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.

All right, well welcome to the podcast and what will also be on the YouTube as well channel today, Sam Wakefield here with Close It Now.

I am so excited everybody.

This is episode 50 of the Close it now podcast and this guest today, Paul Redman from Tall Paul, as most of you may know him from the to the Point home service podcast.

I absolutely love their tagline as well.

Cutting through the bullshit and that is and something tall Paul, what you don't know, my tagline is stop being weird and start selling.

That's right.

Yep, I like it.

How many times does somebody walk in, walk into a room and goes into creepy salesman voice and we're like, stop it.

Just be a normal, normal freaking person.

That is a great point.

And so, so that's it.

So that, that's an awesome episode today.

This is going to be longer than normal.

Normally episodes are roughly 20 minutes, but this is.

We'll go as long as we need.

To because I'm a 90 minute guy.

But I won't put you through that today.

I've got questions for you.

I have to remind myself that I'm here to be interviewed.

But I like, I want to interview you, man.

Your story's amazing.

Like two years, 50 podcasts.

I think I'm most fascinated by the fact that, you know, high performing salespeople and high performing sales managers make a lot of money, right.

And have a good quality of life.

And at some point you had to come to a point where you're like, you know what, you said it earlier.

You talked about lifestyle design, which I want to talk more about.

But you said, you know what, I think I want to do things a little bit differently.

So I'm just fascinated, man.

I know how much work a podcast is.

There is a graveyard of podcasts that is bigger than any graveyard I've seen before.

People start and they'll do one or two, three or four episodes and they Realize, like, wow, scheduling is really hard.

Production is really hard.

It costs money to edit these things.

Talking for an hour is really hard.

Getting good guests is really hard.

So, 50th episode, man, nice work.

Yeah, yeah, it's fun.

In fact, since you mentioned that, and you're right, being a, especially being a top producer in a, in a market like Austin, Texas for so long is where I get asked a lot.

Where, where do you sleep?

You know, where do you have that time?

So going back into a lot of the, especially the early episodes, you know, I call it Drive Time University.

In fact, everybody listens.

They, they, they understand Drive Time University.

And we'll, we'll talk about that.

But so I was driving to appointments, I would throw on my voice recorder, grab a little lavalier microphone and just record right in my voice recorder.

So the early episodes, you can hear traffic, all these things.

But people love it because, I mean, we're out there doing the same thing, you know, using that time efficiently because, you know, as, you know what 15 year career the numbers are, if you use your drive time, that's the equivalent for education.

That's the equivalent of three PhDs.

Yeah.

So it's amazing.

So that's how things got started.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

And really the element of it that I think resonates so well with the people that are listening is the authenticity piece.

And that's really where we are in the world today.

Whether you're selling air conditioning or you're selling software or you're selling whatever, cars, you know, all these tools can bring you so much information and create, like a different experience, but at the end of the day, production is, it's so, so easy.

Now, I don't say easy.

You can make this sexy YouTube, Instagram compilation of short videos that tell a story that's really a bullshit story because it's produced, Right.

Yesterday I had a client up in New Jersey, Campbell Comfort Systems, Brad Campbell.

He did something as mundane as bought an extra, bought a new truck.

He wrapped it, right?

And he gave it to one of his technicians.

Well, that's a normal process that you remember this as working into places you've worked.

Like, hey, you buy a new truck, you give it to a guy, you figure out which one you're gonna give it to.

You take the tools out of one, you put them in the other.

Well, all he did yesterday, he did that, right?

That's all he did.

Not a very exciting story, but he recorded it, right?

And he recorded the process of calling this technician in and telling me he really appreciated him.

And he also appreciated that he always took care of his truck, and he wanted to get him a bigger van with more space, and it had leather seats and all these sort of things.

And it's like, you could have created this, you know, $10,000 video showing you put.

Showing you, you know, put this, like, handsome technician in this awesome truck, and you're like, come work for Campbell Comfort Systems because we're awesome.

But instead, some model actor they hired from the pool, you know, totally.

And for free.

He was like, and I'm holding my phone up for those who aren't listening.

Hi, I'm Brad.

Here's my guy getting a new truck.

And you got to really experience, like, the.

You know, that's special and that's real, and that's what happens, you know, and that's what.

When a technician is looking for a place to work, they're not going to look at that video and be like, oh, I want to go there and get a new truck.

You're going to go, oh, man.

The owner was really thoughtful and really told, you know, his technician how much he appreciated him and chose him to get him a truck with leather seats.

And so, anyhow, I've already taken this.

Thing off the rails.

So all that to say, you're good.

All that to say, you know, drive time.

The whole authentic factor.

Like, you can't over index on authenticity.

All you're going to do is isolate the people who don't need to hear your message.

Anyway, a great example of that, because I know we're going to talk about, like, online pricing and a bunch of other stuff.

I don't know what we're going to do.

We're going to talk about a lot.

But one of our guests that we've had on out of Arizona is Travis Ringey with pro skills, and he just sold his company for gobs of money to another company out of Southern California.

Great, great story there.

Well, anyways, you know, he puts pricing on his website, and guess what?

He's super expensive.

And we asked him, you know, hey, do you feel like you're missing out on people who see the pricing and walk away?

And he said, I'm absolutely losing those, but I don't care because I'm achieving my goals without them.

So, anyways, congratulations on 50 episodes.

That's a long way to go.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes.

It's so much fun.

We definitely want to dive in, but I'm going to actually R and D. As you know, in our industry, everyone's famous for R and D. Robin Duplicate.

Let's have some fun here real quick because I'm like, you listening to enough of your podcasts.

I realize Chris is the one that's the party guy and you're like always about, like to the point and let's, let's get there.

I'm very much like that.

That is.

That is a good description.

He's definitely the fun.

I have to have Chris in my life or I would be a very, very boring person.

I love it.

So let's do this.

But.

So I definitely want to hear a little more of your story as well as the.

About.

About rhinos and the things you guys do, how you support the industry because it's such an amazing industry.

Where else can you know a high school kid with no education after high school?

And I've always said this.

Hand me somebody with a work ethic and I will turn them into a six figure earner within two to three years and pay them to teach them.

Where else in any other industry but the trades can we do that?

So I never even heard growing up.

I grew up in a suburb of Dayton, Ohio.

Huber Heights.

Largest community brick homes in the country.

Shout out.

I never heard of people earning six figures.

I just never heard of it.

And think about all the kids that don't know that there's a real opportunity in their Hometown to make six figures.

Yeah, six figures.

About 20.

Really?

Yeah, exactly.

It's like, what?

And that's just the start too.

And that's the crazy part.

So let's do this.

I'm going to ask you a couple of questions will be our fun.

I hate this already, by the way.

Thanks, Chris.

This is Inspired by Chris.

100%.

100%.

So tip of the hat to you, Chris.

I know you'll probably catch part of this.

If you could have dinner with anyone dead or alive, who would it be?

My father.

So I lost my.

That's so easy.

I lost my father when I was 9 years old and I would have dinner with my dad.

Nice.

Nice.

That is awesome.

I love that.

Those, those warm fuzzies.

