A gas leak blew half a duplex apart down the street from Jennifer Dechaine's model home in Alberta. Nobody got hurt, which is the lucky part. Then health and safety and insurance made her look at the charred thing for six weeks while she was trying to sell houses on full commission. Every person who walked into her model home asked about it. Her competition was telling buyers to go ask her. So she owned it. "Yeah, it's my house." And then she'd point at the half that was still standing and walk them through party wall construction, because delaying and containing fire is exactly what that wall is built to do. She was the top selling salesperson in that whole community with a burned out house in her window. Jennifer fell into sales the way a lot of us do. She was a teacher, finishing her Ed degree, buying a new construction home, and the builder looked at her and said you're a sharp lady, come work for me. She spent the first few years too embarrassed to call herself a salesperson, back when the boys would pat her on the head for caring about her customers. Then we get into the thing she's genuinely fired up about. Real estate has a skills gap it keeps calling a character problem. New reps get handed the keys to a half million dollar property and the FIO principle: figure it out. When they don't, the industry tells them they're not tough enough to cut it, which is a personal verdict with no training attached to it… and then everybody wonders where all the sales talent went. Her fix is simple and it's the whole reason this conversation matters. Confidence, coachability, resilience, ownership. Those are skills. You can build them, and Jennifer has spent her post-corporate life building them with sales pros. In This Episode You'll Learn - How to sell through a situation you can't control by naming it out loud before your competition does - Why the longer someone's been in real estate, the more call reluctance they tend to carry - What actually changed: consumers have more information than ever and less confidence than ever, and what that means for your job - Where confidence comes from now that product knowledge stopped being the moat, and how to build it from self trust and your network instead - Why gifted problem solving is the part of sales AI can't take, and why Jennifer thinks this is our moment - The FIO principle, and how "you're not tough enough" washes good people out of the industry with nothing to fix - How to stop grading new sales talent on character flaws and start training the same things as skills Memorable Quotes "Challenges in sales, they break you or they make you." Jennifer Dechaine "This is what great construction looks like when bad shit happens." Jennifer Dechaine "My confidence stems in the fact that I am well resourced, I can use AI and Google and I have access to industry professionals. If there's something that I don't know, it doesn't matter, I'll figure it out." Jennifer Dechaine "If you have cut it in the sales world, you are a gifted problem solver. Hard stop." Jennifer Dechaine "Instead of treating these things like character flaws, we need to treat them like skills, because they are skills." Jennifer Dechaine "At its heart, sales is service. It's beautiful." Jennifer Dechaine Find Jennifer - congruentprojects.com (the confidence ladder, the pressure spectrum, the in-between playbook, and her newsletter) - Instagram: Jennifer Dechaine - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-dechaine1/ Call The Damn Leads "By sales professionals, for sales professionals — Tales of your wildest sales stories and tactics to succeed in your sales career across various industries." Join Drewbie Wilson, a sales veteran with over 20 years of experience, as he brings you insider stories, humor, and actionable strategies to excel in your sales journey. Your weekly dose of: Wild Sales Stories: Engaging tales of real-life sales adventures. Proven Tactics: Actionable strategies to boost your sales game. Humor: A fun and energetic perspective on the world of sales. Expert Insights: Learn from seasoned professionals in various industries. Don't miss out on the insights, humor, and strategies that can take your sales career to new heights. If you'd like to be a guest on the show, leave your contact information and a brief message telling us why your story needs to be heard: https://callthedamnleads.com/pages/podcast Follow Drewbie: https://www.facebook.com/drewbierides Follow Call The Damn Leads: https://www.instagram.com/callthedamnleads
