Welcome to Close it now, the podcast that's revolutionizing the H Vac and home improvement trades industries. Get ready to dive deep into the world of heating, ventilation and air conditioning. We're turning up the heat on industry standards and cooling down misconceptions. And we're not just talking about fixing vents and adjusting thermostats. It's about the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of H Vac and home improvement. We're the driving force, inspiring top performers who crave excellence not only in their professional endeavors, but also in fitness, nutrition, relationships and personal growth, proving that we can indeed have it all. This is Close it now, where excellence meets excitement. Let's get to work now. Your host, Sam Wakefield.

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to Close It Now. Sam Wakefield here. I am excited to talk to you all today. It is time for another episode of Close It Now. So we've got a good one today. This is right. We are right in the heart of summer 2024 and something that I wanted to talk to everybody today. Little last sales tip sells tricky type of things and much more about taking care of yourself. You know, this is, this is the part of the year where people start to hit a little bit of burnout. People we find ourselves shortcut in the process, we find ourselves maybe cutting some corners. This is exactly the time why it's so important to keep close to the campfire, keep practicing, keep really working on to be better. Don't tell yourself that I'm too busy to continue to study, to continue to practice because the truth is you're not. This is exactly when you should be doing that. So we're going to go through a couple things today but before we do, just want to check in. How is everybody doing? This is notes from the field. I am up in Longview, Texas working with the company here again, they are my 12 month program. So when somebody, a company hires, you know, hires closing now for the 12 month program we get quarterly site on site training. There's a whole bunch of other stuff involved. We do a lot of virtual training, check ins, accountability. So if you want to know more about that, pop me an email. Sam, close it now.net but, but let's talk about what's going on. There is, there's just this rash of right in the heart of the summer, people get burnt out so many times and we start shortcutting things and the volume is the only thing that keeps those numbers up. When a lot of times we realize that hey, maybe we are, maybe we're sliding a little bit, but I'm just too busy. So what are some things that we can do to help keep the right mindset? Because your mindset is everything. You know, people ask me all the time, you know, what about the words, specific words to use in this section or that section or if I get this objection, how do I handle it? What are the words? You know, honestly, everybody, the most important words you say are the word. The most important words are the ones you say to yourself in between the appointments. They're the. They're your self talk. It's your belief system. It's your identity. The most important thing you can do, especially this time of year, is. There's one word that I want to use that is really powerful and we're going to unpack it a little bit. It's the word authentic. This time of year, authenticity is everything. Not just this time of year, any time of the year, but authenticity is everything. When you show up truly with the right heart of service, with actual care and compassion for the people that you're seeing on the daily basis, and you show up with that intensity of care, that means that your authenticity is going to come through. I've said this over and over in this podcast and if you're new to the podcast, I welcome you. Thank you for joining us and Drive Time University. Because authenticity is everything. Your energy will introduce yourself before you ever knock on the door. So how do we manage that? How do we manage the mindset? How do we manage the mindset of a winner? How do we continue not just manage that mindset, but get it and keep it? Well, there's. It has to do with so many different elements. One is, you know, for example, I'm doing right along today, we have no time for stopping for lunch. So what do we do? We hit a gas station. What did the other guy pick? Some fried stuff he was dragging in the afternoon. I chose the. They had a chef salad at this gas station. Thankfully chose that. It is now. Oh, in the evening. And I feel great. So we, I mean, you have to take care of yourself. Self care this time of year is so crucial. So I'm, I'm dropping this podcast because I wanted to. Want to help you all out if you're going through a slump. Because I know a lot. I've been hearing from a lot of you that the summer started awesome and all of a sudden you hit this slump week. Two weeks through, you know, barely any volume coming in, barely any cells being made. I hear places going 0 for 10. I mean, it's just ridiculous right now. Now, obviously there's a ton of help that can be, you know, that we're, you know, we're going to be helping those people that are going over 10. But more importantly, it's mindset, right? How do we get and keep the right mindset? And so this episode, we're going to dive into some things because I want to do a check in with all of you. I'm going to do a check in with you. How to get out of the slump. So this is the get out