Welcome to Close it now, an H Vac sales training podcast with Sam Wakefield.

Here we'll build your reputation in residential H Vac sales to be the expert influencer in your market.

You'll get insight into the top minds in the industry as they share their skills and hacks to help you on your journey.

This podcast isn't just about selling more, it's about understanding your customers needs and building efficiencies behind the scenes so you can sell more but work less while being top of mind when people think H Vac.

Now let's get started with your host of the Close it now podcast.

This is Sam Wakefield.

Welcome back.

It is time for another episode of the Close it now podcast.

Sam Wakefield here.

And today we've got a really interesting topic.

It's one of those little higher level topics that applies to every single thing you do when you're interacting with a homeowner.

It's another story from the field, from this site visit that I just did in Pennsylvania.

And I, you know, I love site visits because they're so full of both opportunities for me to help your people up level and help you up level to really, I mean literally you double your income out of if you apply what we go over in a week, double your revenue, double your income.

And it's amazing how fast that happens and you know what we what goes on there.

And also the cool part about site visits for me is I get so many excellent topics to cover because I know if one person when I go to a company is struggling with something or they have an opportunity to grow, then I know a lot of the rest of you are experiencing the same thing.

And so it's a perfect opportunity to turn that into a podcast to be able to help thousands and thousands of people, which I love.

So welcome back.

It is time to actually we're going to start off today with a little bit of the what's in your cup.

Section.

Today I'm actually, I've got my yellow, yellow mug.

It's got love written right on the side and it's a super happy yellow yellow color.

What do you drink out of?

Do you drink coffee out of your to go?

Do you drink it out of at the house and then you're done?

I'm just curious.

Um, but today the what's in your cup is actually in a company called Isagenix.

It's a nutrition company that, you know, I've taken this stuff for years, but they have a really good coffee.

It's, it's a little different because they they actually balance the PH in it and then add like some coconut, coconut oil.

So it's pretty delicious.

So raise.

Everybody take a collective.

3, 2, 1.

We're going to take a nice big drink of what is in your cup today.

It could be coffee, it could be something else.

Heck, it could be whiskey for all I know.

But every light, take a sip.

Three, two, one, go.

All right, well, that was delicious today.

So let's hop into this topic.

It's called decision overload.

Have you ever had decision overload?

It's one of those that I know I've hit the overwhelm moment a lot of times.

But the whole point of this context is it's our goal to not give decision overload to the homeowner, decision overload to the client, to the customer.

Because what happens and what I was seeing so many times is we will go to a house and the person I was with, he would ask the homeowner lots of decision questions that the homeowner had no business actually making a decision on.

If you're the expert there, you're designing the system, you're designing the installation.

This is especially true if in a lot of markets where it's not an existing system, say, because I know I have a lot of coaching clients around the country and up into Canada.

I know you guys do.

It's a lot of heat only systems and you're going in and you're adding AC to it, you're adding cooling to it, or you're doing a total conversion into something else.

Say it's a boiler and you're installing air like a mini split type of a heat pump.

You're doing a full conversion.

So a lot of those decisions are asking the homeowner, where would you like the outdoor unit?

Have you thought about that?

Or, you know, okay, we're going to hang these, the heads inside, here's where this is going to go.

Do you want to know this wall, this wall or this wall?

Which is fine, if that was the only question you were asking.

But the problem happens that as you go through the process, what's going on is the homeowner starts to make decision after decision after decision.

And you're the design expert, you're the really.

Realistically what I.

Unless they have a very, you know, specific opinion on where, say the outdoor unit wants, you know, wants to try to go, and what this needs to look like is you go outside, you show them, here's where I want to place this.

This is the best placement, and here's why.

And then Paint them a visual picture of what it's going to look like.

Like, here's a picture, you know, just pull it up on your phone or show it on the brochure.

Here's a picture of what it looks like.

It's gonna sit right here.

