Welcome to Close it now, the podcast that's revolutionizing the H Vac and home improvement trades industries.

Get ready to dive deep into the world of heating, ventilation and air conditioning.

We're turning up the heat on industry standards and cooling down misconceptions.

And we're not just talking about fixing vents and adjusting thermostats.

It's about the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of H Vac and home improvement.

We're the driving force, inspiring top performers who crave excellence not only in their professional endeavors, but also in fitness, nutrition, relationships and personal growth, proving that we can indeed have it all.

This is Close it now, where excellence meets excitement.

Let's get to work now.

Your host, Sam Wakefield.

All right, welcome back to Close It Now.

Sam Wakefield here, ready to rock your socks off.

So let's go.

Alright, so this episode, I am excited.

It's going to be some really great things that you can use.

Also some mindset things.

There's a lot going on in our industry right now.

I'm hearing from so many people across the country about how people are shopping, people are not buying, all of these kind of things.

So one of the things that we need to talk about is a lot deeper type of a heart level conversation, which we're going to today.

So mindset is everything in sales.

The famous quote by Winston Churchill, success is moving from failure to failure with no lack of enthusiasm.

And that is exactly what we have to do as salespeople, as closers, to be able to maintain mindset, to be able to maintain your vibes, your energy, your focus, all of that.

And so how in the world do we do that?

How do we go from failure to failure with no lack of enthusiasm?

Obviously we want success in between along the way, but how do we do that?

So we're going to talk about that today.

We're going to talk about what happens when you slide out of it and how you stay in the right mindset.

And we're just going to talk about some major stuff going on in our industry, which is pretty cool and lots of opportunity at the same time.

You have to be better.

So we'll get into that.

Before I do, I would love to be able to highlight a testament or testimony review that I got on the Apple podcast review.

And for everybody listening, if you've ever gotten value from the Close it now podcast, I would love, love, love a five star review on the Apple podcast platform.

You can go to Google and leave Close It Now a five star review.

Google reviews are Everything or jump over to the Facebook page and leave me a review on there.

Actually in that order is appreciated.

Apple podcasts, then over on Google and then in the Facebook group, pick one, do them all.

It's up to you.

But I would love, love, love if you left me a review.

Now if you do leave me a review and I read it on an episode and you happen to hear it, message me and tell me that you heard it on the podcast and I'll give you a free coaching session.

We'll see if we can get you unstuck or just focus on anything that you want to chop it up or however you want to spend the hour.

We can hang out and cover some things, whatever you have questions for, just chit chat.

But so the one that I want to highlight today, this one is really, really, really cool because it is an incredible segue into what we're going to talk about today.

And it is from Kerryk845.

So Kenry K.845 five star review.

It says quality information, value driven, easy listening.

I love this one.

It says on your podcast episode, the most recent one, you said something I don't think I've ever heard from any H Vac person in the industry.

It's enough where people think of you as a pawn in their game or even ourselves push ourselves to our demise by working so much that becomes a joke about heart attacks or how many wives we've had.

It is sickening to listen to.

But the most powerful thing you said was that at the end of the day, we don't live to work, we work to live.

And that takes prioritizing your values in life and adjusting them with the flow with to flow with your work.

So I love that so much.

Kenry K. If you hear this message me and it's so true, everybody, I mean I'm so done with our industry with you know, you go to the conventions and the joke is how many wives have you had and how many heart attacks have you had?

That's why, you know, you see people like Ken Goodrich.

There's a Facebook group, if you haven't found it, there is a Facebook group that Ken Goodrich started called First Steps with Ken Goodrich.

It's a fitness group.

It's literally for our industry and it's a fitness group.

What are you doing to self care?

What are you doing to actually be the person worth buying from?

And part of that is your nutrition, your fitness, your self discipline.

So a big part.

So one of the reasons that I talk about Nutrition and fitness so much.

Yes, it's the obvious first layer stuff.

But what happens there is the obvious first layer stuff is your health, right?

So you're there for your kids when they get older, all those kind of things.