of the slump episode. So managing your mindset. So there's six different areas that affect us as people because we know that top producers, you have to be someone worth buying from if you're striving to be better, do better, sell more, higher close rate, higher average ticket, higher volume. How it, it all comes back to how to help people better. But to be that person, to show up in your power, to show up in the intensity of someone who people want to listen to. Not because you have all this technical knowledge, but because you have the confidence and certainty that you're showing up to their home with the best solution for their problems. Now when you have that confidence and certainty, you know, where does it come from? What comes from confidence in yourself comes from confidence, obviously in your company and your services you provide has conf, you know, just mental confidence that you know what you're talking about. So the way there's, there is no plateau in all these areas of our life, right? There is you either moving forward and improving or you're moving backwards. If you're not continuously looking and really doing inner work and working on yourself, you're going to find yourself in the same place year after year after year, wondering why all of these other people around the, around the country and around the world are able to in the same market, make incredible money, do set record numbers and sales and you're still struggling. Well, it's because you're not working on yourself. So let's go through the. I want to take you through this exercise which will really help. Anytime any of my coaching clients call me and they're like, man, I'm in a slump, I need a tune up call. This is the exercise I take them through and I can almost guarantee you one call and we pinpoint the problem and we're able to help them get out of the slump. And I will tell you, it's almost never in almost, in every case, it's not the sales process. Now before we get into this, let's Go back and talk about that for a second because I want to do, want to talk about the sales process when you're, when you're practicing, when you're learning a process, if you, if you're, especially if you're in a place where maybe there was a new process introduced to your company or you're, you're trying new things as you're learning. The first thing is don't expect to be perfect overnight. Every master was once a disaster. So what that means is, you know, I, I'll take this from heard Brian Burton over at the Waste no Day podcast, say this one time. So when he trains new skills and techniques to his people, he tells them, he's like, try it 20 times before you even pass judgment if it works or not. Because you've got to get the reps in the field and, and practice on your own, but implement in the field, but do it at least 20 times before you even have a bearing to start making a judgment call if that technique or tool is for you or if it's, if it works or not. So don't slide, this is the time of year. Don't slide back into your old habits. If it's the, the things that I talk about that you learn that you're trying to implement, or if it's something from Uncle Joe or you know, Jason Walker or Victor Rancour or you know, any of the top, Stephen Dale, any of the top trainers in the country, make sure that you give it a go. Don't just jump around all over the place and try different things. If you try something once or twice and you didn't get the results that you thought you were going to get, if you, if you ride more than one horse, you'll never win the race. So when you're learning things, one of the best things to do. So keep this in mind as you continue your career. When you say you go to training and you pick up a new process, give it an entire 12 month cycle before you decide if it's effective or not. Unless it just totally bombs and you know you're seeing nothing, then do something else. But you've really got to give it time to get the experience in the field when you're learning techniques and you're practicing them. So with that being said, let's get into some of the different elements that we focus on. So there are six pieces of the pie that make up a successful salesperson. What, what a top performer looks like. And those areas are not the one of them is of course, cell Skills, but that's actually not what we're going to talk about right now. We're going to talk about the other five. So the other five are your nutrition, your fitness, your personal growth, they are your relationships and they are your spiritual life. So let's talk about. I'm going to unpack each of these a little bit and then just very briefly, and then I'll give you an exercise on really how to take a minute, deep dive, do some inner work, and discover if there's one of these that are out of alignment or out of balance that you need to work on. I can almost guarantee you if you. Or not just almost, I can guarantee you if you truly take an hour or two out of your week and deep dive. So I'm talking to you, especially if you're in a slump. This is the exercise to get you out of the slump. Do the work because it will be worth it. So with each of these categories, so what you're going to do, you can draw this out a couple of different ways. And I want you to do this. Actually write it down with a pen or pencil and paper. Don't try to do it digitally because you need the actual tactile experience of your brain forcing your hand to do