Andy Weins: The Words Your Sales Team Uses Are Costing You Deals

 

Most sales leaders invest in process, technology, and training. Almost none of them invest in the one lever that silently controls all three: the language their people use — out loud and in their own heads.

Andy Weins has spent 20+ years in the military as a mass resiliency trainer, built a business from scratch, and studied the neuroscience and psychology of how the words we choose wire our behaviour. In this episode, he and Marcus Cauchi go deep on the specific phrases that signal avoidance, underperformance, and self-sabotage, and the language patterns that drive ownership, execution, and results.

If you lead a sales team or run a company, this is not a soft conversation about mindfulness. It is a diagnostic tool. By the end, you will recognise the exact words your team uses when they are not going to close the deal, and you will know what to replace them with.

Why This Matters

Every sales team has what looks like a pipeline problem, a skills problem, or a market problem. Often it is a language problem in disguise.

When your salespeople say "I just wanted to follow up," they are signalling low value before they have even started. When they say "I should call that account," they are parking it indefinitely. When they say "we need more leads," they are frequently deflecting accountability for what they already have.

The language your team uses in CRM notes, forecast calls, and customer conversations is data. It tells you who is owning their number and who is performing learned helplessness. This episode gives you the framework to hear that signal clearly.

Key Themes and Takeaways 1. Blame, Excuse, and Denial: The Three Default Failure Modes

Andy opens with a concept drawn from Brené Brown's work on shame: when there is a gap between what we want and what we have, the brain defaults to one of three responses — blame, excuse, or denial — because they require the least cognitive effort.

In sales, this shows up as:

• Blame: "The prospect went dark." "Marketing isn't generating quality leads." "The economy is tough."
• Excuse: "I didn't have time to prep." "The deck wasn't ready."
• Denial: "I didn't really want that account anyway."

The correction Andy offers is deceptively simple: ask "Where is my DNA in this?" Even if you are 1% responsible for a poor outcome, claiming that 1% shifts you from passenger to driver. For sales leaders running deal reviews, that question, where is your DNA in this?, is worth installing as a standard.

2. "Just" and "But": The Two Words That Kill Credibility Before You've Started

Marcus flags two words that most people use dozens of times a day without realising their cost:

"Just" — minimises what follows. "I'm just calling to check in" communicates low value, low confidence, and low intent. Andy's framing: just justifies the nonsense that's about to happen. Train your team to remove it entirely from outreach language. Not "I just wanted to reach out" — "I'm calling because..."

"But" — cancels everything before it. "Great work on that proposal, but..." means the compliment is noise. Two conflicting ideas, only one of which is true: the one that comes after but. In coaching conversations with reps, this matters. In customer conversations, it is fatal.

These are not stylistic preferences. They are trust and credibility signals that prospects and internal stakeholders pick up subconsciously.

3. The Difference Between a Desire and an Expectation — and Why It Determines Whether You Hit Target

Andy draws a sharp distinction that has direct application to how sales leaders manage their teams and how salespeople manage their customers:

An expectation is what you want from someone else. It sets you up for resentment, conflict, and passivity — because other people are not here to meet your expectations.

A desire is what you want. It is owned. It creates agency, because the question that follows is what are you willing to do to get it?

In sales management, the difference sounds like this:

• Expectation: "My reps should be hitting 80% of quota by Q2."
• Desire: "I want a team hitting 80% by Q2. What am I prepared to do to coach, structure, and resource them to get there?"

The second version puts you back in the problem. That is where leverage lives.

4. "Need" vs "Want": Why Needs Create Victims and Wants Create Agency

Drawing on Dan Sullivan's 10x Is Easier Than 2x, Andy argues that needs are a trap. When you say "I need a six-figure salary" or "we need more pipeline," you are constructing a prison: a world where survival is contingent on something outside your control, which justifies inaction when that thing doesn't arrive.

