The Commission Code for Success

Bank Robbers & Financial Principles: The Story Behind "The Hidden Heist"

• The Commission Code For Success from Sims Training and Consulting, LLC • Season 1 • Episode 21

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Sales expert and author Jeff C West reveals that the true value proposition is how your prospect's life improves through a relationship with you and your company. This customer-focused approach differentiates you from other salespeople and builds lasting business relationships.

• From music education to sales success, Jeff shares his unexpected career journey spanning three decades
• Jeff's "fusion points" technique combines positive emotional experiences with logic to improve prospecting results
• The power of offering referrals first before asking for them creates stronger business relationships
• Preview of "The Hidden Heist," Jeff's upcoming book with Bill Cates teaching essential financial literacy through an engaging bank robbery story
• Business parables create memorable learning experiences by combining emotion with logic
• Sales is a noble profession when focused on helping others achieve their goals
• Practical techniques for shifting focus from selling products to delivering client value
• The importance of using language that pulls prospects toward you rather than pushing them away

Visit jeffcwest.com/thehiddenheist to hear the first chapter of the audiobook. The book is available for pre-order now with a release date of September 16th.


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Speaker 1:

The value proposition is 100%. How does that prospect's life get better when they have a relationship with me and my company? So, in essence, it's their value from your proposition and when you focus your total efforts on their value from your proposition and helping them achieve that value, helping them take advantage of that value, people just love to do business with you because they see you're different than a lot of salespeople they meet.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Commission Code Podcast. We're here to help you overcome the challenges that most of us face in our business. From time to time, you know things like feeling like you're on a plateau and you just can't seem to grow your business. Or maybe feeling overwhelmed, just trying to make ends meet and yet it seems like you're always working. Or maybe you've done quite well for a while, but now nothing seems to be working anymore. Well, we want to help you solve those problems and many more. Our objective is to provide you with practical solutions so you can grow your business and have more time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Speaker 2:

My name is Morris Sims and I'm going to be your host for this show. I've spent years okay, decades really in the corporate world teaching business owners how to increase their revenue and use professional sales processes and run their business more effectively and efficiently. I started my own consulting and training business about seven years ago, I guess, and I'm helping my clients do just exactly that get more revenue, their revenue, and have more time to enjoy the fruits of their labor. But I got to tell you I'm having more fun than ever helping people build successful businesses. So, with all that said, let's get on with today's episode of the Commission Code for your Success.

Speaker 2:

Jeff C West is our guest today on the Commission Code for your Success, and I got to tell you I think I say this every time but I'm really excited about this show. I just love doing this because I learn so much from everybody I get to talk to. But Jeff has got a history in sales and sales management where he knocked the cover off the ball and then he decided to go write books and he's written some outstanding parables that are just wonderful for the business person and I got to tell you it's been amazing getting to know Jeff a little bit and we're going to have a lot of fun here today. Jeff, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1:

Oh, thank you so much, Morris. It is an honor to join you and be around your audience today. Thank you for having me on.

Speaker 2:

Oh, you're more than welcome, man. This is going to be fun. Jeff has written several books too, with friends of mine the first, Streetwise to Saleswise, with my friend Bob Berg, and a new book coming out called the Hidden Heist, with my friend, the referral coach, Bill Cates. And it's just, it's amazing that we wound up getting connected this way. So, Jeff, tell us a little bit about what you do and what you're all about.

Speaker 1:

Certainly. Thank you. I'm one of those people that I went to college and got a degree, so I'd be really great in sales. I have a music degree a bachelor's in music education and a master's in music composition but I ended up in sales immediately after college because the teaching jobs weren't open. I was in the Anniston Alabama area and no teaching jobs were open and I ended up in sales and so I've been in sales pretty much my whole life, for the last 30 plus.

