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.

All right, so why in the world is your most talented rep amazing with homeowners but falling behind on the basics?

What if their inconsistency is an attitude, but it's neurology?

Let's unpack why the reps with the most potential often struggle with the most basic structures.

And how you can transform inconsistency into high performance by coaching the brain, not just the behavior.

One thing that we dive into so much here at Close it now is not just treating the symptoms.

That's exactly like the way we handle objections.

An objection is just a symptom of a bigger problem.

So when we are thinking in these terms, when we apply it to neurodivergence, when we apply it to this conversation, it makes total sense.

So this is part three of our Neuro Aware selling miniseries that is inside the Bigger Sells psychology series.

So in the first two episodes of this mini series, we explored how neurodivergence affects buyer behavior and how to spot it during appointments.

But today we're going to talk about the other side of the same coin flip, the script, so to speak.

We're going to turn it inward to our own team.

So this episode is about how we're going to coach salespeople and technicians whose brains are wired for brilliance, but struggle with follow through, structure, self regulation.

This is a huge one and I know it's going to be important to you.

So before we get into that, we're going to do a couple things.

And so the first thing I want to do is read a review.

This comes from A.K.

stelling.

So, A.K.

stelling, whoever you are, I have an idea.

Maybe that is Alex up in Utah, but it may be not.

So pop me a message if you hear this, but the title says fast track in H Vac sales 5 stars.

And says while I don't believe in overnight success.

Leveraging information from the right people is about the closest thing to it.

I got into the industry about six weeks ago and a lot of my processes that I implemented quickly come from Sam.

So thank you for that, that review, Alex.

I love it.

I appreciate it so much.

If that is you, if not, A.K.

stelling, you're a rock star.

I'm glad that you are implementing and it's so cool to see people getting such amazing results for everybody that's watching.

Yesterday, literally yesterday, I had three different people message me about the biggest sales they've ever made.

One of them, I've got a plumber shout out to calv.

He was messaging me a couple days ago.

He said he sold a $22,000 plumbing project and it was like, man, he never would have even offered some of this stuff.

But literally just by asking the right questions and bringing it up, bringing awareness.

So the homeowner was just like, yeah, add that in, sounds great.

And that's what happens when.

This is why I introduced this episode with the objections fall away because we're treating the bigger symptom, the bigger reason.

Objections are just symptoms of a bigger problem.

And when we treat the real problem, the objections start to go away just like symptoms to other things.

So we're getting to the root cause.

So it's just beautiful when that happens.

Another guy, Matt, up in Toronto, shout out to you, Matt.

He went 3 for 3 yesterday and had a heck of a day.

Another Christian, you've heard, talked, heard from him before.

A couple days ago he had over a. I think it was close to 60k for the day.

For the day.

60,000 for the day.

And so this happens all the time with the coaching clients.

So if you want to know more about coaching and I want to introduce something super quick before we get into the content.

I am excited.

There is.

I'm giving you a tiny sneak peek.

We are creating the Close it now community.

The Close it now community is going to be awesome.

It is sick.

I'm working on the platform right now.

It's going to include a handful of things.

We're building a community so we can all come together to support each other.

I'm going to be doing trainings in there.

It's going to be a place repository or a library, so to speak, for recordings from trainings.

They're going to live there.

The book club is going to function inside the.

Inside this community.

Going to have guest trainers come in.

It's going to be a place for specific time frames where you'll be able to team up with people from all over the country, from all different companies, not just the country, from around the world to have live role play sessions.

We can practice things.

I'm super excited about this community.

So watch out for that.

It's going to be ready really, really quickly.

So I'll be introducing that.

So listen and watch for how to get involved.

So that is exc.

Exciting.

Now let's get into this episode because I've got a lot of great stuff.

Real quick, what's in your cup today?

I am hydrating like crazy.

It is the hottest days of the year so far here in Texas.

It's 90, 96, 98 today.

Still no 100 degree days here in central Texas.

I know other parts of the state have had it, but here in the Austin, Texas area, no 100 degree days and nothing, nothing projected.

What is the weather like in your state and in where you're at, your state, your prov, your country, your part of the world, Pop a message, drop it in the Facebook group.

Go join the close it now Facebook group.

There's so far now there's 2,700 people in there.

So go join the group.

And it's a great place to chop it up.

So everybody grab your cup.

What's in it?

Coffee.

You got espresso, you got energy drinks.

Make sure you're hydrating.

I saw a story just earlier today.

There was a gentleman that was found dead on.

On an H vac technician on top of a roof.

Rooftop.

I don't remember exactly the area, but he was found dead sadly from heat.