Wants work differently. "I want more pipeline" immediately opens the question: what are you willing to do to generate it? The conflict becomes internal — which want is greater, your want for comfort or your want for results? — and internal conflict is where growth happens.

For founders: audit the language in your strategy meetings. Count how many times need is used as a reason not to act rather than a prompt to act. It is a reliable indicator of where learned helplessness has taken root.

5. People Talk About Results to Justify Decisions They've Already Made

This is one of the episode's sharpest insights, and it maps directly onto how sales forecasts and pipeline reviews get distorted.

Andy's framing: the people who get funded on Dragons' Den are the ones who talk about the work — "we will take this influencer, they will post three times a week, that will reduce our customer acquisition cost by X" — not the ones who say "we'll increase sales and grow the business."

Watch for this in forecast calls. Reps who say "I'm going to close this at the end of the month" are describing a result. Reps who say "I have a confirmed call with economic buyer on Thursday, legal review is booked for the following week, and we've agreed the commercial terms" are describing work. The second rep knows what they're doing. The first is hoping.

Marcus extends this: the work is the reward. Not a soft point — a structural one. Fixating on the number makes you passive. Fixating on the three specific actions that produce the number makes you active. Build your pipeline reviews around activity and methodology, not outcomes, and the outcomes improve.

6. The Six Most Powerful Statements — A Framework for High-Performance Internal Dialogue

Andy's framework for replacing avoidance language with accountable language is built on six sentence-starters, used in sequence. For sales leaders, this is a coaching script and a self-assessment tool.

I am — Identity. Who are you as a seller, a leader, a professional? This sets the anchor. It also establishes boundaries: I am not going to take that approach is more powerful than I can't or I won't.

I can — Capability. Honest inventory of what is within reach. Not everything, but something. What can you actually do? In coaching conversations, this is where excuses go to die.

I feel — Emotional data. The body knows before the brain articulates. I feel uncomfortable with this account's timeline is information. Suppressing it is expensive. Andy's recommended construct: I feel [emotion] when [specific behaviour occurs]. Clean, ownable, actionable.

I know — Empirical grounding. Not assumption, not interpretation. What do you actually know versus what are you telling yourself? In sales, this is the difference between a forecast based on facts and one based on optimism.

I want — Stated desire. Now that you are grounded in reality, what do you actually want? This is where new thinking enters. It plants a direction.

I will — Commitment. A contract with yourself. Time-bound, specific, testable. This is where language stops being self-talk and becomes execution.

Run your 1:1s through this lens. What do you know about this deal? What do you want to happen? What will you do in the next 48 hours? That is a coaching conversation.

7. Should → Could → Can → Will: The Language Ladder That Turns Avoidance into Action

This is Andy's most immediately deployable tool for sales managers dealing with stalled activity, sandbagged pipeline, or reps who are busy without being productive.

Should — moralises and parks. "I should call that enterprise account" means it will not happen. It creates guilt without commitment. It is where people store things they have decided not to do.

Could — generates options. Crucially, Andy argues that you must start here with unlimited time, money, and resource. No constraints. Let the brain go wide. This is how you break out of small thinking. In team exercises, this is the brainstorm phase.

Can — grounds in reality. Take the expanded could list and ask: what can we actually do, given current constraints? You typically get more options than if you'd started with can directly — because could first opens more neural pathways.

Will — is the commitment. Specific. Time-bound. Testable. And Andy's observation from hundreds of workshops: the will is almost always a small, basic action that the person had been avoiding simply because they had never written it down.

For sales leaders: run this sequence on any stalled deal, underperforming territory, or strategic initiative that has been sitting in should for more than two weeks. It takes fifteen minutes and it moves things.

