Ep280: Wes Schaeffer – Do Your Research and Trust Your Gut

Andrew Stotz 00:03
Had no fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. This episode is sponsored by a Stotz Academy which offers online courses to help investors better manage their stock portfolios, aspiring professionals to learn how to value any company in the world, business leaders to make their companies financially world class and even beginners to implement a simple lifetime investment plan. Go to my worst investment ever.com to get free access to my short course six ways to lose your money and six strategies to win where I share the six lessons I've learned from all of these podcast interviews. Fellow risk takers, this is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz and I'm here with featured guests. Wes Shaffer. Wes, are you ready to rock?

Wes Schaeffer 00:53
I'm ready for you to read. I need you to do all my intros from now on man.

Andrew Stotz 00:58
Well, you know, I am the undisputed worst podcast host, so I'm not sure if you want me to do it, but I will do my best speaking right. Speaking of intros, um, you know, I really sought you out because I felt like I wanted to learn more about you and about what you do. And I'm going to tell the audience about that right now. Wes Shaffer is the sales whisperer, a pigheaded entrepreneur who really rehabilitates salespeople, and trains their managers. He's a reassuringly expensive, copywriter sought after speaker and marketing automation expert. He is the author of 2.5 hmm books on sales, marketing and CRMs host of the sales podcast, which is on episode 462. I just listened to that one this morning, host of the CRM sushi podcast, and he will help you grow by mastering the overlooked truth in life. That to make any sale you must make every sale West, can you take a minute and filling further tidbits about your life?

Wes Schaeffer 02:06
Man, that was perfect. You know what I don't have to add to perfection. But if I must, yeah, I don't put in there got seven kids. And a big old whiskey collection. So if you find some good Thailand whiskey, you want to send it to your favorite guest ever.

02:21
I will gladly accept it.

Andrew Stotz 02:24
Interesting. Now seven kids Hold on. How old are your kids?

Wes Schaeffer 02:32
And I got to think through it.

02:34
All right.

Wes Schaeffer 02:35
I haven't been drinking yet. Good thing. Currently, we have four birthdays in eight days in April. So it can be a tricky question sometimes. Right around that time frame. But at the moment, they are 2322 2018 1512 and six. Okay, you

Andrew Stotz 02:58
get a prize for that. That's very good. Never forget that. And it sounds like this is an expensive month for you. Now I know why you are? April. Yeah, well,

Wes Schaeffer 03:08
we have one October birthday, one November birthday, one February birthday, and four and April plus minus five. But I don't count. So you know, the kids. That's all that matters. Now. I'm way down the food chain Can

Andrew Stotz 03:23
I think about one of my favorite podcasts and podcasts host john Lee Dumas from Entrepreneur on Fire. And He always talks about the baby effect and how all of a sudden, when someone has a baby, they think Oh my God, I've got to get on those phones or I'm not going to be able to feed this kid

03:39
on.

Wes Schaeffer 03:41
And you got mama breathing down your neck. She's like, nice job, get back on the phone, no time to celebrate exactly

Andrew Stotz 03:47
on the phone. It's just like that little bird that's out in the nest out it out on my balcony here. They had their little baby and that baby doesn't care, you know, is chirping for its food every day snack.

Wes Schaeffer 04:01
Just like the bank, pay me pay my pay your mortgage pay your electric bill. Exactly.

Andrew Stotz 04:07
So before we get into the question, I'd really love to just kind of get a breakdown of what you do. I know that you also talk about the sales agenda, which you know, for the listeners out there, you can go to sales agenda.com. And you can download that resource. But I'm just curious, like, you know, for my audience is a lot of financial people and a lot of very serious professional people working really hard, but they need to understand sales. So tell us just a bit about what you do. Yeah, it's

Wes Schaeffer 04:36
you know, I've owned the sales whisperer since 2006. And, you know, ultimately I help professional salespeople, sales managers, entrepreneurs, have fun selling, sell like a professional stop winging it. Stop shooting from the hip. Understand, you know, the yin and the yang, right that there's the art of Selling. But there's also the science of selling. It's, it's very prescriptive, people are very predictable. And when you understand how to conduct yourself when you understand that it's our job to change how we sell to match how the prospect wants to buy, okay? And so it's, it's part theater, right? Because you want to match them to a degree you're not 100% mirroring, but you're, you've got to get, it's a dance, right? So you may have a certain style, but if your partner has a preference, you know, I met my wife at a country bar, right? So I danced the way she wanted to dance because I wanted to keep dancing with her. So you adapt, right to make them comfortable. And then the sale comes really very naturally very easily. And kayo because deep down like my dirty little secret is I hate selling. I don't like to combat a traditional concept of selling and overcoming objections, you got to get five noes for you guessed, it's like, it's just life's too short for all that.