Speaker 1:

I was independent. I was working for myself in the insurance industry, similar to what, obviously, what you've done. I was actually the state manager for a Fortune 500 insurance carrier and I handled the Southeast Texas market for them and we were in supplemental benefits and I usually don't say the name of the company because I'll get people who are competitors and they didn't like the company. But the company was always very good to me. But I did that for 20 years and then, through a mutual acquaintance, as you just mentioned, bob Berg, I had decided that I was going to leave the industry and I had written my first book, the Unexpected Tour Guide, and I sent it to Bob to get his feedback and he was so encouraging, as you know, with the way he is, and so in January of 2014, I began to branch out and speak and write books, and I specialize in business parables.

Speaker 1:

All of them, except for the newest one, have been geared towards sales and sales leadership. This new one is a much more broader audience. It's geared to anyone who's trying to learn how to handle their money better. So it's an excellent story with Bill.

Speaker 2:

And that is such an important topic? Because in today's world, I think financial education is so lacking all over the place. Today's world, I think financial education is so lacking all over the place. I was speaking with one of my clients yesterday and he said you know, I ask people do you have a budget? And 90% of them all say no, how do you live without a budget? I said, well, I don't know. I've been doing it for 68 years, but it's just. Nobody teaches that anymore. You don't teach somebody how to balance a checkbook, but you probably still should.

Speaker 1:

Right, you know, bill, and I often refer to the Hidden Heist as that book that's filled with things that somebody should have taught us in school but nobody ever did.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you'll get a kick out of this, morris. The other parables, like I said, they were sales and sales leadership oriented and so they were always set in some sort of a sales vein, like streetwise to saleswise was set in New Orleans, so there was some music in there. But I have a young man who gets I get him fired very early in the book because he's a little bit too smart for his pants, and then I take him through a learning process, but that's in the insurance industry and that. But in this story, since it's a much broader appeal, it's a parable that teaches the money mindsets we have that hurt us when it comes to building any kind of financial independence or wealth and then some of the right habits to have. But I set this entire story in the middle of a bank robbery. It happens one day in a vault, in a bank, and the entire story takes place there.

Speaker 1:

The first line of the book is everybody on the floor? I'll grab people's attention.

Speaker 2:

That's what I was going to say. How better could you grab my attention than with that? That's fantastic. I love it. I can't wait to see the book, but before I forget to ask when.

Speaker 1:

The book is actually available for pre-order now. The release date is September 16th, and what I'm telling everybody? Look, if you want to kind of get a little taste of it, go to jeffcwestcom. Slash the Hidden Heist no space in between, just the Hidden Heist and up at the very top you'll see that you can listen to the first chapter of the audiobook. Oh, and, the man that we hired to do the audiobook, his name is Jonathan McClain and he's been in movies. He's done well. Over 100 audiobooks won awards. He does an absolutely fantastic job on the book.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's fantastic. I'm going to go listen to that. I'm excited about the fact that we happen to have some mutual acquaintances. How did you meet Bob?

Speaker 1:

Oh, this is a funny story. Back when in my early days in the insurance industry, I was one of those. I was kind of an average district manager up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. I would make my quota one year, miss it the next. I wasn't in danger of getting fired, but I was certainly no superstar either. And in January of 2000, the state manager that covered that area gave us two books. He gave every district manager two books. One was Dr John C Maxwell's, the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, which I know you know, oh yeah. And the second one I also know that you know was a book that I had never heard of the author in my life. The book title was Endless Referrals and the author was Bob Berg. And then what, bob? That book literally actually those two books totally changed the direction of my career. I knew you'd have it in your hands. That is awesome.

Speaker 2:

Of course we're only doing the video, so nobody can see that I just held up the book off of my bookshelf.

Speaker 1:

But go ahead. I'm sorry, oh, that's all right, but that book literally took me from a struggling district manager. But when I began to apply what I learned in Endless Referrals and in Dr Maxwell's book, my district took off. Two years later I was a regional manager in Plano, texas. Two years after that they promoted me to be a state manager down in the Houston area and that's where I finished up my career with that carrier. And for those jumps to happen from mediocre district to state manager in four years was very unheard of. Oh yeah. And during that process I was a regional manager in Plano and at this time the state manager up there was having me come in and talk to every single sales school, tell my story, because it truly was a rags-to-riches kind of story. And in those talks I would always mention endless referrals.