Right?

But yeah, mine's similar.

It would actually.

What about you?

My, my grandma, she was like this wild, crazy lady growing up.

You know, she was always made jokes about being a nudist and all kind of stuff and I thought it was fantastic.

But so it'd be her or on the serious side with.

For me, it would be Jim Rohn.

Jim Rohn has always been a big influence in my life.

Got it.

I thought you said Jim Rome and Jim Rome, the sports.

Yeah.

Sports radio show.

He's been a big influence in my life.

I love the way he interviews.

Oh, have fun.

Such a good job interviewing and not lingering in between questions and asking really poignant questions.

I struggle with that sometimes and.

Sure.

Yeah.

Good, good.

Yeah.

Jim Rohn.

In fact, in my bio is a quote from him.

Oh, perfect.

For things to get better, I have to get better.

For things to change, I have to change.

True.

So.

And that's 100% been my.

Been my life motto.

And then especially one of the things you'll hear over and over and over my podcast is give more value than you take.

Always give more value than you take.

So.

Okay, second question.

You're.

You're entering the ring.

What would be for the big, you know, the welterweight champion.

Right.

What would be your fight song?

I cannot believe how many times I've sat in the room and heard this question, answered and enjoyed every minute.

And I never, ever considered what my.

My fight song or my, you know, song would be.

So thank you for exposing me for not even thinking through that to myself, Man.

When we.

We just interviewed Ken Goodrich and we played that All I Do is Win song, I don't even know who sings it, but I love that song.

Like, that.

That song gets me fired up.

So there it is.

All I do is win, win, win.

You're welcome, Chris.

I like.

Oh, that's fantastic.

That is super cool.

Mine would be.

I'm a. I've been a guitar player forever.

Mine is actually the same song that I actually played at my wedding when the guys walked out.

It's Joe Satriani, crazy awesome guitar player.

It's called Satch Boogie.

It's just a total jam, so I'll.

Have to look it up.

I'm a jam band guy, so I was just, like, going through my index in my head of.

Of different fish songs that I would play.

But.

But the one that came to mind is that all I do is one song.

I like it.

I like it.

Good stuff, so.

Well, cool.

Well, let's.

Let's.

Let's get into this a little bit.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Rhinos strategic solutions.

You can just call us Rhino, like the animal.

Got it.

Okay.

That's how we roll.

It's Rhino strategic solutions.

Rhino SS is there.

Yeah.

I love it.

I've heard it several different ways on the different.

Oh, totally.

People roll through your podcast, so I just want to make sure you get it correct.

Absolutely.

And it's.

And it's spelled and pronounced in all caps.

You have to pronounce it in all caps.

Rhino.

Got it.

Very important.

Well, it's very demonstrative.

I mean, it is.

So tell me a little bit about your history in, you know, getting into one.

How you got into trades.

Yeah.

How you ended up from trades into supporting role for the trades, which is two different animals.

That's a big leap that most people that are in trades don't necessarily make.

And how.

How does that work together for you?

Yeah, absolutely.

So, as I mentioned, I'm from Ohio, actually.

Was born in Michigan, but grew up in Ohio.

Basketball players.

I'm six foot eight.

That's why they call me Tall Paul.

I've been six, seven since seventh grade.

So the name has been around for a while.

I've never valued it until the podcast because now it's like, oh, people actually recognize that.

Or I'm able to be recognized outside of, like, being tall and gangly because of sight, but, you know, rather, I guess, just as described in the podcast.

Anyway, I'm rambling, but my point is I played basketball growing up and had the opportunity to play Division 3 basketball, which is the lowest level of college basketball that you can possibly play.

But that gave me the opportunity to be the first person to graduate college from.

From my family, right?

And so I got out of college and had known growing up, I was raised by a single mom.

My father passed away.

I knew that her income was around $40,000 a year somewhere, give or take.

And so my goal when I got out of college was to make $40,000 a year, because at that point, that meant that I was an adult.

So thermostat was set for your life, Right?

Exactly.

Like, that's just where my mind was.

Like, that's what I saw as being.

And I think in my mind, I knew, like, 80 means you're really making it.

And I knew a guy who sold drugs for a pharmaceutical company for a pharmaceut legitimately, who made like 90.

So I was like, man, then if I'm really good at my job, I'll make 90.

And so I got a job at a college, and a few years after that, had the opportunity to start with Lennox.

And long story short, I just met someone who saw something in me that he thought would.

That other people would like, basically, and referred me to go work for Lennox.

And Lennox called me up.

I was living in Ohio at the time, and they offered me a job in Denver, Colorado.

I was kind of looking to move toward Denver anyway, so that's what kind of started the conversation.

And So I started.

I was 25 years old.

I started with Lennox, didn't know anything.

I remember my first couple of meetings.

You know, someone drawing on a napkin.

You know, here's a furnace and here's a plenum, and here's the blower, and here's how the air moves and here's how the refrigerant moves.

And just kind of describing it to me.

And so that started my H VAC career.

And, you know, I didn't at the moment know that I would make a career out of it, but I certainly wasn't not going to make a crack at it.

Right.

So I have a very.

This is kind of a bad thing.

Like, I. I don't burn bridges, and I don't like to.

I don't like for an opportunity to have been wasted.

So, like, relationships are really important to me.

Like, Sam, I hope we get off the phone today, we become friends and maintain friends.

Like, I. I know how that's a responsibility.

I feel absolutely agreed.

People are friends.

I just haven't met yet.

Totally.

Yeah, exactly.

And so I never really.

To say I didn't, like, know I was going all in an H Vac isn't necessarily true because when I'm doing something, I'm all in.

So I'm a territory manager.

You know, those roles, These are the guys that are showing up in the office and working on customer service stuff and, you know, helping out with billing issues and bringing some lunch here, and they're really just maintaining the relationship.

But my, I guess, niche in that space was really trying to understand the mechanics of the business and understand how to grow them.

Right.

Because all of the customers wanted growth.

Like, anything I offered was not outside of the conversation of, like, yeah, but I want more leads and I want more revenue, and I want more profit, and I want more technicians and more trucks.

Like, everything was about that.

So, yeah.

So at an early age, you know, I guess for four years, I was a territory manager and did that whole thing and really just learned how to serve customers and at that time had just built a lot of relationships in the H Vac space.

And.

And fortunately, because Lennox is a national company, I got to meet people all over the country.

One thing led to another.

I moved.

Great segue there.

I had the opportunity to move to Lennox's world headquarters to work on this, you know, this program for digital tools, to name it very loosely, which was really to look out at the future and look at how consumers and how contractors and how manufacturers and distributors, how they consume the products that they're that are that being sold in the market.

And what does the future of H VAC look like from a buying, selling, installing, warranting, servicing, all those sort of things standpoint?

So it was really cool.

And this is why I have this, like, unprofessional allegiance toward Lennox and bias toward Lennox.

And it's because they brought me to Dallas and literally paid me to learn for two years.

Like, I just.

I got to sit right hand man of.

Of who's now the Quan win, who's now the VP gm, You know, Harvard West Point guy.

