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 by 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.

All right everybody, welcome back to the Close it now podcast.

Sam Wakefield here.

This is your source for solar and H Vac sales training and all the, all the other trades.

We all know that psychology is the same.

Just whatever were happened to be, whatever widget we're selling is in a way kind of interchangeable.

And that's the cool part about what we do.

And if you've listened to this podcast very much, you know we're constantly staying on the cutting edge of what is going on, what's happening.

If you listen to this last podcast, it's how to go from a herbivore to a carnivore, how to become a hunter mindset.

And that's a little bit of what we're going to talk about today.

And more importantly on the staying on the cutting edge of technology side, we are, I am really excited about this episode because we've got some, some really cool technology.

You've probably heard everybody right now is talking about AI.

What is it going to do?

What is it doing for us?

How can we use it, how can we implement it?

So that is why I have this guest today.

He is somebody who's been in sales forever.

He has a direct quote from him, but he has, what he does is this is Mr. Corey Barrier.

He does H vac and plumbing training for service techs, cell skills development.

He is the most.

He's going to give us this highlight reel here in a second.

But I'm super excited because for the last year he has just, just dove headfirst into AI development and what he's got to share today is really freaking exciting.

Everybody listening.

So thank you for joining us today on the show Corey.

Glad to have you man.

Thanks Sam, I appreciate that.

So yeah, dude, like I love, I love working with salespeople because I'm, I'm by, in, by and large, I am a natural born salesperson.

I would say I have, you know, I, I've written a couple books.

One of them is a sales book.

9 Simple Steps to Sell More is the name of it.

Nice.

And host Successful Life podcast which is around the trades.

And I got into the trades about four years ago completely by accident.

A plumbing company hired me to come in and work with their team and what I realized is dang, dude.

Like plumbers, nature, anybody in the trades, they're just like me.

Most of us have adhd.

Most of us are cuss a lot.

Most of us don't do not very don't love email or.

Right.

And so like you'll have to text me to tell me to read my.

Email a hundred percent.

It's just one of those things.

And so I just, I really saw an opportunity to help people just like me.

You know, I am not, you know, I'm not a technical guy.

I'm a soft skills sales guy.

I'm not going to come in and teach your technicians how to fix a unit or.

Right.

But, but I for sure could tell them how to sell it.

And so where I excel is that, you know, conversational sales, consultative sales.

Really.

And I'm affirmable, you know, I'm sandler trained.

I've got, I don't know, I've been through every sales program you could think of.

Right.

And so that's what we do.

Yeah, those.

I, I feed my brain constantly.

I just, you know, I enjoy it and so recently you mentioned I've been the last like 11 months or so we've been building different AI products for the home services.

Primarily for the home services.

And I'm super excited if we want to get into that today because it's, it's a game changer as you have discovered recently.

For sure.

Love it.

I love it.

Well, thanks for that.

Thanks for the highlight.

Real man.

It's, it's always great to.

When we have guests on, you know, lots of the listeners, you know, sometimes people come out of nowhere like who is this person?

Why are they even here?

Right.

It's always good to do that.

Give us a little bit of your kind of overarching philosophy though.

I mean, how do you.

One of the things we talk a lot about in this podcast are our core values.

And so tell us a little bit about who Corey, Corey Barrier really is.

So you know, when we're talking about core values, that's important.

Do what you say you're going to do.

Go the extra mile.

You know, I, I don't believe in, I don't believe in Sales people being slime balls.

I mean, that's what everybody thinks salespeople are to begin with.

And so a lot of people match up to that.

I tried to go completely the opposite.

I don't think that you should sell people things that they don't need or they don't want.

And there's two different.

Two different things there.

Right.

You could need a new unit that is the.

The bare minimum, but you may want something that's double the price.

I'm okay selling you that.

Right?

Yeah.

People buy what they want, not what they need.

Yeah.

You may have a broken toilet, but want a bidet.

Right.

So that's okay.

And you should be able to, you know, at the end of the day, you're there to make the customer happy.

And so I don't believe in selling things that you don't need, but I do believe in selling, you know, and just being honest.

Like, and I'm not saying that I'm.

I've always been this, you know, angel, but, like, here's what I don't like.

You can tell when somebody's incongruent.

You can tell when the words coming out of their mouth does not line up with their face.

And so there's a lot of people in our industry that, that, that I see that a lot.

And so I've tried to separate myself from that.

I just don't believe in being a bag.

I don't know if I can cuss on here, but.

Oh, yeah, you're good.

I'm assuming that no holds bar.

Yeah, dude, so I forgot the other question.

That's another famous thing that.

That's it, you know, that's basically it, man.

Just kind of what core values are and your philosophies of, you know, the way that we.

The way that you go about business.

And do the right.

Well, business and life, you know, basically.

Well, I will share something, you know, very personal, and I'll open book about this.

I'm a recovering alcoholic.

And so I have, you know, I hadn't drank for quite some time, but I did smoke a little weed there for a little while.

And so that is not sobriety.

And so as of recent, I've had to.

Not had to.

I. I have stopped smoking weed.

And it's.

I don't know if you have any experience with people in sobriety, but it's a.

You go.

You go through a challenging time at first in a realization that maybe you have not been the greatest person.

And that's been my experience is that even though I haven't drank.

I haven't drank in like 14 years.

But you could still live that same alcoholic life without the drink.