Speaker 1:

Well, one day when I was a regional manager, my administrator buzzes in. She says you have a phone call and I said, oh yeah. She said who's it from? I mean, I said who's it from and she said some guy named Bob Berg. And I thought, right, one of my friends is pulling my leg here because they know I'm such a fan boy when it comes to that book. And so I took the call and I said this is Jeff, and you know Bob's voice. He's got that positive vocal velocity. That is so cool. He said, hi, jeff, this is Bob Berg. And I said Morris, and I quote sure it is buddy. He said, excuse me.

Speaker 2:

It's like hold calling for the president. Yeah, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah right. Well, I said, is this really Bob Burke? And he says, as a matter of fact it is. And I said, well then I had my foot all the way in my mouth up to my knee and so I told him how much endless referrals had meant to me and how I talked about it. He was blown away because that wasn't why he was calling. He was prospecting for speaking gigs with my company and as the years went on I was able to bring him into my organization. I helped him get a lot of gigs around the country and so we just became really good friends and we've been like brothers probably for easily the last 10 or 15 years, I guess. With calling brothers, he's the first person I go to when I've got something about this industry that I want to run by somebody. As a matter of fact, I'm flying down to see him in a couple of weeks in Jupiter.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's fantastic. That is fantastic. Well, I love Bob and I love his stuff. On the first part of this month, in fact on the 6th of August, we published his podcast, and so it's out there, on Spotify or wherever you go If you want to go listen to Bob.

Speaker 1:

he and I had a really nice conversation. Everybody should go, for sure, oh yeah, there's no doubt about it.

Speaker 2:

He's got some great, great concepts that are so practical and easy to use, and that's what makes it worthwhile.

Speaker 1:

Tell me about your work with sales for a minute before we get into the hidden heist. Sure, I started in musical instrument sales, and it was more of an outside keep the school districts happy kind of a position. It really wasn't a sales prospecting position. Did well with that, though, and they moved me to Atlanta, georgia. I left that industry a couple years later because because of the hours were pretty bad and I had a new baby girl and I wanted to see her awake every now and then, and so I ended up in the industrial uniform industry in the.

Speaker 1:

Atlanta Georgia market and that's where I learned cold calling and prospecting and how to have a sales conversation, and I learned some lessons that I still teach to this day when I'm doing workshops for companies. I'll still teach it about calculating the value of a no so that you feel good even when you get a no that kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

Jeff, what do you— From a practical standpoint, when you're talking to someone in sales or an entrepreneur or a business owner out there that, as we know, you still have to go out and make sales what, what are some of the basic principles that you hold dear when you're talking with folks like that?

Speaker 1:

The biggest principles that I hold dear. Well, it varies a little bit. In the prospecting portion I teach a concept I call fusion points, which is the intentional combination of positive emotional experiences in the brain with logic, because that's how decisions get made. And if you make that happen, the decision is yes, I'll take the next step, and so I focus on that. But I teach in prospecting rather than what I would consider a traditional cold call that I was raised on. I teach priming the prospecting pump Find out a little bit about your client, send them two or three things either emails or drop it by, depending on how the geography of your sales industry is set up but do something to create two to three positive touches before you ever even ask for that first appointment.

Speaker 1:

And then with each of those touches put a little note on there, say hey, I would really like to meet you soon. Please expect my call After you've made that third touch. And then you reach out and you actually try to set that first conversation up. The percentages of people that normally would have pushed back say yes, and it's a much higher response rate when they do. It's the process that Bob and I teach, actually in Streetwise to Saleswise, oh wow.

Speaker 1:

And then the other thing that I hold dear to my heart is in the sales conversation that I hold dear to my heart is, in the sales conversation, remember that your focus should never be on your product or your service or what you do or how great your company is.

