Finding Success In Sales And Life Being Who You Are With Liz Wendling
True success is rarely about other people. It is about staying who you are despite others telling you who you should be. Liz Wendling is a sales expert and the President of Insight Business Consultants. She works with people who love what they do but hate to sell. And she is very successful at it, all because she was true to herself. While her whole life was full of people telling her to be someone she's not, Liz continued and persevered in the path that speaks most to her inner knowing. In this episode, she joins Chad Burmeister to share her life story and how she helps others figure out who they are and sell in a way that is true to who they are. Tune into this conversation and learn how Liz got started on sales and how the sales business works these days, all the while embracing your true self.
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Finding Success In Sales And Life Being Who You Are With Liz Wendling
I'm here with a friend of mine that's local here in Colorado, Liz Wendling. Liz is also a sales expert on The Sales Experts Channels. That's where we met. I'm so excited because this is a fellow sales extraordinaire and also wants to tell a story of Living A Better Story.
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I’m really excited to have you, Liz, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to talk.
Tell us about your company. What are you doing and working on in life?
I have a sales consulting and sales coaching company. I work with people who love what they do but hate to sell. That's their exact words. They have convinced themselves that all they have to do is talk to people, connect with people and sales will magically fall in their lap. They don't realize it takes a little more work than that to pull people into your world and have strong, powerful conversations with people that eventually move to business. It's not just about chit-chat. There is a process to get people to engage with you and ultimately, do business with you.
They build it and will come model doesn't work all the time.
You have an ideal client profile. Start conversations with people who may or may not need what you have but we are responsible for generating that. If we are waiting for the business to come to us, it's going to be a long wait.
I'm curious because what I like to do on this show is understand where you come from. How did you get from there to here? The best way to do that is to go back to the young age, like 6, 7 or 8 years old. When you woke up in the morning, what were you passionate about?
I was a little Jersey girl. Let's put it that way. I'm a Colorado girl now. I have been here for many years but my little inner Jersey girl is still alive and well. She comes out when I need her. My little six-year-old Jersey girl has loved anything that allowed me to be active and moving. I was a very social, busy and active little kid. I liked everyone on our block. I was friends with everyone up and down the block and every way around. It was never diagnosed but I'm pretty certain that I had ADD or ADHD. It got in the way growing up because I did have some trouble concentrating but little did I know that it would serve me well in my adult life.
My little six-year-old and I close my eyes and think of her. She smiled a lot. In every picture, she was posing and had her hands on her hip. That little part of me is the woman I am now. I am sassy. I do have a lot of energy. I do like to talk to people but there was a portion of my life that I was told that wasn't good enough or, "Can't you be like your sisters? You talk too much. You are too this." I squashed my natural ability to be myself because other people told me that wasn't good to be the way that you are.
That's what I have been discovering having launched Living A Better Story. We now held our second get-together. We call it a retreat and we are renaming it to an intensive because it's twelve-hour days for four days in a row. In all of the different exercises that you do with the group, you start to recognize that we do have a unique fingerprint. It's our responsibility to lean into that, figure out what it is, and then have fun with it.
Sales: This pandemic showed us that things could change on a dime big time. It's who we are at our core that allows us to move with the ship going in the right direction versus off the rails.
To think that I listened to other people tell me I wasn't who I was supposed to be. I listened for many years and probably a few decades. "That's not good enough. You need to be quiet. You need to read more. You need to do this." I kept thinking there was something wrong with me until I permitted myself to do my personal development work, find a church that lit me up and all those things that started pulling back those layers of, "This is that little six-year-old that I used to love so much." You always had so much fun. Piece by piece, layer by layer, I was able to be that little six-year-old in an adult body, tempered with knowledge, insight and all that other stuff that helps to bring those two together.
Founders and CEOs who don't have that level of personality, you can teach a little bit but at the same time, you can also hire someone like Liz who can be exactly the personality that she's meant to be and be a sales leader, sales trainer and salesperson. That's important, too. If you are doing something that's so far out of your comfort zone, it's okay to stretch but at the same time, if it's night and day, sometimes you have to look in the mirror and recognize that.
I do a lot of work with attorneys. Some of them need a few tweaks of the dial for them to show up as their real selves and be comfortable being that human being behind the attorney. Others are like, "Don't do it. I won't do it. I won't even touch the S word." They don't want to sell anything. I can show them a new way and help them see that new way but they have to be willing to walk through that door and use the tools. Some of them say, "I'm going to hire that out." I appreciate that. They know their limit and they are not going to put themselves in a position that they are going to lose business versus win it.