06:21
Hmm.

Andrew Stotz 06:22
You know, you said something that made me think I read one of the most fascinating books I think I read was, Neil Strauss is the game, the the under underground story of the pickup artists and, and what what was kind of amazing about that, where he went underground, you know, studying what pickup artists were teaching about how men pick up women. And what was very fascinating about it was that they were actually quite methodical, it's not like they came up with a different line for every woman that they went out with, they had one line, and they perfected it, they executed it over and over and over until it wasn't a big deal. And I just thought that was so interesting, because, you know, it's already tough enough for someone you know, to approach another person and try to get to know them in one way or another. But then to have to think about what am I going to say and all that. So right. It's interesting that you talked about that, can you just go on a little bit more, I mean, there's the art and the improvisation aspect. But there's also that structure that you're talking about? Well,

Wes Schaeffer 07:26
that's why that's why salespeople get nervous on the phone. So that's why people fear public speaking, because they're winging it. Okay, if you, and I've pulled people out of the audience, you know, got to build up their trust, a little bit. But I'll get someone that's truly afraid of speaking. And I'll just, you know, go A, B, C, D. And I'll wait for them.

07:54
e f, g,

Wes Schaeffer 07:56
h, i, j. k, like, okay, you're doing public speaking right now. Right? you've practiced this so much, you don't have to think about it. Okay. But the problem is, as salespeople, we're typically kind of entrepreneurial, right. And entrepreneurs, especially, we get in trouble. I got so many irons in the fire. I'm an entrepreneur, man, I'm blowing and going, I'm busy. We wear that as a badge of honor. But what happens is really, we, we can't, we don't have the discipline, we don't have the commitment to stick and drill something down until literally, we're bored with it. Because a professional will practice until they can't get it wrong. The rookie practices until they get it right.

08:43
No,

Wes Schaeffer 08:44
so you got to stay at it. And you've got to enjoy that process. You know, because the lines that I use, and I, I'll teach people and myself, I'll give them lines to use in the beginning, not to make them robots, but to help them get some early wins, and build some momentum and then make it their own. Okay, but, but you can deliver all those with your own style, your own flair. And that's why get I had like some bigger goals, bigger causes, you know, maybe, maybe you make as much money as you want. It's not super thrilling, but it frees you up to charity or get involved in Boy Scouts or whatever. Yeah, because you're making it so easy for you and your regular job. So you can look at it that way if it helps to stay motivated and stay after it.

Andrew Stotz 09:35
It's interesting because I teach a course on how to be a great presenter. And I just gave a presentation. That was a 40 minute presentation on zoom to 450 people. And I kept 450 people on that call until the end. And literally the end of q&a. And so many people sent me messages about how amazing that was in these sent me stuff on LinkedIn and all that. And, you know, what they what they didn't realize, and I told him at the end, you know, this 40 minute presentation took tons of hours to create, you know, this is not me, when, as you say, it's me thinking about the structure of what I want to present, what's the, what's the, what's the hook, to how I get them to stay in it? You know, it's, it's all of these different aspects, you know, in the same piece. So that's, that's definitely, you know, what I, what I've learned is that it's not about winging it. And it's not about the idea of, let's say, just trying to get up there. It's about practicing and executing. Now, you may notice my, my, my videos, feed has gone off, because yeah, I'm having trouble with my computer. But hopefully, my audio is still coming through. Okay, so let's continue on. And let's get to our question. Now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one ever goes into their worst investment thinking will be tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it. And then tell us your story. Yeah, I

Wes Schaeffer 11:16
got mentioned, when we were starting off, I mean, there's literally there's a bunch, unfortunately, or fortunately right and, and whatever, then kill you only makes you stronger. Right? So that means I am super strong. And, you know, a bunch of investments I've made in the past. The one thing they all have in common was that I doubted myself. Mm hmm. Right. And I've looked, I thought someone else had more knowledge, more wisdom or insight or whatever, more skills, more abilities to to be a better steward of my money than I was. You know, one in particular. This guy was my boss at the time. And this was back in Cali, late, late 2002. And he lived in a city, you know, four or five hours from me. And he want, he had a lot of real estate, single family homes, so he want to invest in an apartment complex. And so I just trusted him, right? I'm like, well, this guy, he's older, he's more successful. He had made money in the.com run up in the late 90s. He was with a startup cashed out, you know, over a million dollars. And, you know, looking back, he didn't do anything particular with that. Right. He was just the right place. right time. He was a salesman, at a high flyer, literally, it was the number one performer on the NASDAQ, I think in 1999.