Speaker 1:

Your focus should always be on the prospect's value proposition. And that's an area that I think many companies, even though they're extremely well-intentioned when it comes to the phrase value proposition, I think they kind of miss the mark because they think, well, we do this and we do that and it's what they do above and beyond the actual sales transaction. But the truth is it has nothing to do with that. The value proposition is 100%. How does that prospect's life get better when they have a relationship with me and my company? So, in essence, it's their value from your proposition. And when you focus your total efforts on their value from your proposition and helping them achieve that value, helping them take advantage of that value, people just love to do business with you because they see you're different than a lot of salespeople they meet.

Speaker 2:

And you are so right, my friend, and that is the. I'm building a sales course and the first three, two or three lessons is all about your job is to help that other person get what they want. Your job is not to go out and make a sale, your job is to help them get what they want. Because, well, jeff, you know, zig taught us that a long time ago. Yes, he did.

Speaker 1:

Yes, he did you think about it. We get paid, basically like we're professional matchmakers. Our job is to find a prospect who has a legitimate need that they need solved to make their world better. We have a company that has a solution to that, and when we make the match happen, we get paid for being in the middle it doesn't get any better than that.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't. It really doesn't, and it is so hard for folks that have never been in sales to understand that until they experience it. But it is so very, very true. If I walk in worried about paying the mortgage and getting a commission, I'm not going to make a sale mortgage and getting a commission, I'm not going to make a sale.

Speaker 1:

Exactly your prospect will sense that and they will unconsciously even back up from it because they'll feel chased. You know, to this principle we were talking about Bob's book Endless Referrals. I learned a question in that book that I adapted in my industry, because when I was in the insurance industry up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area it was employee benefits related and so I was a business-to-business sales environment and once I read Endless Furls I called one of my accounts and I said I'd like to get about 20 minutes with you if you don't mind. He said sure, he was the owner of a mortgage company in downtown Dallas and I drove to the appointment and I got up there and when we sat down I said look, the first thing I want to do is I want to thank you. So I feed my children by what I do for a living. You've been my client now for three years or whatever it was at the time, and I just want to thank you for that because it's helped me provide for my family and I appreciate you. And he said well, you're welcome. And he said thanks for bringing that up.

Speaker 1:

And I said and now I want to return the favor. He said what do you mean? I said I run into all kinds of prospects, all kinds of people, every single week. I've got existing clients like you. We're prospecting for new accounts. Tell me, what do I need to be asking these people that I run in and that I meet? What do I need to be asking them to know if they're a good referral? I should send your way, and Morris, I'll never forget this.

Speaker 1:

He took off his glasses and he set them aside. He said well, I'll answer your question, but first I want to thank you. And I said what, for I haven't done anything yet. He said you actually have. He said I've been in business 30 years and salespeople are always asking me for referrals. You're the very first to ask me how you could refer business to me. He said thank you for that. And I said well, it's my pleasure. And he told me what I needed to be looking for. I literally already had a couple of contacts in mind.

Speaker 1:

I picked up my cell phone right in front of him and I called one of those contacts, called the first one and ended up calling both, doing exactly the same thing. I said hello to him. I said look, I've got a question to ask you. I've got a friend that's in the mortgage business. I know him, I like him and I trust him and he's doing some things with employers. I think it will be good for you two to meet because it might be productive. But I won't give him your name unless I have your permission. May I do that please? And that both of them said sure. I said all right, well, please expect his call.

Speaker 1:

I hung up, I gave him two referrals on the spot, but what I did? I made a huge fusion point with him because I combined a huge amount of positive emotional context with the logic of what we were doing. But I also demonstrated exactly how he could do the same thing for me in return, which he did. We even started doing little luncheons where he would invite clients and I would invite clients over to his place and we'd do networking there and he and I hosted it. So it was such a huge and I would have never learned that had it not been for Bob, and it's one of the reasons my career took off.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that's amazing. Isn't it incredible how, when you're open to learning and you find some new things and, especially in our business, some new language, because language and words matter, don't they?