the writing because it creates deeper, more stimulated thoughts. So with these categories, what we're going to do is you can draw a circle and separate it into six different pieces of the pie, or you can just write these out as a list wherever, however your brain works best. So here, the six you're going to list are, of course, cell skill. I'll go through them again. Cell skills, nutrition, fitness, personal growth, relationships and spiritual practice. Now you're gonna visualize or if you know someone in your mind who is a 10 on the scale because you're going to rate yourself in each category on a scale from 1 to 10. But, and the measuring, the yardstick that you're rating yourself against is just whoever in your. And this could be different for everybody, but whoever in your mind is a perfect 10 in that category. So it could be a famous person, it could be somebody you actually know. It doesn't really matter because it's all about perspective. And your list is your list. It's never going to match anyone else's. So I'm going to take fitness, nutrition and fitness as my example that I'm just going to walk you through and, and how this goes. So for nutrition and fitness, my, my, I, my personal ideal, since I have a kid, I used to read bodybuilding magazines all the time has always been Arnold Schwarzenegger from the time period when he was winning Mr. Olympia. Just that physique in my mind has always been, like, ideal. Or imagine, like, you know, Chris Hemsworth is thorough, or, you know, Hugh Jackman is Wolverine. That's like my ideal fitness. Like, ideal for me. Right, and it doesn't have to be the same for you, but that's mine. So what I do, I take that, I visualize that person, and they're. They're a 10 in my mind, and I rate myself against that. Now, I've been doing really great in my fitness and nutrition for the last six months. So I'm down £50. I've put on a ton of muscle, so I'm going to give myself about a six and a half or seven right now on that scale, nutrition about the same. So for me, those match. Now we're going. So once you do that with each category, right, rate yourself now, don't be overly hard on yourself and definitely don't put the salesman spin and silver. Put a silver lining on everything. We've got it. As is the moment. You know, literally, just take stock of as is where you are. Measure it, write it down. It doesn't have to be perfect. If your answer is a two in a category, that's fine. But let's go through each of the other categories real quick because nutrition and fitness are the easy ones. Let's unpack the others just to make sure you're clear on what we're doing here. So personal growth, that is. What are you doing daily to grow your mind? Are you just vegging out in front of the TV in the evening? Are you watching, like, TED Talks in your drive time university, your windshield time between appointments? Are you just jamming out to the radio? Or are you listening to podcasts like this? If you're listening to this podcast, clearly you're on the right track. But what are you doing? Are you listening to audiobooks, podcasts, what you know, how are you feeding your mind? Are you reading? Remember, leaders are readers. Now, I count audible or audiobooks as reading because we're still getting it in in our brains, right? So what are you doing daily for personal growth? The next category is relationships. What do the relationships in your life look like? What is going on there? Is there struggle or are your relationships good? How's your relationships with your kids, with your partner, with your parents, with your brother and sister, with your co workers? What are your relationships like? Are you the person that says, well, that's the way I Am and just the way I communicate, they're going to have to get used to it. Or that's a closed minded amateur person. Or are you the person that says, you know what? The common denominator is me, I'm the problem. So I need to learn better communication skills. I need to learn more empathy and how to better listen to the people in my life and then make changes according to a good fit that doesn't. I'm not saying to not be yourself, but how can we be the best version of ourselves? To show up in your power, show up in authority, show up as that person, that member of your family that truly has the best interest, interest of your family, that person who is the provider so we can provide at a different level for our family. Where are you on that scale? Right. The same thing with spiritual practice. Now when we talk about spiritual practice, I'm not talking about you have to belong to a certain religion or anything like that. This is a generic statement. Everyone has internally, their core values and core belief system and their identity that they know the things they should be doing to be in alignment with their own spiritual life, their own spiritual practice. Even the atheist had on just about every case has a spiritual practice if they know it or not. Meditation or just mindfulness, those kind of things. So everyone has an element to that. Even if you don't think you do, you do. The science is there. So. But again, it's not a specific religion and it's not Baptist or Catholic or, you know, Muslim or whatever. It doesn't matter. It's about are you in alignment with what you should be doing, what you know you should be doing to grow in that area. That's the important part, whatever is right for you. So you