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.

Well, all right.

Welcome back to Close It Now.

Sam Wakefield here.

And if this episode has been brewing for a long time, and you'll understand what I mean by that here in just a second.

I have a guest today that is this will be the inaugural episode like this, and you'll also understand that.

But my guest today, he is no stranger to the H Vac industry or the trades.

A lot of you may have met him in the past and you may know this name, but when he.

I'll let you give him, or I'll let him give you most of his highlight reel, but, boy, I'm excited.

He's trained with a lot of.

A lot of companies across the last decade.

When he was in the field, he set some pretty amazing records, which he'll cover in a second.

And this is also my pleasure to introduce our new trainer with Close It Now.

This is Stephen Dale.

Thanks for being on the episode, man, oh, man.

Absolutely.

Sam, I love what you're doing out there in the industry, and I think all the conversations you and I have had over the last year with Close it now and just, you know, really, it's about connecting with that homeowner on an emotional level.

I mean, customers buy emotionally.

They justify it logically.

Right.

But what I really liked with Close it now is it wasn't tricks and tips on how to manipulate your customer.

It wasn't about selling them things they didn't want or need, but it was spending time with that client and discovering what's the real pain.

Right.

You mentioned.

So back when I was a contractor, I was technician for a while.

Maintenance demand service kind of went into that comfort advisor role.

Although I like to call it project manager.

Right.

Not some fancy sales name.

Comfort Advisor.

So I say project.

Hey, do I sound like I'm the guy that you want to work on this project?

Does this solution look like, you know, because I'm the project guy, and the great thing as a project manager is I may do H Vac today, but down the road, we do heated.

I mean, we do plumbing.

So possibly that project is another plumbing or electrical.

There's all sorts of things as a project manager, but one of the things I really fell in love with is the value of clean air.

You know, I find it interesting how all of us get out there and we buy our bottled water, and we understand clean water is very important.

Thank you to the plumbing industry.

Absolutely.

You guys have done Everybody watching on YouTube.

If you.

If you can't see on YouTube.

Got my green Stanley right here also.

Right.

We're.

We're super big about health here.

Yeah.

And yet, when you look at, like, you know, a human being takes, on average, about 22,000 breaths a day.

If you look at the EPA and you start seeing the air inside, your home is up to five times more polluted.

People spend more than 90% of the dime inside.

So I just started to realize that clean air was as important as comfort and energy savings, because air is life.

And so when back in those days when I was working with another manufacturer, they would have these quarterback clubs, and every quarter, you would compete against your division or your market, and then it would kind of spread out, and then you would get, you know, against everyone in your state.

And so I. I wasn't out there selling, Sam.

I was simply serving.

I was very passionate about clean air.

And I think passion is contagious.

Right.

And so, of course, you put the carrot out there, and I saw the prize, which was like, three or four nights in Cabo with my wife.

I'm like, let's go.

Absolutely.

So you always want to reward the behavior that you want.

And in my case is, if you give me this trip, I'm going to figure out every house I go into, chances are they don't have any kind of UV protection or filtration system, humidity control, whatever the case is.

So, to me, that was really important to have those conversations.

So I just knew in my mind I was going to go and talk about these every single time.

And the law, statistics and averages is eventually someone's gonna say, yes, the laws.

Statistics and averages says that was a really nice trip then, right?

Yeah, it was a great trip.

Matter of fact, it was great to go three times in that one year, because I hit it every quarter.

Well, three quarters out of four, some guy in Phoenix ended up getting me on the last one, but I'll give it to him.

I give it to him.

So, you know, I kind of share that because I never claim and you do the same thing.

Sam.

We don't have all the answers, but we are a really good resource.

And so I moved out of the.

As a contractor more into the training side and.

And started to really fall in love because I really feel that everyone deserves a coach.

You know, a coach is someone that is your advocate.

They want to build into you, they want you to succeed, so they see things from a different perspective.

And again, you don't have all the answers.

A great coach is just really good at asking great questions, right.

To pull it out of you.

And so I fell in love with it.

It became very fulfilling for me, Sam.

And so for the last eight years, I've been training different manufacturers, different distributors, different organizations and companies.

So grateful for the time and all the contractors and technicians I've been able to meet, which has been great.

I love it, Love it.

And that's.

That's such a fun journey.