Like, none of my buddies were Harvard West Point guys.

Like, definitely hanging around smarter people than I've ever been around.

And so I got to learn for two years.

But what was cool about it in that period of time?

It was like getting an MBA to some degree.

But what was cool about it is I got to hear about the H VAC industry from a very macro level all the time.

So you're constantly looking from, you know, from coast to coast, different channels, different segments of the market, and you're having to really understand like, okay, what's going on in this market?

What's going on in that market?

How can you drive different results in this product in this market?

So from there, I got to.

Long story short, you know, I'm on a leadership development kind of track, if you will, loosely described.

And had the opportunity to move to two places, Austin or Charlotte.

And we visited Austin.

We love Austin.

I still love Austin.

Like, I wouldn't be surprised if I end up in Austin one day.

Anytime barbecue is on me.

If I'm in Austin.

I am going to be the secretary for Bobby Jenkins, ABC home and commercial.

I've told people that all the time.

Bobby Jenkins is my.

My idol.

But we had the opportunity.

We chose Charlotte because we could be closer to family.

So again, back in Ohio.

So had another kid when we got here.

So four kids in Charlotte.

I'm about three years into my gig.

I'm a district manager with Lennox.

And really, that was a job that a lot of people can retire.

Like, most of the people in that job were, I would say, on the back half.

But, like, it's a good gig.

Like, it's a really, really good gig.

The company's great, well taken care of.

Like, you can really do well.

And my whole thought was when I came out here was like, I want to be a pillar in my community.

I want to, you know, go to work at the same place every day and build this team and serve customers that I'm Going to get to know that are going to become family and friends and all that.

And then I've never told this story, by the way, but then I started listening to podcasts like True story.

I was driving all over north and South Carolina and someone, it's Drive Time University.

I won't say this person's name because I don't want to incriminate him, but I've told him this specifically.

It's someone I admire.

Someone told me to look up this podcast from Tim Ferriss.

And you probably heard Tim Ferriss, you talked about, of course, lifestyle design.

And he started bringing on entrepreneurs and.

Well, I'm not started bringing on.

He had always brought on different thought leaders and things.

And what happened was for me is during these drive times, it seemed like the pitches were starting to slow down for me.

Like all these things I would hear about business and growth and entrepreneurship before, where they were very like ethereal and I could like maybe take one or two things away.

I was like, oh, I can really take that away.

I can really take that away.

And then I got to a point where I was like, well, to really, really, like, I can write all these notes down, but to really apply it, I need to work for a smaller business.

Like, I need to work where.

Somewhere where I can really have an impact and, and you can actually have.

Some help in steering the ship.

Totally, totally.

And then through that process, I met Chris Yano, who's the owner and founder and CEO today of Ryan, who's my right hand man.

Or I'm his right hand man.

Yeah.

And the minute, I mean, not to sound cheesy, but like the minute I met him, I knew I was like this, this dude and I, we're gonna.

Business love at first sight.

Well, yeah, we're gonna crush it together.

We really are.

Because he had what I was lacking and I had access to some resources that, you know, normal per person like him wouldn't have access to just because of the relationships I built.

Not anything proprietary, but like there are a lot of people that I've invested in that invested in me that I hold dear.

And I've, I've, you know, done.

I've really taken, you know, not extreme, but serious efforts in my life to make sure that the quality of those relationships remain intact.

And so.

Absolutely.

So I left Lenox in 2018, so I finished 10 years there.

I'm sorry, I was in my 10th year technically, and I started working with Chris and Phoenix and the Rhino team.

And it's been three years, it's Been great.

We've had a lot of fun.

We're in constant learning mode.

I was sharing with someone yesterday, like, you know, a scale of 1 to 10.

Like we've had, we've done a lot in the last couple of years, but we're at a 2.

Like we have so much more ahead of us, so.

Absolutely.

So I love it.

And I could talk.

I never get to talk about Rhino on the actual podcast.

So this is actually like or myself.

Thank you, Chris.

But yeah, this is.

Oh, this is so cool.

You know, and I love what you said there too, because, you know, this is one of the, honestly, one of the key principles that I talk about in the podcast and we cover really, there's a lot of different episodes on different aspects of this.

But I'm such a firm believer to relate it to sales for a minute that I really believe people just the homeowner, the client.

We don't use the term customer.

Customer is a one time purchase.

We use the term client decides in the first five minutes if they're going to buy from you or not.

Beyond that, it's up to you to talk yourself out of the project.

So the biggest thing that we ever talk about is work to become someone worth buying from.

And when you, you up level yourself through personal growth, through taking, because sales is the overflow of a life.

It's not the performance of an hour.

And so when that happens, you become somebody that just is relatable, somebody that just people like because you're, you like people.

So becoming that person.

When you run into somebody like yourself and you just click with somebody, it just happens.

That's why, you know, they talk about business is done on the golf course.

So it's not, nobody's talking about business.

The conversation is, hey, I like you.

I like me.

Because you have to like yourself first.

You like me.

Let's do business.

Cool.

What's the business going to be?

I don't know.

We'll figure that out.

But we just got to do something together because we just have a great, we have, we have a connection.

And that's, that's totally sounds like what you just described there.

And I love to hear that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because that's how everything happens in life.

Yeah.

Chris and I are very, very opposite in a lot of ways.

We have a lot of similar, I guess, core foundational principles, but very, very different in how we operate.

And it works really well.

And I think some of that comes out on the podcast to a degree, very naturally.

It's not staged.

We just Try to be our authentic selves, you know, in the way we operate the business, the way we operate podcasts, the way we treat our clients and so on.

So, man, you're like, you're like a philosopher.

I love it.

We could go in so many different angles on this one.

Well, thanks.

I appreciate that.

Now it's, what, you know, where it comes from is, you know, 15 years of deciding to be a lifelong learner.

So that Drive time university we talked about is, you know, I can't help when I, I can't help but think on a higher level when it comes to so many things like that.

Just because when you become something that you're so passionate about, then it just overflows.

So that's why Jim Rohn is my, is my, I call him my mentor even though he passed away in 1998.

But because that's it, man.

That's.

If you think on a different level, the things you do rise to a different level.

Yep, got it.

So.

But, yeah, but that's it.

So cool.

So I love that story.

To get into how you went from in the industry to supporting the industry.

Yeah.

And brought those.

Well, gosh, to be able to sit at that, you know, sit at the table at such a high level thinker for so long.

And that's a big privilege as well.

Yeah.

And still very much look at ourselves as in the industry.

And this is what makes it, you know, difficult when we look at like other Internet marketing companies.

Like, we don't identify as just your standard Internet marketing company.

We think of, we are an H vac plumbing and electrical Internet marketing company.

Now we'll do home services, of course, you know, more broadly speaking.

So things like pest control and roofing and all those.

We have clients from a lot of different disciplines, but we are in the industry.

We're for the industry.

From the CEO down to the people that are listening to the calls.

You know, it's our hope that when someone says, and this is how I answer it, when someone asks me what I do for a living, I say air conditioning.

And I'm proud of it.

And it.

And I'm proud to be associated with it and proud to support it.

