Welcome to invest in yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. Join the podcast mogul Phil Better as he interviews successful entrepreneurs that make their living in the digital world. Now, let's join your host Phil Better, and a special guest today on Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur Podcast.

Better episode of Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur podcast. I'm, of course, your host with the most Phil Better, and I'm excited to introduce our guest today. They are a dynamic professional with over 20 years of experience working with global corporations, combining scientific knowledge with behavioral based strategies to empower sales teams to excel. Our guest is also an accomplished sales strategist, leadership coach, and thought leader with over 15 years of experience in sales and sales leadership roles. With a passion for personal branding and breaking barriers to success, They have delivered winning sales strategies for b to b organizations known for expertise in sales coaching techniques and building sales enabled cultures. Our guest empowers high performing teams and resolves customer challenges through problem centric training with a focus on leadership development, equality, diversity and inclusion in sales and strategic marketing. They offer valuable insight for achieving sustainable growth. As sought after speaker and consultant, our guest excels in navigating complex sales procedures and delivering exceptional value to their clients.

Please welcome our guest, Weslyn Wood Woodtaker. Weslyn, thank you so much for being here. Thank you

so much for having me. I'm excited to chat with you.

I'm excited to chat with you because I I read up on you. I was like, oh, this is gonna be fun. I'm gonna have a great time. She's gonna tell me everything I need to know to transform my sales roles and are, of course, the audience who are budding entrepreneurs. The may not be so good at sales, so I'm glad we have you, another sales expert to help us here. But before we get into everything, I wanna know from you, who are you, Wesleyan? Tell us.

Who am I? Okay. When I get that question, I go so many different places. I would start with I am a single mom of 2 amazing boys, a 15 year old and a 9 year old. I am a recovering chemist. I started my career in, the petrochemical world, and I moved into sales. And I tell people when I got into sales, I finally figured out what I wanted to be the I grew up because I loved everything about it. And because of my sales and my tenacity for sales, I made a really fast ascent to international sales manager. And from there, I became an entrepreneur because I wanted to focus and help organization build these strong sales cultures with leaders that were thriving and people who were hitting their number each and every month.

I love that. I love that. I love how you're looking to help people that helps the businesses so everybody wins. So you went from like you said, you're a recovering chemist, so you you're smart. You're super smart.

I guess you could say that. Yeah. I can take that. I'll take it.

Yeah. You you you should take that because that's true because chemistry is not that easy. So someone says they're a recovering chemist, either they they never finish, but seeing as how you worked in the petrochemical world, I'm and you did fairly well for yourself, as you, you said, why did you wanna become an entrepreneur? Like what, what, where was that moment that was like, oh, this is the thing I want. I wanna be an entrepreneur.

I was at a place in my career where the last organization I was with, it just wasn't a challenge anymore. Once I got in there, it was hard to get the team together, get them all marching at on the same accord, getting everybody to hang their numbers. And then once they were fixed, I was bored. And I was like, yeah. Maybe I need a new job. So I started looking for a new job, but I'm like, it just seems more boring to me. So I decided I was like, well, let me try to do this. And so I stepped out on my own, and, you know, my entrepreneurial story, I tell people I work full time as a corporate employee and had my business for 9 months, before I decided to step out on my own because I wanted to see, can I do this? A lot of times we think like, yeah, it's glitzy.

It's nice working for yourself, but it's not. It's hard. And I needed to set metrics for myself. I needed to bet on myself. I needed to make sure I had, you know, I'm a single mom at health insurance for my family. Like, I needed to make sure I had those things before I decided, like, I can do this on my own.