Up Close & Personal: Cheri Tree & Esther Wildenberg
At VIP Global Magazine, it’s our pleasure to draw attention to the incredible achievements of individuals who have harnessed their unique talents and are using their entrepreneurial expertise to impact the world. That’s why we are excited to turn the spotlight on the amazing Cheri Tree and Esther Wildenberg.
Cheri Tree is a best-selling author, professional keynote speaker, and world-renowned entrepreneur. She is the Founder and Chairman of Codebreaker Technologies, Inc., with clients in more than 100 countries worldwide. She is the creator of the revolutionary B.A.N.K. methodology and Codebreaker’s Personality Coding Technology, designed to help business owners close more sales in less time and improve their communication skills and personal relationships. Cheri has spoken to hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs and professionals globally at some of the top business conferences in the world. She has also been invited to speak at Harvard University, the University of California, Google, and the United Nations.
In addition, Cheri has been featured in numerous international publications including Forbes.com and Entrepreneur.com, and has been nominated as Innovator of the Year and Entrepreneur of the Year because of the breakthroughs created from her Personality Coding Technology, including Codebreaker AI, the world’s first Artificial Intelligence powered by B.A.N.K.
Cheri is both purpose-driven and profit-driven, with a goal to create income, influence, and impact for all. Her mission is to crack the code of every human on the planet and ultimately make our world a better place by creating One World, One Language. She is passionate about life and helping others take it to the BANK, so they can take it to the beach!
Esther Wildenberg is the Co-Founder & CEO of Codebreaker Technologies. Esther brings not only years of experience with B.A.N.K. to the role but also significant executive leadership. In fact, she was already the CEO of a financial sales company leading a team of over 800 employees by the age of 33.
Before her current CEO role, Esther worked her way up in the company. After starting as a Certified Trainer, Esther quickly became the top B.A.N.K. salesperson internationally. She was later promoted to Sales Director of Europe, then Senior Vice President of Sales, President, and ultimately CEO. As an ANKB, Esther has endless energy for building the long-term success of Codebreaker Technologies. Her passion for transforming businesses and lives using B.A.N.K. is what drives her to increase the growth of the company exponentially.
VIP: Can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
CHERI: Esther and I met in Amsterdam in November 2013 when I was a speaker at the National Achievers Congress. She was in the audience and I said from the stage I was looking for an amazing leader to work with me and help open up Europe for my company. Esther was inspired by my work with B.A.N.K. and purchased a ticket to our 2-day Codebreaker Summit event. We connected on many levels, personally and professionally. She was the perfect leader for our European market expansion, and we began to work together.
A few months later, Esther arranged a 30-day tour through Europe to expand our company, and we ended the tour in Geneva, Switzerland for a ski trip on Valentine’s weekend. I started to have a lot of feelings for Esther but wanted to make sure she was the right fit for me. So, I took the opportunity to ask her a very important question. I asked her, “Are you willing to be in my shadow?” I speak all over the world and didn’t want to be with an insecure or jealous woman. She took a short pause to process my question, smiled, and then came back and said, “Yes, as long as you’re willing to be in mine!” I smiled. The rest is history!
We fell madly in love with each other and officially started our relationship. We had a long-distance relationship for the next six months and then we got engaged. Esther moved from The Netherlands to America full-time and we found our perfect home in Southern California in Laguna Beach. We got married on August 8, 2015 and we’ve been very happily married ever since.
For the past 5 years, we’ve focused on building our company into a global brand. We travelled all over the world speaking at some of the top conferences and doing business globally. We saw that the future was going to be technology, so we started shifting from being a training company to a technology company with a training division. We’ve come a long way and are proud of our accomplishments. We’ve been nominated for several years in a row at Innovator of the Year, and we were featured in Forbes as the “Future of Sales” with the launch of our artificial intelligence, designed to predict buying behavior in nanoseconds and help sales professionals and business owners close more sales in less time. I was honored with an invitation to speak again in Geneva at the United Nations AI for Good conference in 2019.
While it’s been an amazing life together building our company and traveling the world, in 2020 we expanded our family and had our baby boy, Kai Keanu Tree. He was born 10 weeks early and came out strong and ready to crush it! He never needed oxygen and went home a month early from the NICU. We are certainly not spring chickens, I just turned 48! But we are up for the opportunity to raise an amazing young man and we plan to have him join us on our world travels and be a part of the mission we have to change the world, together as a family.
VIP: Has it been a smooth road? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
ESTHER: If it was a smooth road it would be boring! Every relationship has challenges, but I think we managed them well over the past six and a half years.