It's.

I love that it all started from a heart of service and a heart of just truly helping people better the best way that we possibly can.

And think about it, Sam.

I mean, seriously, if you come into my house trying to sell me something, my sales resistance will go off the charts, like I will know immediately.

So if you enter in as a professional with the goal as leaving as a friend, that's.

That's noble.

But if you come in as a salesperson, not gonna work with this guy, man.

So, yeah, I think it has so much the same from.

From that heart of service, you know, and anyway, didn't mean to cut you off.

Continue.

This is great.

I love it.

So everybody listening to one of the intentions of this episode and you are going to hear from, start hearing from Stephen a whole lot more.

And as we add more and more trainers to close it now, we will have a regular rotation because I want every single person to hear from everybody who's hopping in with the team to be the best.

Right?

We are here to make a massive impact in the industry.

And there's.

The only way to do it is with more people and people that are worth buying from, like we say on the show all the time.

And so, and I love this, and we were talking a little bit before the episode and you said something a minute ago that it, at first it kind of flew right by me, and then it's like it circled all the way around my head and smacked me back in the Face.

And I'm thinking of it again.

And you said we can never talk about mindset too much because.

Or, or too thoroughly because someone is all.

Even if somebody is awesome right now, if the ride is rain next week, they might get kicked in the teeth.

And man, how do we get back out of that?

Or for a lot of people listening right now, I know that it is October.

We're recording right now.

October 28, 2024.

This has been by most people's definition, at minimum, a wild, crazy year.

And a lot of people, of course, if you're in fall into the boat that, well, this has been the year from hell as far as the lack of volume and what is going on with the weather and all those kind of things.

Yeah, it's been an odd year.

But what we focus on is what.

What we can control, not what we can't control.

And what we can control the most is our mindset about how we see the things.

Because.

What's Jim Rohn's favorite quote?

If how we look.

If how we look at things changes, the things we look at changes.

Right?

If we.

How we see.

If we change how we see things, that.

How we see things will change.

And oh man, it.

It's so true.

Think about if.

If Sam, if you were researching for the last two weeks a particular car.

The make, the model, the color.

That's all you've been researching for the last two weeks.

Guess what you've been seeing on the road for the last two weeks?

Everyone.

That car.

Right.

Weldon Long had a book about the power of consistency.

Great book.

But he.

Where I learned this from was from Weldon Long, where he kept saying, your thoughts drive your behavior.

It goes back to the old Henry Ford.

If you think you can or you think you can.

Either way, you're right.

You're right.

So I think you.

It's a timely topic, which is, yeah, it is a little bit slower or it's been a little odd.

We've got a lot of changes coming at the beginning of the year.

A2L, different sensors, price increases.

And then of course, we're coming into Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So more than.

Than ever, getting that mind right of understanding our thoughts will drive our behavior.

It's the same thing as a technician.

You drive up to a house and you think to yourself, oh man, these people will never buy anything.

But you're right.

You already manifested that.

And chances are they're not going to.

So you can either see it as a great opportunity to serve another human being.

That's in A crisis mode, which I know sounds nuts, but that's how they feel, right?

It's crisis.

There's fear, there's anxiety, there's stress.

So this is an opportunity to serve another human being.

You know, I talked about some of the clean air products I used to love to talk about, but my perspective was always, Sam, if.

If I knew of a product or service that can help another human being, why would I not say anything?

Because I'm afraid to come across a selling.

Right.

But you have a club membership that not only keeps their system at peak performance, gives them those discounts.

Priority service.

It's the fast pass Disney lane.

Right.

So why would you not mention that?

Why would you not talk about a start kit or humidifiers, surge protection?

If you understand the value behind those and you start to see what's in it for the customer, you're really not selling anything.

So that's what I loved about Close it now.

It wasn't how to manipulate customers.

It was just truly serving them.

So again, close it now.

It's a coach in your pocket, man.

100.

100.

I realized that we're off to the races and there was a few things I wanted to talk about before we got to it.

So everybody pause for station identification here.

So that.

But yeah, so I.

The cool thing about having Stephen on here is when we reconnected, in fact, we reconnected oddly in through somebody I never expected.

Thank you, Mr. Christini.

Over in North Carolina.

We behave.

It's his mutual friend who's also a incredible rock star salesman.