It's called a dry drunk.

Right, sure.

And so I've done a lot of, done a lot of self discovery.

I'm a pretty open book about the fact I've done ayahuasca a couple of times.

Like I just try to seek knowledge from every place that I can seek it, love it.

We'll have to talk about that offline because that, that's definitely intriguing.

Being in Austin, this quick side pop out story about ayahuasca.

I know a handful of people in a, in a very specific like personal growth circle.

Everybody's business minded, super focused.

I can think of like five different people that went to Peru, did a guided ayahuasca trip and not a single one of them came back and did not start a multi million dollar business within a year.

Blew my, it's blown my mind.

So definitely on my list for, for enlightenment and just really unlocking some of those, the mental things, parts of our brain that are asleep.

We gotta, we gotta wake them up.

Yeah, I know one of those people you're talking about and you know, it's interesting.

I'll tell you one of the things that, and I, you know, just to be completely transparent with you, one of the things that I discovered through these journeys is that I compare myself to other people.

Like, I mean, I, I, I look at, you know, what so and so's doing and I wonder why I'm not doing that well during one of my ceremonies.

It, you know, there you get sick as hell when you take, when you drink ayahuasca.

It's not like a party, by the way.

Like a lot of people probably think that.

But it is not a.

No, it's medicine for sure.

It's.

Yeah.

100 and I was, I was sitting, I was, I was on my hands and knees because that's how you throw up.

And I was looking around and watching everybody in the circle and I'm like, I don't understand.

Like I feel pretty normal.

I don't know why they're acting the way they are.

And it was like you and me talking.

The voice, I guess you could say it's mother.

Ayahuasca said, you're not here for them, you're here for you.

That's been your problem your whole life.

You compare yourself to what everybody else is doing.

And what I realized in that moment is that takes me out of.

I.

Guess it take if I'm comparing myself to you.

I'm not really focusing on me.

Does that make sense?

So anyway, interesting stories.

That is.

I love it, man.

Well, yeah, it makes sense.

I mean, you're giving your power away if you're.

It reminds me of the quote.

And there was like, the.

Was it a couple of Summer Olympics back.

There was a really, really famous picture that came out and turned into a meme and like a motivational picture.

It's when I forget his name that has all.

All of the.

All the gold medals for the United States swimming when he's like, clearly ahead.

But the person who was the better swimmer that everybody expected to.

To beat him is one lane over.

And you.

The picture is so, so awesome because his head's coming up out of the water and you see him looking over Michael Phelps.

You see him looking over at Michael Phelps, and everyone, instantly, everyone was like, that's the moment he lost it.

Because winners look at the finish line, losers look at winners.

Right?

That's right.

Yeah.

Love it.

Good stuff, man.

Well, thanks for sharing that.

That is.

That's super powerful.

Let's get into, man, let's get it.

Let's get into some content here, because I know everyone.

We kind of loaded up the.

The AI gun and then laid it down to talk about this.

So everybody listening is like, oh, my gosh, what's going on?

Let's get to it already.

So let's jump in.

So first of all, side note, tell everybody a little, because this is a lot of people do zooms.

This is a super cool tool that I just learned about coming into this one.

Tell everybody real quick about Fireflies, and then we'll jump into AI because that's just a really great tool people can.

Use, especially for people like us.

Like, it's perfect.

So Fireflies is just a.

It's a program that you can buy that'll automatically load into every single one of your video calls.

I wish it would do every one of my phone calls.

And it, you know, the whole transcript's there.

And then it summarizes the transcript.

This part I didn't tell you.

So any question that you asked me or any question I ask you, they're all separated.

And you can go straight to all the questions Sam asked and all the questions Corey asked.

And then if there's.

During our conversation, it was like, all right, well, I need you to call.

I need you to link me up with that person that you said you were going to link me up with.

Don't forget that would be in a separate, like, area.

Would say Action items.

Like, it's sick.

It's pretty sick.

Love it.

So everybody, fireflies.AI, go get that note taker for your zoom calls and for your video calls.

That's your free nugget.

One thing this podcast does, every single episode, we give an actionable item people can implement immediately.

And that's.

That's your nugget for the day.

Everybody go, go implement that.

But let's dive more into what we were talking about earlier.

You've done some really cool stuff with AI for the trades.

What are you really excited about right now?

What's going on in inquiry's world when it comes to this kind of stuff?

So I'm really, I'm not excited about a lot of stuff, but.

So we built this H Vac technician bot, and it's a knowledge bot.

So let me explain the difference in.

If you ask Chat GPT, it's built on chat, Right.

So we utilize that platform first.

I'm not the technical guy, so I don't know exactly how to explain it.

But if you were to ask Chat GPT the same questions you and I asked.

Right.

It would give you an answer, but it's not going to be a specific direct answer.

Like we, like I showed you.

So when I say a knowledge bot, we've built the bot, we've trained the bot on all the H vac knowledge that's out there.

Right?

I mean, like, you could type in, you know, anything you want to.

Like, for example, like JLO cap, you could.

It'll tell you everything that.

It'll tell you the, the whole process of how to do that.

Wow.

What I mean, verbatim.

So that's the micro ferret of blah, blah, blah.

And it'll tell you.

Yeah, 100%.

Now, here's why that's key.

Because you and I both know that the service managers for a lot of these companies are fielding calls all day long answering questions.

Not even.

