Client objections are often viewed as roadblocks, but Jeff West argues they’re one of the best opportunities to build trust and strengthen client relationships. In this episode of the Derrick Kinney Podcast, West joins Derrick Kinney to explain why advisors, attorneys, accountants, and other professionals should rethink the way they respond to resistance during sales conversations.
Drawing on the principles from his book Streetwise to Sales Wise, West shares a practical five-step framework for handling objections with empathy, emotional control, and curiosity. Rather than relying on scripted rebuttals, he explains how asking better questions, uncovering the real concern, and providing thoughtful solutions can turn hesitant prospects into long-term clients and enthusiastic advocates.
Transcript
Derrick Kinney:
Welcome to the Derrick Kinney Podcast on Modern American Advisor. Each week we revisit one of my most valuable conversations to bring advisors practical ideas to grow their businesses, serve their clients and make more money to do more good.
You have a great product or service, but connecting with new clients can feel like hitting a brick wall. So how do you turn those hard “No’s” into enthusiastic “Yes’s?” Well my guest today, Jeff West, specializes in teaching business leaders what to say when clients object to your offer and how to make the sale while building meaningful client relationships. Jeff is also the co-author of the new book Streetwise to Sales Wise alongside my friend Bob Berg. Today, Jeff reveals his five-step formula for addressing client objections. It’s all about showing emotional and empathy, but not in the ways you might expect.
In this episode, Jeff unpacks his five-step strategy to tackle client pushback head on. This isn’t about manipulation. It’s about understanding empathy and addressing the real concerns behind the objections. Jeff will show you how to get to the heart of your future clients’ concerns and respond directly to them. Don’t just close a sale; Jeff’s formula will help you open doors to future opportunities and success. Jeff, welcome to the podcast.
Jeff West:
Thank you so much, Derrick. I am so honored that you asked and I’m so glad to be on the show with you.
Derrick Kinney:
Well, I think what you’re about to share will help our people, many of which are financial advisors, attorneys, CPAs, accountants, anybody who is face to face with their client and they need to stand out, but they often have objections they get from the client, but often they don’t know what to do and, and it can crush the deal. So, we want you to help rescue them from objection fatigue today. So, first question for you, Jeff, why do you say that objections no longer need to be something that you fear?
Jeff West:
You know that’s a great question, Derrick. The answer to that, when you get down to it in short form, is you can work with an objection in such a way that when you’re through, not only does the client get the issue solved, they get their needs met by what you’re providing, but the process when they actually have an objection that you’re able to work through, as Bob and I teach in the book, what happens is you also build a bond with them. You build this relationship that I refer to as a “fusion point,” but you build a bond with them that when you’re through, not only have you solved the issue, they think more of you by how you did it than you ever would have gotten the other way. It’s a perfect way to handle it.
Derrick Kinney:
It’s interesting, I like how you say that because so many people think of an objection as like, oh, suddenly now we’re at battle with each other. It’s you versus me, and I’m not going to be the one going down. But what you’re talking about is the way you handle that actually bridges you two together. It fuses the relationship, and it forms a bond that likely will create even more business opportunities, right?
Jeff West:
Oh, absolutely. They become not your customer for just the short term, but they’ll become your customer for life, and they’ll become a walking ambassador. And it’s because the way you handled it, it set certain things in motion in their brain. The neurology of the brain works in your favor if you do things well, and it sets certain things in motion and it builds that emotional—that bond with you. It’s not that adversity knocks people out, it’s how you handle adversity builds that bond and that’s really what it amounts to.
Derrick Kinney:
So, let’s role play a bit here, Jeff. Let’s say that you want me to buy something and I raise an objection. What would be the first thing that you would say to me to begin to address and overcome that objection?