We're gonna have to maybe clear this bush out.

The line set is gonna go up the wall here with the line cover.

We're gonna match the paint, you know, paint the picture.

Help them visually see it before they see it.

They have to see it before they see it.

When you can do this, there's no objections on, you know, what it's going to look like, or there's no objections on a lot of things because you're closing those doors before you get there.

A good, good story from this is when we.

When I was in Pennsylvania, we went out to this one home, and I took the lead on this one to demonstrate some of this to the person that I was riding along with.

So we go outside, and it was funny because the neighbor right across had just had a mini split installed not too long ago before we were there.

And she says, oh, my gosh, you're not installing that thing on the inside.

I hate it.

I despise it.

I would never do that in my house.

It's gross.

And so the guy I was with instantly, mentally checked out from a mini split and started trying to talk about a ducted system install for her home.

And I was like, okay, well, let's go look at this.

Let's talk about it a little bit.

So I just grabbed my phone, I pulled up, I was like, you know, there's lots of different versions of that, right?

No, I didn't know that.

So I showed her a in ceiling cassette, and she was like, oh, my God, that's the coolest thing ever.

I would love to do that.

I said, okay, so that's great.

So let's look right across here.

See how this outdoor unit looks.

That's what it's going to look like right here by your home.

Okay.

And you see how they did that with the line set cover.

It's going to sit right here, and it's going to go into the attic right here and started really painting the picture of what that's going to look like on the outside of the house.

And then after showing the pictures on the inside, we literally walked in and we stood in the room and, you know, held the.

Just held my phone up with the picture on the screen, you know, kind of towards the ceiling.

I was like, okay, now Visualize this right here.

This is what it's going to look like.

It's going to sweep through the whole room.

And, you know, and realistically, gentlemen and ladies, I know that this sounds super basic, but also consider how many of you are actually doing this level of visualization with the homeowner in.

In the project.

I would wager that not very many, because that's what I come across so often and so many times is, you know, you have like a brochure and you're sitting at the table and you're, okay, here's what the picture's going to look like, maybe, but you're not helping them, the homeowner, visualize what it's going to look like in their space.

And it's so important, especially if there's a conversion to something that's not there, it's so important that they have to.

That they see it ahead of time.

It's super important that they see what's going on now.

I know we started with decisions.

Every bit of this, this is not having them make a decision.

This is.

This is the best.

It sounds like this, it's.

This is the best fit for your home.

Here's what it's going to look like.

It's going to be an easy process.

It's something we do every day.

You're going to love it.

The temperatures are going to be perfect.

And that conversation, too, it was, how cool would it be to be able to set your bedroom temperature different than your son's bedroom temperature and different than the rest of the house?

And she was all on board with that.

So that's how you.

And for those of you who don't know, because I get a lot of questions about how do we sell mini splits and how do we sell them for the right pricing?

We've got to paint this picture.

You have to paint a picture of how much better it is than a traditional ducted system.

I mean, years ago, a lot of you are younger, just don't remember the marketing.

But when Mitsubishi first came to the United States, one of the very first commercials they had, and I remember really specifically because I thought it was really fun, because I love marketing.

I just hate getting marketed, too.

So if you're like me, you study marketing a lot.

And one of the very first marketing commercials they had was it just said, you don't turn all the lights on in the house with one light switch, do you?

Then why should you control all the temperature in the house with one thermostat?

And I just thought that was really cool, because it paints a very clear picture of exactly what you can do in the home with the correct, you know, multi port setup.

And so when you start to paint those pictures and you use that type of verbiage with the homeowner, they start to see how much more, how much more benefit there is.

And they can also start to see because many splits in most homeowners minds are just a glorious glorified window unit.

But they're not.

We know that.

How do we communicate to them that it's more than just that?

And it's through this type of, this, this type of description.

And as you do that, it paints the picture for them.