Speaker 1:

They really do, because a lot of people in sales especially don't realize that the verbiage they use, the phrases they use, will sometimes push people away from them and you want to pull them toward you. That's why, like when I was talking to I can't remember if we were on the air or if it was before we got on the air, but with a focus on their value from your proposition, yeah, I have seen salespeople ask for that first meeting to explain about their company and introduce the client to the company and all this. And if you do enough of those, you'll set a few appointments, but your percentages are pretty low. But as soon as you learn to ask that prospect, would you be willing to spend about 20 minutes with me to see if you could take advantage of and then you talk about whatever their value from your proposition is. Spend 20 minutes to see if you can take advantage of that.

Speaker 1:

We're doing it for other companies in your area. Because you're focused there, the percentage of people that will say yes to you rise and that's all it sells. It's like I don't want to say it's like gambling, but you're looking to increase the percentages of yeses. Oh, yeah, move that percentage, even a small amount. Oh my gosh, it makes a difference in your income.

Speaker 2:

It really does. It's absolutely amazing how that all comes together In the hidden heist. What are some of the principles that you guys are teaching in there?

Speaker 1:

Well, we start off basically teaching, of course, again wrapped up in the middle of a very tense. It's so funny. I start the story very tense but I told Bill as we were writing, I said but I don't want to leave it tense because in a business parable people, they can take some drama, they can take some good fiction, but you can't leave them there. You've got to, really you've got to play with them a little bit. So I also throw in a bunch of humor. Bob, the endorsement Bob gave us for the book, says think a Netflix thriller meets the only money guide you'll ever need. And in the book one of the lines is it's like the breakfast club meets dog day afternoon, because I want it to be fun and funny, but teach the lessons.

Speaker 1:

But we start off by teaching some mindsets that are wrong about money. You know whether it's a scarcity mindset, where people think money's in a limited supply. Well, it's really not. There's tons of money out there, it's just. But it flows like a river and if you want to take advantage of it you got to jump in the river and float with it. There are different stereotypes that we totally try to blow away when it comes to how people they get views about what it's like, what money is like or what wealthy people are like, from the media and all that. And when's the last time you ever saw a wealthy person in a movie played in a positive light? It just doesn't happen. So we try to bust those myths up as well.

Speaker 1:

But then we also teach some really sound principles about if you want to have a good, solid financial future, how to take advantage of compound interest and growth rates, but how to do certain things. You know simple things Pay yourself first, invest for the future. I mean some really solid principles. The fun thing about this, morris. You know Bill. Well, we took some principles. You know Bill has a huge following in the financial services industry. Tens of thousands of people follow Bill Cates because he's been helping them expand their business for three decades now.

Speaker 1:

Well, bill wanted to branch a little further out from that because he's got some lessons. He really wants to teach people, and it's of all ages, but he really wants the younger adults that never had a chance to learn these things in college or in high school. He wants to teach them things that will make their future better, and so we took his mission in that. And then I wrote the fiction to surround it and it helped us put together a parable that should have a hugely wide appeal. It should be something that can make a difference. I can see parents buying this gift for their young adult children. I can see churches taking the context of it and teaching it. It's got that potential and I'm so proud of Bill and the lessons that he wanted to teach. I really am.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that is so good and you know, wrapping stuff up in a parable. I don't know about the rest of the world, but I just don't think about that until I run across one. But when I do, every time I do, I think of the Greatest Salesman in the World, part one. And two.

Speaker 1:

This is the first parable I ever read. A gentleman named Jack Amberson in Ann Aniston, alabama gave me that book and he's been a dear, dear friend to me ever since. But that was the very first parable that I ever read and I have naturally been drawn to that genre because I can write and I can read and I can learn just typical nonfiction books. I have that ability and I've done it. But when you take a parable it affects people differently and I knew it affected me differently and that's why I kind of went this way.

Speaker 1:

You know it goes back to the concept of fusion points that I teach. When you can combine positive emotional responses in the brain with positive emotional responses in the brain, with the logical responses in the brain, and put those together, people are comfortable taking that next step and moving forward. Well, when you do it in a book, what happens if you can weave the story so well in the book that people really respond to that and teach them something? It takes what would be a normal nonfiction topic or message and it weaves it into a story that the reader will never forget and they'll retain the information, they'll accept the information and it's just such a valuable format, and I remember there was a Harvard business professor years ago that wrote an article that said the parable is dead, and I beg to differ. Matter of fact, I thought seriously about sending him a couple of minds.

