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.

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to Close It Now. Sam Wakefield here I am, excited to be back with you. We've got a really impactful episode today. This is August 2024, and if you have, unless you've been under a rock, you know that there's some wild stuff going on in our industry this year. There's some, it's, it's. This has been one. If you're anywhere where I've been and worked all over the course all over the country. So you. Where I've been, this is one crazy summer. So we've got some good stuff. We're going to talk about what to do in this kind of environment, what to do when it slows down like this, what to. And also I'm going to give you some perspective on some things because, you know, I've been around this industry for about 20 years now, and that means that I. This is not the first time I've seen the industry slow down a little bit. So we're going to talk about some things that will get you going. How to keep your mindset right, how to keep your vision right, how to keep your purpose correct. And then I'm gonna give you a couple tools to get past it and that will help you, help you grow. So that's what we're getting into today. So stick around. But first, let's do a. What's in your cup for the day today? My choice was I was in. Not because I was in a super rush, but strictly because I just like them. We have a Nespresso machine and I. So today I just made a couple, a couple big shots of Nespresso and it was the. Let's see. Let's take a look here. This is the Lavazza espresso. The intenso I ordered hopped on Amazon and Ordered like a big pack of the Lavazza Nespresso pods mainly. The only time I'd ever have Lavazza is and I'm like a hotel travel in like a hotel or in an airport or something. So wanted to try them and honestly, they got the variety pack and it's pretty dang good. So I'm gonna put that as a recommend on the recommended list. The Lavazza Nespresso pods are pretty, pretty dang good. So highly recommend. And so that is what's in my cup today. So everybody, let's take a collective drink in 3, 2, 1. All right, let's get into this. What is in your cup? You know, no one has taken me up on the challenge yet. Join the Facebook group and somebody be the leader and put up a post. Get some cool, you know, grab some cool picture of a coffee cup or, you know, something artsy, some artsy bougie coffee art or something. Throw a picture up and just make a post inside the Close it now Facebook group of what's in your cup post so we can start a thread on that. I'm curious to see who will listen and who will be the leader in that and actually take some action. So if whoever does that, then I'll message you. We'll work out something cool for you. So who was going to be the leader and who will do that? But let's get into this content today and oh, last thing, I'd love to highlight a couple reviews that I got. If you've ever gotten value from this podcast, you know, reviews are everything, especially in our climate right now. If you. In fact, I would. I will happily leave a review for. For you, for your company. Wherever you're at, message me and I'll happily do that. In fact, hop in the Facebook group and that would. This is another cool thing. Let's start a everybody review our businesses post or page. That. That would be kind of cool. Um, but so a couple reviews for my podcast. If you've ever gotten value from this show, I would love, love, love if you go to wherever you listen. Apple podcasts is the number one place for reviews. But you could review me on my. On the Facebook. On my Facebook profile and. Or just wherever you find. Close it now. You can review it on Google. Google reviews are great. But on the Apple podcast there's a couple reviews I want to highlight. One is from Boston Carruthers. What's up, Boston Carruthers? Thank you, sir. This is Duke Dollar sign ten is his name on here. Five star review says, hey, I've Been in heating and cooling for four years now and just stepped into a sales position this spring. I love this podcast and help me up my sales game so fast. And I feel so confident in the home already. What is up, Boston Carruthers? I appreciate that review. That is awesome. You are a rock star. I am sure cannot wait to connect. Pop me a message and let's chat, man. Also, let's see, we've got another one. It says, good podcast, five stars. And this is from. Let's see. Keenan, man. Keenan Monroe. Keenan Monroe. What's up, Keenan? It says, listen to this episode. Listen to this episode and the advice that make me close a deal an hour later. What is up? Let's go. That is awesome. So good job, Keenan. Listen to this episode and the advice made me close the deal an hour later. That is about as quick of results as you can get, I gotta tell you. So rock and roll. Love it. So what I would love to know, Keenan, which episode it was and which piece of advice helped you close that deal. That would be really cool if you could throw it in the Facebook group or if you can message me. That would be awesome to know. So let's get into this episode some and if you've all of you listening, you know, this is such a big community and this podcast is listened to in so many places around the world. I think we're up to. We're over 30 countries now, so I'm so grateful for everyone all around the world that listens. And if you, anybody, wherever