So that's what we're all.

100%.

Yep.

Yeah.

Oh, 100%.

I love it, being in the industry so long myself.

It's.

And working in so many different aspects.

Everything from attic rat pull and duct work to service to being in, you know, I like to say project manager or system design specialist, but as opposed.

To like comfort consultant or Comfort advisor.

Correct.

I'll tell you, you know, I've had a few people.

I think it was.

I think it's Ishmael out in California, Los Angeles, who calls it a project Manager.

Call it Project Manager.

Project Manager, Yeah.

Oh, no, we got a.

We got a glitch in our.

Glitch in our connection here in your video.

Yep.

Oh, there, there.

You're back.

Okay.

The last day.

Oh, it's my Internet.

Means to check.

Sure.

Okay.

I think you're back now, so I'll just go ahead.

Last we heard was project manager.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you know, where I come from, what I have heard since going into the business, the default terminology is retail salesperson, Comfort advisor.

Primarily comfort advisor.

I feel like comfort advisor is almost kind of insulting.

It's like I'm going to a car dealership and they're like, oh, we want you to meet with one of our transportation specialists.

Right.

No, I mean, I understand, but project manager.

Because essentially we're not.

When you, when you have someone in your home that's.

That's talking about a project, it's a project, right?

Yeah.

And it needs managed.

When people are ripping things out of your attic in your crawl space, this isn't just something buying.

This is a project that you're going to be involved in.

So I think the industry standard should be project manager.

I think that.

I can't think of any other term that really is more suitable, so.

Oh, agreed, 100%.

Well, and two, you know, one of the things that I. I'm all about asking the obvious question and stating.

I mean, for so many years, our industry fell into the trap of, you know, thinking they had to talk around a subject and disguise a subject and disguise things, as if the client was dumb enough to not know who you are, why you're there.

There's the whole model going on in the industry that I'm very passionate that it's kind of bait and switch.

There's a lot.

There's numbers that support it.

There's no.

There's things against.

Against it.

But having a sell, sell.

And in this case, I'll call it a.

A salesperson show up on every single appointment, with every single technician, just for the sheer fact to be like, oh, this is broken.

He's already here.

I'm not a fan of that.

I know it's a big model.

I know a lot of people are doing it, but it just feels like it's icky in.

In my head.

Same.

And I feel the same way about really structured questionnaires.

Or comfort surveys, like, who in your house suffers from allergies?

Like, these are questions that are very important to answer, but don't ask me in that way.

I'll never forget when I was buying a car, this is totally unrelated, but the guy was like, how many times a year have you lost your keys?

And I was like, never.

My wife was like, three.

And I was like, oh, great, now I have to buy this.

And I needed it, but I wanted to come to it on different terms.

But anyhow, yeah, there's so much to talk about on the communication interaction between homeowners and project managers and really homeowners and really the company.

Or to take a step further, just say the brand in general, not brand as in brand of equipment, but the brand of, you know, whatever the name of the contractor is.

There's so much room for opportunity and so much missed opportunity right now, just in that space, like, you know.

Oh, of course there's.

I've told someone recently, like, if I'm a contractor, I'm not worried about innovation right now.

Like, innovation.

Like, I'll just do what the other, you know, people out on the front tip of the spear are later.

But I'd be worried about those foundational things, really communication and really helping the homeowner solve the problem that they're calling you for.

Right, Absolutely.

Yeah.

That's it.

Nope, Step one, you've got to do that.

And it, of course, comes through questions.

Yeah.

And that's it.

And so it's actually really interesting that we're talking about this too.

I want to take us into kind of the future, because you're right, that's where we are currently.

And you and I both know, and so does everybody else that's paid any attention, the H vac industry is, you know, 10, 15, 20 years behind most industries when it comes to technology.

Thankfully, they're catching up two sides of the same coin.

Thankfully.

Because we missed out on a lot of the, you know, the Titanics and the big bombs that have happened with innovations.

However, it's so far, it's just enough behind that that it.

That's why the H Vac industry has allowed other industries to come in and take over the home when they should have been the ones to own the space for years.

Totally.

Because they were so resistant to, for example, wireless thermostats, of all things.

You know, your mate, your biggest manufacturers across the board are not rolling and innovating their own branded things and letting everything else take over.

That's just an example.

But same thing, when it comes to how people buy.

I'm a firm believer.

I think you probably will agree with me, anything that's been done the exact Same way for 50 plus years is ripe for revolution.

Totally.

And I want to believe that the model that exists today is going to work 10 years from now.

And it might.

Maybe we're further out, I don't know.

I do think we have the gift of complexity, but also the curse of complexity too.

Right.

Because with complexity leads just more questions from consumers about things.

So I mean you have people who are going to be buying their first H VAC systems in the next 10 years who've never went through this process.

So.

So I'd like to believe that the model as it stands today will be the same, but it's just not going to.

We would be the one outlying industry where the model was uninterrupted.

I can't think of another one.

So yeah, it's going to be, it's a, it's a different, it's a different ball game.

And it's really one of the things that I think needs to be considered now is like are you going to put yourself in a position where you're ahead of it or are you going to have to be using, you know, or over leveraged with other people's resources to be able to compete in the new, in the new world?

Right, Absolutely.

Who's going to do a better job?

Like so, you know, last week we had Rhino X, which we talked about and we had Gary, Gary Vaynerchuk.

So chairman of VaynerMedia.

Gary V. If you're on any of the socials, he is a good friend and partner of ours and you know, he talked about the concept, just the concept of, you know, Google or Amazon or Facebook, whoever, but primarily Google, like you know, obviously wanting a piece of the revenue that comes from the business that's transacted through their site.

Right.

They are not a nonprofit and the possibility of that, meaning that they buy a tech enabled H Vac company and they start doing it directly.

And of course that's, you know, that's a 30,000 foot in the sky, you know, could be far out, but it's not unrealistic.

Like within the next two years, if not sooner, there are goods and services that they're going to be getting a piece of naturally.

And it's going to work well for those vendors or those companies who want to build that into their system and use the tools that Google has created being a marketplace for people buying and selling services and goods.

But I just have to believe that things will evolve and there will be pressure on the H Vac space and they're going to need to be people there to solve the problem.

For sure.

We hope to be there.

We hope to be part of solving that problem.

Yeah, 100% agreed.

And that's, you know, it's the old model because, you know, primarily my podcast is a sales focused podcast.

You know, and you know, I have a, I have a course coming out here in the next couple months.

I have a, you know, it's a proven cell system.

You know, it's, it's still it.

And it's actually, it's starting to really integrate.

You know, I've been training, integrating a lot of.

We have tools within our fingertips.

Within just the cell phone alone, we can integrate so much technology into our process, but it's not enough.

You know, where we're at right now.

In fact, one of my clients up in, in Denver, Home Guardian.

So shout out to Peter up in Denver, he.

Peter Roth, It's Home Guardian Heating and Air.

Okay.

He's actually the first person I've come across that is using the new model.

And the reason for that is he's only been in the H Vac space for about a year.

He owned a cigar bar for like 15 years and did a lot of e commerce and online sales with cigars.