All indicators show that it was because of a heat stroke and sadly, he passed away on the roof.

So stay hydrated, everybody.

I don't care what industry you're in, it's hot out there.

What part of the world you're in, when it gets hot, you have to stay hydrated.

So three, two, one.

All right, let's toast this episode and get going.

So thank you all for being here.

I'm stoked.

So this is part one why great reps struggle with simple things.

And I can raise my hand and definitely tell you that I am one of these people, but you've seen it, you know, the.

The rep that goes out, the salesperson, the technician, they'll go out and they'll close 50k in a week, 50k in a day.

And then they have the hardest time.

They've got elite people skills, you know, elite people skills, but have the hardest time updating the CRM.

You know, we have the hardest time filling out dispo forms.

We have the hardest time keeping the, just logging numbers.

It's so tough.

Or you know, light up in front of clients, but shut down in meetings.

This isn't a discipline issue.

You know, for years and years and years and years and years, I've always beat myself up, up.

Why could I never keep my room clean?

Why can't I keep my desk clean?

Why does my car look the way it does?

I despise functioning in chaos, but at the same time I have the hardest time making myself be disciplined enough and always like heaped shame on myself because of this.

So this isn't a discipline issue.

It's a neurological mismatch between expectations and how our brain functions day to day.

So here's a little bit of brain science.

You know, I love brain science because I want to understand why things happen.

And when you understand the why behind something, it emphasizes the importance of how and why to take care of it.

So brain science, executive dysfunction, this is what this is called.

It impacts working memory initiation, task switching and impulse control.

Also, low dopamine availability means repetitive tasks.

Fill, drain, draining, not neutral.

It literally feels draining.

I was talking about this with my wife yesterday.

Even when I love my love, love, love, love, love my one on one coaching clients, when I have a consistent set time on my calendar every single week, over and over and over, as much as I love it, my brain hits this low dopamine availability because it's a repetitive task.

So I have to constantly work to that because I have to function and do what I do.

But at the same time it's like, geez, getting there.

Sometimes, I'll tell you, just be honest with everybody.

Some days it's tough because my brain is not wired for that.

So I'm constantly creating ways to create dopamine in my life to overcome this.

These reps, these technicians, the salespeople are often interest motivated, not consequence motivated.

So what you have to ask yourself, if you're a manager, if you're the owner, if you're the leader, and I know some owners, the owners of companies who function very much like this, self admitted.

So the thing is you have to stop asking why don't they care and start asking how does their brain actually work?

So what you need to do is audit your current team, right?

Who thrives in chaos?

Ask yourself, look at them, you know, figure it out.

Who thrives in chaos?

Who excels under pressure, but always seems messy.

They might not be disorganized, they may be under structured for Their brain.

So this is important to step one is awareness within just like with anything.

So we have to recognize this now what do we do about it once we recognize?

Because I'll tell you the question, if you have a team of more than one or two, the question isn't if it is which one on your team functions like this.

Because it's 20% of our population, I will definitely tell you in what we do, it's absolutely more than 20%.

Because we function, we thrive in chaos.

A brain built neurodivergent that functions in adhd.

A lot of people call it a superpower.

And that's why we do so well multitasking all these things, being able to make very quick, sharp decisions and work with people, it's because of this.

But understanding that we have to understand how to support a brain that functions this way.

So accountability systems built for neurotypical brains or regular brains often create the opposite effect for neurospicy reps.

So what this means.

So here's a couple of examples here.

Missed CRM updates that causes.

So when I tell you, and I can absolutely emphasize this because it happens to me when this is why a good sign is look at their text messages on their phone and look at their email box email inbox.

Because in fact I'll open my inbox right now.

And because I'm curious, I have and I just did a huge cleanup the other day.

I had thousands, literally thousands of messages in my inbox right now I'm looking at 573 unopened messages in my inbox.

And this is from the last month.

So I can tell you this is a real thing.

So what happens is those messages come in or CRM updates all the things.

The second it stacks more than a couple, it creates a shame spiral and that creates avoidance.

So it absolutely start to avoid the tasks that I know I need to do.

And I know you have people in your team, maybe you do the same thing.

So the other thing that happens when and I'm thinking I'm putting myself back in the place of when I was in the field.

Repeated corrections make loss of confidence which equals shutdown.

So what happens is you don't need to, you don't need lower expectations.

We need to set up different scaffolding to support these awesome, awesome people that just function differently.

So here's a couple practical systems to help you when you are working with, managing and leading this type of employee or teammate.

One is momentum maps.

Something that's super important is to track engagement, not just Output super crucial color coded post its are good Kanban boards emojis to visually show wins, celebrate moving the needle, not just the results.