But deeper than that has to do.

It's interesting because it always comes back to.

It comes back to your sales numbers, it comes back to your relationships, all of these things.

First layer with nutrition and fitness is being healthy enough to perform at a high level, being healthy enough to have a crazy day out in the field doing appointment to appointment, but then also having enough in reserve that when you get home, you haven't given the best of yourself to everybody that you see at work.

And then your family only gets the crumbs, right?

That is no place to live.

If anything, flip it upside down.

If you have limited energy reserves, and I know a lot of people do, there's all kind of different health conditions, all different things that can cause people to have limited health reserves.

That is fine.

However, learn to manage that.

What I would say is don't give the best part of yourself to someone else.

If you say that your family is your priority.

I'm going to say that again.

Don't go through your day giving the best part of yourself to strangers and your job and everyone else.

If you say that your family is your top priority.

So it's really, really important that we kind of start off talking about this because so many times we'll take home the worries of the day and the stress and then we take it out on our family and we've just given so much.

We go so all in.

We go so hard during the day that when you get home, there's nothing left to give to your family.

So am I saying to slow down and not go all in with your profession, with your job, to be an expert, closer?

No, that's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is we have the choice.

We have the ability to improve the other parts of our life as well, as well as our sales skills as well as our communication skills.

But the mindset here is you've got to have your priorities in order.

Because who cares?

Who cares if you make a million dollars a year, if your kids no longer want to speak to you, if you don't have a relationship with your kids, with your spouse, with your partner, if your relationships are in the crapper because you're never there, because you're never conscious, because you never show up with intention, you never show up to ask your family, how can I Make you feel loved today, right?

So who cares how much money you make if you're not doing it for the right reasons?

So that's one of the things that I want to talk about today is really that heart level of things, right?

How do we stay on top of that?

And right now we're coming out of the peak of the summer, but making some adjustments during the summer, doing the things you know you should be doing.

What is keeping you from that?

I would be willing to bet that probably most of you listening, if not every single one of you, myself included, there's a handful of things still that I know I should be doing that I slack off on and it's not okay.

But being able to recognize it and really put it in a very specific category that is the working on category and constantly chipping away.

I made an analogy comparison to my partner just the other day.

I told her because her and I have been working on our relationship and in any relationship there's typically a list of a handful of things that come up that you say, I had a list of things.

She had a list of things of things that we've talked about over time that I do or don't do that she wishes I would do or wishes I would stop doing.

I've made a ton of different adjustments and changes along the way, but some of them still need done and they keep coming up.

So the other day, and so here's an interesting conversation and here's the way the analogy works.

I was talking to her and she was saying something about, man, I just feel like I'm beating a dead horse when I talk about some of these things over and over.

And I said, no, no, no, so don't feel like that.

I need the reminder.

The analogy is when you're constantly on a journey to work on things, when you're constantly working on things in life and improvement in relationships with your physical, with whatever it is the way that it feels like to me, it's kind of like when you say you upload 20 pictures into a Google Drive folder or you're doing some sort of big download or old school.

If you want to think back on Napster or Limewire, you'd queue up 20 songs to download.

But they didn't all start at once.

They're all in this list and the first one, they've got these status bars on every single one of the items.

And the first one loads the status bar.

Once it completes, it moves to the next one that moves to the next one.

So I was just telling Her I was like, listen, I hear you.

And these things that we're talking about, they're in the status bar loading queue.

I'm getting there.

It's so hard to make all of the changes at once.

And that's a recipe for disaster.

If you're thinking about nutrition, if you're thinking about working out, making all of the changes at once and going so crazy extreme, that is not a sustainable recipe for success.

Making small incremental changes consistently over time, that is a recipe for creating a new habit.

That's a recipe for creating a new belief system around yourself and to be that person that you're becoming, right?

So it goes from becoming someone that does or doesn't do this thing to being the person that is the person you're no longer becoming.

You are the person that does or doesn't do whatever that is, right?

That we are the person that eats right.