Especially last year when the bar part of it shut down.

With COVID 19 with COVID Then he had to move to the other model and recognized, as we know, we have such a recession proof, pandemic proof industry.

So he partnered with a technician and started this company.

And what did he do?

He instantly put all of his products online.

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.

Yeah.

If you're in the Denver area, boom, you can just go in and price your system with all of your price book right on the website.

Now that will probably scare the pants off a lot of owners and contractors.

Yeah.

But in moving forward, as the generations age, people, this is how people buy.

Now they're not.

And you probably know the statistics.

The average North American buys 1.3 heating and air systems in their lifetime.

So they're gonna do this once, maybe twice.

Yeah.

And they don't know how to buy things.

They didn't learn how to buy an air conditioner from their grandpa or their dad or whoever.

They just buy things online.

So why not do this too?

So it's an interesting new model that's happening.

Well, I agree and I think that.

But I think that's the next big wave of change that needs to come and there's a couple reasons why and it's really driven by a lot of things, but really it's information is at consumers fingertips and then the number one thing they want to know is how much is it going to cost.

And just the thought to get an accurate number or within let's say 10 or 15%.

Right?

Just the thought that it requires you to bring multiple people out to your house to go through their sales presentation.

It's actually kind of absurd if you think about it.

It's a very archaic way to do it.

So I think the next big wave is for contractors to just understand that they're going to get the information somewhere.

They're either going to get it misinformation from some garbage website online, right?

Or three years they're going to get it from your competitor, right?

And maybe from you, and maybe they buy from you, maybe they don't.

But really what you're trying to do, this is about trust.

Not only do they want the price, they want to know, am I getting the best deal?

Now the best deal might be 25,000, it might be 12,000, it might be 2,000, right?

But no one wants to go into a, to a decision like this, a major purchase like this and feel vulnerable or naive.

And that is the biggest issue.

So like if you.

And I'm trying to think of just all of the things you buy for your home or for whatever, like you're constantly asking people like is this right?

Is this right?

The number one question that I get all the time is man, they said it was 6,500 which is fine, but is that right?

Is that high, is that low?

Like we need to remove the barriers for consumers getting this information.

Set some caveats that protect you so you're not losing money and just give all the information to people, that's what they want.

Save yourself some time.

And I mentioned, gosh, I don't know if I mentioned it on the air or mentioned it pre podcast but you know Travis Ringy, pro skills out in Anthem, Arizona, he put all his pricing on his website and he's not a cheap company, he's a very healthy company.

He just sold really, really cool transaction.

And we asked him on our podcast like hey man, aren't you worried about the people who saw your price and didn't, you know, thought it was too expensive?

He's like, no, because quite honestly, like we're so busy that we couldn't get to those people anyway.

And it's like, wow, you don't even have to care.

So, you know, the thing.

The thing.

You're right.

The thing that's happening is, you know, so I've always been a firm believer if at the end of the day, on average, if we have a 50% close rate.

Yep.

If we can draw a line through the center of the demographic and take the top half, I'm okay with that.

I mean, that's not a bad thing.

And by having prices up front, that screens out the people.

Because we all know that client that comes in and they.

They beat you up on price.

They're doing the shopping.

They're all the price comparisons they want the most for free.

You cut them the break, and then what happens?

It's the client that complains the most.

The most problems will go wrong with that project.

They ended up taking that project into the red almost every single time.

So then after the next three projects that you sell, takes every bit of that margin to cover that one bad project, which could have been screened from the beginning by this kind of model.

Totally.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we all know that, like, there's a lot of complexity and difficulty to providing an exact price over the Internet based off of a series of questions that the consumer could very likely answer incorrectly.

Right, of course.

But you need to be able to simulate the experience.

They need to be able to filter and to sort and to get comfortable with the range of pricing that they might be experiencing.

They know it's going to cost money.

They know it's going to cost more than they want to spend.

They know it might cost more than they have.

It might cost how much they have.

They want to be able to apply for financing without having the contractor involved.

They want to be able to do that ahead of time.

They want to see if they can use their, you know, PayPal, buy now, pay later, whatever that's called, pay over time.

Like, they want to see those things privately.

They don't want to ask you when you come into their house.

And this is the curse of being likable.

So if you came into my house and we hit it off and I'm like, man, I really like this guy.

Like, he really connected.

Well, I think he's probably the one I want to go with.

He's a little bit higher than the last guy.

Blah, blah, blah.

If I were having credit issues or if I didn't want to tell you that, hey, I only have 2000 cash and I have 3000 on my credit card, and I need to do, you know, financing for a third I don't want to have that conversation with you.

I want to do that privately.

Right.

And that's natural.

Right.

So those are things that the future of, you know, H Vac.

Those are things I think about.

Like, how can you simulate the buy.

I hate to use the word simulate, but I can't find a better one.

How do you simulate the buying process to get them further down the cycle that when you come into your house, all you're doing is reconfirming that.

Okay.

These guys are legit.

Oh, and by the way, if they chose attic instead of crawl space and you need to adjust it, 600 bucks.

Everyone understands.

Sure, sure.

Well, and that's the challenge is like we talked about.

There's.

There's so many different pendulum and first forever in the history of the industry, any industry is the struggle is okay, is it.

If the price is up front, there's no opportunity to build the value first.

Because we all know the.

With some.

When we talk about money, the what most people don't get, but what we subconsciously know to our core is money is just a representation of something else.

Money is a representation of the time and the energy that somebody goes to work, gave that part of their life away in exchange for this, this.

This representation of that time and energy that they'll never get back.

Now, is this stack of value higher than this, this money that.

My stack of money here.

And the second that stack of value gets higher, that's when the questions come out of, when can we get started?

What's the next steps?

Right.

And so in this conversation, when we apply that, that's why, of course, you know, traditionally don't show price until the end, until you've gone through all of the value items.

But now with this new the way things are going and things are moving, how do we still show value at the same time?

That's why a lot of the.

You know, anybody who does a lot of in home appointments there, it's become such a blended model.

I mean, so part virtual or even complete virtual appointments now over zoom.

Especially with COVID It's the best gift we ever got as the industry is giving us the ability to go virtual in an industry that nobody ever thought would be possible.

Sure.

Yeah.

But how do we do that?

Or the blended model of, okay, let's go grab measurements and then we'll do the rest of our appointment virtually and get pricing to get all those things.

And of course, you're right.

Writing in the caveats of okay, have the homeowner select with is and have the verbiage and such is like, is this an easy installation, Difficult installation, extra difficult installation.

Installation, you know, your own home.

How would you pick it?

Yeah.

To kind of get those questions to get the customer engagement.

But just through that format, there's.

That's the struggle is how do we do the value at the same time instead of just throwing numbers on.

Absolutely.

And another way I look at it too is I want the homeowner to see the entire range of the price book.

Like I'm envisioning my world, you know, on the website or wherever they can see.

Oh my gosh, there's 75 different combinations of systems that could go to my house, go into my house, and one of them is 3500 and one of them is 35,000.

