doing this?
Bob Wheeler:
Well, you don’t have to spend 25 years exploring this stuff for sure. It does matter that you get a little bit curious about what you’ve done in the past. For me, when I work with people, whether I work with them directly or I’m just working with somebody and giving them some guidance is to just do some journaling, get out a journal, get out a book and start writing down memories that you remember, what did mom and dad say about money, did I grow up with my grandparents, did I grow up in a culture that honoured money or made it bad and just really start to become aware of what’s my money history. You don’t need somebody and you have to lay on a couch and spend hours and hate your parents and all that stuff. But it is important to go, “Oh, that’s where that comes from.”
Bob Wheeler:
Then start to actually listen to the words you use. I’m amazed at how many people to me and say, “Bob, I’m so broke. I can’t afford this. I can’t pay these taxes.” Really? You’ve got three properties that are all making great rental income. You just flew to Europe, for those in America. That’s an expense, right? And so there’s this story that, “Oh my gosh, I’m such a victim. I’m so poor.” The reality is it’s not true. And so the more we can listen to what we’re saying and start to realise, “Oh, I’m making different choices other than saving my money. I’m choosing to spend instead of invest.” And so it takes us out of this story.
Bob Wheeler:
The biggest thing for me is, and I’m an accountant, so cost-benefit. What’s it costing me to stay in my story? What’s the benefit? I don’t have to be big. I don’t have to succeed. I get to stay small, but maybe at the cost of my soul, maybe.
Positive Behaviors and Attitudes About Money You Absolutely Must Have · [16:23]
Will Barron:
Is there always a benefit? Even if that benefit doesn’t serve your long term purpose, is there always a seemingly positive reason behaviour that people have about money?
Bob Wheeler:
Absolutely, and I would say the main one is comfort. I don’t have to feel uncomfortable. I don’t have to step out of my comfort zone. People can’t judge me for doing something different. I don’t have to worry about failure. I get to just stay right here and nobody’s expecting anything different.
Will Barron:
When going to journal. We’re going to investigate our thoughts and beliefs. We’re going to eventually, which things like my dad always says, still says it now, “Money doesn’t grow on trees,” which I don’t take seriously, but maybe there’s some deep, dark Freudian elements to that that’s sabotaging my success moving forward, right? Perhaps we become aware of some of this. We change the narrative. When that crops up in our mind, we immediately try and focus on the fact that we look for evidence that it to be true. If it’s not true, we can discount some of it. We need to understand what the positive reasons are for us having these behaviours, whether that be comfort or we’ve been rejected in the past, and we don’t want to get rejected in the future, whatever it is. Perhaps that gets us back to baseline or perhaps slightly net positive of our beliefs of money.
The Cornerstone of a Positive Money Mindset · [17:45]
Will Barron:
Are there any money, beliefs that we should proactively try and instil in our brains as if we can go through, if we can be our own weird father archetype and programme our own brains or hire a hypnotist or whatever it is, is there anything that we should be programming to ourselves that will enable us to be more successful, invest more and perhaps if people have debts get out of debts and that side of things as well?
Bob Wheeler:
Absolutely, so I would say to be able to spend less than you make, right? Make more than you spend. That is so many of us live beyond our means, and so dialling it back just a little bit and also, which that ties to delayed gratification, learning to experience delayed gratification. If I don’t go out and take this little trip for the weekend or go out to the pub and drink a bunch of drinks, I might have that money for the down payment on a rental property, I might be able to make different choices. And so I think those are two things that are really important.
“Look at your spending, do a budget. Budgets are amazing, even though people cringe at them. Budgets give us a lot of information. If we can do that, we can start to actually set life long goals. For example, I want to have this much in savings. I want to have a retirement plan. I want to have a house. I want to have a house in the country, whatever those things are, so that as we are currently spending today, we can ask ourselves, “Is this spending in line with what I say I want for my future?” – Bob Wheeler · [18:50]
Bob Wheeler:
I would also look at your spending, do a budget. Budgets are amazing, even though people cringe at that. Budgets give us a lot of information. If we can do that, we can start to actually set life long goals. I want to have this much in savings. I want to have a retirement. I want to have a house. I want to have a house in the country, whatever those things are, so that as currently spending today, we can ask ourselves, “Is this spending in line with what I say I want for my future?”