Jeff West:
Well, the very first thing I teach people, and we teach people in the book, is, number one, control your own emotions. When someone gives an objection at the end of a sales conversation, what’s happening inside your brain is it’s setting off a negative emotion in your brain. It’s a fear of loss. It’s a, you didn’t get the sale done it; that’s happening. That sets off a somatic marker inside your body. You start feeling funny in your chest and your stomach and it’s an uncomfortable feeling. And that’s where that back and forth that you were just referring to is born. It makes you uncomfortable. So, some people immediately throw out a response to it. Back in the old sales training, they used to call it a rebuttal. And the word rebuttal is—its almost as bad as saying, “want to overcome an objection.” Nobody wants to be overcome. You look at the political spectrum today; an objection is like an opinion. And don’t go telling anybody their opinions wrong without expecting some pushback. First thing you do is control your own emotions. You don’t let that feeling make you respond poorly. But then after that, the first thing I would do, Derrick, on any objection is I would empathize with what you’re saying. I would say, you know, I could understand how that might be something Worth considering on your part that, you know, makes perfect sense. Whether it’s the price is high or whatever it might be, that’s perfect sense that it would make you feel that way. The thing after that is then I would ask you some questions to dig a little deeper because okay, most of the time when you get an objection, it’s not a real objection, it’s kind of a surface level thing. They don’t know why, they don’t feel comfortable going forward with you sometimes and they just throw something out. Now granted, there are a lot of legitimate objections. Maybe they don’t have it in the budget or whatever. But for the most part the initial objection you’re getting may very well not be the actual objection. So, I would ask questions. “Well, Derrick, help me see that a little bit from your perspective. You’re saying that, that you know, you need to think about it. Help me see it from your perspective. Is it just do you want some time? Is it that I haven’t covered something that I need to address with you to make sure that you’re comfortable with it?” So, you just dig a little deeper in there and then you walk them through the rest of the process.
Derrick Kinney:
So, I like what you said about really managing your own emotions. Because when a person who is in consultative selling begins to feel like the person isn’t getting the message, they’re not understanding how they’re communicating, it can cause frustration. And the reality is there’s so many non verbals that the prospect picks up on of like hey, this person’s upset with me. And people typically don’t do business with people they think that are upset with them, right?
Jeff West:
You are absolutely correct. You know, this is not your first rodeo, my friend. You understand these things. And what it really amounts to is most sales training through my career in sales—and I’ve done it now I guess 40 something years—it’s built around the idea when it comes to objection is we need to teach our salesforce, we need to teach our financial advisors, we need to teach everybody, “When you hear this, this is what you’re going to say and you’re going to overcome that objection.” And that’s the most—that’s the biggest waste of time and doesn’t work. Not that you don’t need to have some verbiage that you pull from—you do. But it’s really not about all of that. It’s about you being able to keep your emotions in control. So, they’re not—they’re not responding in kind because if you get nervous, they get nervous. If you get angry, they get angry. But if you stay calm and you start trying to understand them better, just the mere fact that you want to understand them better, that you empathize and you give some credibility to their thought process—stop short of agreeing with it if it’s something that you can actually help solve—but at least acknowledging that their feelings matter, what they are experiencing is real, and then asking some questions, making sure you really understand it, then all you really have to do after that is you isolate; make sure there’s no more objections. That’s really the only thing moving forward. Then you recommend your solution and give a little social proof with some others that have had that same issue. And then you usually don’t even have to say, “Are you ready for this?” You usually say, “Well, here’s what we need to do next,” and they’re going to follow along with you because, all of a sudden, they’ve bonded with you.
Derrick Kinney:
And it sounds like they trust you, they know you, and the fact they feel heard and understood.
Jeff West:
Absolutely.
Derrick Kinney:
Whereas so many, I think, unsuccessful people in consultative selling, once they hear that first objection, “Oh, okay, we’re on to the next person,” Or “That’s a no,” but what I’m hearing you say is it’s really part of the process, and it’s really the start of the process. It’s just a matter of asking them, as you said, “Hey, I can see why you feel that way. Tell me more from your perspective why that’s a concern,” and begin to get them to talk about what the issue is in their words.