Andrew Stotz 12:47
right place, right time,

Wes Schaeffer 12:48
right place, right to come. But we at we were working at that company, we met at a competitor to that company. And then we both went, he went back to that company brought me with him. And they were crashing and burning, which didn't really know it at the time. There was another bad investment. But you know, so I trusted him. You know, I could say it was older, he'd made more money and, and, but he got into something he didn't know about, he'd never had an apartment complex. I didn't know anything about it. It wasn't near me. So I couldn't inspect it. I'm not not. I've got an engineering background from the Air Force Academy. I can get very analytical, I wrote a 700 page book on Infusionsoft. So I can get in the weeds. But I don't like to, especially on like, I'm not going to read a financial report on a apartment complex. I mean, I'm just not going to do it. And so I needed to I should have, right so I trusted him.

13:49
I got

Wes Schaeffer 13:50
my mom involved. I got a friend from college involved. And I remember, like things started, they were going sideways and he's making excuses. And then it's like, it's not going well. And then Hmm. He comes up with this idea. Like we're supposedly being nice. Right where he says he's gonna give me a bigger ownership in the apartment. So I can have a bigger write off, so at least maybe recoup some of the losses in taxes. Then I remember getting a call. By then I moved to California moved to California in late Oh, four. I get a call. I don't even remember now. We Well, we were in this house. We moved into this house in 2010. So it's like 2011 Okay. And the IRS says yeah, I'm you know, Agent such and such. Texarkana, Texas branch, IRS, blah, blah, blah. You know, we've done an audit and blah blah. Yeah, you so not only that, I lose that money I put in there like yeah, no Now you owe us $86,000. late fees, and I'm like, how do I owe money on something that lost money? Right? Oh, no and made, you know, in the last year for so it made like $400,000 and you were 50%? owner? I'm like, I'm like it made it made money. What are you talking about? Right? He's telling me it's a loss and blah, blah, blah. And I was a 10%. Owner now I'm a 50%. Owner. So he lowered his taxes. Hmm. Right. So I got a bigger tax hit. And he kept the money. Now, fortunately, I done that investment through my Roth IRA. So even though I didn't have any earnings, any theoretical earnings were tax free. Right. So that helped, you know, but man that stung, because, you know, I ended up paying my mom back out of my own money, and I paid my friend back out of my own money. Right. And so a lot what I put in a reimburse them. And I got audited by the IRS. So I was a whole lot of fun.

Andrew Stotz 16:12
Wow. So what lessons did you learn from this?

Wes Schaeffer 16:16
Well, like I say, in the beginning, I trust yourself. Right. You know, there's the old adage, if you can't explain it to a fifth grader that you don't know it well enough to invest in it. Mm hmm. If you can't draw it out on a napkin? Oh, well, it's real easy. Are you buying apartment and you've rent charge rent, and you make my no detail that out on a napkin? You know, show me vacancy rates, show me advertising rates? You know, how long does it take to rent it back out? What are the costs to rehab it and restore it? You know, show me all that show me the operations and maintenance, overhead management fees cleaning? Show me all that? You know, you can jot that on a napkin. But if you don't know it well enough. You know, I mean, business putting your money in it?

Andrew Stotz 16:59
Yep. Well, let me let me summarize what I took away. I mean, there's six common mistakes that I've come across through all the interviews, and I'd say this hit on probably three of them. The first one is Mistake number one most common is that people fail to do their own research. And that's this issue you're talking about, about trusting yourself. And it really does raise a tough question. And that is, you know, how if you don't like finance, or it's not your area or investing is not, you know, are you supposed to become an expert? in you know, how to do this? Well, I think the first thing is don't take yourself into complex areas. You know, there are some simple ways to invest, like, let's say, an ETF for a fund that invests in every company in the US. So the s&p 500, as an example, where you can come up with a kind of simple way, before you start to go into something complicated. So keep it simple is kind of an important part that makes research easier than the other mistake, it seems like was this idea of misplaced trust. It's one of the hardest things in, in business, in general is like, who can you trust, and trust really is only built over time. And, you know, it sounds like this guy was probably out more for his own benefit than he was for yours. And then the third one is Mistake number five, which is failed to monitor their investment. And I think this is a huge lesson for all of us is that it's easy for us to get busy and put that piece of paper that document under, you know, in a drawer in a file and not look at it. But truthfully, really, you need to look at your investments once a month and just pop in and get the basic numbers of what's happening with that investment. Those are some of the takeaways that I got from it is anything you'd add to that.