We have to celebrate activity, activity and constantly like every single time, you know, and I'll tell you when I was functioning the best and I'm sure Joe, the guy that owned the company, the last place when I was in the field still every single time I made a sell, I texted him that was our rhythm just so he could throw a like on it.

He'd throw a heart on it.

Just something because we had figured out a way to keep my brain functioning at the highest level by that constant dopamine hit of doing.

And so when that wouldn't happen, I would find myself slipping.

I had to have somebody to celebrate every single micro win with.

So something that's very handy for this in your team is just do a group chat with your team and have everybody put every single win inside there and establish a culture to celebrate.

Because everyone who functions like this, this, that little teeny tiny dopamine hit every single time, success is made, it gamifies it and it drives the needle that's moving the needle forward.

If you're in a team that does canvassing, we're not celebrating the closed deal, we're not celebrating the demo.

We're not celebrating when something is booked.

We're celebrating, hey, I just knocked out 20 doors before 9am we're celebrating the micro steps that are going to move the needle.

That's such a different mindset.

And then this works for everybody else too.

So another way to do this is visual workflows turn verbal tasks into visual ones.

An example is instead of hey, you need to update your CRM, let's show a three step visual card.

It says open job, add notes, press save.

This sounds like way simplified and like you're, you know, it's like why would we have to like literally tell somebody to push the button to open it?

Make sure to remember to add your notes and remember to press save.

What this does, it breaks it down into smaller tasks.

So when you do task pairing, which is what this is, and I know I'm going through all of this super quick, but we've got a lot to cover and this is one episode.

So task pairing, it attaches a high friction task to a dopamine reward.

So something that there's a lot of resistance against.

If you can attach a dopamine reward to those mundane type of tasks, it will dramatically change the likelihood of that person actually doing the task.

So for example after sending pricing, go for a walk and call someone fun.

It's like literally.

And if this is you start doing these types of things, think of what can you reward yourself with for every single mundane task that you complete.

I literally do this all the time.

I've got my guitar sitting right here.

I've started playing again.

For everybody that if you have heard me over the years talk about playing guitar, I have started playing again.

It's been like three years since I've touched my guitar, but I have it sitting right here next to me.

And I won't allow myself just to grab it and dink on it until I complete some ridiculous task that I have to do.

And then I'll grab it and I'll set a timer and play for five minutes.

And it absolutely is.

I look so forward to getting to touch my guitar and like take my fingers for an exercise and sink into the music for a minute that I will race to complete that task.

So that constant back and forth getting that reward each time is like super, super powerful.

Or I'll.

Another thing that just when it's mundane computer work, I'll say I'll want to listen.

I'll find myself.

Maybe I want to listen to a specific song or a certain style of music.

It's like I want to throw some metal on or something.

I will not do it.

In fact, sometimes what I do.

So I'm giving all of you examples of how to gamify your own brain is if you build systems into your life to force you into doing the tasks that you don't want to do because you were chasing the reward, it's okay to do this.

And so I'll turn on a style of music that I really don't like so I get the task done faster so I can reward myself with changing, you know, changing my Spotify to what I do like.

So there's just some different things that you can do to have this constant game with your brain.

So task pairing, brain notes, visual processing.

It activates areas that help reduce anxiety and increase task clarity.

So that's the visual workflow, Just literally a chart, something that says open job, add notes, press save, or whatever the thing is.

And this will help you to write SOPs and those types of things and systems in your business too, to start thinking along these lines.

Another brain note externalizing to do lists.

You've got to brain dump it.

You've got to get it out of your brain.

Help your people get it out of their brain.

Whiteboard.

Using note cards, digital tools reduces Working memory strain.

So grab your.

Have them literally grab the phone and we've got this tasks.

Use your task or your notepad where you can.

The checklist where you can hit.

You can make the list.

I love checklists because my brain functions this way.

Make the list and then when it's done, you check it off and it disappears.

Whoo.

That's success.

So that's the dopamine hit when you complete the task.

So performance increases when we can see progress, not just pressure.

The more you pressure your team, the less this type of brain will perform.

It will have the opposite effect.

I have literally shut down and left the building.

When I've been in that kind of place, I'll sit through whatever I need to to get past the pressure.

Say it's somebody talking to the sales team and we're, you know, we're there.

And yes, we know things are not going well, but don't yell us, yell at us about it.

Let's put together a plan to solve it.

Not just, you guys need to do better.

So if that's the way you manage, stop it, because you will.

Your people will leave and it's not going to be pretty for you, and it's your fault.

But don't manage like that.

Be a leader, not a manager.