You can do that in unique ways. A percent of the sale, you don't have to write big checks for a base salary. There are 250 million people in the world that are working. Out of that many, you could probably find someone who would be a good fit for that type. The next thing I like to uncover is, is there something that you had to struggle with, like a mountain at that time felt like, "How am I going to get over that thing?" Looking back and you go, "That wasn't so bad. It made me the person that I am." Any of those kinds of struggles that you are comfortable with sharing?
One is to piggyback on what I said, being compared to other people who apparently, doing it better or more right than me. "You’ve got to be quiet. You’ve got to be still. You can't talk so much." All of that, "How am I supposed to be something other than I'm supposed to be?" It was a struggle because when you squash and tamp down who you are, you have lost that inner knowing. If my inner knowing is telling me this is who I am but everyone else is telling me wrong, my rudders were off. I did and got involved in stupid things. I’ve got in a lot of trouble. It was the kind of stuff because I lost the connection with myself. That was a little painful to me when I look back and think, "Did I steer off course?"
The minute I go to that painful memory, I think of gratitude because I'm so grateful that I have that as something I could always look back on where I know when I'm off-kilter. I feel it at the moment when something isn't right because I tuned back into that inner knowing that's always there. It's there for everyone but all my family members tried to beat that out of me in some cases. It's painful but it's a beautiful memory because of who it has made me now. It has made me realize, "I knew all along but I didn't listen to myself." As a little girl, you don't know that you are right. We are not taught to truly listen to our souls and hearts.
There was one person who came to the event this last trip. We do this vision exercise and your purpose. There are four different areas. The arrow was up to the right by this person who is leading the course. The person went back in the room an hour later and was like, "I go into bad places when I think about that." They were like, "I can't be bothered with that kind of thought." They left a blank whiteboard and I was like, "That's your thing. It's sometimes okay to be a creative person and not know what's going to happen tomorrow. If that's where your zone of genius is, then every day, a new white paper unveils and it gets papered out." My son at the end of the event said when we had to recap what it is you picked up of who you are, "I am a book waiting to be written." He was nineteen years old. It was like, "That's perfect." Sometimes you don't know what's next.
We have no idea. This pandemic showed us that things can change on a dime big time. It's who we are at our core that allows us to move with the ship going in the right direction versus off the rails.
To your point about being rudderless, it put my rudders back on the ship to a level where I'm like, "I do have some firm beliefs in life and I'm going to stand by those beliefs."
No one is wrong and right. I ask people to allow me to be who I am and think what I think. I'm happy to listen to someone's opinion but don't tell me I'm wrong for being who I am. I’ve got that enough as a kid. I'm not dealing with it.
Thinking now, whether it's in your day job or things you like to do for fun, what are you passionate about in the work you do or who you hang out with?
Now, I'm constantly speaking, teaching and moving. I'm doing all that stuff in my business for myself. I am a speaker and teacher. I feel like sometimes I'm a preacher. I do that for a living. I'm so passionate about helping people see that sales aren't the way sales used to be. I don't care if you are an attorney, web designer or cake designer for a living. We all have to sell. If we have something that we would like someone to pay us for, there's a process for having to sell your services or products.
I like to take people for who they are, their personality, style, what lights them up, the way they talk and the way they would naturally be in a conversation versus putting them in a one-size-fits-all, "Here's how people sell. Figure it out and make it work." It's getting into the human being, who they are, and what makes them tick because if I can get there, then that's that ripple effect out. If I can help you change your business and you can go out and help other people do the same thing, there's a beautiful ripple effect that happens. I like to be the one who throws the stone to create that ripple.
It's funny. We were talking about the ripple. We were even joking about it. Rich, my CRO, was with us at the event. He said, "It has to be a calm lake to make a ripple. "I was like, "What if it's a rough ocean and you can throw such a big rock in? It makes a ripple." We were having an interesting tug of war with words on that.
No matter what, we can throw that in there and watch it. I do a lot of Zoom calls. Sometimes, it's someone going, "I never thought of that. Could I say it like that? That's exactly how I would talk. How did you get that out of me?" Even that creates that ripple, all the way to someone saying, "Liz, I used everything you taught me and now I have doubled my business." That's the big ripple. My goal is to know that every day, I get to wake up and create those for people, including myself. I get to create my own ripples.