I want to bring these guys over to help them help me make the decision because they're going to help land where they're comfortable financially.

I also think that that time.

So back up to you.

Talk about building value, which is incredibly important.

Right.

In the days when I started and years before that, you know, you build value by going into the home and having your book.

And in your book you've got your company picture and your company story and your drug test and you've got your licenses and you've got a couple sample permit letters from the inspection board that says you're awesome, you're doing all these things right.

And then you get into your.

Here's our insurance certificate.

You get into.

That was absolutely game changing and necessary at the time.

Like that was bringing the industry up to a standard instead of just like scribbling stuff down.

So that's important.

I still think it's.

It's super important.

Today the challenge is they're going to get that information if they really want it.

Today they're getting it through reviews, they're getting it off your website, they're getting off facial Facebook.

They're getting that information.

You have to fill in the gaps.

But.

But you want to take away that price reveal moment.

You know, you want to take away moment when the guy asked me how many times I lost my keys and I lied to his face in front of my wife and said zero.

Because I was like, this is going to cost me $1,500.

Right.

I'd much rather go get some keys made on the way home after buying this truck.

And it not cost me $1,500.

So that's what you need to take away is just.

And that's what I think Travis did at pro school.

He took the elephant out of the room.

Hey, we have stuff.

It's expensive.

There's lots of it.

We should probably help you pick the one that's good for you.

Yeah, that's it.

And have a normal freaking conversation.

Stop being weird and stop.

Start selling.

Right.

Cut through the bullshit.

Like Yalls tagline, if we cut the fat.

Well, I mean that's the.

Remember?

And the company obviously failed for other reasons.

But remember when the Saturn car.

Saturn vehicles came out?

Totally their.

Their entire process was our pr.

We don't have salespeople.

Our price is on the window.

This is what you pay for.

Yep.

And people loved it.

No, there's no.

We don't negotiate.

It's just, it is what it is.

You get the value that you get when you buy what we sell.

And so to take that model and that concept into something that's been so traditionally secretive and you know, especially in the industry when you can call on paper 5 companies, 10 companies from your town that all have the same award, they all have the same accolades, maybe they all have 1000 five star reviews.

So on paper it's the same company, but the pricing is wildly different for what looks like the same work.

Why is.

And that only gives our industry a black eye from a customer's perspective because they're like, we can't tell who's lying and who's not because they all say the same thing.

How do I know the difference?

Right?

And imagine a world where.

And again, this is totally hypothetical, but maybe you have to have pricing on your website with.

Consumers aren't dumb.

They know that it's an installed piece of equipment.

They know that there's installation.

They know installation may vary.

And so like I'll go as far even to say and I'm going to get hate mail over this, but for I love it.

I'm all about pushing the limits for certain installed systems.

Like, I'm not against an msrp like that works in the auto industry.

And then you work discounts off of that and it kind of standardizes everything.

I don't want to take margin away from the contractors, which takes me into a completely different conversation about the Internet and about E commerce.

But I think that standardizing that will save everyone a lot of time and people will realize like, oh wow, if I want a nice air conditioning system installed by a good company, I'm not even going to say expensive.

It's $8,900, but it's 8,700 there and 8,600 there and it's 4,000 there.

But that guy doesn't have it on the site.

So he's probably doing maybe it needs to be illegal to not have the pricing on your site.

There comes the hate mail.

That was the dinger.

Well, yeah, absolutely.

So you know, it's funny that you mentioned that because for years I've, I've had this conversation with people just in passing of our industry has done such a poor job of educating clients because how many times do we go to a house and what we hear is I have no idea even the range that this is going to cost.

So take the autumn anxiety, take the auto industry for years, right on the TV commercials, MSRP is $52,000 and every single year those numbers change so that because they're price conditioning the customer, this is what it's going to be when you the range, it's going to be when you go to buy this.

So there's no surprise when you go to buy a $50,000 brand new truck.

And you know air conditioning industry has never done that.

Yeah.

And what happens is like a $3,000 rebate on a brand new truck feels like a $3,000 rebate.

And you wonder why and you sell nicer bigger trucks and you wonder why like manufacturer rebates like me aren't that really aren't that big of a deal and they don't drive as many high end system sales as they should.

And I am just mentioned high end systems.

I kind of want to go here for a moment.

My teams have always sold 50% or greater top end equipment.

Totally.

And the industry is 95% percent not.

You've right.

They're selling minimum efficiency, minimum standard, single stage, single speed.

And I think that that's a big disservice to homeowners.

Now I'm not saying that because I make commissions selling high end stuff.

I make zero.

But right now the only like motivator is you know, the salespeople who are good enough to communicate and have a good enough incentive structure to sell the higher end stuff.

Those consumers benefit from things like variable stage cooling.

Right.

That no one in my neighborhood but me has.

Right.

And like the thing that surprises me is so I refer like everyone knows I'm in the air conditioning business.

I have to tell people I don't actually fix air conditioners all the time, but I send my contractor buddies, my contractor friends out.

Like I've got my guys, right.

I send them to my friends at homes all over the area and most of them will be like, man, I didn't Even know that two stage was a thing.

I didn't know variable speed was a thing.

Do you know fricking awesome it is having a variable speed blower.

Like it's amazing.

It like really.

And I'm not, I'm not selling them here.

I have one.

I have a two stage 80% variable in my attic and a 98% modulating variable in my crawl.

And it is so nice to know and to feel that like small little push of air coming out that you.

I just love it man.

And like no one, everyone loves it in my house.

My house is always so comfortable.

I'm not, I don't sell this shit for a living.

Like I'm not.

I make no benefit off this.

I paid for that.

Right?

It's really, really nice.

It's really nice when I have people over and they go out back and they hear my 26 year systems just kind of humming along with.

No.

Or, or they don't hear.

They don't.

Yeah.

It's just.

Is that thing on?

And those are things that like little nugget for the.

Just a quick pop out for all of the.

All these salespeople out there listening.

You're project manager.

Start calling yourself project manager because we all know we manage it all the way through the end anyway.

You're driving, you know, parts over if the install crew forgot or you forgot to put it on the list.

Totally.

But when you're talking about modulating equipment to the homeowner, remember maybe 1 in 10 buys it for savings.

It's not about that.

It's about how does it.

They don't want to know how it works, they want to know how it's going to make them feel.

So when you describe it that way, just like Tal Paul is describing it right now, that paint those word pictures of we're in the backyard and having a barbecue and we can have a normal level conversation and nobody has to speak up to talk over the loud ass air conditioner right beside us.

That is the moment those clients will relate to.

So use this terminology.

It's the most boring heating and air system you will ever own.

It's always the right temperature.

You'll forget you even have one because it just works.

You never hear it and you never have to mess with it.

Here's something that I've never even thought of until you just said that.

And I think this is a super important selling feature.

So my wife and I, our master's on the main floor and our two units are right outside our master bedroom window which you can't hear.

You just cannot hear them, them through the window.

But that's not even the story I'm going to tell you.

The story is my wife is like a hippie naturalist environmentalist and she wants to use electronics as infrequently as we possibly can.

And we automatically have the argument of who likes it cooler when we sleep.