Wes Schaeffer 18:46
Man, those are solid. Yeah, don't trust your gut. I mean, because I had seen this guy in business, and I'd seen him conduct himself in a sleazy manner. I mean, things but some customers like man, whoa, why do you do that? You know, and I just, I ignored it. I gloss it over my excuse. Well, that was business and, and he was with a prior company, and there was a downturn and it really was out of his control. And But still, it was shady and dirty the way did I should have just, you know, said no, you know, and I find out later, he had a peer. He had worked with another company also invested. But he structured a different deal with that guy. That guy was older. He was sad the year. He goshiated a buyout, not a buyout clause. Basically, he was reimbursed out of the proceeds earlier. Right. So he never lost any money. He got his money back at a minimum, then so that I'm learning like, Whoa, dude, like, you know, I thought it was so unfair, you know, but the reality is, it's whatever, what's bears what you can negotiate? Mm hmm. Not negotiated different terms. I just didn't know. Yeah, it also you know, now, now on negotiating returns,

Andrew Stotz 20:02
you know, recently I put out an ad on LinkedIn for salespeople to help me selling, particularly here in Thailand where I am. And I've gotten a lot of people that have applied. I've done some interviews, and I had two people that I interviewed that actually did the same type of business and that was selling forex trading something, whatever it is. And I asked him about it, I said, to both of the people who I interviewed separately, I said, you know, from my understanding, giving advice, and having trading on forex, is only allowed through a commercial bank in Thailand, is what you're doing illegal? And they said, they both said yes. And, and then, you know, there's also a lot of scams going on in the world of forex trading, particularly here in Asia, but you know, on the internet, where people think they're gonna make money, and then what happens is they transfer money into an account, and they never see the money again. So there's a scam aspect of it. And then there's another part where I can teach you how to trade forex, and make millions of dollars and really, that never works out. So I asked, you know, both of them this question, and then at, you know, the question to the listener, and to you, you also was like, What do you do in that case? You know, on the one hand, I need salespeople, these guys are probably pretty good. They're sincere people, they, they've honestly told me that, you know, what they're doing is illegal. And in one, I asked them about it and ask more questions. And one guy said, you know, that's the reason why I'm interviewing with you is I want to get out of this. And, you know, the question is, what do you do? And what, what, I'll tell you what I did, and I basically said, Look, I just have to end the interview here. I appreciate you know, what you're doing, and I appreciate you applying. But the truth is, is that I just can't, you know, I can't even get a hint of this type of behavior into my life. So sorry about that. And good luck. And that was the end. But I'm just curious. Did I make a mistake? Should I give them a chance?

Wes Schaeffer 21:58
I don't know. All in all, I mean, to make your life simple, that was the best thing to do. Yeah. You know, like they say, you can't save every puppy in the pound. Yep. Yep. Right. Because if you interview 10, guys, you know, that give you that answer? You know, there's probably one or two of them that are legit. Mm hmm. You know, good guys. Maybe they were just in a tight spot. Yep. You know, the, and I don't know enough about that business, right?

22:32
It's like,

Wes Schaeffer 22:35
are they teaching people legitimate ways? Maybe it's em, but it's legal somewhere else? So I don't know. You'd have to dig in so much to find that diamond in the rough. Yeah. Like, is it worth your time? You know, the fact they're honest about it?