Let's do a sales ripple. On a scale of 1 to 10, with ten being, "I'm ready to sign up now," and one being, "Pound sand. I'm never talking to you again," where are you? The customer is, "I'm a six." What do you think it would take to move from a 6 to a 10 and then they will tell you what the missing gap is? It's so easy to forget that one. I probably haven't used that in a year but now I will.
You want to find out where somebody is at that moment. What I always say in that same situation is, "Let's talk that through. Let's see if something is missing in our conversation that would move you from a 6 to a 10. Is there anything coming to your mind that would help you get there?" It becomes a conversation, not a technique because sometimes salespeople are professionals.
You have to be careful so it doesn't sound gimmicky. Speaking of gimmicks, my good friend, Alice Heiman, who I'm sure you know. She was on a call with us on Zoom and the subject she has been using is, "Should I stay or should I go?" She's getting a 100% reply rate. She will go, "I thought we had some good conversations with this. Should I stay or should I go? I get a 100% reply rate on that."
Sales: Nobody wants to have their base touched. Nobody wants to be followed up on. They want to continue a conversation that they had with you that was strong, robust, and great.
Thanks, Alice. That's a good one.
"Keep it secret," she said. We are not sharing this with the sales audience. We are sharing this with our other audience.
One of my favorites is the F-word. Whenever I talk about the F-word at a conference, I could see eyes open up like, "Where is she going?" It isn't the word you are thinking of. It's a follow-up. People are either doing poor follow-up, no follow-up, too much up follow-up or crappy follow-up. It's bad follow-up all over the place. We are effing people all over the place. "I'm following up, touching base, reaching out." Nobody wants to have their base touched and be followed up on. They want to continue a conversation that they had with you that was strong, robust and great. What I'm teaching my clients is, "No one drops the F-bomb anymore. No more following up, touching base, reaching out and checking in." It doesn't move people off of the needle because everyone on the planet is using those words.
It isn't enough to re-energize a conversation that may have stopped two weeks ago. How do you pick up enough dust to get that person re-energized? It's not a following up email. Some people like following up the word follow-up so much. They put it in their subject line, which further aggravates people because they know what it means. Following up is a code for, "Are you ready to move? Are you going to sign this contract? We talked about doing something. Let's keep this going." There's an inherent force in that language versus using a language that softens the waters and they are okay with re-engaging with you. It doesn't feel like you are pushing. You are stirring things up in a nicer way.
The best reps that I have worked with will come to me as CEO and say, "Chad, I assume you have something interesting in the market now. Would you mind going to this person that we talked to two weeks ago in a sales cycle because they have gone a little bit dark?" I will send something that says, "Liz thought of you recently based on our last dialogue. Have you seen this white paper? Check out page 42." You would have to be extremely specific. It's not just, "I thought you might like this entire white paper."
That's 1995. You nuanced it a little bit and said, "Paragraph two hits the nail on the head of what we were talking about two weeks ago."
Reps can do that, too. You don't have to enroll your manager or the CEO of the company.
I like to start my emails off with, "Bob, in our last conversation or the last time that we met." I call it the rewind technique. "You and I talked about this. We committed to do this. You mentioned that." I take them right back to the scene of what last happened. I'm not just following up because that's flat-out annoying. That's my F-word. I will get off my soapbox.
I probably think you may have a blank stare on this one but we will go do it anyway. What would change everything for you? I think you are living in the lane.
If you asked me this years ago, I would have a dozen answers now. I have never felt more aligned and in love with life more. I am in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing than I have ever felt in my entire life. I feel like COVID was a blessing in my life for a lot of things that happened in my life, the pauses and thoughts it gave me, and the vision it created for me that I can be and do, and have anything I want and I don't have to work my butt off for it. I used to think I had to work 75 to 90 hours a week. Now, I don't. When you are aligned, you work less. That's what's happening for me.
You don't have to make as much. When you don't have to make as much money, then it's funny how it turns out that sometimes you do because you are so aligned.
I knew exactly the kind of person in my head that I wanted to attract into my business and they started showing up. It's as if I unlocked the door and they were already there waiting but I held the key to them coming in. It wasn't until alignment happened where I lined up inner Liz and outer Liz.
Let's pivot to that. You said, "Years ago, if you asked me and it would be twenty different answers." If someone else is reading this and they are out of alignment, is there anything you can consciously put a finger on and say, "Here's what I did and recommend you do?"