Will Barron:
I’m going to be selfish here for a second, because I think this might be useful for myself, right? We got a training academy. To get the training academy, you got to either speak to myself or one of my colleagues. We see if the users, the students are good fit and if they fit our principles and if we can actually help them or not, we won’t take cash people that we don’t think we can five-six times their take home and the commissions, right? It’s somewhat of a formal process.
Will Barron:
One of the questions we ask is how much do you earn right now? How much do you want to earn? Maybe 50%-60% of the time, the potential student will say, “Well, I earn say $5,000 a month from a base of my commissions. I want to earn $7,000.” Some of this is experience for myself, right? Having done well in B2B sales roles and we’ve had about 2000 people go through our training programme and not every had massive success, but there’s a large majority of them have at least some success, if not tremendous success.
Will Barron:
Every time I go, I’m in my brain going $7,000 a month in a complex B2B sales role that they’re in the right vehicle. They are just about to get the training and mentoring that they need to have everything that a, from a process standpoint to implement. It’s almost like the final step is for them to accept that in that role, they should be earning $300,000 if they put the work in, if they follow the process, and if they can find the one or two points of differentiation in the market and the vibe proposition and things like that, which takes a little bit work and does take efforts. There’s no magic pill that we’re offering or anything like that.
Will Barron:
But then they still come back and say, “Well.” I’ll go, “$7,000, is that your goal? Is that your dream? Is it worth all the stress and the rejection of your sales role to earn that amount?” They’ll go, “I understand. $8,000.” I’m like, “No, it needs to be like double that otherwise don’t work in sales, go and do an office job, go do something else.” Right?
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah.
Will Barron:
I then not struggle because this is part of the sales process, right? I understand what, I’ll tell you what I do. I get them to think where they are, where they want to be, what’s stopping it in from one side to the other. Then I frame it as they’re the hero and I’m going to guide them from one place to the other. They’re Frodo. They’re going to get rid of the ring, but I’m, Gandalf who’s leading them along and helping them through their journey.
Money Shame and How it’s Preventing You From Making a lot of Money · [21:40]
Will Barron:
Is there anything else I can do to help these individuals just open their mind that if they’re in the right role and there’s other people, I guess what I’m saying is I try and give them logical evidence. I’m not sure this is the best approach. There’s other people in your company earning [inaudible 00:21:54] quid a year. Can you do the same? “I guess so.” There’s other people in similar roles, in different companies doing that. There are people working less hours than you earning way more. I can introduce you to this student, this student, this student, there’s this testimonial, there’s this video. I keep giving them logical reasons to change an emotional feeling about what they believe they can achieve in their career. What else should I doing? The logical side of things seems to work, but is there a better approach to this, Bob?
Bob Wheeler:
I would probably, if I was talking to somebody and they said, “Yeah, I want to do $7,000,” and I really wanted to see them say %25,000. I’d probably say to them, “What’s the worst thing about earning five times what you’re currently making? What’s going to happen. What’s going to be so negative about having extra time and being able to pay for things without even thinking about it? What’s going to happen when you start to have all this excess money to do things that you’ve always dreamed about and you have the ability to travel? What are the negatives?”
“If you can actually focus on all the negative things that are going to happen, you’d be surprised at how many negative things people can list out about when something good happens to them.” – Bob Wheeler · [23:18]
Bob Wheeler:
You’ll be surprised. A lot of people will start listing out a negative. My parents are going to judge me. My girlfriend’s going to judge me. I’m going to have to say no to people that ask me for money, because now everybody’s going to say, “Well, Bob’s got more money. Will’s got more money. Let me hit him up.” I might have to draw boundaries. And so if you can actually focus on what are all the negative things going to happen, you’d be surprised at how many negative things people can list out about when something good happens to them.
How to Overcome the Stigma and the Fear of Making a lot of Money · [23:31]
Will Barron:
Then is it a case of squashing each one of those negatives and then that allows them the bandwidth in their brain to see if it’s possible to get to that kind of amount?
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t really say like I squash it. What I would do is I would say, “Is that true? In your experience, if you make more money, do your parents hate you? Do people judge you?” Starting to separate. A lot of times I’ll have people say to me, “I’ve got to get to a certain amount of money or my parents will be really disappointed.” I’ll say to them, “Would you be willing to ask your parents what’s the dollar amount at which point they stop loving you.” They’re like, “What?” Well, you’re pretty sure that there’s a number, so why don’t you ask them and see if that in fact is true because my hunch is your parents are going to love you even if you fail in your eyes. But we’re working off these premises and these assumptions that aren’t necessarily true. And so the more we can get grounded in reality, we can start to let those stories go.