Sometimes not even super hard questions.

So if that technician has the ability just to type the question into a bot and get the answer, yeah, it makes sense to me, Right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, so many times it's like, hey, this unit, this brand unit has different colored wires.

How do I wire that to the new fan motor?

That's right.

Easy.

It's just.

Here's your schematic, right?

Yeah, exactly.

But that service manager doesn't need to be answering that question 12 times in a week.

That's right.

The same question, Right, Right, exactly.

So that's one of the things that.

That's One of the things I'm excited about, that's not really the biggest thing that we've been working on.

The biggest thing that we've been working on is it's a measurement software for roofers.

And in the.

There's a lot of measurement softwares out there.

And I.

And I haven't even told you this part yet.

So we can do it 10 times faster and we can do it for 10 times less money.

Wow.

Right?

So that's pretty powerful.

And so the way we've done this is if you're running a Facebook ad, which most roofers do, or a Google Ad, it doesn't really matter what platform you're running it.

On it.

The customer goes, seizure ad.

They click on the ad.

It pre fills their information as much as it possibly can.

Sure.

They hit a checkbox, submit, and then within 30 seconds, there's a roof again, three roofing estimates in their inbox with your.

With the contractors, you know, their brand on it.

And I showed you.

And then it come.

It came through.

Like I said, it came through pretty damn quick.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Everybody listening.

What we did before we hopped on this podcast is we just went in, Corey entered my info with my own address into the software, and I'm literally watching my inbox.

He's like, all right, I'm hitting submit right now.

Let's time this.

And it was right.

Almost dead on.

30 seconds.

Sure enough, in my inbox, there's this roofing estimate with three different.

It's got three different products on it with three different numbers, three different quotes.

And it was like, here, here it is.

Contact us for.

Right, contact us.

But, man, the power of that is like, it's insane.

How can they use that?

Right?

Yeah, exactly.

So one would think so far that we're solving a measurement issue.

That's not at all what we're solving.

That's not the problem.

The problem is most roofers get a call in.

Either they're on a roof or they're doing whatever they're doing.

They can't get out there to the next day to give an estimate.

This is immediate.

The.

Also the other problem that we solve is roofers are no different than H VAC or plumbing.

People there.

They, you know, they get scattered.

They're not super organized.

So what this does is streamlines that.

That form field, so to speak, all the way into the inbox.

And now you've got a customer sitting in.

Your brand is sitting in that customer's inbox.

And now you can just.

You can follow up.

You can do.

And you don't have to think about any of it.

Wow.

That's really the problem we solve.

So, so beautiful.

And for everybody.

Listen.

And I can see how this will evolve.

I don't know if you're working on this, but clearly I can see how this would evolve into peak seasons for a track all those different things.

Estimating software to be able to in 30 seconds get a quote in that inbox when with just some general information it's gonna.

Because I mean there's programs already doing this that are given a manual J like cool calc and that kind of stuff in a minute or two from assumed code bin data.

So why not?

We should be able to do this and get them a list of quotes in 30 seconds.

I mean, I can see.

I mean, I know.

So the cool part is this is moving us towards people being able to buy H Vac systems completely untouched by the salesperson.

Now, I know this is a sales podcast, so we're all about training people for in home sales.

But there is a massive move to selling virtually right Covid hit.

It's the best and worst thing that ever happened to our industry.

At the same time, it forced us to innovate.

I mean, there's a guy over in Knoxville, he's got three full time people that all they do is virtual sales.

They're going to do 4 million this year on virtual alone.

Never setting a foot in the house, selling complete systems.

So I can see how this is going to like dramatically speed all of that up.

So love it.

Well, I'm glad you mentioned that because, you know, and this doesn't.

That part really doesn't have anything to do with me necessarily.

But I think it's crazy for H Vac owners not to have somebody really.

I mean, call by call is different for everybody, right?

Everybody's got a different call by call process.

So, you know, I.

It seems absurd to me that you would allow that service technician to leave that house if you can put somebody on camera in front of that customer.

Absolutely.

It's absurd.

Why not?

We have all these tools and nobody's using them, right?

So they got trained all the time.

It's like, put them on FaceTime, put them on Zoom.

There's no reason you can't do a video call.

I mean, I'm even doing that with some of the companies I'm coaching.

We'll do a virtual sales bootcamp for half a day and then the second half of the day is like, I've blocked my calendar off.

Put me on Zoom with your homeowner.

Yeah.

I'll show you how to close it.

Let's train this dude.

And it's like, let's just be honest.

It's.

It's a, it's a, It's a nice PowerPoint presentation.

Yeah.

That's all it is.

Like, it's not like it's this rocket science, but like, it's really hard for people to wrap their head around.

Yeah.

Well, you, man, you know, I'm.

For the, the last several years, I've been preaching from the rooftops.

Anything that's been done the Same way for 50 years is ripe for revolution.

Literally sitting on the last several podcasts.

You know, all of us are saying, everybody, that's like innovators, everyone is saying, wait, a year from now, two years from now, this industry will not look the same that it does right now.

So you're either going to embrace change or get used to extinction, dude.

And you're, you, you're right.

You're 100.

Right.

And I'll tell you, I mean, is it crazy to think that a manufacturer, and I'm not trying not to give away too much information here, but is it crazy to think that a massive manufacturer wouldn't figure out a way to drop ship a box to the house that would be easy enough for the customer?

