Wes Schaeffer – Do Your Research and Trust Your Gut

Nov 22, 2020

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Wes Schaeffer is The Sales Whisperer®, a pigheaded entrepreneur who 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 books on sales, marketing, and CRMs, host of The Sales Podcast, 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.

“It’s our job to change how we sell to match how the prospect wants to buy.”

Wes Schaeffer

Worst investment ever

Wes, though an avid investor, always doubted his ability to invest on his own. He thought that other people had more knowledge, wisdom, insight, and skills to be better stewards of his money than he was.

Trusting his boss with his money

In 2002, his boss at the time had a lot of real estate properties. He wanted to invest in an apartment complex, and he asked Wes to buy into the investment. Wes just trusted him because he was older, more successful, had made money in the Dotcom run-up in the late 90s, and was a high-flyer salesperson. Wes got his mom and college friend to join in the investment.

Investing from a distance

Wes had no idea how apartment complexes work as he’d never invested in one before and so he left all the responsibilities of running the investment to his boss.

Things then started going sideways, and Wes’s boss was making excuses about why they were losing money in the investment. He then came up with this idea that he made look like it was to Wes’s advantage. He told Wes that he would give him 50% ownership in the apartment to have a bigger write-off and at least maybe recoup some of the losses in taxes.

The con game unfolds

One day Wes got a call from the IRS telling him he owed them $86,000 in late fees. Wes was shocked at how he could be owing money on something that lost money. However, he was informed that the investment had made over $450,000, and now that he was a 50% owner, he had to pay the late fees. His boss had kept all the money and tricked him into taking responsibility for 50% of his taxes.

Deal goes sour

Wes was angry that his boss, a man he respected and trusted, had tricked him into making his worst investment ever. Now he had to reimburse his mom and friend using his own money.

Lessons learned

Trust yourself

Trust that you can do it. The only way to truly trust in yourself is to do thorough research to understand your investment entirely. If you don’t know your investment well, don’t invest in it.

Trust your gut

If you feel something is not right about the investment you’re making or the person you’re working with, take some time, and investigate the issue. Don’t make excuses; trust your gut, and look into it.

Andrew’s takeaways

Start with the simple

Don’t take yourself into complex areas that you don’t understand. There are some simple ways to invest, such as an ETF or a fund that invests in every company. So consider simple investments to kick off your investment venture before you start getting into something complicated.

Be wary of misplaced trust

Finding people to trust is one of the hardest things in business because trust is only built over time.

Monitor your investment

People often get busy and put their investment documents in a drawer and not look at them again. But you need to look at your investments once a month. Just pop in and get the necessary numbers of what’s happening with that investment.

Actionable advice

Invest in yourself and apply what you learn. Don’t just study for the sake of studying. Make good use of what you learn.

No. 1 goal for the next 12 months

Wes’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to make more money this year. He’s tightening up his website and offers. Wes recently got a lot of clarity on how he wants to structure things, who he wants to work with, and will be hitting hard again, for the first time in years.