Speaker 2:

See, if you think that after you read these buddy, and read the Greatest Salesman, part one and part two and all the rest of Augmandino's books and who moved my cheese. I mean we could go on forever. We've had fun telling stories today, so I'm going to tell one more. When I was a trainer in Little Rock, arkansas, og Mandino, the author of the Greatest Salesman and a whole bunch of other books, was in Camden, arkansas, and I went over and went all the way over there, about an hour or so from Little Rock, and listened to him speak and at the end of his talk he was getting on up in the ears. At that point he said look, I can't stand up anymore, but I'll sit down here.

Speaker 2:

He was on a stage, on an auditorium kind of a thing. He said I'll sit down here and I'll be more than happy to chat with any of you who'd like to come by. And I actually got him to autograph part two for me. And it was just talk about a down-to-earth individual which those are the people that write these kinds of things Very down-to-earth, very practical, very real kind of a guy. And it was just, it was amazing. I just I had to tell a story.

Speaker 1:

What a wonderful memory that is, and it says something about both of you. Number one you had the good common judgment early in your ages to know I need to go hear this man speak. And second, he was that kind of guy. I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but everything I've ever heard about him he was approachable. He was genuinely a good guy. That warms my heart. He wrote a book called the Twelfth Angel that I just absolutely adore.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, it's amazing some of the stuff that he teaches, but we're talking about Bill Cates in your book right now, the Hidden Heist. I know Bill is the referral coach to America. He taught me how to ask for referrals as well as Bob, and when my son got into the business there were a couple of things I bought for him, and Bill's course on tape was one of those. It's just amazing the kind of things that he comes up with and to be able to teach basic financial information. Golly, gee, you guys are doing a service to the world there.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you for saying that. You know how I met Bill was through our common friend, bob Berg. Isn't that funny how his name keeps coming up. Bill had decided he wanted to do a parable and he knew kind of the messaging that he wanted to get out there. And so he called Bob, actually wanting to meet John David Mann. And you know John David Mann and John is actually my writing coach. He's a good friend, a mentor, and he's been my writing coach. He's got a writing program that I've been in for three years. This is the best value I've ever had for any kind of course, I guess in my life. But it was funny. When Bill called Bob he said tell me about John David Mann, the first thing Bob says you can't afford him, but I have another one.

Speaker 1:

I can recommend. I love it. I love it. That's great. We know John wrote the sequel to who Moved my Cheese. He was the lead writer behind the scenes on that. He's written like 40 books, nine New York Times bestsellers, three novels that have been optioned. Now they're in development to make a series out of them on Netflix or whatever. It's just amazing.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's amazing. Well, he and Bob wrote the entire Go-Givers series. Right, right, that is correct, and that, too, is just a critical book for folks to get their hands on.

Speaker 1:

Gets your heart and your business right, doesn't it?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, there's no doubt about it Just like the Greatest Salesman, and it portrays sales in the proper way. Sales is as much a noble profession in this world as being a doctor or a lawyer or anything else out there. It is a noble profession because when we do it right, when you're a professional salesperson, you go out there with that other person's interest number one in your mind. How can I help you get what you want? And that, to me, is the crux of the entire process.

Speaker 1:

Amen, brother, you are exactly right on the money.

Speaker 2:

Jeff, thank you so much for being with me today on the Commission Code for your Success. This has been so much fun.

Speaker 1:

I have enjoyed it. I will tell you, Morris, it has been an absolute pleasure to do this with you. Thank you for having me on. Well, you're more than welcome.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for being here. Well, you're more than welcome. Thank you for being here. Well, that does it for this episode of the Commission Code Podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the commission code to success in your business. Remember, go to MorrisSimscom for more information and in the meantime, hey, have a great week, get out there and meet somebody new, and we'll see you again next time right here on the Commission Code. Best wishes, I'm Morris Sims. You.