I like to use like two.

If you think about two jumper cables.

I just use it because it's simple.

Two jumper cables into the side of the house.

Right.

Is it crazy to think that's not where we're going?

Like, that's where I think we're going.

Yeah.

Or even, like, I could totally see.

Because this is business.

If it's business, what is to stop a manufacturer from doing that and then just the company person shows up and does the install, the time that somebody picked online when they bought their system, just.

Or what if they didn't even have to do the insult?

Right.

What if it's.

What if I've got a unit?

Right.

If I just need to replace my unit, I don't need duct work.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So if it was like, I don't think that's a crazy thing to think about.

And I'm pretty sure that's coming.

Yeah, absolutely.

100 agree to ask, like, what happens to these?

What happens to our contractors that are depending on selling boxes for their business?

Right?

What happens to them?

Yeah, absolutely.

They're gonna.

Yeah.

Right now it's so interesting too, right now with what's happening in the industry, man.

We're all over the Map.

And I love this what's happening right now, and I talked about it in my podcast that dropped Monday of this week, is if you've been in the industry long enough, what happened in the last four or five years.

And I know you've been, you know, specifically in the trades coming up on five years, but you got in, in the boom.

Right?

I've been in, in this thing almost two decades now.

What's happening right now?

Everybody's freaking the hell out.

But what they don't realize is it's right sizing back to normal.

I saw the same thing happen in 2010, 2011, 2012, all the tax credits hit.

It was a huge boom.

It was the easiest thing to sell.

And then what happened?

Oh, those started to go away.

So everybody's bitching and moaning, oh, we can't sell any of the high end stuff anymore.

And it's so much harder to make sales.

And people are getting three bids now when they weren't before and all these things.

Well, welcome to normal life.

This is now.

The people that are order takers that made their big names in the last few years, they're going to wash away and they're going to drown.

And people who are actual salespeople are the ones that are going to rise to the top.

So now it's normal life.

So welcome.

But.

But it's just normal.

Yeah.

It's not that it's a 30 or 40% less call volume.

It's normal call volume.

We're past the boom now.

That's right.

And it's.

Do you find.

I'm just curious if you see the site.

So I'm on this.

I don't even know if I can say the name.

It's.

I think it's called bhd.

I could be wrong.

But it's a, it's a, it's a panel and they meet like once every month or two months.

And it's H VAC professionals across the country.

Like it's like a handful, like I don't know, 12, but they include.

They asked me to come on this call when they have it.

Cool.

And I share whatever I know and sometimes I don't know anything, so I have to ask people.

Sure.

And so one of the things that I shared on there and I think I pissed off everybody on the call, to be honest with you.

But I, I talked to, I talked to somebody that I absolutely trust that would 100% know what the call volume is like across the country because he's just, he's in that position and so he was like, yeah, dude, this was probably two and a half months ago.

He said, yeah, I mean, call volume is down 30 to 40% across the country.

He explained how he knows all this and I trust him.

But I said that on the call after most of these people are saying, yeah, no, we're doing great.

We don't see any call volume down.

And I'm like, this is what I'm hearing.

And like, it was like every.

The whole call went silent.

Yeah.

And I'm like, how is it?

I know, but that is the truth.

But I feel like people are not being honest with themselves.

Right, yeah, agree.

Well, and the cool part is also when that happens, it really helps the companies that are doing things right, that are providing that exceptional service to stand out even more.

And even better, if you choose not to participate in the recession, if you choose to create your own weather, then who cares what everyone else is doing?

We're focused on the finish line.

If you're a winner, you're not looking at everybody else.

That's right.

Sadly, there are a lot of companies that are not built for that, not suited for that, or companies that set their budgets based on the last few years and just didn't foresee having to lean up or having to.

They don't understand the concept of staying above the line when it comes to business ownership.

Right.

But let's circle back around to some AI stuff.

No, no, you're good.

This is great because this is one of those episodes where we can talk about a lot of different things, but it's cool because it relates to the listeners.

We have a lot of different type of listeners in this podcast.

A lot of business owners, we have a lot of managers.

There's actually a lot of listeners of some, you know, some pretty good sized PE groups and stuff.

Listen to this podcast.

Because of this type of conversation.

I don't know of another person, another trainer in the industry that is in the field and has the pulse of.

The pulse of the buyer quite as real time as I do, strictly because I'm in it all the time.

So I love these conversations with people like yourself because we're able to, like this is what's happening, literally happened today kind of information, sort of.

Well, a few months ago, the data we collated from last quarter.

Well, who cares?

What about today, right?

What's happening right now?

What's happening a week from now?

That's right.

So I love it.

This is good stuff.

But let's circle back into some AI stuff.

Man, I really intrigued to Go a little further deeper into that.

So we've got the, we've got the chatbot for the service tax as really takes the load off of service managers.

That kind of thing helps them to get those real time answers.

And what's kind of a price point for that?

I mean, I'm curious, is that, is that ready to go?

Is that ready to go in the field?

Somebody says, hey, I need or maybe a small company that can't afford middle management.

Like that was like the perfect tool for those companies to get that kind of support.

Right?

That's right.

So we do, we sell it on a subscription and it's 199 per user.

Okay, perfect, perfect.

How can people contact you to find out more about that one?

They can go to AI Automations Group.

So it's AI Automations with an S group.

Okay.