And here's some language around this too.

When you're leading your team this way, here's a word track for you.

Here's your map for today.

Each task isn't a burden, it's a checkpoint.

So it's literally as simple sometimes as changing some language around exactly what it is and what you're doing.

And it helps to make such a huge difference in the result.

So here is your challenge.

I want you to pick one neurodivergent rep, one neuro spicy rep, a salesperson, a technician, whoever it is.

And think about this, not just in sales, think of this in terms of everyone in your office.

You can absolutely have this person in your CSR team.

It could be anybody.

But build a custom visual task system with them, not for them.

Sit down with them and have a conversation around.

What would it look like for you?

How can I help support you the way that you need supported?

So, because they're going to feel seen and heard that way, and I tell you, if anyone had ever done that in my career before I owned my own company, that would have been heaven.

Absolutely.

It would have been incredible.

Of course, nobody did, because this is not a conversation that anyone has really ever had.

But we need to.

This needs.

This must.

This must Rise to the forefront.

So segment three anchors routines and shifting states on command.

So here's where we're really going to get into some meat and potatoes here.

Neurodivergent salespeople and technicians, they often don't struggle with selling.

They struggle with getting into the cell's state, into the mental state.

The challenge isn't ability, it's state switching.

It's going from overwhelmed to clear.

It's going from distracted to focused.

It's going from off to on.

This is why a lot of times you'll hear me talk about state management and how to control that and how to anchor those states.

So anchors create these reliable on ramps to consistent sales performance.

So here's a coaching tool for you.

Start of day anchor.

So you can do this with yourself or if you're leading your team.

So here's your 60 second identity statement.

The start of day anchor.

So, so crucial.

Put this on your affirmation list and say it out loud to yourself.

I bring clarity and confidence to every home I enter today.

I bring clarity and confidence to every home I enter today.

That's a huge one.

The next is your.

You've got to establish these patterns and rituals to get in to direct your life.

If we're living intentional, when you take radical responsibility for everything in your life and you choose to live intentionally, that means you also choose to take your sells intentional.

Every single thing you do is intentional.

We're not selling by chance anymore.

We're not selling by happenstance or luck.

You're being intentional and you're doing the activities it takes that top performers do and success does because success leaves clues.

So when you take the steps and you adopt the habits that top performers have, you start to get the results that top performers get.

One is affirmations.

All of the top people I've ever met and know and millionaires of the world and a couple billionaires that I've talked to, they all have a morning ritual.

They all have all go through affirmations.

Mindfulness, intentionality is huge for every single top performer.

So here's a three step physical anchor that you can do before going out and knocking on doors, before calling, before showing up at your appointment, stretching, deep breathing your key, you know, talking to yourself.

Those affirmations you're programming your brain and you're telling your state what to do.

Literally change something, change your physicality, change your physiology.

There's a huge, huge study that's done on when you literally stand like in a big X position, stand like an X man or the Superman pose, you know, get your fists on your hips and chest up and stand up straight.

It changes your physiology and it changes the dopamine in your body.

It starts to release things.

I'm literally standing like this right now and I feel, I can feel tingles going through my body because it changes your physiology and it builds your, it boosts your confidence, it boosts your self esteem.

This has been studied.

So you have to actually do it.

So don't just act like you're going to do it, don't say you're going to do it, actually do it.

So every single time you do this, the same trigger every time builds that continuity, it builds neural association in your brain.

So start to lock that in and you're going to be blown away by the instant results you start to get.

Number three is your end of day debrief.

This is huge.

Ask yourself and ask your team.

You can have.

So here's a wild idea, everybody, instead of only having morning meetings, why don't we have end of day meetings periodically?

We can debrief what worked today.

One, it reinforces confidence and it reduces perfectionism.

What worked?

Let's do more of that.

So turn your business on its head, do things opposite for a week, every morning meeting, move it to the end of the day.

All these types of things change something.

Pattern, interrupt, see what happens.

So here's the application.

Anchoring is so important.

It ties the emotion to behavior via the limbic system.

So there's the brain science part of it.

What rituals do, Having a ritual and don't think ritual is some bad negative word.

It has, doesn't have to be associated with anything negative.

A ritual is just a pattern or system or steps that you repeat over and over.

That's a ritual.

So it reduces activation energy and increases predictive safety.

This is huge.

So consistent routines help override executive function gaps.

For this context, this is massive.

So here's some verbiage for you.

Here is your, here's a word track for you.

If you're leading a neurodivergent salesperson, a neurodivergent project manager, comfort advisor or service tech, selling tech, whatever it is, you don't need to feel ready.

You just need a ritual that brings you back to who you are.