When I moved from The Netherlands to the USA, there was a culture shock. Dutch is my native language and I had to improve my English big time. The European culture is way more balanced. People in Europe actually take time off, eat healthier, and value friendships and quality time more. For example, 4 to 5-hour dinners are normal when you hang out with friends. In the USA, it’s chop-chop, bye, see you later.
Being in a same sex relationship is not appreciated by all. In The Netherlands, it’s accepted and normal. Amsterdam was the first city with gay marriage and the first Gay Pride parade. In the USA, there’s still a big group of people who are against same sex relationships. I felt that when I moved here.
We’re living in a modern world and being a women-owned innovative technology company is still an interesting phenomenon, apparently. Other power women love working with us and see the extreme value we bring. It takes highly emotionally intelligent, personally developed men to work with power women and value their skills, expertise, and experience.
Another struggle we had was that men significantly underestimated us. Some tried to con us into partnering with them and getting us to believe we could never make it in a man’s world. They would commonly refer to us as “the girls.” That was a mistake… big mistake! At Codebreaker Technologies, our motto is “people before profits” and we live by the philosophy that sales is not a numbers game, it’s a people game. Women seem to get that immediately, and others not so much. For us, it’s a line in the sand, and if people don’t share the same values, we walk away from the deal or the relationship. It’s that simple.
VIP: Tell us about your company?
ESTHER: We help business owners, entrepreneurs, and sales professionals close more sales in less time with our B.A.N.K. methodology and technology. We teach our clients how to unlock the secrets, the science, and the system to increase their sales up to 300%. Also, we teach them how to improve their communication, strengthen their relationships, and create more influence and impact in their world.
Here’s Cheri’s story:
When Founder and Chairman Cheri Tree started her first business as a financial advisor, she struggled to make sales. In fact, the first year, she made an income of only $700! For the next five years, she studied everything she could to become successful. She read great books, listened to audio programs, attended seminars, and even hired coaches, investing thousands of dollars financed by her credit cards to be successful. Unfortunately, her income peaked at $72,000 and didn’t come close to the 6-figure income she was desperately pursuing, and yet she was devoting almost every minute of her time to her business.
Cheri found herself completely disillusioned by the proverbial “sales is a numbers game” message and realized that she was being led to believe one of the greatest myths in sales when she was told that “in order to get more Yes’s, you have to get more No’s.” This is when Cheri woke up to the reality that this just wasn’t true! The truth, she realized, was that in order to get more Yes’s, you have to get more Yes’s, not more No’s! This thought process led Cheri down a path that ended up changing her entire world.
In an effort to build a thriving small business without working herself to death, Cheri decided to learn everything she could about closing sales and she discovered that in fact, sales was not a numbers game, it was a people game! This discovery shifted her focus from sales to people, including learning several personality typing systems. Cheri found personality science compelling, but difficult to apply to the sales process.
That’s why Cheri dedicated herself to reverse-engineering the personality types, basing it in “buyology” – the science of buying behavior, rather than psychology, to understand why her customers buy, and what triggered the Yes versus the No. Her theory was that if it had been proven by Hippocrates that there are four different personality types or four temperaments, then it could be possible that each type makes buying decisions differently. In the process, Cheri created B.A.N.K.— the first easy and accurate system that combined the proven brilliance of personality science with real-world best practices for the sales process.
With B.A.N.K., Cheri grew her yearly income to over $500,000 in just 12 months and to over $1 million in 3 years! Amazingly, this income didn’t require burning out. B.A.N.K. reduced the sales cycle time dramatically, providing her with more free time to enjoy life. Even her team dynamics and personal relationships improved thanks to the increased emotional intelligence that B.A.N.K. brought.
Cheri was so overwhelmed by the success B.A.N.K. brought that she was inspired to share B.A.N.K. with other professionals, business owners and world leaders full-time. Cheri started BANKCODE, and later launched Codebreaker Technologies, and her success went viral. Personality intelligence combined with sales intelligence and emotional intelligence became the best way for businesses to get ahead. Thousands of entrepreneurs started using B.A.N.K., and the B.A.N.K. system has even been used by the sales teams of major corporations like Google and other major companies across multiple industries. And now with the introduction of CODEBREAKER AI, the world’s first artificial intelligence powered by B.A.N.K., even Forbes predicted this could become The Future of Sales.