Com group dot com.

Cool.

AI Automations group dot com.

Perfect.

And yeah, so that they really can just scale that to whatever level their enterprise is then, Right?

Yeah.

And so on a more personal level, let's just take any company that you work with.

They all have data.

They all, all have the data.

They have it somewhere in their CRM, their service titan, their house call Pro, wherever it is.

Sure.

It's all there.

And that's really, with AI, as long as you have good data, you're going to get a good result.

Right.

And so where I see AI really making a massive change in this industry is all the data is there.

And so take somebody like Tommy Mello for example.

Okay.

Like Tommy Mello's got a ton of content.

He's got, he's written a few books.

His, he's got systems and processes from Al Levy and all that stuff is in his internal database.

Right.

So we in, in.

And I think that this is probably going to happen, but I don't know, I don't, I can't say a hundred percent.

But what we're going to do I think with Tommy is train that entire database on all of his internal data.

Right.

And so then whenever he's got an employee that needs to ask a question, they're going to get an answer just like Tommy would answer.

Right.

Nice.

So it kind of multiplies him over and over and over.

Like you can't, you can't really multiply a human being.

But that's the closest thing that I found to multiplying.

Right, right.

I love it, I love it.

So that is, that is so powerful.

So they can.

My mind's like all over the map with us.

So either they can get the subscription roll in exactly what's there.

Or it sounds like if I'm hearing you right, if maybe a company is bigger, they have their own systems, processes, procedures and data, then you will work with them to help them basically white label that load it all into their own database for their own chatbot for their company to be able to duplicate their system specifically across their, their specific employees.

That's right.

And we could do, we can also, we've also built like a customer, we have trained a company's data on a customer facing chatbot.

So you know, everybody's got some sort of a widget or chatbot on their website, but not a lot of people use it because it's pretty basic and worthless most of the time.

And so what we've done with Jason, Julian, you may know him, Julian Heaton Air.

Yeah, absolutely.

He's going to be on my show soon.

In fact, he's super.

I love him.

He's such a great dude.

And so we built a bot on his site that answers, it'll answer any question that he's got internally.

Okay.

Customer facing.

Does that make sense?

It does, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, for sure.

All the way to.

And give us a, give us an example of that for everybody listening.

That, that is kind of elusive right now.

Sure.

So a lot of people spend money on after hours calls.

Right.

After hours call services, by and large suck.

Right.

All right.

You're going to get somebody to answer the phone as your purse, as your company and they're going to maybe take a message or they're not going to give you any information.

So somebody calls in at 3am it's just kind of like a placeholder a little bit.

Yeah.

So what this chatbot could do, if they still have that after hours service or even if they don't, they can send the customer to the chatbot and if the customer types in my AC is not working, then it will respond with here's some things you can check.

Here's how you book a call.

Right, right.

And then if it.

And we can train it to where it can send a message to whoever needs the message.

So really it could, it 100% can do the job of the app of the after hours call or emergency service.

Interesting.

Interesting.

So, yeah, so this is really incredible too because I mean I know of one company that does really, really, really good after hours.

That's the, that's quick pop out power selling pros there.

Brigham over there is a good friend of mine.

We send everybody his way because they, they definitely Know what it's doing, what to do.

When it comes to CRM, their company booked is the after hours company that gets 80% book rate, I think for after hours calls.

Yeah, yeah, it's consistent like that too.

I don't know Brigham, but I've heard him on several shows and I like, I like the information that he gives.

I don't know much about their company.

I know of them.

Yeah.

So I really connected with him because the psychology of how he trains people to answer the phone is very similar to the philosophy that I really resonated with because there's so much NLP and the basic needs of humanity that we have to satisfy within the first few seconds of that phone call.

Which they do.

And that's how they train it in their scripting, which most people are like, hi, this is close it now H Vac, how can I help you?

And there's no, it's like, oh, okay.

This is a different conversation.

But yeah, but I could totally see how this is for if people that one don't think they can afford an after hours which you're losing business if you're not don't have enough somebody answering your phone 247 never let it go listeners never let it go to a voicemail.

That's the worst thing you could possibly do because as a homeowner it's like, okay, next.

Right.

But you can afford it.

But this is such a cool way to handle that is like instantly goes to something that can, it knows the conversation.

It can walk people through solutions, help them book.

Especially even if they didn't book on the call.

But they're into that chat conversation they called in but oh well, you know, they don't book.

But that chatbot can keep them engaged and get them to book that way also.

So I can see booking rates going up because of that.

Totally.

That's how you did.

I mentioned I was in NLP Practitioner.

Is that why you said that?

No, no, no, you didn't.

I, that's just one of the, the key things that I love, love, love and talk about all the time.

Yeah, yeah.

NLP's interest.

I, I, I, I use it without realizing it.

I've been a practitioner for I guess, oh I guess since2018.

Okay.

So I use it in it but, but I think it's super powerful.

Oh absolutely, absolutely.

100 agree.

Yeah.

I somebody actually, Jonathan Nevis who was on recently, he was asking me about NLP a lot and I was like, you know, I, I don't know that I specifically have taken courses or anything, but I've been to enough.

I've read enough Tony Robbins books and I've been to events and learned.

Just read enough psychology books and different things that it's so incredible, the things that we can do.

So, like, that's why my cell system is rooted in that.

So we're anchoring every single step of the way throughout the whole process.