You get them really excited about the potential to, you know, hey, if you want to sleep at 65 in your bedroom at night, but you know, grandma is in the bedroom across the hallway and she sleeps at 75 because she likes it warmer, this will do that.

Nobody has to do thermostat wars anymore.

You don't have to like, you know, have her space heater going because you like to sleep cold.

So it's fighting against itself and it just drives your electric bill up.

That doesn't happen anymore.

So that type of benefit focused description.

But backing up though, what you don't do is start to give them those decisions that really are unnecessary for them to make.

A couple of examples were, okay, do you want the outdoor unit here, here or here?

When clearly there was one great location for it based on where the lion set was going and the electric was going.

So there was no reason to even offer other locations for an outdoor unit.

But the guy I was with just felt like he had to involve the homeowner in some of those decisions.

The other one that was really apparent that came to mind, we're standing in the kitchen, kind of dining area and we're looking at two different walls for the wall mount unit in this other house.

And he's like, okay, well we could put it here or we could put it on the second wall, but we have to cut out some of this trim around the window.

Are you okay with that?

What?

And then of course the homeowner question, which was clear in my mind and should be clear in a lot of yours.

The homeowner question was, well, where is it going to work the best?

And which just really re emphasizes the fact that you're the expert, that when you're presenting something and you're walking them through and helping them visualize like, okay, we're going to place it here by.

Because this is where it's going to work best in this room.

And that's all you got to say.

And they're like, okay, great, that's fine.

Don't give them unnecessary decisions because what happens is decision overload starts to happen.

And this can be with.

I use mini splits as an example because of the great.

You know, the easy way it is to talk about them, especially with decisions, but can be with anything.

It could be, say you're adding an AC to a heat only system and so you start having that same conversation or you're literally doing anything.

Don't ask them to make those little decisions along the way.

The system, the close it now system is designed to get yeses.

We get a train of yeses along the way, we get buy in, we get agreement, we get consent.

All of the things along the way.

They're saying yes to everything we're doing.

They're co creating the project with us, but they're not making this install decisions on something they don't need to.

Because what happens is you get decision overload.

So it's kind of like their decision bucket fills out.

They get decision exhausted.

And this is a psychological principle.

When you study psychology, this is absolutely something you'll come across because it leads to overwhelm in the brain.

And as that decision, their decision maker gets tired.

You basically just wear them the heck out before you get to the real decision, which is yes or no in the project before you get to the real decision of we're going to finance or we're going to pay cash.

We want to save their decision making power ability and not where I'm out before we get to the close.

That's where we want to save up their energy for decision making.

That's and we want to have plenty in reserve because our goal of course is to have them make the decision right now.

It's about closing it now, not waiting, not scheduling a follow up of a week later.

So many times we have the false idea when a homeowner says I want to think about it, that that is a set amount of time.

It's not literally.

It can be in an instant.

That's why the porch light clothes work so well.

That's why the ping pong clothes work so well.

Because people can and will make decisions on a moment's notice if you prompt them properly, if you lead them down the right path properly.

And we're going to talk a lot about a lot of that in some upcoming podcasts.

We're going to go through a whole series on closing.

But if we lead them there properly, they'll be able to make a decision in an instant.

I want to think about it is literally just a smokescreen.

It's what people just, they don't know how to respond.

And most people are just conditioned not to make a decision.

Our whole society is an indecisive society and that's our job, is to help them make a decision.

They know they want it.

They know that you're the right company, they know the right representative.

They really have no reason not to make the decision other than that's how they've been conditioned for so long as to, oh, just don't make a decision instantly because that could be a mistake.

Well, no, it does.

It's not always a mistake.

And so we're helping them see that it's our job to help them over that hump.

But you want to have that decision making power in reserve by the time they get there.

So stop having them make decisions in the process, especially for installation items that they have no business making decisions on.

If you're the real expert, be the expert.

You are more educated than the homeowner.