Well, I like it really cold.

Like I like to put it at 65, 66 degrees.

And I'm in one of those swing seasons right now where like in the wintertime it's easy.

I drop heat down to 62 and it stays about 63, 64, 65 in the room.

We wake up, she's cold, she puts on a robe, no questions asked.

Right now I'm controlling all this from my phone.

Well, right now I'm in a swing season where it's, I don't know, it's like it's probably almost 80 out today, but tonight it's going to be around 50.

And it's one of those nights where the house is naturally, with a little bit of cooling is probably going to sit around 72 when I go to bed.

Yeah.

If I go over.

Dr. Stagnant.

Stagnant, exactly.

I can't sleep in 72, but if I go over to touch the thermostat, she's going to be like, do we really need to turn the air on?

Let's just crack a window.

Which I don't like to do.

Right.

So I make the adjustment and I put it down to 65 or whatever and she can't hear it, so she doesn't even know.

And she sleeps.

Amazing.

And so do I.

But that's a really cool feature too.

And again, I don't sell this stuff for a living.

I never have.

I've never sold an air conditioner in my life.

But my point is this.

Consumers, my neighbors, your neighbors, they need this stuff.

They need this stuff and it's so important and bring so much value.

And all we're doing, the industry is going out and replacing these 10, 15, 20, 30 year old systems with the same technology that was in before single stage, single speed.

I live in an area where there's million dollar light combs with 14 seer equipment.

Yeah.

It's ridiculous.

And with hundred plus year old technology.

Totally.

Yeah.

So I can't solve it from where I am.

All I can say is that the contractors, you know, all need to band together to elevate the industry.

And that's really what our podcast is all about.

And really our company is we're all about elevating the industry.

Let's make it better for everybody.

I'm not saying collude and make it so that we can, you know, the industry can extract more value out of homeowners.

I'm saying my neighbor needs a fricking variable speed air conditioner and it's awesome.

And he doesn't even know they exist.

Yeah, well, and that's it, that's.

The education has failed.

Our industry has failed to educate clients and homeowners.

I mean a two stage system is 50 years old, a two stage compressor.

And barely anyone has two stage.

Two stage is.

Nobody even knows.

Nobody even knows it exists.

Two stage is the most common sense thing ever.

And, and again, I'm not blaming the project managers of the companies, but there's some sort of disconnect and maybe they can't fix it.

I'm not.

Again, I'm not shaming anyone for not selling that stuff.

Some of the most successful companies I know sell single stage 14 seer here in the south and they're amazing.

They're $100 million companies that I'll never ever touch the amount of success they have.

And they do it one way and they do it the right way, their way.

I just, I, I don't know.

I think there's, I think there's more for the industry.

They've got hamburger.

You.

This is what we do.

This is three pickles on the burger and this is.

And.

But we're the best at it.

Awesome.

Agreed.

Exactly.

And I'm a hundred percent with you.

And you know, honestly that's exactly why I started this company.

The close it now, the brand, the sales training.

You know, I did six months of podcasts before ever did any business.

I just wanted to.

I started the company because a little bit of story we talked earlier.

You know, I sent a couple of my team to a training then and they came back as a, you know, fairly renowned training and they came back to our company with the same slide deck that I took the class a decade ago.

And it's like man, this is, this is.

Things have changed, technology has changed, we've moved forward.

So that's.

And so for six months I just put out content and podcasts on just tips and how to be better just to help everybody.

Until one guy, my very first client, he will always go down in the history books.

A guy named Mark out of.

He owns on the Mark Heating and Cooling in Chicago.

And he's growing, he's doing amazing things.

So everybody remember this it doesn't matter how much you learn or, you know, success happens at the speed of implementation.

It's how much you apply and how fast you apply it that'll determine how fast you progress and move forward and grow.

But he's your takeaway.

There you go.

That's what we say.

Onto the point is racket.

Write that one down.

That's it.

That's the Twitter.

Twitter quote for the day.

But so what I mean, his story is we had one conversation.

Three and a half years of, you know, selling single stage equipment.

Never sold over a 16 single stage system.

We had one conversation and very first week he's like $19,000 variable speed system.

He's like.

And now he does it all the time.

It's every week.

Right.

And.

But it's a matter of like the education moment.

It's like contractors don't know how to talk about it.

So many of us in the industry came from the technician side and not understanding how to have a benefit conversation and how to paint those pictures you're describing of the barbecue in the backyard.

And so that's exactly why I started that.

It's like times are changing.

We've got to embrace this.

And I don't mind being the pioneer.

Pioneers, they're the ones that take all the arrows.

They're also the ones that find the gold first.

So let's raise this industry because it's, it's one of the most amazing ones to be in.

But we've got to make some adjustments or what we're going to find is we're going to be fighting off the outside, the industry, companies coming in to try to take over our space.

So we just need to grow and become bigger.

It's abundant world.

There's plenty for everybody.

Let's just get better at what we do.

We're our own competition.

Right?

I agree.

I agree for sure.

So well, awesome, man.

I love this.

I think we're wrapping up some getting close to time here for us today.

This has been such a.

Such a fun, a fun visit.

I definitely wanted to get with you guys more in the future because I think we're much more alike than we are different from this conversation.

So real quick, I'm going to hit on a couple things about close it now and where, where close it now is headed.

Yeah.

And then would definitely want to hear from you about Rhino, how what all services you guys provide, how people can get a hold of you and all that.

So closing now.

This, this is a huge pivotal moment.

As I mentioned to everybody, this is the two year anniversary of Close It Now Big moves.

I'm doing this if you didn't know, I'm doing this full time now.

So that's how I'm able to progress much faster and implement quicker to hit that success level.

So things that are going on first is you may have noticed some issues with the website in the past.

Some of the, some of the links have had some issues.

All of that is getting fixed.

Complete re restructure there.

Also I am, I'm not at this point, I'm taking on affiliate partners.

If you do something that supports the industry, I would love to talk to you.

So affiliate partnerships are opened up now up until now.

But I'm looking for the best quality, best value for everyone that listens.

You'll be able to get some discounts and stuff through the affiliate partnerships.

So really working all of your listeners to provide the best value for everybody just for being involved with Close it now subscribing to Drive Time University like we talked about.

Also the course is coming out and book is coming out this in within the next few months.

So watch for those.

The course will both be.

It's going to eventually be an online platform that's going to run.

Should be able to grab a hold of it if you don't have the time or the level of investment for coaching.

Also the coaching program is expanding.

We're going to be doing private coaching and group coaching as well.

So two different levels of coaching.

But that will be limited spots because my time is.

You can only do so many things in the hours that we have.

Right.

So but be on the lookout for that.

So as you know, CloseItNow.net is where you can find all of that information for me.

Look for the Close it now podcast of course on Apple podcasts and all the different platforms.

Like we're on like 20 something different podcast hosting sites now.

Now for you Mr.

Tall Paul, tell us about Rhino.

How can people get a hold of you?

What all do you guys offer and how can they, how they get ahold of you?

Yeah, so what we do.

First things first.

We're an Internet marketing company.