Jeff West:
Absolutely. And if you ask the right questions, Derrick, just like you talked about there, if you ask the right questions, if you’ve planned ahead, you know where your value is to your potential client, you know what the solutions are, and then you’re finding out about their world to see if it varies. What you’ll find out is if you ask the right questions, they will say what they need to hear, because they know their needs. And one of the points that we make in the book—the book is such a great story, we’re both very proud of the book—but we make, we teach through the story that if it comes out of your mouth as the salesperson or the advisor or the person that’s just stepping up and trying to get other people doing business with them, they’re an entrepreneur, the whole process is, if it comes out of your mouth, you’re in sales; you’re trying to get them to do something. It’s kind of suspect if they don’t already know you, like you, and trust you. But if you ask the right questions and it comes out of their mouth, as my mother used to say back in Georgia,”That’s the gospel truth.” It works. And I never argue with my folks
Derrick Kinney:
Yes, that is so true. I love that. And often it—it requires I would expect then, for many consultative salespeople to throttle their approach back a little bit and give the person some room and space to process and articulate what they’re feeling. I think I find even when I observe people, they ask me to watch them from a training perspective, and I see them start to steamroll the person like “I’m going to over talk you until you say yes.” And as we know, it has the opposite effect that we really want.
Jeff West:
Absolutely. I got one of the highest compliments I’ve ever had the other day, Derrick. I’ll tell you about this. I have two daughters. One is 40. I probably shouldn’t say that on the show. I hope she doesn’t listen. Both my daughters are in their age where they have their own children now, and the daughter I refer to lives in Tennessee and she is an advisor for university up there. They’re always my first two readers on ebook. The way we did this, we took a lot of Bob’s sales training material, a lot of my sales training material, both of our leadership training and weave that throughout the story.
Well, Lindsay, my daughter was—we were on a FaceTime call a couple of days ago. She says, “I so wish, wish that every salesperson and every leader in any situation would do the things that you and Bob talk about in this book.” She says, “Because salespeople get a bad name because they’re not trying to do this and, leaders who aren’t focused on the right way, they—they kill an organization. And I just told her, I said, “Well darling, I’ve known you a long-time kind of—for the number of years plus nine months.” And I said, “And that’s the best compliment you could ever pay me. Thank you.”
Derrick Kinney:
That is a high compliment from daughter to dad. Congratulations on that. Jeff. That says you wrote a really good book when your daughter says that. Now I know that in the book—and I suspect you probably have touched on these in our answers together so far—but you have a really innovative five-step framework on how to handle objections. Would you walk us through those steps?
Jeff West:
Absolutely. Thank you for asking about that. One of the things that I have believed for decades, and I’ve always taught in my sales team—it didn’t matter if I had 10 people on my sales team or 500 on my sales team—I still taught the same principles. And one of them is something I refer to as structured improvisation. You need to know where you’re going to go, but you don’t need to always memorize everything about it because you want to be able to listen to your prospect and adapt based on what they need. And so, the framework of becoming objection proof, it is just amazing in that way. The first step is basically control your emotions like we talked about before. Because if you could control your own emotions, it gives you the opportunity to help your client, to help the prospect. Otherwise you get into a battle.
Derrick Kinney:
Control the emotions is number one. And then probably it sounds like the most important.
Jeff West:
Absolutely. It’s—yes. And you know, I was reading a book by, oh my goodness, I’m drawing a blank. Michael Singer, I believe, and it was called Living Untethered. And he’s talking about how your emotions will hit you. And you can’t stop your emotions from happening, but you can let them pass through you, take some breaths, let them pass through you rather than getting hung up on them and responding or reacting based on them.
So, step one is control the emotions. Step two is to empathize. You’ve got to let the person know that what they’re saying is valid. Even if you don’t necessarily agree with it, it’s real to them. So, you have to empathize, let them know that you understand. And empathy at its core is just your ability to almost vicariously experience what someone else has experienced. And it’s not that you’ll necessarily know exactly how they feel, but you’ll know they feel something, and you’ll be able to work with that and help them with that.
Step three is to ask questions, dig deeper so that you get some real clarity on what they’re expressing to you. That’s where it’s helpful to have your questions kind of pre-planned when you need them.
The next step is to isolate the objection to make sure that it’s just not some surface level thing. A great example of this is, you know, if you’ve got a realtor out there who’s selling a house and it gets down to closing and all of a sudden, the wife or the husband says “We’d like to be a little closer to town.” They’re used to living in a city their whole life, and the process that you take them through, you might ask them when you’re trying to clarify, see if there’s any other issues out there and isolate, you might be asking, “Well, give me your thoughts. And I certainly understand how you might think that. Can you tell me why this feels like it’s too far out? “And then they’re going to go through everything that they’re thinking. Whether they want to be closer to doctors, they want to be closer to movie theaters, restaurants. And then that gives you the opportunity then, especially if you know what your next step will be, to say, “Well, you know, let me ask you this. And this may or may not be enough to make it comfortable for you, but they are building a new development close by. It’s going to have this and that.” You know, kind of talk about all the things, and then that gives them the idea of processing in such a way. Well, this may be good enough, although it may neutralize the whole objection.