you're at, I'm talking to you. If you've listened to the podcast and you've used something that either a tip or a skill or piece of advice or mindset or something from the podcast and it helped you see success, it helped you up, level your numbers, it helped you close the deal or anything like that, I would love to hear from you. If you could. You could put it in a review or you could put it into a testimony and message it to me partially. It's so much encouraging for me because I don't always get to connect with the thousands and thousands of people that listen. Unless you. Unless you reach out to me, I don't know who's on the other side. It's kind of like being on the radio. You never know who's got the radio turned on. So the only way that I can know that this is impacting somebody, if I even have a message that's worth listening to, is when you let me know, are you seeing success? Where are you? Where is this working. Where is it impactful? How has it helped you? I would love to hear stories from you. It encourages me to create more content. And if you have ideas or you have questions about things that you want to hear a podcast episode on, message me there. You can email me samoseitnow.net pop me a text 512-364-8559 or just go to the website@closeitnow.net and we've got a contact me form on there as well that you can get some info. You can read all about our coaching programs and all that. But that's how you can get in touch with us to send your testimonies, send your reviews and just want to hear your stories. You know, don't even, I mean, it's not even call it a testimony review. And if you don't want us to not even post it, that's fine too. But I just want to hear the stories from everybody. How are you doing right now? How is it going in the country? Because I know I'm hearing from so many people that are struggling right now. This is August 12, 2024, when I'm recording this, and it has been a grind this year. I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to sugarcoat this and I'm not going to be the trainer that's going to be out here and say, well, you know, just don't subscribe to the recession. Yes, of course, I agree. Absolutely. Mindset is everything. In fact, that's why we're having this episode. At the same time, I am 100% a embrace the power of positivity, law of attraction. What you focus on, you find, what we attract into our lives, what we are, all of those things. Yes, absolutely. At the same time, you've got to be somewhat of a realist. And so it's almost like being bipolar. When you're a business owner or just when you're in our industry, when you're in sales in general, when you're in home services, when you're on this path, which is a very, very entrepreneurial type of a mindset in what we do and in our path, then you have to almost be bipolar. And what I mean BY that is one, we constantly have this 100% almost overly positive mindset so many of the time, so much of the time, for the most part. I mean, there's plenty of you that are negative Nellies. I know that you know that everything is not instead of a silver lining, there's almost like this dark lining on Everything. And you're always looking the negative. I'm not talking to you. And if that's you, of course, then, you know, you can change. You can read some books on positivity, but when we constantly have this silver lining on everything, this power of positivity. Yes, but at the same time, that doesn't mean that we have to be that we're blind to the current situation of what's going on in our world. And by being able to look at the entire marketplace, being able to really zoom out and look at the big picture of what is going on, what we start to see is, as with our lens of positivity and the understanding that every problem is a new opportunity, then with that mindset, then we can look at our current industry and our current situation. And when we see things like, you know, the call volume is down 77% versus last year, or that's a number that I actually got from somebody this morning, one of my coaching clients that said their, their lead, their call volume, and this isn't it. This is an enormous company. If I said the name, you would know the name of this company. But their call volume is down 77% versus last year. And I know that's. That's a pretty seriously extreme number, but I also know that they're not alone. Right. If you're a small company, if you're a larger company, if you're part of a PE group across the board, other than a handful of companies in our, you know, across the country. And do not let, I'll tell you one thing, do not let the, you know, there's a handful of people on social media that are like, oh, all. Every single one of our companies in RPE Group have only seen exponential growth this year. Do not believe those lies because that's not always the case. Yes, there are a handful, a very small handful of companies that have the ability, that have the deep pockets that can do that of the big groups like that and through the right systems and management. Yeah, there's a few of them that. That's actually the case. But, boy, it's way less than everybody wants to lead you to believe. So don't believe all the news on Facebook. Facebook and on social media. There's a lot of fake news out there. So what's happening in our industry is not necessarily to be unexpected. If you understand trends in the market. And this is something that's been predicted for the last, you know, last several years. Anytime there's a big boom, and we can trace it back, there was you know, there's been booms and busts, right? 