I did what I should have done when I was six. Stop listening to everyone out there who says, "You’ve got to do this and that. If you are not on video, you are losing money." If you are the do and I turned it into, "Who do I want to be?" I didn't ask the question, "What do I need to do out there?" First, I said, "Who do I want to be before I go do the do?" I stopped listening to the gurus and the people who pound their fists and say, "You have to do it this way or you are never going to be successful." I said, "I know what I'm doing. I knew at six what I was doing," but everyone else told me I shouldn't be doing that.
It wasn't until I started listening to myself, the biggest girl of all. I'm my biggest guru. That's not to say I don't ask for help when I don't need it. I know when I'm stuck with something. I have a coach on standby with some of those things I need to work through, I'm stuck with something or I can't get over a hurdle. I'm smart enough to know who to go to now, who will give me the answers or help me walk through an answer that normally I would think I had to go out to the world to get that answer.
Was it you who posted on Facebook a picture of a guy with the chain between him and holding another guy with the chain running in the other direction?
I don't think so but I know the one that you are talking about. That's it.
It was like, "You've got to get rid of the old you to get into the new you." I'm thinking about my kids. Both kids will be in college by the end of 2021. I'm thinking like, "That piece of it, what excites me is being in the mountains and skiing." I only go 10 or 12 days a year because I'm here in the mountains or there. What if I was there? Giving up the vicinity of where I am and driving 1.5 hours, there's this, "My parents are here. My brother is here. My kids are here." I started to realize, "My kids would probably come to see me more from college if I was in the mountains." It's not even who you want to be. It's figuring out who you are.
Have you ever heard the term be-do-have?
Yes.
That resonated with me. It's, "Who do I want to be?" That helps me discover exactly the lane I want to be in and what I want to do, then I get to have everything I want to have. They go in that order. You cannot change the order of these. Caveat, you can but you will work hard if you change the order. You will wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, wondering how you are going to pay your mortgage. You will worry constantly about where your next meal is coming from your paycheck. Do it the other way around. Do it in the order it's aligned to be and watch what happens.
I worked with TK Kader from ex-ToutApp, Marketo and then Adobe. Now, he's consulting with people and helping businesses. He does this thing every weekend. He wrote a book called How to Punch the Sunday Jitters in the Face because a lot of people get that, "I'm going into a new week. What am I going to do?" It's a simple little note card that says, "What did I do? What am I going to do?" You can do it on a Sunday afternoon, Monday morning or Friday. If you start looking back to what I did and then to celebrate, you have a little gratitude like, "I signed a $17,000 deal." You go in and say, "What am I going to do?" You fill your calendar with a couple of those strategic points. All of a sudden, at a 52-week point, you have done what you wanted to be by doing like that.
Talk about when someone shows up in that be-do-have, you know it. They have that extra little piece in them that it's like, "I don't know what you've got but I like it. I don't know why I'm so drawn to you but you’ve got something going on." That's when I know I'm aligned when someone says, "We were talking to four other people and then you showed up at the 29th hour. Now, you changed everything." It wasn't because I did anything. It was who I was being in the moment when I was with them asking the kind of questions that made them think. I was just being prepared me. Not a, "Let me just be me." It's a prepared Liz who knows the path that she's on and it's aligned, prepared and being myself.
Let's ask the future-state question. This one is the be-do-have. This is part of the future. If it's three years from now, you are back on podcasts and I say, "Tell me about the last three years," what do you say?
I can't believe the stuff that has happened. I took the business that I had. I created two different programs, one for business owners, one for attorneys, that have allowed me to have my business run on autopilot. I have a house in North Carolina and Colorado. I'm spending time with my family more than ever and enjoying my niece and nephew's baseball games and gymnastics meets. I'm spending time with the people I love so much more than I ever had.
That is the key to all of this. It’s investing time with the people that we love.
I'm going to do so. I haven't seen my family in two years because of the pandemic. My mom, dad and sister all had cancer in 2020. All three of them doing chemo. I couldn't go home and bring anything home to them. I couldn't chance it. They are all in the clear. We have all been cleared. I get to see and hug them for the first time in two years. I can hardly contain myself. I packed my suitcase because I was so excited.
Those are the hard parts. When my son went into the hospital for three weeks, luckily, the day we went to check-in was the day they said, "Now, you can have two visitors." I was like, "Thank you, God." It all turned out well as his healing has come about. The last question is around faith. What role does faith play in your journey in your life?