And by the time we're halfway through the homeowners begging us for the solutions, and we didn't even, you know, at first glance, when I'm training it, everybody's like, well, we're not doing anything special or different.

I was like, oh, but wait.

Every single line, every single word in these lines, there's a reason for.

And so when we break it apart, they're like, oh, here's what really happened.

So it's fun, but.

But, yeah, I love it, man.

NLP is.

That's where it's at when it comes to anything that has to do with sales or just interpersonal communication.

Right.

100%.

You know, empathy is one of the things that I think is probably the biggest thing.

I don't know that I had much empathy before I learned nlp, you know, and.

Yeah, and I believe that that's probably one of the most important things as a salesperson.

You have to have empathy for the customer.

100 agree.

100% agree.

And that's what's been missing the last few years especially.

Well, yeah, say last few years for the last few decades.

I mean, historically, the most trusted person in town was the, you know, the air conditioner guy or the plumber or the, you know, the trades guy.

Right.

I mean, years ago, what happened with Grandpa, they called up the furnace guy in the middle of the night, and he says, put on a pot of coffee.

I'll be right there.

Right.

But it's just how it.

How it happened.

And we.

For the last few decades, so many companies have just been after the bottom dollar and with zero regard for the homeowner, that we've really lost that.

The trust in the trades.

Right.

I just worked with a company in Arkansas, O over there, and their tagline, literally right on their trucks, is restoring trust in the trades.

And I love it.

I've kind of loosely adopted that.

I keep saying it, find myself saying it over and over, because it's so powerful.

It's what we got to do.

I agree.

And younger people need to be coming into the trades.

I mean, you know, I know we have hit on a lot of different things, but I think it is so important that if there is younger people listening to this show, like, look, dude, you make a ton of money doing this and you're not gonna walk out with a bunch of debt for college.

Ultimately, I think, you know my personal opinion.

College is a load of crap.

Yeah.

Maybe that's because I didn't finish.

Maybe that's why I feel that way.

Sure.

Same.

Yeah.

I've got a semester of my bachelor year under my belt.

It's like, you know what?

This is not for me.

Yeah, no, not for me at all.

But it's weird if you found since you've gotten older that you, you know, because I like you, sucked in school.

I just wasn't very good.

Not very appealing.

But now I find myself.

I learn all the time like it.

I would rather listen to a book than I would listen to music.

Oh, absolutely.

My audible list goes on for miles.

In fact, this is so.

This podcast from.

From the very beginning.

So origins of this podcast.

Corey, since we didn't know each other back then for the first probably 50 episodes, maybe they were recorded on a voice memo on my cell phone, driving between appointments.

Right?

So.

So it's coined Drive Time University is this podcast.

So everyone that's listening, you are in Drive Time University because I heard a stat from a Charlie Greer, one of the OGs of H vac years ago on his Tech Daddy series for all the old guys out there, if you, if you know what I'm talking about, the Tech Daddy videos.

But he said the a 15 year career of outside sales or service technician, anything like that.

If you use your windshield time as education time, a 15 year career is the equivalent of three PhDs.

And he's not wrong.

So that's why, you know, everyone listening is so committed to.

And what I love about people that are committed to being lifelong learners and the personal growth, because we can always get better.

We can always learn.

There's a, There's a quote that I saw recently.

In fact, I'll.

I'm gonna ask you a question and so we'll.

While I look this up because it's very relevant to what's going on.

But so when you are, since we're on this topic, what are like a top three or top five?

We get.

I get asked a lot about reading lists all the time.

What's like a top three top five reading list that you would recommend to people for just best personal growth books?

If it could be sales, it'd be business, whatever.

All right, so I'll tell you, I'll tell You.

The first one for sure is Never Split the Difference.

Oh, yeah.

By Chris Voss.

Love, love, love that on a personal growth standpoint or on a personal development standpoint?

The Four Agreements.

Oh, yeah, that's a good one.

That's Paulo Coachello.

No, no, that's.

That's the, that's the Alchemist.

Yeah, yeah, you're.

You're right.

You're absolutely right.

I've got that alchemist here as well.

Miguel Ruiz is his name.

Yeah, that's right.

And then on a sales, like, I guess sales ish book is Influence by Robert Cialdini.

Oh, oh, yeah, that is a great one too.

It's been a minute since I've listened to that one.

I need to go back and redo it.

I love it.

Oh, there's so many for everyone.

Recently I read also you have to put this in your list.

Branded, not Blanded by Dan Antonelli.

That one is.

That one instantly made my top five list.

It changed my mind about a lot of things real fast.

But yeah, so the quote is.

It's by Marcelo Gleiser.

I think the name is.

As the island of knowledge grows, so do the shores of our ignorance.

And it's just like, man, it hit me so hard when I first heard that because the more that we learn, it's like the more you realize how much you don't know and just.

It speeds the learning too.

That's right.

But you also have to implement the things that you learn.

Right.

So you can listen to a million books, but if you don't practice these things, it's like role playing.

I know you get this right if, if you can teach people everything you know about sales, but if there's.

If they're not role playing and they're not using it, it's not going to work, right?

Right.

Yeah, absolutely.

Success happens at the speed of implementation.

Right?

Right.

Yeah.

How fast can we use it?

I can learn 12 things, but let's just try to.

Let's.

Let's implement one.

One at a time.