2010 was a huge, you know, 28, 9, 10, 11, 12 was the huge boom with when all the tax credit and tax incentives first came out under the, under Obama, right? There was a huge boom then, and then it dropped off and those tax credits went away and everybody lost their minds and nobody's going to buy high end equipment anymore. And our system, everything's going to suffer. But it didn't necessarily happen like that because, you know, our industry got together and we had the right mindset and said, you know what? The companies that said, you know what? Incentive or not, it doesn't matter. We have value and we're here to deliver. Now at the same time, we have to follow our economy. Our economy is up and down, right? People have the money, they're just a little more unwilling, not even a little more. They're all, I'm just gonna be real. They're a lot more unwilling to spend it right now unless they see the right amount of value. And you have been able to connect at the right emotional and heart level. You've actually built an authentic relationship, not just some fake thing where you're going in there and oh, you like the cowboys, I like the cowboys. You got a dog, I got a dog. You wear clothes, I wear clothes. You drive a cool truck, I drive a cool truck. We're just the same. No, stop that bullcrap. That is absolutely not how you're going to build a relationship with, with somebody that establishes trust. So stop the crap and be a real authentic person. So that's step one. And I know it's hard because, you know, this is just a real episode. The tighter it gets and the less volume there is, the more that we get. If we're not careful managing our emotional intelligence, our emotional maturity, what happens is we start to feel that strain and we start to feel the grind. And then we start to sell out of desperation, Then we start to sell out of scarcity. And that is actually when people stop buying. When we need the sale, nobody buys. When you don't need to sell, everyone buys. It's just like dating, right? When you go to the bar, if you're a dude and you go to the bar and you act like you want the girls, no girls will talk to you, right? Or guys or whatever. It's just in the example, right? Whoever you are, man or woman, and the traditional dating scene, right, you go. And if you act desperate or you chase, no one wants to talk to you. But the minute that you act like you don't care. Well, now all of a sudden everyone wants to talk to you. It's the exact same thing. It's just human psychology. It has nothing to do with, you know, man, woman, whatever, any of that. That's just the dating example. But human psychology is human psychology. If you go into a house and you need you, even if you don't think that this comes across, it comes across in your energy. So people can feel that you need the sale. So therefore, what do you think they're going to do? First of all, they're going to beat you the heck up on price because, hey, he needs to sell. So he probably, probably dropped the price a bunch, right? That's one. How to like drive yourself right into the four house and not make any money or worse, go out of business right now because it's slow, right? You've got. We need every single appointment that you sit, right? Spend the time, do the right thing, be the best every time, right? Show up at your absolute rock star performance, serve at the highest level, no matter who it is or who you're in front of or what the lead sounds like before you go, do not prejudge. You never know what it can turn into. There are there, are there some bad leads? Yes, but for the most part, the ones that most of you think are bad are not bad leads. The odd. Yes, there are. I'm not saying that there's no, not like oddball ones that come in periodically, but for the most part, there's typically no such thing as a bad lead. There's a lead that's underutilized, there's a lead that's under capitalized, there's a lead that you didn't sit with long enough to find out what their actual concerns are, but there's not always a bad lead of what you think is a bad lead. So with that being said, let's fix that mindset there. But when we're in this journey, right, we're in this place, we're like, holy crap. The people are just so tight with their money. What's going on? Well, you got to zoom out. So much is happening in our industry every four years. When the presidential election happens in the United States, of course, there's a little bit of a dip in people replacing systems and people spending money. Now, when you track it for a long time, this is one thing to also pay attention to. And this is not a political conversation, but think about it. Anytime there's a presidential candidate who is very polarizing and by polarizing I mean, there's a lot of people that absolutely love them with a very cult like following. And that also means it causes a huge part of the population to despise that person with this righteous anger against that person. And right now that's actually the case for both of the presidential candidates. So either side, a lot of people love them with a cult like following and a lot of people hate them with this like complete livid anger and what it's doing. One, it's sadly