Oh, dude.

Of the best operators in the industry.

Yeah.

He's so passionate.

He's so authentic.

He takes ownership as a service manager.

And the best thing about Chris is he sits down with everyone individually and says, what does success look like to you and how can I help you achieve that?

So he doesn't have churn.

He doesn't have, you know, people leaving for an extra dollar down the road.

Chris gets it.

If I invest in my people, my greatest asset, give them a plan for success.

So it's not just a job.

Chris is making a career for this, for his team.

You rarely see someone like Chris, So shout out to my man there at Air experts and he's got another place as well.

But you know, when you invest in your people, the law of reciprocation says, man, they in turn will take care of your customers.

Absolutely.

They just will.

Yeah.

And that's it.

That's.

I mean, and so everybody listen up.

You made notes.

That's a massive leadership Principle for, for leading your team.

If it's your sales team, who, whatever team is, it's literally know your people.

It's just a matter of the same way we serve our homeowners.

Sit and listen, ask more questions.

Dude, Sam.

So I was doing ride alongs a couple weeks ago and had this great tech.

So we get into this house, they say, hey, can we get you a cup of coffee?

And of course we say, oh, my goodness, that'd be awesome.

Right?

Because you always say yes.

You don't say no.

You don't want to be the first person to say no.

That's a rejection.

Right?

We get in this house, we're sitting down.

I kid you not, Sam.

48 minutes go by before we ever even talked about the system.

So we're doing this debriefing afterwards.

And he looked at his watch when we knocked, and he looked at our watch when we finally started talking about some of their pain points.

He said, do you realize we talked for 48 minutes?

And I said, yeah.

What did we learn?

We learned the dog's names.

We learned all about their life.

We learned their situation, how long they plan on being in the home.

We learned some of the physical pains they were going through.

We were getting to know them as a human being.

Right.

I said, so if you're not spending time with that homeowner because you're either rushed or you just want to go straight to the thermostat, man, stay curious longer, pull back, discover what's really going on.

Because the moment now, after our 48 minute conversation, now everything that we talked about, we were able to create action items based off of what they told us, based off of what we had.

We didn't get the solution mode, but, but we started to create these action lists that you talk about.

Right, right.

And it was an hour and a half before we ever went to the thermostat.

Long story short, they said yes to two brand new high end systems.

And again, this is a retired couple, and they, they made it clear they're on a budget.

All right, we're on a budget.

Awesome.

I can help you with that with some great financing or affordable payments, whatever.

I love it.

Just for grants.

What, what market were you in and what was the total sell?

Okay, so that was actually in Memphis, Tennessee.

So.

And we did two systems.

They were actually package units, believe it or not.

And we walked away with $42,000.

Boom.

That's, that's gorgeous.

Now we, I, I did some adjusting with some duct work.

We added a couple of Returns.

We re, we rerouted a dryer vent that was sitting right by an air conditioner.

Like these are things that people didn't even notice before.

Yeah.

Like look, this thing's coming right down here.

Right.

Then we added some other fun stuff, but love it.

Oh, gorgeous.

Incredible.

So and so for everybody that's out there.

It's like if you're in the Tennessee, Memphis, Tennessee area and you're like, oh, this doesn't work in my market.

Well, we just proved it.

It does.

It's.

This is human psychology.

It doesn't matter if it's in the city or the country or this, what state you're in.

All the things, north, the south, people are people.

People are people, whether it's South Carolina or California.

They want heated and cooling, they want comfort, they want energy savings, man, they want clean air.

You have to go, you know, beyond the capacitor, just look a little bit different.

But the only way to do that, like you just said, Sam, is you've got to spend time, you know, to bring it back.

Where you were talking about this mindset and I know when we talked earlier today, you're talking about the seasonality, maybe it's kind of mild in some areas, so you don't have as many call volume or marketed leads.

And one thing you talked about is not having such this hyper focus that I look at just today or just this week, but maybe start to kind of expand and look at the law of averages of what have you done for the month, what have you done for the quarter for the year.

Because if you start to see it as it's a journey, not just the destination.

Right.

You sold something.

Awesome.

Okay.

Right.

Way to go.

Way to go.

Now do it again.

Now do it again.

But if you, I think like you were talking about outside of this myopic view and start to really open up to seed of those winds because we will tend to focus on the negative, right?