Yeah, that's right.

Oh, so good.

So what's.

What.

So you've got all the AI stuff going on.

We've got, got.

So we talked about the chatbot, we've got the, the roofing one to get instant quotes.

That is super, super powerful.

I know a lot of the companies listening have roofing divisions.

So if you do, you can also reach out to that same.

Right on the same website, aiautomationsgroup.com to find out about that software.

A conversation we were having before we started this recording was about a lot of roofers do a lot of door knocking, which of course we're getting into with a track as well, leading the charge for that.

But for roofers, when you're door knocking, how cool is it if you knock the door, you grab their info and you literally in 30 seconds you're standing there, they've got the quote in their hand for from the door knocker on the spot.

I mean, that's power.

When it comes to, especially after a storm, speed to lead is everything.

And if it's there in less than a minute, even if it takes a minute, who cares?

Right.

We're not talking about the next day or hours later when 18 other people can knock their door, but now they've got it instantly.

And like in.

You're solving a huge pain point by getting that estimate to the person quickly, especially in a storm, for example.

I mean, that, like, it's going to be an insurance claim.

Everybody knows that.

So, like, it is really just the first person that gets there.

And with this tool, you will be the first person that gets there.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, get your.

Get it online, get it on the doors, get it all the places at the same time and it's done.

Just wow, super powerful.

So I love it, man.

So we've got the AI stuff going on and so you do some other stuff too, though.

Tell everybody about how they can contact you and, you know, how you can help their businesses.

I'm all about helping everybody grow.

So I do.

I develop salespeople in the trades and, and again, I don't.

I'm not a technical guy.

Like, I'm not going to tell you how to fix a unit unless I use my bottom.

But.

But teaching people soft skills and developing that empathy, developing how to have a conversation with people.

And I know it sounds.

Sounds kind of simple, but at the end of the day, a lot of people, especially younger people, like to have a conversation without your thumbs is a challenge.

Right, right.

You mean I actually have to look people in their eyeballs?

Right, right.

And so I help people to have those conversations easier and it's not hard.

Right.

Here's the key.

Ask a bunch of questions and shut up and listen.

Agreed.

Two ears and one mouth.

Use them in those proportions.

That's right.

That's right.

And don't listen to respond.

Like, a lot of people just wait for you to finish what you're saying so they can jump in and say whatever they want to say.

That's like a slap in the face.

Yeah.

Because you know Active listening.

I'm sure I know you're aware of that.

That is like you just got to sit and listen to what the other person's saying.

So then you can actually respond with.

To their, to their, to.

To their response instead of telling.

Yeah, it's.

It's tough for people to get over though.

That's it.

Yeah, it's classic Dale Carnegie.

Listen to understand, not just to respond.

Right?

That's like chapter one.

Don't correct people.

Right?

And most likely you're gonna know what you do know what they're probably gonna say because you've been through it a million times.

But that doesn't mean you got to jump in and finish their sentence.

Nope, nope.

Don't discredit their contribution and make them feel small by doing exactly that.

Let listen take a beat, breathe a couple times, then respond with understanding, not just to respond.

So man, I'm with you.

In fact, we have to add that to the reading list that we just talked about.

The how to classic how to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

That's right.

That's got to go on the list too.

For everybody.

If you've never read.

So the two books that I have unequivocally every millionaire plus that I know have ever met in my life have read these two books.

Everybody listen, here they are.

Write these down.

It's how to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie and Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

You will not meet someone who earns a million dollars a year plus that has not read those books at least once or twice.

Agreed?

Yeah, for sure.

Love it, man.

So this is cool.

So you're helping.

You're out.

So do you go out in the field?

Do you do virtuals?

What does that look like?

That's a great question.

So I usually go on site for a week.

I'll go for five days and then I work with them for 90 days after that.

The reason I do that is because I don't that my personal philosophy is if you.

There's no way I can train your sales team in a week like and for them to implement and actually follow the process.

Right.

So I don't, I don't just do a one or two day on site unless.

But there's follow up behind no matter what.

I won't do it if there's no follow up.

Like I won't do it if you don't commit to spending more time with me afterwards.

Because what's the point?

Yeah, I'm gonna look bad.

It's Gonna look like what I said, what I teach you doesn't work.

And who wins?

Nobody.

Right?

So, yep.

100.

I love it.

So how do they get in touch with you for and for everybody?

Listen, you know, I know not everybody resonates with my message and my voice and the way I train as well.

So that's why I bring so many other people that do the same thing basically on.

I'm here to help everyone win.

So if you resonate with Corey more than me and you want to talk to him about coming out to visit your location, how do they get in touch with you to do that?

So you could just go to my first and last name dot com.

So coreybarrier.com it is spelled B E R R I E R dot com.

C O R E Y everybody.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

So go ahead and spell it all out for everybody and make it simple.

C-O r e y b e r r I-e dash r dot com.

Cool.

Awesome.

I love that.

And oh, and everybody's listening.

I'll make sure to get these, the two websites you mentioned, how to contact him into the the show episode notes as well.

That way you can at a glance find them, you know, in reference too.

But yeah, man, this, this is a good, good conversation today.

I'm really have enjoyed it.

It is about time to land this plane, though.

So thanks for, thanks for hanging out, man.

This is, I think this is the first episode I've done that has absolutely felt the most comfortable conversationally in a long time.