separating the country. But more importantly, when that alignment happens, people are always more reserved on their spending. So here's one quick conversation piece that may help you because it's been very effective everywhere. I've trained in that typical conversation. So when you're having the replacement conversation and anything like that comes up, that you can use this election time as the reason why. Exactly why. It's the time to move forward now. And it sounds like this, that you just remind them, say, wow, yes, I get it. This is really uncertain times. It's election time. We never know what's gonna happen. Remember what happened at the last election? How crazy inflation got, how prices kept going up so dramatically year after year after year. So that's exactly why right now is the best time to go ahead and move forward. While we still know exactly what the interest rates are, we can lock you in. Because the unknown of what may happen after this next election, who knows what the economy is going to do. So let's go ahead and move forward with confidence that you know exactly what your rates and terms are going to be. And that way there's no uncertainty here right now. So let's go ahead and do this while we know all of the conditions before things get out of control. And then when you stack that conversation on top of the conversation with the change in refrigerant, then that should be a slam dunk for you a lot more often than not. So that's definitely, I say slam dunk. Right now there are no and in sales there are no magic bullets. Right? That's the one thing I really want to express. I will give you a million and one tools and tips, but there is no one thing that's going to close them all. But when we can, every single tool, if you can close even a half a percent more of your calls with every single tool that you pick up, that starts to compound over time. So use this conversation, stack it along with the change in refrigerant conversation and the known fact that several manufacturers have sent out emails and I can confirm this more than one manufacturer or more than one actual company that I've talked to has gotten emails from their manufacturer saying to expect rough close to a 20% price increase in 2025 versus 2024. So when you stack that along with the refrigerant change and along with the uncertain, let's avoid the uncertainty. Those three things are a very, very powerful stack of reasons why and compelling reasons why right now is the best time to move forward versus waiting. So there is your practical tactical conversation for this episode. Because I never want to leave you with an episode of something that you can't immediately use and go change your sales numbers. So but let's get into the real reason I wanted to turn this recording on today. Because man, we've got to right now, this year. We've got to manage our mindset. We have to manage our emotional maturity around everything that's going on, right? So there's a couple things that happen right when you have a bad situation, when crap happens to you. And I will tell you this as a trainer in our industry, it's really interesting to watch the trends from the doll. And I'll just be super transparent with you, the dollars that are spent on coaching, right? When things go good in our industry, people invest in training. Typically when things go pretty rough in our industry, people invest in our training to maximize everyone's skills to be able to capitalize on the leads that we're getting now. It also goes in waves, just like with actual outbound sales with for repair and for service and replacement. But what I'm seeing here is the same thing you guys are seeing and is everything is tightening up. So when that happens, what do we have to do? We have to see, recognize what the opportunity is. We have to shift, we have to get creative. So one quick plug, go back and listen to the Hunter series that I did. It's a six part series, how to go get your own leads. Because for almost every single one of you are literally walking past and driving past 95% of the marketplace that would talk to you, that would buy from you, that you're just ignoring every single day. So go back and listen to the Becoming the Hunter series. It's a six part series that I did that will actually show you how to completely unlock the doors to be able to generate as much self generated volume as you can handle. And I guarantee you if you follow those steps, it will be more volume than you can directly handle. You could be literally be making a sell a day minimum if you go follow those steps. It's guaranteed proven system that works for thousands and thousands of people across the country every single day. But just nobody's doing it in H Vac. So go listen to that series and take it to heart and implement it. You will immediately be able to see some results. So that's the mystery. I'm going to leave it there, not even tell you what it is. If you haven't heard it, go back and listen to the Becoming the Hunter series. That's exactly what we need to be doing right now is go finding business. It's not coming to us. We can't just drop a few bucks on the Google Ads anymore and, and expect it to come to us. We have to go find it. So let's sink into this a little bit because what's going on in our world, in our industry, in our country, not just in the United States, slowdown is happening everywhere. I was