Derrick Kinney:
Yes, yes.
Jeff West:
So once you’ve dug into that, then you’ve isolated, make sure that was the only objection. The final step is to give them some social proof and offer your solutions. Sell the solutions that you have ready for them and then give some social proof, preferably if you can, of someone else who had that same experience and how you help them with the situation. And it’s going to vary based on the industry that your audience is in. But that framework itself is huge because it gives you the ability to take you, you start off back—we used to call it in the psychology of sales, you’re really starting off on the opposite sides of the table—but then you go around and you get on their side and you walk them through solutions, and the next thing you know, you’ve got a relationship with a client that later will become a walking ambassador for you.
Derrick Kinney:
Yes, yes. And so many people underestimate the power of your client base as your ultimate salesforce. Now, I’m curious. You said social proof, which really piqued my interest. Can you give me an example, Jeff, of what a social proof example would be?
Jeff West:
Social proof is going to be any kind of a testimonial that you may have from a happy client.
Derrick Kinney:
Okay.
Jeff West:
It may be a letter where they’ve written where how long they’ve worked with you. It would be something where they’ll talk about it. And lots of times, if you’re getting referrals from your clients or you’re getting endorsements basically from your clients, you can kind of guide them. You can say, you know, “One of the common issues that we’re always working with is this, and this worked really well for you. Would you mind addressing that in your endorsement?” And you’ll get a Lot of them that will give you short endorsements. Some will even do it on video. You’ll have all kinds of things that you can get creative with in your tool. Ch. That when your prospective client is concerned with that same issue and you’ve been empathetic, you’ve asked questions, so you make sure you really understand what’s going on, then you’ve isolated the issue, You’ve. You’ve made sure that it was the only thing happening. And then when you turn it around and you offer your solutions and then you give that social proof, someone else saying you’re wonderful is way better than you saying you’re wonderful. And the more creative you can be in that, the better.
Derrick Kinney:
What I love about that is that nobody, for the most part, wants to be the first one to take the risk or make the big decision. But if they know somebody else did and they live to tell about it, people are much more likely to make that big, bold decision. So I love what you’re talking about there. When I think about if I’m hiring someone, I love to hire people who are currently employed with someone else because it tells me someone else already took the risk on them. I’m actually taking less of a risk. I just gained the experience that they had from that other person. So really, really like what you said.
Let me take a bit of a turn here. And if a listener right now could only do one thing to supercharge their career, what would it be?
Jeff West:
You know, the one thing to supercharge your career I would recommend is actually something that I implemented when I was in the insurance industry up in the Dallas Fort Worth area, kind of where you are. And I learned this lesson by the book that I read from Bob Berg, Endless Referrals. And it wasn’t that I did exactly—that book, and Frank Bettger’s How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success, [are] two incredible books that helped me.
But one thing I got from Bob’s book, better than I’d ever had before from anyone else, was the idea that it’s really not about me, it’s about the person I’m visiting with at the time. It’s about how to focus on them. And so, I took that and I went—I started thinking, “Okay, how in the insurance industry,” my clients were all employers and I was involved in their employee benefit program, and so I started asking, “How can I benefit them? What, what do they need?” Here’s exactly what I did from that. I called one of my clients, he owned a mortgage company in Dallas, and I drove down and told him ahead of time. I said, “Hey, I’d like to pick your brain for about 20 minutes. There’s something I’m thinking about, but I want your advice.” They said, “Sure, come on down.” And when I got there, the first thing I said to him, “First thing I want to do is thank you.” And I said, “I feed my family by what I do for a living. I pay for my kids’ clothes, I do all this, I do all that by what I do in the employee benefit arena. And you’re one of my clients, so you’re helping me do that, so thank you.” And they said, “Well, you’re welcome.” I said, “Now the second thing I want to do is I want to see if I can return that favor.” And he said, “What?” And I said, “I’m meeting people all the time. I’ve got existing clients, I’m prospecting, I’m coming in contact with a lot of people. Would you mind taking just a minute and tell me what I need to be looking for, what questions I need to be asking them to know if they would be a good referral for me to send your way?”