Normally there's like an agenda or something that we really specifically want to talk about or there's been some times it's like, okay, this was awkward.

We got to end soon.

But because as you know.

So tell everybody about your podcast.

You've been getting a lot of listens lately.

It's really grown.

So tell every.

I know everybody that listens to this podcast.

It's not the only podcast.

They listen to everybody's podcast files, if that's even a word.

So tell everybody about your podcast.

Kind of what your, your topic is and what you, what you cover and how to listen to that also.

Sure.

So it's called Successful Life Podcast.

It is strictly contractors.

I bring on people that I think are going to be interesting for the listeners.

And of course you're going to be on that show.

You're going to be on the show here coming up this week.

I mean, I, I interview people that are thought leaders.

I bring in people that are doing big in the industry.

And here's the Difference in, I shouldn't say the difference.

I don't bring people on to tell me about how much money they've made.

Right.

Everybody knows how much money you've made.

Yeah, I bring people on and have real conversations about struggles.

You know what, what was it like when you felt like your company was going to go out of business?

Like take us through that.

Right.

And so I just like to ask questions that other people don't ask and find out more about the person because I think that's important.

And so if people want to go give it a listen, I think it'd be great.

We are getting a lot of downloads and things have, you know, it's taking.

A long time, dude, I understand that.

That's for sure.

Yeah, but, but it's worth it.

It's worth it.

I don't know if I heard this somewhere, if it just came into my head, but I recently have started saying for whatever reason an idea that's time has come, can't be stopped.

And that's exactly what happens.

Especially when you find your voice in a podcast.

You find your message.

I mean that's how I started.

I recorded a ton of different of those drive time universities in the voice memo.

Then I was like, well these are questions my team had.

I guess somebody else probably has this question, I should put them out somewhere.

It's just there's, there's a message there and man, I love it when I come across people who are very like minded in that and so everybody listening.

I honestly I didn't, Corey and I hadn't really talked or, or gotten to know each other before this episode and what you, what you didn't hear was the 40 minutes that we just hung out and, and chatted before even started recording this episode.

And I know that moving forward definitely call you, definitely call you a friend.

So I am glad that we connected today and definitely look forward to what we could do in the future together.

I visualize some really cool stuff happening with what everything you're working on with your, you know, with your groups and stuff.

So I'm excited.

Man, this is such a perfect timing right now in our industry for opportunity and what we're doing with the different things that we're working on is absolutely going to up level everyone way more than they even thought.

Everybody listening, think of what your biggest dream and goal is right now and then add some zeros to it because it, the potential is so much bigger when I start telling people about, you know, just the market is so much bigger than anybody expects.

So much bigger.

And that's totally where we're at.

And it's abundance.

It's not scarcity, it's abundance.

That's right, everybody, there's plenty of room for everybody to win.

Absolutely.

So leave everybody with one last, one last parting, you know, nugget of wisdom from Corey Barrier.

You talk to so many people as a thought leader and you are a thought leader in your own right.

So thanks for joining with us.

But what, what do you got for everybody before we sign off here?

Don't believe everything that you think.

So what do I mean by that?

I mean that you don't always have to trust your own thoughts because sometimes those will steer you wrong.

Right.

Depending on the information that you get.

So sit on that and think about it.

Don't.

You don't always have to believe what you think.

I love it.

Perfect.

That is, that is super powerful.

You know, it's, it's all perspective.

So thank you for that and thanks for joining us today.

Man, this has been a good one this episode.

Well, let's see, we'll go up in a couple weeks.

I'll make sure you get copied on everything so you can use it, chop it up and use it how you would like.

And everyone that is listening, couple super quick things for housekeeping.

If you have ever gotten value from this podcast, scroll to the bottom and leave me a five star review.

I would greatly appreciate that.

And also make sure to join the Face Close it Now Facebook group.

I would love to invite you in there as well, Corey.

It's a, most of the speakers hop in.

It's a great way to connect to them.

If you, for whatever reason you don't have, you can't get to or you didn't remember the websites we mentioned.

You'll be able to connect with Corey in the Facebook group and we'll make sure to get some, some stuff in there.

This podcast will go up in there as well.

And so go, go search close it now.

It is the easy to find Facebook group all you listeners.

We're at a couple thousand members now so it's growing.

It's a great community.

And the last thing is if you want to know more about, about my coaching programs, email me samoseitnow.net or just pop me a text man 512-364-8559 and we'll chop it up.

We'll, we'll see how we can help.

But reach out to Corey, he's doing the same thing and there's so many people out there that need that need some up level, they need some mindset, they need some help.

And sales is easy.

Sales on easy is the is one of the hashtags here.

So.

All right everybody, thanks for.

Thanks for hanging out.

Corey.

It's been a great one.

Make sure you go and do that review for Sam.

Really hard to get reviews, so please go make sure you do that.

This is super, super important.

Absolutely.

The lifeblood of your heating and air business and plumbing and electrical business revolves around reviews.

So does the podcast.

So I appreciate that.

Thanks for Corey and All right everybody, you know how we end this?

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

Go save the world one frostbite at a time.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

Subscribe to the podcast now so you're first to hear new episodes jam packed with actionable tools and tips to make you the top H Vac professional in your market.

If you have friends and colleagues who would like this show, share it with them and send them to our Facebook community for more in depth discussion about the challenges we all face and how to overcome them on the Close it now podcast.