Will Barron:
I love it. Asking that question, “Do you know this to be true? Is there any evidence to support that?” Is there any other, I’m just thinking of very practical for the audience, how they can do this, because we’re going to moving onto how the audience can speak to and communicate with someone who’s struggling with their own beliefs on money in a second. But is there any evidence that’s true? What else did you say? There was a couple of others, Bob, in the like kind of phrases that were mentioned.
Bob Wheeler:
Is it true? Is it yeah, is it true? Is this assumption, like, have I seen this happen to me before? Have I seen it to other people? Really just honing in on what story and what’s actually happening.
Money Story: What it is and How it Affects Your Spending Habits · [25:18]
Will Barron:
Got it, got it. Is that the basic premise of all this, that we can whittle it down? What is a story that you’re telling yourself and other people have told you versus what is the reality and what evidence do you have to support one or the other?
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, absolutely. Then am I willing to let it go?
Will Barron:
Sure. What happens if the …
Bob Wheeler:
Or am I going to stay so attached to my story.
Will Barron:
What happens if they’re not willing to let it go? What happens if they go, “I quite like being skinned. I quite like being poor. I quite like not taking on all this pressure.” I guess that’s almost a positive interaction still, because they can walk away and go, “Oh, I’m choosing to do this.” So maybe they can embrace it and stop moaning about it, right?
“I don’t want people walking around being victims of their circumstance. I want them to know that they chose it.” – Bob Wheeler · [26:20]
Bob Wheeler:
Absolutely. I think for me the biggest thing is at least I’m stop being a victim. If I’m coming from a place of, “Oh, this always happens, this always happens. No, I’m choosing it. Yeah, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do the work. I don’t want to do these things to get what I want. I’m actually content.” Great, blessings. Go in peace. I’m not here to force everybody to want to have more money or to have a more fulfilling life if they’re comfortable. I don’t want people walking around being victims of their circumstance. I want them to know that they chose it.
How to Handle Buyers Who’ve Got a Negative Perception About Spending Money · [26:20]
Will Barron:
Amazing stuff. This is really valuable, this episode, Bob. Okay, so let’s flip the table slightly. What do, and we’ve touched on some of this, I’m sure, in the episode so far, but it’d be useful to get more clarity on this specific scenario. What if we are B2B salesperson, we know our product is going to solve a pain point for a potential customer, we know that they’ve got the budget because it’s not their money. Theirs some middle management or a VP level, director level individual within a medium size organisation say.
Will Barron:
Let’s well, let’s make it real. Sam the salesperson is selling accounting software right into a medium size as organisation. We know that we’re really going to help the CFO, the accountants that are going to be using this tool day in, day out. But the CFO that we’re chatting with just can’t be to give up $30 grand a month of revenue for this tool. They feel weird about it. They feel that they’re all old school. They feel like their accountant should be using ledgers. I’m sure that disappeared 20 years ago, right? But they should be doing this in paper. There should be a paper trail. They’re not ready to move, even though logically, they know that they should do this. What can we do or how do we approach that kind of conversation from a seller’s perspective when we know everything is right, it’s just the prospect, the pinch buyer has some weird beliefs about money that perhaps we can help them deal with?
“If you really believe in the product, there’s nothing to lose by being willing to give it away for 30 days so they can actually get proof personally and actually feel the difference. So, if we really have something that can change somebody’s life, I’m of the belief that you should be willing to lose a little in the short run to make a lot in the long run.” – Bob Wheeler · [28:22]
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah. Well, the first thing I would do is ask them personal questions as to why this feels so uncomfortable spending this kind of money. The numbers support it. Depending on the company, I’m the type of person that would say, “Look, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is. I’ll give you 30 days to try this out and you could tell me you hate it or you love it, because I think at the end of 30 days, you’re going to discover it’s amazing, it’s going to be a game changer.” If I really believe in the product, there’s nothing to lose by willing to give it away for 30 days, so they can actually get proof personally and be able to go, “Oh my God, I actually feel the difference.” I think a lot of times, if we’re just trying to sell snake oil, yeah, maybe we don’t want to do that. But if we really have something that can change somebody’s life, I’m of the belief, I’m willing to lose a little in the short run to make a lot in the long run.