Show it like, here's where it's going to go, here's where this is going to be, here's what this is going to be.

It's the best placement for this.

In order to accomplish what you said you want to accomplish, it has to go here.

And that is what we're going to do.

And it's easy.

They just see, okay, yeah, no problem.

That's why we brought you out.

We don't know.

And you'll hear people say that all the time.

They're like, we don't know.

That's why we got you here, because you are the expert.

Great.

We've got the whole stream of experts coming in.

Awesome.

That's perfect.

I'm the last one you're ever going to have to talk to.

So because it's our people give you the, I want to think about it people give you the objections at the end.

I've got to get three bids your price, all those things.

If you don't follow the right system, if you haven't solved what's called a fud, if you haven't cleared fear, uncertainty and doubt out of their mind and you don't have the confidence and the certainty that you have the solution for what they're looking for, that you, absolutely, you are the solution.

You, your company and your project are going to solve exactly their problem with no doubt.

If the, if you can convey that message to Them that there is zero concern, there's zero doubt that we're solving their problems completely.

You're going to stop getting that.

I want to think about it.

You're going to stop getting that.

I need to get three bids.

Your price is too high.

We've got to talk to my so and so, my uncles, neighbors, brothers, sisters, Billy Bob, four states over that owned an air conditioning company 20 years ago.

Right.

You're going to stop getting those objections because they've got the certainty in their mind that you're certain and your confidence that you can solve their problems.

And that is, that's.

That's how to really close is a well executed system is going to get more once it closes because they just.

There's no reason to go anywhere else now.

Yes, of course people are still going to have some objections and we'll handle those.

But most of the objections come.

I hate to tell you this, but most of the objections come because you've put it in their head in the process somewhere you've used words of uncertainty.

Well, we could probably do this or it might turn out like this.

Stop using words of insert uncertainty.

The more you plant those seeds in their mind, the more they're going to be unsure that you can solve their problem and give them the ability to make decisions, but only the important ones at the end.

That is the whole point of this, this episode.

I kind of feel like we were all over the map.

But there's some really good stuff in here.

So recapping a little bit.

Let's see, Drive Time University.

It's what it's for.

We covered.

Don't give them decisions that they don't need to make.

Don't give the homeowner decisions they don't need to make.

Like, you know, placement of equipment, that kind of stuff.

You know where the best placement is.

Just tell them we covered how to.

How to help them visualize the installation.

How to visualize what life is going to be like.

Here's a really good example.

Say a two story house and you're installing zoning with a, you know, single unitary ducted system.

Help them visualize what life is going to be like.

When in fact describe a scenario.

Be like, oh man, this is going to be great when it's the middle of the summer and your problem before is always hot upstairs.

But now when you wake up in the morning, it's gonna be nice and cool upstairs and the downstairs because nobody was down there.

You actually even turned it up a little bit and saved on your electric bill.

And at the end of the evening, you've got it already preset.

So when you go up, it's not gonna be extra hot upstairs.

It's gonna be nice and cool upstairs and you can shift the temperatures along with yourself.

Isn't that gonna be great?

You're no longer gonna be, you know, having to suffer through the sweat and the heat upstairs because now you're going to be able to sleep nice and cool and you're going to high five me five years down the road if like, man, that's still the best decision ever made, right?

So help them visualize what life is going to be like.

And that's good.

That will get rid of so many of the uncertainty objections that I want.

Wow, man, we got to think about this.

Is this really going to do what we're doing, what we're wanting?

When you help them live, visually live it and mentally live the scenarios of life after the install, what life is going to be like, that in itself will just get you more once it closes because people are confident that you're going to solve their problem.

So helping people visualize what it's going to look like, that, that's a huge part of, you know, this whole, this whole process.

I mean, this is sales.

Sales is helping people see something before it happens.

If you are just an order taker, you know, that's fine.

That means your average, your average close rates are going to be less, your average tickets are going to be less.