Derrick Kinney:
Oh, that’s good.
Jeff West:
Oh, oh, Derrick. When I said that, he took his glasses off, he laid them on the table, and he said, “I’m going to answer your question, but I need to tell you something.” And I said, “What?” And he said, “I’ve been in business 30 plus years. I’ve had salespeople ask me for referrals all the time. You are the very first to ask how you could refer business to me. Thank you.”
Derrick Kinney:
Wow, that’s powerful.
Jeff West:
And then, we went, you know, he told me what to look for. We actually set up some lunches at his place of business and invited clients there. It was a lot of fun. But the next thing he did, when he told me what to look for, I already had a couple of clients in mind that I thought might be some good prospects for him.
So, in front of him, sitting at his desk, I picked up my phone, I called one of my contacts and I told him the scenario. I said, “Look, I’ve got a friend in the mortgage industry. He’s starting to do something with employees and their companies. I think you guys would, it’d be good for you to talk, but I didn’t want to give your name out as a referral without touching base with you first. Do you mind if I do that?” Of course, they said no and I said, “Well, great.” I said—I gave him the information. I said, “Look, he’s somebody that I know. I like him, and I’ve been around him enough now more than anything else; I trust him. I think you can, too.” And so, I did that in front of him. I actually set up two referrals, put the ball on the tee so he could do it. And it taught him how to do the same thing for me. Because I love referrals. You love referrals. That’s the best way to get business. If you’ll add that little thing in there where you’re asking the person, “I’d like to give your name as a referral on something,” and you tell them, “I know this person liked them and trust them,” they’re going to say yes almost every time. And when you do that in front of your client, it is huge at teaching them how to return the favor, which he obviously did.
Derrick Kinney:
I love that. You know, so many people make the selling process and growing their business one way. But what I’ve realized, I learned this from a friend, Michael Hyatt, many years ago. He said, “Derrick, remember that everybody’s favorite radio station is WIIFM: What’s in it for me?” And it’s everybody’s station they could listen to all day, every day. And when you play to that station, people want to help you because you’re helping them meet their needs first and then they want to then reciprocate.
Jeff West:
Absolutely. I get a lot of contacts with companies in various industries. One of the things I think a lot of companies misunderstand is the whole idea of a value proposition. They think, “They’re paying us money for this, but we’re doing this and this and this and this and this.” And when I tell them, “I have some news for you; your value proposition has absolutely nothing to do with you. It doesn’t have anything to do with how great your company is. It doesn’t have anything to do with how great your product or your service is. It’s not even about how great your sales team are, and I’m sure they’re wonderful. Your value to your customer is how their world changes. What—how their world gets better, either personal or professional life. Something about that gets better because they’re doing business with you. So, you need to think about your value proposition in a different way. It’s their value from your proposition.” And when you understand that and your phrases that you’re using—everything from, from your first prospecting step all the way through turning that client into a raving ambassador for you—it is all about their value from your proposition.
Derrick Kinney:
I love that, I love that. Well, you know, Jeff, we’ve talked about how our listeners can build their businesses and you’ve given us some tangible ways to do that that now it’s time to talk about money and help our listeners build their wealth. And so a question for you. What’s a money move that you’ve made that your 18-year-old self would be proud of?
Jeff West:
In my case, at 18, my plan was to be a teacher. I have two degrees in music. I was going to be a band director. As a matter of fact, there’s a band director TCU and I—we played in a Dixieland band together. So, I know a lot of people up in your area. But
Derrick Kinney:
What do you play?
Jeff West:
In the Dixieland band I played tuba and string bass, but now I mostly play music or radio on my phone
Derrick Kinney:
Right, that sounds like how I play music as well. That’s great.
Jeff West:
I’m excellent. I can—I actually, I listen to more podcasts than I do when podcasts are books on tape or the audible books, but more than I do music. But I still listen to some music. But at that time, I thought I was going to be, you know, working in the government basically and then as a teaching position. Never make a lot of money. Probably the thing that my 18-year-old self will be most proud of is I had the guts to eventually go self-employed. In my case it was in the insurance industry, but I was an independent contractor all the way through being the state manager for the company that I was with. So that’s probably the number one thing and probably the number two thing I would say would be that I bought rental properties. Rental properties have turned out to be quite a great investment for me and my wife.