rate yourself in all of those areas and of course sales skills, rate yourself in your current sales skills and, and so rate all six areas. Now here's the exercise and here's what's going to take you to the next level. And this will get you out of the slump. And I can guarantee you when you go through this exercise, you will be able to pinpoint one or two things that you're not doing now that you were doing when you were crushing it, that you can get back on track, which will build your own confidence in yourself. Because the more you are in alignment with your own personal standards and core values that you refuse to compromise on, the more you're in alignment with that. That is why people want to buy from you. When we say work to become someone worth buying from, this is what this is exactly that. Be that person. And the only way to do that is to grow yourself in these areas. So the exercise, once you've given yourself a rating, a realistic rating on everything, you're going to take an average. It does. And again, when we first start this process, we're just measuring. Until we measure it, we can't manage it. So give yourself an average. The ideal goal is to stay at about an 8.5 or above. And this is when we talk about the energy people want to buy from. Be that person that lights up the room, develop yourself to the point that when you walk into a room, no announcements made, but everyone turns their head because they want to look at you. They have to find out who just came into this room. We've all been in situations where that happens. So you're at a gala or a dinner or at a restaurant or something, no announcements made, and somebody walks in, and all of a sudden the place goes quiet and everybody turns to look just to see who walked in. That is because their energy led the way for them into the room. And everybody noticed. That is exactly what happens when you develop yourself to be that person when you show up in the house. So now that you have your own rating for your, for you, the way to, to grow is to now go through each category and visualize that per that person in your mind. That's the 10. And then what you're going to do is, is you're going to really think about it and figure out what is one habit that they have in their life that I can incorporate into my life and write that down. And the reason we do this is because when we start thinking about time, our lives are strictly just made up of, just a combination of all of our daily habits. There is no such thing as the future. There is no such thing as the past. We're going to think about this for a sec because truly all we have is right now and right now and right now and then it's gone and right now and then it's gone. Because time is an illusion. And if you don't believe it, think about it like this. Anything in the past, anything that happened this morning, anything that happened at lunch, wherever you're listening to this, anything that happened earlier in the day, you can't go back to that moment. We don't have time machines. So anything in the past is strictly memory. It's just memory. We have traces of what we did. Say I moved the chair from here to over there. And then now I look around, it's still over there because we have traces of what we did in that time period. But really it's just a memory. Anything in the future is strictly imagination. Now, we can direct the results in the future by what we do today. But there is no such thing as moving forward in time. It's strictly imagination. So now that we know that our life is a combination of our daily habits, that means that we can control our future by our habits today. That's the beautiful part about this. So think of that person that's the level 10. And write down one habit that you can adopt today into your life. That's an easy change to make. And then practice that every single day. So you'll go through each category and write down that one habit. Now, if you've got really high ratings in some categories and low ones in the others, and you, or you recognize and you pinpoint where you're slipping, focus on that one first. This is a lifelong journey. This is literally how I do my, my annual goals. Some of my annual goal setting is I go through this process and really deep dive and recognize what I want to improve on over a year, then break it up into quarterly goals, then monthly and, you know, weekly like that. But more importantly is you got to know where you're going. So what is that habit that you can adopt in your life that will immediately start to see. See a difference, or even if it's not immediately, you know that if you adopt a habit because success leaves leaves clues. What we have to remember is successful people do the things that unsuccessful people don't think they do. Let me say that one more time. Successful people do the things that unsuccessful people don't think they do. And normally it's the simple things. It's the 1 percenters. So now that we've recognized that and you've adopted this one habit in your life, then work, go to work on that. Do it daily. So that becomes your habit. When that becomes your habit now, you know, 30 days later or however long it takes till it's your habit, you do it on autopilot and you don't have to think about doing it. It's just, it's just you at this point. So what now has happened? Say, for example, If I was a 4 on the fitness scale and I adopted one habit which was, you know, say, going