talking to someone in Britain that does window sales in Britain. They're seeing the exact same thing. I was talking to someone in Canada who's seeing the exact same thing. So all of my Canadian brothers and sisters and English brothers and sisters, everyone around the globe, let's chime in on this. Is it slowed down around the world or what's it look like in your country? So let us know that too. Just curious, but for the ones I just named, yes, everybody's seeing the same thing. So when this happens, what do we do? We have to start to manage our mindset. We've got to manage our emotional maturity around it. So one of the things that I want to talk about are vices. What do you do when things get hard? You know, quick story years ago, and I've told this story before, you know, we had a hell of a time in our family. We had an insane amount of. We had like five major deaths within 20, no, like geez, 12, 16 months from each other, right? Major car wreck that killed three family members. That was a year and a day after one person in the family had committed suicide. After that, four months later, a one month old died of sids. It was just a hellacious time in life, right? And so what I did is, you know, and I can speak to this from both sides. The negative vice that I grabbed was alcohol at that time and I, man, I tell you, I spent a decade just in the bottle. I could tell you I was, holy crap. We were going through me, just me and my life wife alone for probably eight or 10 years, were going through five or six handles of liquor a week and it was Nuts. And I can tell you that that is no place to be, to be a functioning alcoholic. So if that is you reach out to me, I will absolutely get you connected with a resource and with people to help you, and I will help you out of that. But. So that was the negative vice that I grabbed at the time. But what I also did is instead of going deeper into different kind of drugs or depression or whatever, I chose to do personal development that became my vice. So when you, when things get hard, what you can do is you can, instead of creating for yourself something like, you know, if you're, if you switched over to like the Zen packs instead of smoking or the, you know, don't dive into nicotine, don't dive into some sort of numbing drug. But if you choose a positive vice. So for example, when you get stressed, if you decide to choose exercise as your vice for that dopamine release as that, that way to con, to keep stress down. Whatever your creative passion is, if you're a musician, if you're an artist, if you draw, if you write, if you're a singer, make that your vice. Or for me, I chose personal growth. I play guitar, so I dove into guitar and I chose personal growth. So I've gone through, you name it, book after book after book after course, after TED Talk, and I still do for years and years and years. But so what happened is that, that, like put me on a springboard for my personal growth because life was so hard at the time. That's where I lived, was in that personal growth for a while. And it was the. It was my coping mechanism. It was the only way that I could. If I didn't do that every single day, there's no way in hell I could keep my mindset anywhere close to being positive enough to be able to go out and be someone worth buying from. So that I had to do that to be able to feed my family. And it created a habit of personal growth that's continued me on the path now that I'm past that part of my life. So the first question is, what vices do you have when things get hard? Do you choose a negative vice or do you choose a vice that's going to move you forward so it doesn't matter what you currently are doing? The reason I'm mentioning this, because now that you have the awareness of it, if you're going to be a top performer, you have to start living life intentionally. And intentionally means intentionally choosing your vices and not being a victim and giving away your power and saying you can't control that. You can control what vices you have and what you use. Even if it's an addiction, you still have the power to choose, get help, be intentional, choose a way out, create, find yourself a path out of the negative into the positive. So that's my encouragement for you today. Don't give away your power and be a victim. If you're listening to this, you do have the mindset and the ability to make a change in your life. So do that. The second thing that I want to cover with you is, is when it gets tough. And this is like this summer has been a freaking grind. I don't know about you, but this has been a. And it's not been a grind because of the amount of volume and everybody's just worn out from working so much. It's been a mental grind and a mental stressful grind because of the anxiety of looking at the industry this year. And how are we performing, how are we not performing? What's going on here? So when that happens, what I want to really, really stress to you and I want to give you permission for this is what we do, is you don't quit. The quitters never win. But every winner at some point in time has had to rest. So if you get to that place where you're just only seeing the point of diminishing returns, you're not seeing like any kind of wins, right when that happens, rest, take a rest. Take a couple days, take a weekend, take a day off, take a few days, however many it takes, and get yourself