Derrick Kinney:
Good, that’s great. I love that. Thanks for sharing that. Hey, what is the biggest financial mistake you’ve ever made?
Jeff West:
This is something your audience will absolutely love because you guys are advising. Well, you guys are advising and you’re doing things for people that, that most of the time, even if they think they can—like at one point I thought I could—they’re probably bad. The worst investment I ever made, I bought Krispy Kreme doughnut stock right before the low carb phase hit. That’s intelligence, buddy. Timing is everything.
Derrick Kinney:
Oh, wow. So what did you learn from that experience?
Jeff West:
To get somebody smarter than me to advise me.
Derrick Kinney:
Okay. That’s always a proven lesson right there.
Jeff West:
My best friend is actually a financial advisor, so I have a heart for the industry so much. And, uh, good for him, he never refers to me with any kind of derogatory terms. Just “Don’t do that again.”
Derrick Kinney:
That’s great. That’s great, right? And what a good lesson for us all. You know, when, when things look shiny, sometimes they become dull without us noticing. That can be a problem.
Jeff West:
Right, right.
Derrick Kinney:
What investment are you most excited about right now?
Jeff West:
The investment I’m most excited about right now for me is what I’ve pretty much done my whole career, Derrick, in every industry that I’ve been in is I’ve never been afraid to invest in me. You know, I’ve, I’ve gone to seminars, I’ve read books, I’ve listened to recordings. I’ve done all that. Back when I still actively working in the insurance industry, I totaled it up at one point and I would tell the new sales school when they came in, I quit counting when I’d spent over $50,000 over the decades on getting better at what I do. And I still do that now.
Bob Burg, my co-author on Streetwise to Salewise, was—he and I were on an interview at one point. I forget exactly which one it was—but he was talking about something and I considered it a high compliment. He said one of the things he’s seen me do is study the craft of writing and—and get better at it. My first book came out in 2014; it’s called The Unexpected Tour Guide. It won an award. It’s a good book. I’m proud of it. But I began to dive into, “Okay, how can I get better?” And one of the things I’m doing right now, that’s one heck of an investment—and if you have anyone in your following that wants to write a book, I can’t recommend this more—Bob Burg’s co-author on the Go Giver series, is a gentleman named John David Mann. Two “Ns” on Mann. Man.
Derrick Kinney:
Oh, yes. Okay.
Jeff West:
Awesome, he’s an awesome individual and he writes the stories. He co-authors with a lot of people and he writes the stories that—using some of their principles—that’s how he and Bob did the Go Giver. They took Endless Referrals and John turned it into a parable and the two of them worked together to do that.
Well, I am actually taking a course from John David Mann and it’s called his Writing Mastery Mentorship. It’s an awesome course. It was so funny,hh would have probably advised me anyway because we’ve become friends, but that course, you know, I spent some more money on my education, but it was so worth it. And the second book won awards too. It was called the Said The Lady with the Blue Hair. But in my opinion, Streetwise is the best thing I’ve written yet. And it’s just.
Derrick Kinney:
Wow.
Jeff West:
And it’s just—it is because of that mentorship with John. It really is.
Derrick Kinney:
Well, I’ve heard the term invest in the S&P or invest in the S and Me, and I love that phrasing there. But yeah, you can’t underestimate thinking of yourself as your most valuable investment. And we know that people that have their own businesses, typically that’s the greatest multiple. You know, why buy a stock or why buy anything else when I can simply grow my business and ultimately exit it for quite a multiplier. So thank you for sharing that, Jeff. You know, as we wrap things up, I want to give you the last word. What’s one thing you want to leave our listeners with today?
Jeff West:
And it be a non-business thing. You’re okay with that?
Derrick Kinney:
It can be anything you want. It’s the last word according to Jeff.
Jeff West:
All right, I’m going to tell you about a lesson that I learned from probably the most important life mentor I’ve ever had.