to the gym three times a week, now that becomes my habit and I rate myself again. Now I'm a level five person. And once that next habit is your habit and you do this exercise again and you refresh it Then you grab one other, one new habit that that person who's a level 10 in your life does that you can incorporate into your routine until it becomes your habit. The coolest thing with this is, this is how you create, recreate your belief system. This is how you recreate your identity. To go from the person who used to drive through the fast McDonald's drive through and the fat five guys and the burgers and Taco Bell and the fast food at lunch to somebody over time. It's not that you don't just do it all at once, but over time you become the person that, that's not even an option on the radar. You don't even think about it anymore because I've become the person who doesn't eat that. That's different than going on a diet and just trying to avoid something. And of course I'm using food nutrition as like an easy analogy here or the easy example. Apply this to everything in your life because all these categories, there is something like that that you know, we do or don't do in those habits that we can develop and incorporate into our own lives, which will grow us as people. So do this exercise, do it often, especially at first. Just make it, make it your. Set it as your first habit you're going to adopt, which is just doing the exercise. Make that the first habit until it becomes where you think about it so you can focus on your growing consistently and then do that exercise. And I can guarantee you, especially if you're in a slump right now, this will start to get you out of it. It will. A great example. Nathan, he was one of my first coaching clients. You know, he, he called me when he was doing outbound sales from a parts counter. End up, we get him in the field, go through the training, go through some sales process. He hit a million his first year. By about, I think it was mid June. He's texting me, he's like, man, I crossed the million dollar mark my first year in the field. Awesome. It was incredible. Well, a month or two later he calls me up, he's like, man, I'm on a slump. It's been a couple weeks, I've had goose eggs, no sell, I don't know what's going on. So we did this tune up call. We go through each of the categories and we get to for him specifically, that's why I use this example. We get to the part about nutrition and fitness, he's like, you know what, I got it. We don't say anymore. When I was killing it and crushing it. I was in the gym every morning and I did meal prep and I felt like a million bucks by the end of the day, he said. But the last two, three weeks, I started skipping gym more often. I started driving through the fast food, I put on a couple pounds, I feel tubby, I feel gross, I don't feel good about myself. And it shows. So sure enough, three days later, he text, he calls me up again. Man, it's been a killer day. Just sold, got in the house for two different houses. I'm at 70k for the day, shooting for over 100 today. Sure enough, he closed out over $100,000 that day. And what did he do the very next day? He got up, he hit the gym. The day after my, after our tune up call, he got up, he hit the gym, he packed his lunch and that set him back on the right track of accomplishing and being able to be that person, to show up at your highest level, to be able to serve your clients at the highest level with premium service, with premium everything. And just to set that standard so much higher in their mind, there's no reason they would ever call anyone else, ever call your competition. And this is how to be that person. Are there other exercises that can walk you through the same thing? Absolutely. I'm definitely not saying this is the only one, but what I am saying is that tool will, if you use it and implement it and practice it in your life, it will take you to the next level. It will help you to become that person worth buying from. All right, so that is the podcast today. I am, I am glad you're here with me. I am so grateful for every single one of you who message me, who leave reviews if you've ever gotten value from this show. I would love, love, love if you went to my Facebook profile page and left me a review and the reviews for Apple podcasts leave me a five star review. I would love that so much and I can help more people with reviews. So I appreciate that. So to contact me, reach out Sam Close it now.net if you have questions, if you have ideas for the podcast. I also am starting to really book up for speaking engagements. So if you want to contact me about speaking at your event, definitely reach out about that as well. Email sam close it now.net or just go to the website closeitnow.net and that is it, everybody. So thank you for listening. Until next time, be somebody worth buying from.

You've been listening to the Close it now podcast. Our passion is to dive head first into the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of H Vac and home improvement and at the same time covering fitness, nutrition, relationships and personal growth, proving that we can indeed have it all. We hope you've enjoyed the show. If you did, make sure to, like, rate and review. We'll be back soon, but in the meantime, find the website@closeitnow.net find us on Instagram herealclo. Close it now. And on Facebook at Close it now. See you next time.