You're not the person that McDonald's is ever on the radar, et cetera.

You are the person that does meal prep.

You are the person that consistently gets exercise.

You are the person that listens with empathy and constantly works to improve your communication skills with everyone in your life, not just the homeowners that you see in a sales conversation.

So let's take this and apply it a little bit into what we do because this is one of those, this is a, it's a heart, this is a gut check podcast.

Because I want you to think about this, you know, right now in our industry.

This is Wednesday, September 4, 2024.

And one of the things I'm hearing the most right now is how, and it's been through this, 2024, this whole summer, and I'm sure plenty of you across the country can attest to this is the way homeowners are not necessarily stop buying, but what they're doing is much more hesitant.

There are plenty more shoppers, plenty more tire kickers.

It's just the nature of our market right now.

And one of the most interesting things that I'm finding is the more that I travel, the more that I train across the country, the more we dive into the sales communication and the sales conversation.

What I'm finding is the biggest missing piece that most people have is a four letter word called care.

C, A, R, E. Right?

Even if you didn't know a single thing about the sales conversation and you showed up and it was so obvious that you absolutely truly cared for people, that your goal there is to help, it's to help them solve the problems they have in their house and you truly, truly cared to the level that it's tangible in the house and it comes across honestly, if every single one of you showed up with the amount of care, concern and empathy that you should, honestly, I would be out of a job.

Because people will choose that every single time over somebody who maybe has the best sales process over all of these things that doesn't have compassion, care and empathy.

They will choose that person every single time over the other person.

Maybe not every single time.

That's a sweeping generalization, but you get what I'm saying, right?

So what we have to do is work on ourselves first.

When you work to become someone worth buying from, that does not just mean when people are looking at you and focused internally, that does not just mean you working on yourself to have better fitness and nutrition and relationships and spiritual life and personal growth.

That also means that you intentionally and authentically honestly do care about people.

In order to be great as a technician, as a project manager, comfort advisor, whatever you call yourself, in order to be exceptional in our industry, we have to have the biggest heart of concern and care for the people that we're seeing.

We truly have to understand that if they don't buy from us, I am actually internally deeply hurt.

Not because they don't buy from us.

It has nothing to do with sales numbers.

It has nothing to do with our results.

It has everything to do with.

We know that now.

If they choose not to buy from us has everything to do with.

We know beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are not going to get their problem solved.

They are not going to have the best value for their dollar.

We know they're going to get taken advantage of in one way or another.

If they don't buy from us.

The only way we can help them is by them buying from us and us helping them with their buying decision.

Now, when we truly, truly care, truly, truly care and show up, yes, always be working on improving your communication skills and handling objections and all of the things.

But at the same time, if we truly care, the rest of it is so much less important.

So would you like to hear a great practical way, Very easy to do that.

We can start to show this and prove it when we are in the home.

So huge shout out to my jiu jitsu buddy.

I can't say his name sadly, because he works for an organization that if they knew he was even training with anyone else outside the organization, they would probably fire him.

Which I have to tell you, if you are working with an organization that is so scarcity minded that they, that they're scared of you doing some training to get better on your own, that you pay for it on your own and they don't want you to do that.

You are at the wrong organization.

I will tell you that any great leader or owner, manager should welcome.

When somebody says, I want to get better, I'm going to invest my own money into my own personal growth.

Man, talk about somebody who's showing initiative.

I mean, if it's a company that doesn't want you to do that, I would be very concerned and I would run from them.

But so that's what's happening here.

I'm not going to give out any more details because I don't want to incriminate anybody.

But I will tell you, he is doing one of the most incredible things that I've seen.

I've coached on this.

I used to do it all the time.

I've coached on this forever.

And this is something that Weldon Long used to say forever and ever and ever.

Handwritten letters, right?

Jason Walker, I know, talks about this a lot.

Well, he's doing it right and so it's so cool because he's got a three ring binder that he'll take.

And it started with just printing off, you know, a whole bunch of reviews from the, from Google.