I actually wrote about him in my first book, the Unexpected Tour Guide. It’s a gentleman named Jack Amberson and he lives in Alabama. And my first job out of college, I worked for him. And when he was asking if I would like to come do the job, it wasn’t my original plan. I was going to need a sales job. I was going to need some sort of a job because my wife needed to finish up college and there weren’t any teaching openings around. And so Jack said, “Come stay with me on spring break, spend a week with me, do the job with me. You’ll know if it’s something you want to do.” So, he had me stay at his house. I ate at his table with him and his family. It was just wonderful.
Well, every morning, probably around six o’ clock or so, his kids would get up, Becky and Ted. And I think Ted was a first grader and Becky was younger. And every morning, Derrick, they would run and jump up in his lap and Jack would give them both a hug and a kiss and he said, “I love you. I am so glad God picked me to be your dad.” Derrick, that changed my life. I didn’t grow up like that. That’s not, that wasn’t how my parents did things. They loved me, they fed me, they did what they needed to do. But because of Jack, I raised my children differently and now they’re raising their grandchildren differently. It broke the cycle. And I love the man. Always will love the man.
Derrick Kinney:
Wow. Thank you for sharing that. That, that’s powerful.
Jeff West:
My pleasure.
Derrick Kinney:
That is powerful. Well, Jeff, your new book, Streetwise to Saleswise with co-author Bob Burg. Tell our listeners how they can pick up a copy and how they can connect with you.
Jeff West:
Thank you so much. The easiest way to get a copy of the book is go to streetwisetosaleswise.com. There, if you’d like, you can download the first couple of chapters for free. And then if you want to order, all the links to order are there. It’s on Audible. The hardback I’d recommend. If you want a hardback, go to Barnes and Noble because their delivery is so much faster than Amazon’s, it’s ridiculous.
But Amazon has the paperback as well as the Kindle version, and you can even get Audible through there as well, and they deliver paperbacks really well. But, so that’s the first thing. If you want to connect with me, jeffcwest.com is a great website for that. And if you’d like to have me work with your team in some way, whether it’s a sales team or leadership coaching or whatever, fusionpoints.com is the best way.
Derrick Kinney:
Okay, so streetwiseto saleswise.com and then fusionpoints.com is another great way to connect with you so well. Jeff, I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of our conversation. You’ve helped a lot of people and you’ve helped me a lot as well. I’ve learned a ton today. Thank you for being on the Good Money podcast.
Jeff West:
My pleasure and my honor. Derrick, thank you for having me on.
Derrick Kinney:
At the end of each podcast, I give you a roadmap to help you get to the top 1% of your feedback. Jeff shared a really powerful story about referrals. Now, people always expect you to ask them for referrals, but how do you turn the table and help send referrals to other professionals? You see, no one expects you to say, “Would you mind taking just a minute and tell me what I need to be looking for to send you a referral?”
Let that be your new sales script. You see, when people know that you’re helping them grow their business, business, it’s the law of reciprocity that makes them want to help you. So many people say, “I’m going to get, get, get, and then I’ll give.” But instead, if you give, give, give, you’ll start to get even more. When you are a true value adder to people, when you’re putting their best interest, solving their problems at the forefront of your mind and they sense that people want to help you. But giving someone else a client first is the best way to build a business relationship where people know you, like you and trust you and they want to help you.
Thanks for listening to the Derrick Kinney: podcast on Modern American Advisor. Do you want to attract more 3 million-to-10-million-dollar clients and grow your business? Then check out successforadvisors.com that’s successforadvisors.com and remember, if you want a business that’s booming, focus on the human. We’ll see you next time.
Jeff West Bio
Jeff West is a sales strategist, speaker, and leadership coach specializing in sales communication, objection handling, and client relationship development. He is the co-author, alongside Bob Burg, of Streetwise to Saleswise, a book that teaches professionals how to navigate client objections through empathy, emotional intelligence, and trust rather than traditional sales rebuttals.
Drawing on decades of experience in sales leadership and business development, West helps financial advisors, attorneys, accountants, entrepreneurs, and other professionals strengthen client relationships, improve sales conversations, and turn objections into opportunities for long-term growth. His practical framework emphasizes emotional control, thoughtful questioning, and genuine connection, enabling professionals to build credibility, earn referrals, and create lasting client loyalty.