Free Trial Sales Conversations and How to Make Sure the Buyer Gets the Most Out of Your Product or Service · [28:50]
Will Barron:
Got it, so we are going to give them the evidence, right? We’re going to, and then how do we, so let’s say that happens. Let’s say it’s accounting software. Let’s say the issue is that this CFO thinks software is free. It’s instantly replicatable. We shouldn’t be paying $30 grand a month for this. We should be paying $3 grand a month for this. They’re not understanding the value. Again, it’s this, it’s a weird belief that they have about money, as opposed to them not understanding the product that’s holding them back. We give them the demo for 30 days. The individual loves it. How do we reengage that conversation? Is it again going, “Well, there’s the money here, but there’s also the evidence that you’ve told me that you get a lot of value from this.” How do we approach the conversation knowing that now we’ve got evidence to show that the individual’s going to, the business is going to make money from this, there’s going to be a return and investment?
Bob Wheeler:
Well, I mean the first thing I would do before I even give it away for 30 days free is I want to make sure with them, “Are you going to give it a fair shake? Are you just going to do this for 30 days, so you can see if you can get something free or are you actually open to, if I can show you where I can save you a lot of money, are you open to moving forward?” Because if they’re not, if their mindset is still such that it doesn’t matter what you tell me, I’m not going to waste my time. At a certain point, I don’t have to save the whole world. I only need to target people that are open to it and actually, they don’t have to necessarily see it, but they’re open to seeing it through experience.
Bob Wheeler:
I’ve had people, I have a client who she hired a salesperson to bring business into her practise. It doubled the money. It doubled the money, but she was really upset because the person didn’t want to drive to the office and clock in and then drive to the different seminars and the places they were going. And so I said to the client, “This is crazy to me. You’re making subst-, you’re doubling income.” We’re talking, it’s a small business, so they went for making $250 to $500,000, but not bad for a three person for sure office.
Will Barron:
Yeah, for sure.
Bob Wheeler:
I said, “So you’re telling me, you’d rather give up $250,000 to be right about having them clock in.” The client said, “Yeah.” I went, “Okay, well, there’s your answer.” So they let them go. The income dropped. But they’re incredibly happy because they’re following the rules that they set forth instead of being open to the fact that this person was making money for them, but they weren’t doing it in a way that was congruent with the owner. There’s nothing I can do to change that mindset, even though I’m just looking at all the lost revenue, going, “This is mind blowing,” but I couldn’t change their mind. At a certain point, I’m just going to spend my energy where I can actually do some good.
Will Barron:
Sure, so I work with a bunch of small, I’m really passionate about small business owners, right? I love sales. Sales can be systematised a lot easier then it can be to create a startup or a small business. But I love encouraging small business owners, and so I do loads of both free and pay consulting with them. Something that I see time and time again, because a lot of people will get in touch with me when they’ve hired one or two sales people and they want to ramp up the sales people’s performance. What I see so often is the sales person will start killing it, right?
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah.
This is How Business Owners Intentionally Sabotage High-Performing Salespeople · [32:20]
Will Barron:
They’ll be getting close to the take home of the owner of the business. Then the owner of the business starts feeling weird about it, and they try and sabotage the salesperson rather than just give them unlimited, uncapped commissions. As long as it’s hugely profitable, what are you doing? But they get jealous. They get weird. It gets all icky. Sales people typically can feel that, and they’re going, “Why am I sacrificing?” Because obviously the business owners getting equity, the business and the business growth and all that side of things as well. The sales person’s going, “I’m not getting any of that stuff and I’m doing all the job of, doing half the job of a founder, doing all the selling. I’m the one looking silly. They just swoop in at perhaps at the end of the deal and put in a phone call or two.” It’s just such a common phenomenon that I found with small business owners. I’m not crazy, am I? That is bizarre, isn’t it?
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah. It happens a lot. I’ve actually had a few salespeople on my podcast and we’ve talked about this where all of a sudden they start killing it and the owner will come back and say, “Well, we’re going to have to change the commission structure. You’re just doing too well.” What do you mean? You worked it out logically. You’re going to make X amount of money if they do this and they’re doing it. They’re doing it exponentially. Why now do you have to say, “Well, you have to make less because even though you followed all the rules, I don’t feel good about it.” It’s so counterintuitive. It’s so counterintuitive.
Will Barron:
That leads me on to me …
Bob Wheeler:
It happens.