And then as time has passed, while we've coached together, he started handing that book over to the homeowners.

Usually right around the time when after he's taken his measurements or right around when he goes to take his measurements, he'll hand that book to him and say, okay, well here, read through these.

These are stories from homeowners that I've helped.

And then so people start reading through him.

It's got his name mentioned in there, all these things and they start getting to the handwritten notes and handwritten letters.

And once he goes through the process and once he makes the sale, he asks them, this is awesome.

So congratulations, welcome to the family.

One of the things I would love to ask from you, you read all the letters in there.

Once we're done with our project and everything goes smoothly, would you add your story to my book?

It helps me to help more people.

And that's it.

That's literally the only question he asks.

And every single week he messages me or we talk because I mean, it's my coaching client.

So we talk once a week.

And he has usually at least one, if not more handwritten, full page personal letters.

And if you want to see them, go into the Facebook group.

He made A post about it the other day in the Facebook group.

And it's so cool to read these letters.

They're just one after the other after the other.

And the coolest thing happens with these, because this is like your resume.

You know, you can tell homeowners till you are blue in the face how incredible you are, but when they start reading handwritten letters from other homeowners over and over and over about how incredible you are at working with them, about how incredible you are at your professionalism, designing exactly what they were excited about, how the solutions worked for them, all of these things.

And when that is in a handwritten letter and it's in your book, that people can just read through and read through and read through and see your name and how impressed they were over and over and over.

Let me ask you, do you think that job will be easier to close?

Do you think it'll be easier to overcome objections at the end?

Do you think that maybe, just maybe, objections like, I don't know, price?

Objection.

Three bids, all of gotta talk to so and so.

Do you think that once a homeowner has read enough reviews, handwritten letters from homeowners just like them, that maybe their mind is put to ease a little bit?

Because we have to remember at the end of the day, the reason that people don't move forward with you, it really comes down to one word.

It comes down to trust.

And the more social proof that they see, the more they will trust you.

You're building little chunks of trust and credibility all along the way.

So I love, love, love the ability that we have to collect handwritten letters and don't make copies of them, make copies for other things.

But put the originals in there, right?

Keep them in there.

This is your resume.

This is your resume for the homeowner.

And God forbid if the company you're working for ever shuts down or something happens and something goes sideways and you need to find another location to work for or another company that's literally your resume that you should be using when you apply for a position.

Because all of the owners and managers listening tell me, if somebody came in with a three ring binder full of all of these incredible handwritten reviews about the person and they hand you this as their with along with their application and their resume, and say, this is how I take care of my clients and this is how I will take care of your clients, would you not at least consider hiring that person?

Because that's somebody who's going over and above, that's taking the steps that requires to take radical responsibility for your own success and your own future.

So when somebody does that, man, I tell you, as a hiring sales manager at my company, I would 100%.

And honestly, nobody ever did.

Nobody ever came up like that, right?

Nobody ever came in and applied and had this.

But if they had, I would have absolutely had a much deeper conversation and more than likely probably hired them at a very much higher priority than anyone else applying.

So there's so many benefits to collecting personal reviews, personal stories, personal testimonies, and call it a story when you're asking people for their handwritten story.

And this is different than taking a video testimony.

There's a lot of people pushing for video testimonies right now, but people feel so weird about hopping on video a lot of times.

If somebody's down for that, absolutely.

Rock and roll.

Go for it.

Get a video testimony.

100% agree.

However, what you're going to find is a lot of people that say they will won't because they're nervous on camera.

Or you talk to them for 10 minutes before and it's nothing but glowing, raving reviews.

And the second you turn the camera on, they turn into a robot because they're so nervous and sound like, yes, I worked with Sam and the job was awesome and everything was taken care of.

Would recommend Sam's air conditioning company, right?

How many times you turn on the camera and it sounds like that?

And it's like, no, wait, all you have to do is talk like you just did five minutes ago when you were just telling me how much you liked it.

You try again and you turn the camera on and it's the same thing.

People are not, most of the time, are not made for recording on video.

They're just not.