Sales: Stop listening to other people or gurus on how to be successful. Listen to yourself. You're the biggest guru of all, but that's not to say you don't ask for help when you need it.
It's a big one for me. In the past, it wasn't a big thing for me. It was one of those buckets that were always available. It was always full but I never went anywhere near it. I grew up Catholic and was forced to go to church. It was more of that, "You’ve got to do this and that." I did my part and then I took a big break from church. It was about several years ago when I finally started waking up to my spiritual growth in my faith when I finally committed to, "I want to be the best version of me that I could possibly be." I knew I couldn't do it alone. Even though I had the trust in myself, my heart and my inner being, I knew I needed something else.
For me, it's being able to finally go back to church now and be in a community of people. We wave, hug and get to see each other. We are all like-minded people growing, learning and supporting one another. There's something about, "Did I miss that?" I missed my family and church just as much as knowing that you walk into the doors of the church. It's as if somebody feels like they picked you up and put you in their arms. Corny but true for me. It is a big part of my journey. I pray and meditate every day that I couldn't have a day so powerful, strong, and aligned if I didn't set myself up every morning to get on that path because every morning, we have a choice. I could stay on it or veer off of it.
It's interesting because my back started hurting years ago. I went and played golf. I had to lay down one time in the middle of the course with my dad. I was stretching and he was like, "What are you doing?" He didn't even say, "Do you feel okay?" I was like, "Dad, come on now. I'm hurting here." "I'm in my middle age. What's going on?" It got so bad that finally, I went to a chiropractor. I went to one and they said, "You’ve got to commit to this, not just one and done." I was like, "No." I did three and then I was better. It worked for a year. It was back to golf the next year and it was hurting again. This time, I said, "I'm going to do it right. I'm going to commit to this."
It started two times a week. Now, it's down to one time a week and I can golf again. I can sleep at night and it doesn't hurt my back. I look at it the same way with spirituality. Physical fitness, health like the chiropractor and spiritual fitness. We are launching this app, 77Pray. That's going to cause you to remember that, especially if you are new to praying. You wake up in the morning and say, "It will give you a little buzz on your phone. Did I pray yet? Did I read this Bible verse that's a random verse? Did I pray at the end of the day?" There are some other features like, "I have a prayer for my son." That's what caused me to build this app. Imagine pushing something out that says, "My mom is going through cancer. I could use your prayer support." All of a sudden, 10,000 people say, "I prayed for you last night."
That's beautiful because there's power in numbers and when that energy is being shared.
It worked. When he went into the last day of surgery and his nose went from okay to swelling in seven days. He does the surgery. Seven days in, they start taking the bandages off. You are eagerly waiting like, "Is this going to be okay?" It was like, "All you have is a tiny little scuff on the end of your nose." My prayer was, "Make it so that there's no way to describe this other than a miracle." I teased God, "You are not supposed to make him show you those kinds of wacky things."
What a beautiful ask. That is gorgeous and beautiful.
If you are going through tough times in life, sometimes all you’ve got to do is pray about it.
That was all I can do. They were in North Carolina and I was here. It turned out to be two years away from being able to be in their presence. Every day, they’ve got the energy of me here and I know it made it over to them. I know my thoughts, prayers and wishes got to them.
Liz, it's fabulous talking with you as always. Thanks for coming to the show.
Thank you for making my day. I feel great after talking to you.
Thank you, everybody, for joining the show. If people want to reach you, how can they get in touch with you?
They can go right to my website at LizWendling.com. I also have some books on Amazon if they want to check me out there. Thank you, Chad.
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About Liz Wendling
Liz Wendling combines a rock-solid sales background with a passion for coaching. Her innovative approach will support you in opening doors, closing sales, and building relationships.
Liz is driven by the mantra, It’s not WHAT you sell, it’s HOW you sell that matters. Liz understands the sales challenges that professionals face when selling in today’s competitive environment and shows them how to make a profound difference in their sales approach, language, and process —online and offline.
She is straightforward, practical, and sassy and helps professionals innovate, modernize, and master their sales approach, language, and process. Liz has coached thousands of professionals to build solid business skills, develop a success mindset, exceed their sales expectations, and prosper in any economy.
If you’re looking for inspiration that leads to action, this is where to find it. Liz is known for her energetic programs, presentations, and business-building superpowers that transform professionals into wildly successful sales rock stars!