But the best.

The top closers in the industry will help a homeowner visualize what life will be like after the project.

They help them see how bad life is before the project and visualize how great life will be after the project.

And you will, it will really surprise you.

The number of top closers that actually talk about equipment and specs and brand even, even equipment brand is really, really, really low.

Because it's not about that.

They're buying the company, they're buying you.

They're buying the solutions to their problems.

We don't sell a single thing homeowners want to buy.

What homeowners want to buy is comfort and efficiency and allergy help and humidity help and all those kind of things.

They don't.

No one wants to buy an air furnace or a condenser or a heat pump or a germicidal lamp.

No one wants to buy that stuff.

What they want to buy is the benefit from it.

So think in terms of that.

Stop having them make decisions that are unnecessary for them and help start painting the picture of the benefits of what they're buying, not the specs, the benefits.

And you're going to see such a huge difference in your, in your close rates and in your average tickets.

And don't be scared to build those tickets up with lots of things in them we're going to cover in the future.

You know, how to, how to stack that ticket, how to throw the homeowner a red herring, which is a place to negotiate.

That has nothing to do with your equipment price, which is a lot of fun.

There's lots of things coming.

So that is the message for today.

Just don't give the homeowner decision overwhelm.

Don't give them decision overload.

Save those.

That decision making ability for the, for actually closing and making the real decisions that matter.

The money decision.

That's the one, right?

That's the one that matters.

To do it and to, to do it.

To do it with you and to do it now.

That is that, that's what we're after.

So.

Well, thanks for hanging out with Drivetime University again.

My name is Sam Wakefield.

I want to know what your biggest takeaways are.

Email me Sam, close it now.net and go join the Facebook group.

It's growing.

It's Gosh, we're over 1700 members now.

It's super positive.

It's super supported.

It's not like those trash groups out there that just rip each other apart.

We support each other.

Great place to ask questions.

There was just a post in there about the best, the best sales books to read.

And there, man, it lit up because everyone in there so focused on positivity and personal growth and getting better and raising the level because that's what we're about.

So message me also.

Definitely doing site visits like crazy, man.

The story is from Pennsylvania.

Holy cow.

One of our techs up there, he's messaging me.

He had $115,000 week.

It was the biggest week ever.

He was like, man, I'm offering things I never was scared to offer before because I went up there and just showed him what's possible and now he's just killing it.

You know, Heath, Seth, rj, all the guys are up there just dominating Mark.

Everybody is up there just killing it.

So love, love, love the results that are coming out out of four days of a site visit can completely revolutionize your company.

So message me.

It's super affordable.

I'm in the field with you.

I do ride alongs and we're going to pay for it before I'm even gone because of the extra sales.

You're going to make.

So it's basically a no brainer.

So yeah, hand me out to the company.

We're going to get a bunch of deals closed for you while we're there and also show your people what's possible.

Where can they improve, where can they fly?

We've got people literally doubling their gross revenue and their income after four days in doing a site visit and ride along.

Message me about that.

It's a lot of fun and yeah, taking the, taking the industry by storm.

So lots of fun stuff coming up.

Be on the lookout.

There's a lot of programs that I'm putting together.

There's going to be some different courses, online courses coming out here soon.

And man, this is such a good year.

2023 is the year that everything pops off.

There's no reason you can't dominate your the top of your leaderboard in your company, in your town, in your state.

There's no reason you can't be on the stages at the conferences because you have grown to the ability to be a top performer.

So that's it.

That's it for today.

You know when you hit the ramble point that it's time to wrap up and that's what just happens.

So again, my name is Sam Wakefield.

Thanks for hanging out with Drive Time University.

Everybody take a second, raise your cup and let's get out there.

Everybody says get it.

It's turning into a hot summer.

I know it was a slow start in 2023, but definitely turning into a hot summer.

Everybody go out there, save the world one heat stroke at a time.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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