How to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone and Start Making More Money · [34:00]
Will Barron:
… me final question, Bob. We might have already answered this, so I’ll ask you again for the is value in recovering this if we need to. What does a sales person need to do if they, and I know loads of salespeople have been there, they’re successful, they’re doing a $100 grand take home, $200 grand take home, half a million take home, but they’ve been stuck there for four or five years. Colleagues have come and gone, done better or worse. The marketplace, there’s data, there’s evidence that shows that the marketplace is there for them to make more cash, but and maybe they are comfortable, but they don’t want to be comfortable, right?
Bob Wheeler:
Right.
Will Barron:
Do they need to start asking questions, like what are the negatives, if I earn $600 grand and start to …
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah.
Will Barron:
… reverse engineer this? Is there any other questions that they should be asking themselves to not make them hustle hard or a change process, but to open their mindset that other people are earning more, and so they’ve got the same opportunity as anyone else?
Bob Wheeler:
Yeah, absolutely. I would start off with the question of what are my limiting beliefs about making more money. I would really start to look at, “Am I comfortable? What would it take to go to the next level? Why do I believe I can’t get there? Is it because I don’t have the skillset, I don’t have the communication skills?” There might be something there I’ve watched people move away from jobs because the next level required something that they didn’t think they had.
Bob Wheeler:
And so I would really, again, get curious. I think, whether you’re looking at your own beliefs or you’re looking at your potential customer’s beliefs getting curious and creating a relationship, instead of just looking at it transactionally is the key. Whether we’re talking to ourselves and going “Well, that’s stupid. Putting 10% away is just makes sense.” Well, if I don’t understand relationally why I’m so opposed to that, I’m not going to do it. The same thing when I’m trying to sell something, if the person thinks I’m just trying to make a sale, there’s no reason to trust me because I’m just trying to make a sale. But if I actually get to know them, know that they actually like soccer or that they like to go fishing, or I actually get to know them as a person, there might be some room for, “Oh, this is actually a relationship.” And then we can let it grow.
Bob Wheeler:
But until we get aware of what’s that limiting belief, why am I afraid to take it to the next level, you’re not going to go anywhere. I know for me, I had to struggle with, “Well, it’s too easy for me.” I felt guilty charging what I charge because I’m like, “I would do it for free.” I literally would. I like doing accounting. I’m a weirdo. I like doing tax stuff. It seemed too easy, so how can I actually pay lots of money for this when other people struggle really hard to be able to do what I do? It’s this, yeah, it’s, “How can I be paid that kind of money?” I don’t feel so guilty now, but it was very hard raising my rates and saying, “No, this is what I want.” And feeling comfortable being able to say, “This is what it is and if it doesn’t work for you, I’m totally cool with it, but I’m not going to change my parameters to make you feel better about yourself when I know this is a solid working model.”
Will Barron:
I had a mentor help me with this maybe six months ago, from previous to when we were recording the show now, Bob. They just sat me down with our profit and loss and with all the content that we were producing and the expenses that come along with it. They’re like, “What content drives profit?” Not what content do you enjoy doing? Not what content does the team enjoy? What content makes money? It’s the Salesman podcast. It’s selling made simple, the solo version of this podcast, right? It’s the audio podcast. That just slowly, gradually goes up in time, and it’s the YouTube videos. We’re also doing Instagram, blog posts, in the midst of writing a book, all this, just tonnes mess around with TikTok, all this kind of crap, right? He was just like, “Why are you doing it?”
Why The Success Mindset is Not All About Hustle, Hustle, Hustle · [38:00]
Will Barron:
It turns out after going back and forth in a few conversations, I had a similar realisation that what you did. I was like, “Well, it’d be too simple if all I had to do was a couple of podcasts and a couple of videos a week and jump out and do some mentoring calls with our students over at Selling Made Simple Academy.” It’s like, “It’d be too easy.” I didn’t feel like I was putting in enough effort to …
Bob Wheeler:
Right.
Will Barron:
… for, I guess the business growth, but also my take home pay as well. I was like, “Well, this is like a really nice little business to run,” if that’s all I did, I didn’t do all the other crap on top of it that I didn’t like. I broached it with the team. The team were like, “Yeah, are you stupid? Of course, it’s a waste of time and energy. We don’t want to do all this extra crap as well. We want to just do the core content that we can produce high quality content that leads to phone calls getting booked and deals getting made on the back of it.” I was just like, “Why did no one tell me this?” They were happy just to do the work. We had some internal conversations. We had to set some vision and a mission and some principles for the company and get more defined. But it all stemmed from my weird belief pattern of I’ve got to hustle. I’ve got to work hard. I’ve got to stay ahead of everyone in this space.