back rejuvenated, get yourself some rest and then go again. We're almost middle of August. You can make it through the year. You can do this, you can make it through the rest of the year. But it's okay. I give you permission. Don't stop, rest and then get going again. Every top achiever has had moments in their life they had to take a rest. Every master was once a disaster. Don't think that anybody who got to the top didn't have the same stumbling blocks as you along the way. Anyone who's got at the top didn't get there overnight. They've been through seasons of hell and fought through it and be got stronger. Those scars will make you stronger on the other side of it. So look ahead a little bit. I can tell you this moment in time will not last forever. Don't become so short sighted and so locked into the rut of what's going on right now and what all of the people around the industry are saying about what what's going on in the industry. Don't get stuck in that rut because you know what a rut is? A rut is a grave with both. A grave with both of the ends kicked out of it. Like get out of that rut. Stop listening to that. Focus on what we can control, not what you can't control. And what you can control is your level of activity. That's why I mentioned go back and listen to the Becoming a Hunter series. You can 100% control the number of people that you get in front of every single day. Those leads do not have to come from the company. In fact, I did another two part series on four ways to generate free leads. Go back and listen to that one. That one is also a awesome couple of episodes that are very timely right now to what's going on in our industry. If you need more leads, go back and listen to that one. So that is the episode for today. I just, I want to encourage you what vices. So quick recap. Go listen to the Becoming the Hunter series. Go listen to the four ways to get free leads two episode series and what are you doing? How are you managing your stress? Are you turning to good vices? Are you turning to bad vices? Turn to something that will move you forward in life, that will progress you. Please, please, please be intentional to find a way out of the negative vices that will not serve. You know exactly what those are. For some people, it's fast food. When life gets stressful, you hit the burger joint. Please, please, please, for your sake and for your family's sake, do not become one of the stereotypes in our industry where the conversation is how many wives have you had and how many heart attacks have you had? Don't be that person. Let's become people worth buying from. Let's up level our industry and change your life. Change your family's life by changing your life. First you have to put your own oxygen mask on before you can take care of anyone else. And this is a huge part of it. So when stress happens, don't quit, rest and then get going again. Choose the correct vice. Trade out negative vices for better ones. Trade out the ones that will move you forward, that will build you up, that you can learn and grow from and get away from the ones that will tear you down. So that's my message, that's my intention, that's my heart. For every single person today is really dial in, check yourself before you wreck yourself. And man choose, be intentional about what's going on in your life. Stop letting life happen to you and be intentional and create your life. I know sometimes in certain situations it sounds so much easier said than done, but when you actually start taking the steps to do it, you realize it's just one foot in front of the other. You don't leave for a. For a, you know, for a vacation or for a trip and wait for every single light between here and there to turn green. No. All you need to know is the next one and the next one and the next one. It's the same thing with this kind of a journey. One foot in front of the other. And you can do this, and I know you can, because you're part of this community and you wouldn't be if you were already on the path to success. So I'm grateful for every single one of you that listen. I am glad to be back. That's exactly why I took a couple weeks off. I got so overwhelmed throughout the summer with all the trainings and things that we're doing, I just had to breathe. So welcome back, everyone, to the Close it now lounge, which we'll call this, I guess. And thanks for listening. Thanks for Drive Time University. Thanks for being here. This is the best way to spend your drive time is improving. If it's this podcast or any other podcast or an audiobook or whatever, you're. As long as you're growing, that's the important part. So thanks for choosing the time to hang out with me. And I wish every single one of you that you go crush it. You go out there, be someone worth buying from.

You've been listening to the Close it now podcast. Our passion is to dive headfirst into the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of H Vac and home improvement. And at the same time, covering fitness, nutrition, relationships and personal growth, proving that we can, and indeed have it all. We hope you've enjoyed the show. If you did, make sure to, like, rate and review. We'll be back soon, but in the meantime, find the website@closeitnow.net find us on Instagram at thereal closeit now and on Facebook CloseItNow. See you next time.

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