The Four Agreements Applied to Sales Leadership

Marcus frames the episode's second half around Don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements and their antithesis — a framework that maps precisely onto how high-performing versus underperforming sales cultures operate:

Agreement What it looks like in a strong sales culture What the antithesis looks like in a broken one Be impeccable with your word Forecasts you can trust; commitments that stick CRM noise; happy-ears forecasting; overpromising Don't take anything personally Reps who hear objections as information Reps who go quiet after one rejection Don't make assumptions Proper discovery; testing hypotheses with buyers Pitching to an assumed need without qualification Always do your best Consistent activity; incremental improvement Effort contingent on mood or certainty of outcome

 

The antithesis that Marcus outlines is worth reading carefully as a diagnostic of cultural dysfunction: using language to protect yourself rather than communicate clearly; speaking to justify rather than clarify; making everything about yourself; filling information gaps with untested stories; and making effort conditional on comfort.

If that describes your forecast calls, your deal reviews, or your 1:1s, this episode is the starting point for changing it.

Reflect, Realise, Regulate: Why Acknowledging a Problem Is Not Step One

Andy challenges the received wisdom that acknowledgement is the first step. His model: reflection comes first.

Reflect — how did I show up? What is frustrating me? What brings me clarity? This is the diagnostic phase.

Realise — who are the right people to involve? What behaviours am I responsible for? What choices do I actually have?

Regulate — pick accordingly. Act from awareness, not reaction.

This has direct application for sales leaders managing underperformers. Jumping to the problem — "your close rate is 12% and the team average is 28%" — before the rep has reflected produces defensiveness, not accountability. Create the conditions for reflection first. The numbers become a shared investigation rather than a verdict.

The Start/Stop/Continue Framework and Where Sales Organisations Leave Most Value

Marcus closes with a direct provocation: if you audit the dead work, the rework, and the pointless activity that most sales organisations inflict on themselves, you can recover 60–80% of your working week.

The stop list is the highest-leverage intervention. Not because stopping things is easy, but because it creates the cognitive and calendar capacity to do the things that actually matter. Ask your team: what are you doing right now that if you stopped tomorrow, no one — including your customers — would notice?

That conversation, done honestly, is worth more than most sales methodologies.

A Five-Minute Exercise for You and Your Team

1. Name one should that has been sitting on your list for more than two months.
2. Generate five coulds — with no constraints.
3. Strip it to two or three cans — given actual resources and time.
4. Write one I will with a day and a time attached.
5. Identify the one word in your vocabulary you will remove this week to stop yourself wriggling out of it.

Do this in your next team meeting. Watch what surfaces.

About Andy Wines

Andy Wines is a fourth-generation entrepreneur, 20+ year US Army veteran, and mass resiliency trainer. He owns and operates a junk removal business and has built a speaking and consulting practice focused on the language of leadership and the psychology of performance. His first book, Words F**king Matter, identifies 13 phrases that are actively limiting performance. His second book, Stop Avoiding Your Numbers, is a guide to financial confidence for business owners.

Andy is available on LinkedIn — his phone number and email are public and he actively responds. You can also reach him at andyweins.com.

 

#sales leadership #sales team language  #sales coaching #founder mindset #accountability in sales #B2B sales performance #sales productivity #sales culture #high performance sales teams #sales pipeline management #sales manager coaching #sales mindset

Chapter Markers

7 Truly Insightful Moments for Sales Leaders and Founders

Timestamp Chapter Title 0:00 Intro — Why the Words Your Team Uses Are Your Biggest Revenue Leak 2:00 Blame, Excuse, Denial: The Three Ways Salespeople Avoid Accountability 3:29 "Just" and "But": Two Words That Destroy Credibility Before the Call Has Started 7:35 Desires vs Expectations: Why Sales Leaders Who Set Expectations Fail Their Teams 10:19 Talking About Results vs Doing the Work — How to Spot Who Will and Won't Close 20:27 The Six Most Powerful Statements: A Framework for Accountable Sales Conversations 41:43 Should → Could → Can → Will: The Language Ladder That Kills Pipeline Avoidance 45:00 The Stop List — Recovering 60–80% of Your Team's Week by Removing the Right Things