I will focus on the one job I didn't sell.

You and I had that conversation a few weeks back and you're like, dude, I've never had a zero dollar day.

What, what's.

What's going on, right?

It's okay, Sam, let's talk this through, right?

It's gonna be okay.

Next day you killed it with like a 25 or $26,000 sale.

But you know, you could have easily got up and been like, yeah, but the.

Yesterday.

Yeah, but you remember yesterday, man, it was.

Let's learn from what happened, what weren't.

Well, what didn't Work well, what am I going to do differently?

And then you switched it and.

And so to me, the proof was right there.

I mean, Sam, the amazing trainer, the rock and roll guy that could sell ice to an Eskimo, called me, true story.

And said, dude, I just had a zero dollar day.

And this is why it's so great to have a coach.

Because the coach says, hey Sam, tell me more.

Right?

Let's talk it out, man.

Once you get it off and we can get rid of the emotion now we can look at some of the facts.

What, what did we do?

What did we not?

Was it me?

Was it the situation?

Right?

Always take responsibility first here.

Was it something I didn't say, didn't.

I didn't explain?

I didn't talk about our warranties, whatever.

Once we work it out, man, this is the great thing about a coach.

The next day he's back up to bat.

He's right.

He's right up on the bat.

How about the Dodgers?

Could you believe it?

You Dodgers in New York?

Where are you going, man?

I'm staying at the, I'm staying with the Strozz, man.

I'm always Strozz on that one.

But this is a true story, everybody.

So, I mean, and what happened?

100%.

Coaches get coached from coaches.

You know, Stephen and I, we've absolutely gone back and forth a couple times in the last couple last several years and been like, hey, I've got, I'm having this dilemma.

Help me out here.

And which is.

It's really awesome.

And so for one, I'm not, I'm not the coach that, the trainer that you come to the classes.

I'm just gonna tell you.

Well, you didn't say this part right.

And that's the reason that didn't close.

No, there's gonna be.

So there's gonna be some off days.

I don't go, oh, and six.

And I did.

And I had to figure out why.

But that's.

Instead of trying to beat my head against the wall and figure it out in my own time.

Step outside yourself.

Set that ego aside and, and get a hold of a coach because they see it from a different perspective.

And, and to your point is if you keep it up in your head, it just kind of rolls around.

And then we, I think we tend to go to the negative.

And so now all of a sudden the sky is falling.

Worst day ever.

I can't believe this happened.

But a coach is going to not only help you work through this, but they're going to probably pull Some stuff out of you, like what's really going on, you know, and you discovered, okay, well this is what's happened at my home life or this happened financially and okay, so what do we got to do?

So when we show up at that house, you're in a great peak state to serve that customer.

I always say you got to have a walk up song, Sam.

You gotta have a walk up song the moment you bump that curve before you got there, you need 10 seconds of that walk up song, man, I don't care what it is, but you better change that state.

What's your walk up song, Sam?

My.

Yeah, actually, mine is actually walk by Pantera.

That's been my walk up.

That's been my walk up song for over 10 years now.

I said it.

I very intentionally set an anchor with that song.

Listening to Tony Robbins, I just read Awaken the Giant within and I said, okay, I need an anchor.

I like heavy metal.

This is the one.

And it just fires me up.

And the second you hear people have commented, the song will come on, it will be out in public, my arms will literally get goosebumps on them.

And somebody is about to get sold something.

It just happens.

I cannot help it.

Even if it's as simple as like, okay, selling somebody on the dessert.

We should order.

But conversation shifts and I didn't even know it and people have commented on it.

That's how strong of the anchor is for my walk up song.

How about yours?

What's your walk up song?

Oh, thank you for asking.

Mine's the same thing for the last 10 years.

It's Tom Sawyer by Rush.

So I just need to hear that intro and I'm in, right?

Yeah.

But share a little bit more about anchoring.

Like I'm thinking about this mindset and I understand.

I can't control the environment, I can't control the weather, I can't control some things.

I can control me.

And if you've done an episode on anchoring, be sure to put it in the down in the podcast or something.

You know, this is actually really good.

I haven't done one specifically on anchoring.

The one that I do want to include in the notes, everybody.

In fact, I'm going to make a note so I don't forget is to include the episode that I did recently on getting out of the summer slump, which is in that episode.