Cheri’s success elevated her to iconic status, and she is frequently invited to speak at many of the top business conferences in the world, sharing the stage with business giants like Robert Kiyosaki, Anthony Robbins, Les Brown, Steve Wozniak, and Sir Richard Branson to speak about the power of B.A.N.K. and lecture at top universities like Harvard University and the University of California. Cheri has been nominated as Innovator of the Year for the past four consecutive years by the Orange County Business Journal, accepted the American Riviera Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award in Monte Carlo, and invited to speak at the United Nations AI For Good Summit—all because of her work in the business world and the social impact for humanity with B.A.N.K.
VIP: What are the top 3 reasons why people buy B.A.N.K. methodology?
They want to learn how to increase their sales revenue and shorten sales cycles (close more sales in less time).
They want to improve their personal communication with their key relationships, personally and professionally.
They want to incorporate the B.A.N.K. methodology into their entire ecosystem, including their marketing, sales initiatives, corporate leadership, hiring and recruiting efforts, and tech platforms.
VIP: What are you most proud of as a company? What sets you apart from others?
We are most proud of the fact that B.A.N.K. is a sales and communication methodology based in integrity and emotional intelligence. It not only improves people’s incomes and results, but it also has been known to save marriages, forge better parent-child relationships, reduce or prevent bullying and teenage suicide, and overall improve a person’s quality of life. B.A.N.K. isn’t about “closing” people, it’s about getting the agreement, the YES, the win-win outcome for all parties involved. Our mission is to connect and empower humanity.
We’re also proud to be a women-owned company, leading the way for others to follow. We love to inspire entrepreneurs to step into their power, perform at their peak, and stay aligned with their true purpose. B.A.N.K empowers people to speak their message into the marketplace perfectly into the listening of their audiences, ultimately creating income, influence, and impact for all.
VIP: Where do you see your industry going over the next 5-10 years? Any big shifts, changes, trends, etc.?
Shift: We’re entering a decade where technology will be leading. Everything will become faster, better, and smarter. Artificial Intelligence for good will support many great projects. AI is great for gathering data and generating insights. We will continue to work more virtual and digital, without losing the human touch. B.A.N.K. is the best of high tech, high touch.
Change: We’re entering a time where Emotional Intelligence and Spiritual Intelligence are big drivers for success. Women will rise and become world leaders. People are looking more than ever for authentic, humble, feminine, powerful leaders who are not willing to be bullied. There’s no room for egos anymore. Out with the old. In with the new!
Trend: Increased collaboration with influencers. The pandemic increased the power of influencers. Influencers are more reliable than celebrities. Influencers have a great following and big reach. The key is finding influencers that are both purpose driven and profit driven. Both are important.
Risk: People are more and more socially disconnected (not just physically). The human race needs human touch, human connection and feeling loved, heard and seen. We have to focus on making people feel good and accepted, otherwise the bullying rates and suicide rates will exponentially grow the next decade. And the numbers are already heartbreaking. One of B.A.N.K.’s initiatives is to bring B.A.N.K. to school systems and universities. Our mission is to create One World One Language.
VIP: What are 3 tips on success that you can share with other entrepreneurs?
Tip 1: Focus. Most millionaires on average have 7 streams of income, but only 1 stream of income that made them a millionaire. Find a mentor you want to follow and keep your eye on the prize.
Tip 2: Understand that Sales is not a numbers game, it’s a People game. Master your ability to understand, connect, and communicate with people and you will be unstoppable.
Tip 3: Work smarter – not harder. Find solutions that drive results in less time. Find technology that is high tech but still high touch, and leverage the trifecta of personality intelligence, sales intelligence, and emotional intelligence.
FUN FACTS:
Favorite Quote?
Cheri: “You can’t steal 2nd base and keep your foot on 1st.”
Esther: “Stop taking advice from people more messed up than you.”
Favorite Color?
Cheri: Green
Esther: Orange
Favorite Movie?
Cheri: Christmas Vacation or Rat Race
Esther: Avatar
Guilty pleasure?
Cheri: In & Out Burger + Chocolate Malt
Esther: Molten Chocolate Lava cake with fresh homemade whipped cream, vanilla ice cream and strawberries.
What is one thing people would be shocked to know about you?
Cheri: Lived in a storage unit for 18 months
Esther: Two near death experiences
GIVEAWAY
Enjoy this giveaway from Cheri Tree and Esther Wildenberg.
Click www.crackmycode.com/esther to take a quick personality assessment for FREE and receive a custom BANKCODE report, $99 value. This will take you less than 90 seconds.
Company website: Codebreaker Technologies