Bob Wheeler:
Right.
Will Barron:
I feel like we’ve got, with our content, we’ve got a bit of a lead versus some of the competitors, whether it’s production quality or the openness of these conversations versus other sales podcast that out there. The reality was that we don’t need a lead. We’re so different to everyone else out there. People buy the training product because they want to buy from me. As long as I’m still at the company, it’s going to sell and do well. Again, it all stemmed from this weird belief that I need to work really hard, really long hours and make loads of sacrifices to make progress, which to be fair, may have been true five years ago, six years when I started the business, you don’t know what’s going on. But right now, this, this one business coach is like, “You’re just crazy. You’re just burying yourself with work and stress and pressure for no reason.” How common is that kind of experience [inaudible 00:40:09], Bob?
“Success doesn’t have to be complicated. We culturally have decided we’ve got to have some suffering. It’s ridiculous because it’s all self-imposed. We’ve bought into the system that believes success has got to be painful. It can’t be too easy, otherwise it’s just not right.” – Bob Wheeler · [40:33]
Bob Wheeler:
Well, that’s super common. We all have a belief of, we’ve got to put in 40 hours a week at least. It’s got to be a little painful. It can’t just be fun and easy. What are you talking about? Everybody has slaved. There’s a history of you’ve got to really work hard. Yeah, it may be that sometimes you have to work hard. It doesn’t mean you can’t also relax and have a little fun. It doesn’t all have to be complicated. We culturally have decided we’ve got to have some suffering. It’s ridiculous because it’s all self-imposed. We’ve bought into the system that said, “It’s got to be painful. It can’t be too easy because it’s just not right.”
Will Barron:
Yeah, and I think we need to do what you’ve just suggested as well. If you can sit there in front of an Excel spreadsheet or some accounting software for hours on end and the time flies by, you are clearly perfectly wired for that, learning the latest ups and downs and this and thats with accounting and finance. I hate it. I have an external accountant, because I just don’t care. All I want to see is the number in the bank account and then I’ve not got a big tax bill. I want to minimise that tax bill the best I can at the end of the year. I pay handsomely for not to look at taxes and accountants and PNLs or anything else throughout the year, right?
Achieving Success Can Be Easy. Hardships Are All In Your Head · [41:34]
Will Barron:
But I’m perfectly suited to doing these podcast interviews, for doing mentoring at the training programme and for building selling frameworks. I think if you can find the place that you’re wired to be, and you can adjust some of this, I’m sure, and you can hustle and you get through certain elements of this and you create, if you’ve got to breakthrough into management, if you’ve got to go from one type of sales to another type of sales, if you’re in the right place, things can be simple, can’t they? Things can be easy.
Bob Wheeler:
Absolutely. I mean, love what you do, I think is so important and not everybody always has that option. But yeah, if I hated accounting, it’d be painful. It would definitely be painful. But I love it. I’m glad that other people hate it.
Will Barron:
Yep.
Bob Wheeler:
Because it gives me lots of work.
Parting Thoughts · [42:19]
Will Barron:
Yep. Well, that’s the albatross, that’s the market. That’s what I’m all here and hopefully that’s valuable for the audience as well. With that, Bob, tell us about The Money Nerve the book and tell us about the podcast as well, where we can find out more about you.
Bob Wheeler:
Absolutely, so The Money Nerve, it’s a book I wrote, The Money Nerve, because emotions around money are in our body. People have heart attacks, people jump off of buildings, people get really excited when they get a bonus check, they didn’t expect, so The Money Nerve, not nerd, I’m a nerd. Then we have a podcast called Money You Should Ask where we talk with people from all walks of life, a lot of highly successful people that talk about their failures and about their own money journeys so that people can actually hear other stories and realise it’s possible for me too, instead of staying small and saying, “I’m afraid to take the next step because I’m the only exception of the role where I can’t have what I want.” And so check us out. We’re happy to work with people. We’ve got great resources. We just want people to have the fullest life that they want to have if they so choose.
Will Barron:
Amazing stuff. Well, to the book, the podcast, your website, everything else over in the show notes of this episode over salesman.org. With that Bob, genuinely mate, really, I’m going to use this question in the next lot of sales calls that we do, so anyone who’s listening to this show will be laughing the head off if they try and join our training programme and I quiz them on some of this. But I appreciate your insights, mate. I thank you for joining us again on the Salesman podcast.
Bob Wheeler:
Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure.