It's an exercise that I always take everybody through when we do tune up calls.

And it is part of the training when we're talking about how to recognize all of the different areas of our life that influence just our total lives, our performance.

Right.

There's cell skills, of course, that's one of them.

But outside of that, there's five other categories that I like to categorize.

Your nutrition, your fitness.

You can't be a million dollar, have a million dollar mindset if you're eating off the dollar menu.

Right.

Nutrition, your fitness, your.

That's some whatever.

Exercise.

What gotta sweat every day.

Right.

Exercise your relationships.

Right.

Are we intentionally working on improving our relationships with our family, with our friends, with our co workers, all those things?

What's our personal growth like?

Are we act.

So was it Zig Ziglar used to say personal growth is like taking a shower.

You can't just do it once a week and expect it to last all week.

You got to do it every day.

Right.

Credit the greats, the Zig Ziglar.

Yes.

Are we daily listening to audio, using that drive time, university windshield time, podcasts and like this.

If you're listening to this, you're growing.

Right.

Audio books.

What are we doing?

If we get the minute we get stagnant with that, that can cause things to fail.

And then the last one is actually your religious or spiritual experience.

That's not saying you have to be a certain type of religion.

It's really about everyone has in their internal core being what they know for themselves to be in alignment with.

Are you doing the things you know you're supposed to do for your own spiritual journey?

And even atheist has a spiritual practice.

It could be, you know, mindfulness and meditation.

But everyone knows they should be doing something and they either are or aren't, that causes other things to fail.

Right.

And so that, so what that episode is, that was a long answer to everybody.

Go back to that.

But it's really good context for getting into this part.

Yeah.

And let me just say, so Sam's going to put that link in there.

I would highly recommend going back and I would just look, you know, don't get overwhelmed.

Fitness, nutrition, relationship, personal growth, spiritual.

What I would do is I would listen to that and then I would pick one area that maybe it's the lowest hanging fruit.

Maybe you're eating roller dogs at 7:11 every day.

So maybe you need to say, you know what, I'm going to drink enough water, I'm going to eat right while I'm out in the field.

Maybe start small.

And to me, nutrition and fitness, you, you can't show up and be a million dollar salesperson while you're shopping off the Dollar menu.

Because my concern is you sell how you buy.

Absolutely.

You attract what you are.

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

People that have problems with people saying, I want to think about it, I could guarantee you they could recognize their own life.

And when they're, you know, for example, when I'm talking to people that are.

Reach out to me about coaching and they're like, man, I'm going to have to think about this.

I'm like, I'll always ask, do you have a lot of people ask telling you they're going to think about it when you are in homes and they're like, oh, no.

Yeah, like, well, it's because you are.

You attract what you are.

If you can make a decision and you can choose, then the people that buy from you can.

If you get three bids, they're going to get three bids.

It's wild how that happens, right?

Yeah.

So going back, I would say listen to that, find one and then just start focusing on that one because you're going to see that as you get fitness and nutrition down the next, maybe it's working on, you know, personal growth, maybe there's all sorts of great things.

But bring it back into anchoring.

Yeah, back to anchoring.

And why that is such a powerful thing.

It is powerful.

So after the detour, this is what happens when you get two trainers on the same call that we both know a thousand different things that we could train on at all at the same time.

And so we get all over the map.

But anchoring.

Anchoring is super important.

The.

The easy explanat is really just anything that remembers that reminds you something.

So that's like really the simplest explanation reminds you of something, which then causes basically what's called a pattern interrupt.

So if we get in these habits of just the next step and the next step and the next step.

For example, a pattern interrupt to really break it down for everybody listening could be, you know, you're walking down the sidewalk and all of a sudden a siren comes from around the corner and you turn to see what's going on.

That's a pattern interrupt.

Something changed that took attention away from what we're focused on onto something else.

So then we have to decide how to handle that.

So simple explanation for what it is now, how to do it.

It's really cool.

It's really, really simple.

It's basically, you can be in.

There's a way to start it and then there's a way to reinforce it.

So we'll actually cover both of those.

The way to Plant the anchor.

At first, everybody is really just decide what you want as your anchor.

We're talking about walk up songs here because everybody, if you don't know, Stephen is a musician.

He's a, I would say a professional level drummer.