Because who you are is the most important.

So in this conversation, your language is.

I know you are a top performer.

I know you are at the high functioning at the best of your ability and improving every single day.

I see you.

So let's create rituals and structures around how your brain Functions the best.

So I can best support you in that this is not a disciplinary conversation.

This is how can we best support you.

And when you change your language in your leadership and become a leader instead of a boss or a manager, your entire team starts to change.

If you want to build a great business, you have to be great at building people.

So here's your challenge with your person.

Whoever this is on your team or yourself, do it with yourself.

Either way, design a three part daily anchor system with your morning identity trigger, your pre call ritual, and your end of day reflection.

Morning identity trigger, pre call ritual and end of day reflection.

Once you do this, I can guarantee you you're going to start seeing results faster and faster and faster.

So here's the anchor, the neurodivergent salesperson, that technician, whoever it is that falls into this category, they do not need more pressure, they need more precision.

It's a big difference.

So you might be the first, you might be the first person in their life, the first leader to say, hey, you're not broken.

You just need systems designed for the way your brain actually works.

Because I'm getting emotional thinking about this.

Throughout my career, if someone had told me that there's a good chance I would still be working there for them instead of doing what I'm doing now.

I'm grateful that that didn't happen because I'm able to make this impact globally in a way that I never thought possible in those days of my life.

But holy cow, that, that bonds you together.

I mean, talk about creating an ecosystem where you.

Because what is the statistic and what's the saying?

People don't leave jobs, they leave bosses.

People don't leave jobs, they leave bad managers.

Don't be a bad manager, don't be a bad boss.

Choose to be an intentional leader and have this conversation say to that person, you're not broken.

You just need systems designed for the way your brain actually works.

Because as we understand this, it changes everything.

Awareness changes it all.

So quick recap.

Traditional accountability often fails a neurodivergent salesperson or rep. You can coach consistency through systems, not shame.

If you shame them, they will shut down.

I am living proof of this.

Visual workflows, emotional anchors and interest based motivation are keys to high performance.

Gamify everything you can gamify it, you will see better, different results.

When you coach the brain, you free the person and that person closes deals.

So do you know a wildly talented salesperson or technician who keeps dropping the ball on the basics?

Forward this to this Forward them this episode, or more importantly, forward it to their manager.

Forward it to the leader, forward it to the owner.

Because everyone needs to hear this.

Because it will change the entire dynamic and culture of your team and your company if you start thinking along these lines and leading with heart and with compassion and understanding instead of saying, why can't that person just do the things I told them to do?

That's boss manager talk.

Don't be that.

So if you want to build a custom high performance system for your team, you can reach out to me.

And this is what I do.

I help companies just like yours go from mediocre to excellent, from good to great, from already doing okay to awesome.

So this is a huge.

When you, when you bring me out for coaching, especially at your locations, this is, it's way more than just scripts.

We dive into all of the things that create a culture of consistent, persistent, disciplined action for high performance.

That is my specialty.

That's what I do, and that's how I help so many people across the country see insanely exceptional results.

So also, if you would like to go back to the last episode and if you want a real life experience, if this is the first episode you've heard and you've not heard the episode with Andrew Randall, we did a live coaching session in a recording.

So you get to experience what it's like and there's definitely some insights in there that will make you think differently.

So reach out to me.

You can hit me@samsamloseitnow.net go to the website closeitnow.net, go join the Facebook group.

We've got a lot of coaching programs coming up.

I'm doing a lot of events this next year and I'm super excited to introduce the community to you.

So make sure you keep your eye out for that next up in the series, cognitive biases that kill deals and how to reverse them.

So that's a lot of word salad.

But tune in to the next episode.

That will be just me and we're going to dive into that and you'll understand what I mean as we continue along in this cell psychology series.

Now, if you've gotten some value from this or ever gotten value from close it now.

I would love for you to leave me a five star review.

So go to Google, just search close it now on Google and leave me a five star review.

Or go to Apple Podcasts and leave me a five star review.

And there's also a way to do it now on Spotify.

I found out.

So thank you all for listening.

I appreciate every single one of you as we are choosing to become someone worth buying from as you work to become that person.

This is so crucial.

Understanding the psychology of everyone that you run into, not just 80% of the people that you run into.

Everyone.

That's what makes a top performer is you're able to connect and communicate with every human being no matter what.

So in this journey to be 1% better every single day than you were yesterday, everybody, I love you all.

Thank you for listening.

Go be someone worth buying from.

You've been listening to the Close it now podcast.

Our passion is to dive headfirst 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 at thereal.

Close it now.

And on Facebook at Close It Now.

See you next time.