Andrew Stotz 22:54
That, yeah,

Wes Schaeffer 22:55
it's a very good indicator. Yep. You know, but still, they may be we've been doing some dirty stuff. So

Andrew Stotz 23:04
yeah, and I go back to your story. And when you observe someone doing some dirty stuff, you know, that's a sign and I challenge the listeners out there to when you see someone doing something that you know, is a bit dirty or sleazy. And don't, don't just justify it, stop, stop, and sit down and think about it, you know, very carefully because, you know, what my mother said, and she's my number one listener out there. Hi, mom. And my mother said is that, you know, if they could do it once, what's to say? They wouldn't do it another time, you know, in that, and as a small company, a small entrepreneur, the fact is, I just can't afford to tangle with that. And that's the reason why I did that. So this just reminds me of this idea of trust, and also, observing people's behavior. And trust is built, you know, over time. So based on what you learned from this story, and what you continue to learn what one action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Wes Schaeffer 24:08
Just trust in yourself, right? invest in yourself. And the caveat there is invest with the intention to apply what you learn. Okay, there are a lot of professional students. A friend of mine works with a very well known marketing trainer, author, speaker sells a lot of different programs, and a lot of their returns are unopened, right? So you can't buy a $5 or $500 or $55,000 course or mentorship or mastermind and thank God Cuz you bought it, that you're now better. Um, you know, I'll tell people when they enroll in one of my programs, I asked them to go unsubscribe from at least 10 different things immediately.

Andrew Stotz 25:15
Hmm, that's very interesting.

Wes Schaeffer 25:18
Okay, because dabbling, you're just gonna get confused. All right, it's like, you don't, if you're playing golf, you don't have 10 Golf coaches, you have one. Gosh,

Andrew Stotz 25:30
I love that.

Wes Schaeffer 25:31
Right? You may outgrow that coach. And like when I was learning golf in my 20s, I hire different golf pros and, but I would stick with one for six months to a year, you know, or even longer sometimes I was in the military. So I was moving, didn't have a lot of choice. But here in Southern California, I made a switch one time. I had worked with this one lady for about six months, a lot of lessons and she really helped me. And then a friend of theirs me somebody else in my game and evolved, and I liked his style. And so I switched, but you know, one at a time? Yep. You know, and, and I practice like crazy, right? I go take a lesson. And then I'm on the range, man, I'm applying what they taught me then I'm then I'm playing and I'm playing with friends. You know, we're betting a quarter, you know, but you put a nickel, make a nickel bet. Well, son, it's real. Yep. Okay, and the pressures on then I go back, hey, here's the problem. I, you know, I had an eight iron with a wind above a block. So I could, but I have specifics now I can work on. So don't just go study just to study.

Andrew Stotz 26:38
Just really, really love that. And for the listeners out there, I just want to go over that for a moment. I know that, you know, you're sitting there thinking I want to improve myself in this area, or in that area, I want to take this online course I want to learn such and such. The point is that now basically, what Wes has given us is the challenge, where are you going to get the time, you have to take the time from something else that you're doing. If you truly want to learn from what you're, you know what you're embarking on. And that means you're going to have to take it, find the time to study it, to think about it and then to apply it. And you've got to get the time for some from somewhere else. So I think that's a real real golden nugget. All right, last question. What's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Wes Schaeffer 27:31
Make a crap ton more money this year. I've kind of coasted really last couple years. I've do a lot of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training. I've been training six days a week, two and a half, three hours a day. And I'm just looking around, you know, I've got my fourth kid in college like, yeah, I'm a buckle down. COVID You know, I didn't realize I was living a quarantine life. For the last 12 years. I've worked from home for a long time. Using zoom and everything else guy, you know, since before it was cool. So you know, I'm drilling down, I'm tightening up my own website, my own offers, got a lot of clarity, just really very recently on how I want to structure things who I want to work with. And I'm gonna be hitting hard again, really, for the first time in years. Great, so

28:26
excited, I look forward to it.

Andrew Stotz 28:28
So if the listeners want to, you know, learn more about you get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Wes Schaeffer 28:37
Go to the sales whisperer.com. All my social media links are there kind of free reports free newsletter, the weekly whisper all types of free reports free CRM quiz, I got a free sales calculator there. No, no opt in, they'll help you figure out your activity levels what you need to do your conversion rates. So you know, I'm always putting out content there to, you know, to help people in the world of sales and marketing.

Andrew Stotz 29:07
Fantastic. Fantastic. All right, listeners. There you have it. Another story of laws to keep you winning. Remember to go to my worst investment ever.com to get free access to my short course six ways to lose your money and six strategies to win. As we conclude, Wes, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. On behalf of a Stotz Academy I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

29:38
go sell something.

Andrew Stotz 29:43
And ladies and gentlemen, that's your challenge for the day and that's a wrap on another great story to help us create grow and most importantly protect our wealth fellow risk takers This is your worst podcast hose Andrew Stotz saying. I'll see you on the upside.