That's why you have goofy things like, oh, Lord, it's a fire.

Ain't nobody got time for that, right?

All the videos or you got the hawk to a girl.

People are not getting nervous when they're on video, right?

So don't hawk to your homeowners, right?

That means a lot of things.

So I'll leave that there.

And that's the joke of the day.

But get testimonies.

People will happily write letters for you if and only if, of course, you do what you said you're going to do, and you show up at the highest level and you serve at the highest level, and they can feel how much you care.

People will forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

Your level of care is how you will make them feel.

So when you do that, of course they're going to leave you a written letter about how awesome the job was and what it was like working with you.

So there's your ninja trick for the week is start collecting handwritten reviews, handwritten testimonies, handwritten letters, handwritten stories to add to your book.

All right, so that is the episode for today.

So reviews.

If you'll leave me a review, that would be awesome.

I love it.

Also, if you want to reach out to me, we've got a lot of things coming on.

We've got one on one virtual coaching.

So if you're individual and you don't have a team, you don't feel like you're getting the support that you should be getting from your organization, Reach out.

We have a program especially made for you as a independent person that wants to be at the top of their craft.

You're ready to invest in your future.

You're ready literally to change your income by millions of dollars across this next couple years.

Then reach out.

You can reach out.

Go to CloseItNow.net There's a form on the website.

You can email me directly samoseitnow.net to learn more.

Also, big announcement.

I've got a couple of things coming up in the spring of 2025.

I want to put this bug in your ear right now.

Spring of 2025, I will be hosting a CloseIt now sales training event.

One in the east coast and one on the west coast.

So start blocking out some of your end of April 1st of May, 2025 dates.

I will give more info as soon as some things are locked in.

But we are going to have one of them in the Northeast, probably around the Boston, Massachusetts area.

And one of the classes is going to be in la, actually in Whittier area, California.

So watch for those.

That is going to be incredibly exciting.

Let's fill up that room.

Get everyone prepared and armed for the 2025 summer season.

So that's going to be going on and man, just so, so many things are happening if you want to know more about the coaching programs.

Oh, last thing is, we are taking open applications right now for companies who would like the Close it now group to come to your location for the fall of 2024, which is September 4th.

So we're really starting to fill up the fall of 2024, spring of 2025.

Currently we're taking applications for your company.

Would you like us to come to your location to train?

So we do not accept every single person that applies there's so much, so much volume reaching out right now.

So many companies.

I'm so grateful for everybody listening and all of the companies that so far that have trusted closeit now to help them with their sales process, increase the numbers, help with the culture.

So there's so many reaching out, though, that we can't just say yes to everyone.

So it has become an application process.

So reach out samoseitnow.net you can pop me a text 512-364-8559 or go to the website and fill out the form and we can discuss what it would look like for us to come really just absolutely crank up the heat and light a match under your sales team so they do some incredible numbers for this winter coming up for the, for the fall coming up.

If you're in a real heavy winter area, definitely reach out because there's some things happening right now where we can absolutely crush the winter this year and, and destroyed make up for all those weird summer numbers that everybody had this year anyway, so that's it, man.

That's the episode.

Gentlemen and ladies, thank you for listening.

I'm so grateful for every single one of you.

I could not, could not, could not do this without you.

You are why I do this and what makes everything possible.

It is my heart and my intention to see our industry level up, but not just in your sales numbers, but physically, spiritually, relationships, nutrition, personal growth, all of the different areas work to become that person worth buying from.

Right?

That is the new slogan.

That is the new hashtag.

And until next time, everyone, be somebody.

Become that person.

Be somebody worth buying from.

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

Our passion is to dive head forward first into the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of H Vac and home improvement and at the same time covering fitness, nutrition, relationships and personal growth, proving that we can indeed have it all.

We hope you've enjoyed the show.

If you did, make sure to, like, rate and review.

We'll be back soon, but in the meantime, find the website@closeitnow.net find us on Instagram at the real Close it now and on Facebook at Close it Now.

See you next time.