All things digital for home services, primarily H Vac, plumbing, electrical.

If you're listening to this and you're in another home service, give us a call, reach out.

Like we can probably help you but our core is H vac, plumbing and electrical.

We have clients all throughout the US and Canada and all things from website design to full lead generation campaigns.

So I was just on a a call with a client who needs you know, 200 leads per month to hit their revenue goals for the year and their growth goals for the year.

So we're putting together a custom plan for them to do just that.

So wherever you are listening right now, there are people in your market searching for what you do.

They're just not looking for you and they're not looking for your competitors.

And it's our goal that they would find you, call you, connect with you, and you get some service or install revenue from that.

So our core value is transparency.

So we believe in removing the gray area for Internet marketing.

We want you to be able to understand exactly how much you're getting, what revenue is coming from what, and really isolate new business as it relates to Internet marketing.

So yeah, you can reach us through our website, so r y n o s s so rhinoss.com or you can look us up on LinkedIn or Facebook.

You can look up me.

It's PaulRedman.

You can look up our founder and CEO Chris Yano.

It's y a n o LinkedIn, Facebook, Facebook messenger.

You'll find us.

I love it, I love it.

I appreciate all that.

So, and everyone listening.

As you know, when this gets posted, it'll also be a blog.

I'll make sure to have all of those, those links and those connections, basically all of the link tree attached to that blog.

So you'll be able to easily find Rhino strategic solutions.

They are.

Oh, one thing we forgot to talk about.

Let's talk about this real quick before we go.

Rhino X. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So rhino X was two weeks ago.

We had about $2 billion worth of H Vac, plumbing, electrical, home service companies in our office.

It's our first actual event that we've ever done.

It's an inaugural event, correct?

It was in person.

Yep.

Huge high five for that.

Just huge high five.

Yep.

I was, I was half vaccinated at that time, but I was, man, I'll just tell you, like, there was no social distancing.

We were handshaking, high fiving and hugging.

And man, it felt so good.

So we'll make sure the social distance police don't hear that statement.

Exactly.

I think most people were vaccinated or had had it.

But of course, at the end of the day you probably have, you know, indoor air quality products in your office, right?

We do.

It was fine, but we had 30 contractors out.

But what was really cool, you know, if you're paying attention to the H vac space as it relates to like mergers and acquisitions, like obviously that's A really big deal.

One of the highlights, many of there were so many different things to call out, but one of them was, you know, Ken Goodrich from Gettle, Ken Haynes from the Wrench Group, and Leland Smith from Service Champions, you know, together are easily a billion dollars worth of revenue.

And they had never been together.

Two of them had met before in passing, but they had never been in a room together for a full day, full event, sitting right next to each other, collaborating on the industry.

And so to have them.

And they all have complete different perspectives of how they're growing their business.

Right?

You have Ken Goodrich trying to get a Lyes North America.

Right, you have Ken Haynes who buys all these awesome companies and they retain their image.

Then you have Leland Smith who's doing remarkable things in California with Service Champions, all with different perspectives on technician pricing, on recruiting, on like all the.

All have completely different perspectives.

And they got to sit on a panel and share their perspective.

And it was so incredibly cool to just have that unity in the industry and then share that with the other people there.

So.

And then Gary Vaynerchuk.

So Gary V. And, and had dinner with us and we got to talk to Gary Vee about marketing and people and operations.

And he's a really, really, really special person.

And I shared this with a group there.

Like, I don't get obsessed over, like celebrity business people.

Like, I think business people are just business people.

But he's pretty special.

Like, he brought a lot of value and had a lot of really good things to share.

So we will do it again.

We had a.

It was an experience.

I mean, just, just to.

Not to spoil everything, but I mean, every touch point of the event was highly curated by our CEO to.

To create what we consider the most special experience in the home service industry.

And that's why we kept it at 30 participants.

We wanted to make sure.

Oh, wow, sure.

But yeah, it was a great event.

And I knowing.

Knowing our CEO once a year is probably not enough for him.

I've joked around about, you know, Rhino X in the fall, and it's only half joking, so we'll see.

Be on the lookout.

Okay, so moving forward, do you think it's going to stay that size and just do more of them or potentially be a bigger event?

I don't know.

I would, I would lean toward there being multiple events, one of which is small and one of which is bigger.

And the reason I say small is the main feedback we got, you know, ongoing during the event and then afterwards was how it was really nice to be able to connect with everybody.

Like, you go to a big dealer meeting, you go to like a big, you know, expo or whatever, and you're just kind of in passing and you've got the vendor booth.

We didn't allow any vendors in.

Okay.

So no vendors.

There were vendors in town who are like hosting events at restaurants and things like that that the guys could go to, which we were like, blown away.

That, like, you know, there's even not much relevance.

Right.

To.

Sure.

But.

But we're not actually one of the.

One of the guys in my.

One of my.

In my Facebook group, Travis from up in what's in Seattle, was it.

Oh, it was Sky.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he was there.

He's awesome.

I got to sit next to him during dinner.

I've never met him.

I've had a dream about him before, which is really weird, but I remember Travis.

Yeah.

So I remember reading articles that he would write for achr.

Was ACHR News.

Yeah, I think it was ACHR News.

And I don't even know how I know.

We became friends on Facebook.

I had a dream about him and I told him that, and it was as awkward as it sounds on this podcast.

But yeah, he was there and he sent us a really nice thank you gift, which I'll warn it remain anonymous, but it was a really thoughtful gift that we hope soon.

Oh, that's good.

Yeah, Great, Great event.

So thank you for asking.

Well, cool.

Yeah, absolutely.

So moving forward, everybody that's listening, pay attention because these events are.

I really.

I stalked the event via social media and the different people that I know that I'm friends with that were actually attended.

If you get the chance, make a chance.

Make.

Make way.

An ability to get there.

You know, this is one of those things you can never invest in yourself and in your company too much because they're skills that you will never lose.

It's something nobody can take away from you.

You know, we talked about initially, you know, Paul was talking about the having that thermostat set of where he thought success was in his life.

And, you know, if it's.

Whatever mark that is for you, if your thermostat is set at.

My business does 250,000 a year or a million a year or.

Or 3 million a year.

Wherever your thermostat is, this is instantly a way to change that thermostat.

Because if you're sitting in a room with guys that own companies doing 50 million a year, 100 million a year, those kinds of numbers, do you think that even one thing you take away and go home with could completely revolutionize your company.

You'll function at a different level.

So make the investment to get to one of these events when the, when the opportunity arises.

Because high, high value there.

That's right in the fall.

Chris, you're listening.

Good stuff.

Okay.

So awesome.

So that, that wraps us up for today.

I appreciate so much you taking the time out of your busy day to be a guest here on the Close It Now Sell Sell Sales Trading podcast.

This is Stop being weird and start selling.

So I'll wrap this up in episode 50.

How we have wrapped up just about every episode so far is Go out there, save the world one heat stroke at a time.

Go save the world one frostbite at a time.

You are out there to change the world.

Make it an awesome day.

Thank you so much everybody.

We'll talk to you again soon.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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