And this is a great example of what we were just talking about because for everybody that didn't know, and if you watch the YouTubes, you're literally seeing guitars hanging behind me in my home office here.

I'm what most of the people, most of the world would call a professional level guitar player.

I could go with a little bit of practice.

I could hop on tour with just about every band that you listen to on the radio.

Steven's the same level with his expertise in drumming.

So here's the lesson.

Not only do you attract what you are, you attract people at the.

You can tell someone their competency and their discipline and their work ethic, but buy those things outside of that.

So if you're, if your homeowners are, maybe they're bodybuilders or they're very fit.

If they are disciplined musicians, if they're skilled artists outside of their daily life, that tells you they're good at making decisions and they're very clear and concise at making decisions.

So we'll help you in your process of how you present to them.

Total side note, there's your free nugget of the day.

Back to Love it.

Everybody listening.

We've got a lot of stuff in this one.

So anchoring is, I just found, because music connects with me, a song can completely change my state.

So.

But I'm really excited to hear about how to reink how to use it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So if you're going to use a song, pick one that already gets fired up anyway, because that just makes it easier to build on top of.

So some people use a song, some people use a specific word, some people use, you know, a hand sign.

Or they'll touch their thumb and forefinger together and know that every time they intentionally do that together, that changes their state.

It doesn't matter what it is.

It's anything that is different than your normal daily life that will remind you of what we're about to do.

So the first thing is.

Oh, go ahead.

I was gonna say, I don't know if anyone's watched Patrick Mahomes, why he does this, right?

But after his play, this is a reset and you'll watch him.

If you watch him with the Kansas City Chiefs, you'll see him doing this.

He is resetting his brain.

That Last play's done with, man.

It's done.

I could.

There's nothing I could do about that.

So another one, I'll tell you really quick is Josh Kelly with Parker and Sons.

He has an anchor, and it's this little smelly thing.

And before he speaks or before he goes and trains, he just has to go.

It's nothing crazy.

I can get it over the counter, right?

But immediately that smell puts him in that peak state of mind.

So continue.

And I love this.

This is really fun, too, because that.

I actually was aware of that because I spoke on Funny Enough.

I was on the sales panel at profit Rocket in 2023 with him, and I watched him do this behind, behind, behind the scenes.

Got that from.

And I as well got that from the Way of the Wolf by Jordan Belfort actually talks about that as the anchor point.

So it's just a kind of a smelling salts type of a thing.

The cool thing is it doesn't matter what your anchor is.

It's how to.

So first of all, how to set it.

And Stephen, I'm going to actually get you to.

We're going to do this together as well, because for everybody that doesn't know, Stephen has a lot of experience and training in NLP also, which is one of the things that qualifies him to be in this position now.

So.

But when we're setting anchors, everybody, it starts with just visualizing your most successful cell and not just not.

And the numbers don't matter.

It doesn't have to be the biggest sell you ever made.

It has.

It really needs to be the one that you have the most incredible feeling about.

Imagine.

So the exercises for everybody, in fact, let's do this together.

Unless you're driving, remember the spot and go back is you're going to close your eyes and just remember your very favorite cell you ever made.

It can be big cell, little cell.

It can be your favorite because it was a huge number.

It can be your favorite because it was the simplest sell.

Just.

They were completely loved, everything you said.

They wanted more.

They kept asking, is there anything else that we can do?

It was the easiest process for the payment.

Maybe they financed, maybe they paid cash, but there was no resistance and they loved you.

Maybe they gave you some powdered donuts or some sort of gift on the way out in appreciation.

You probably got a hug from the lady and a high five from the guy and shaking hands and thinking, and they're telling you, I'm so glad you were here.

Now that I've painted that picture.

In your mind, you all know that cell and that warm feeling, sit in that for a minute and just visualize and really smile.

Actually put a smile on your face right now and put your hand on your heart and feel, feel it.

Actually feel how incredible that feels.

And then, right then in that moment.

So if you're listening to this on replay, have your song queued up and ready, because when you get to that moment, when you get to that moment, sit in that feeling and start that song and just listen to it and smile.

And what you're telling yourself is, this is incredible.

This is how I feel.

This is the energy, all the things.

Just remember every bit of that.

So that's the simple way to set an anchor.

And it's really, really cool.

And the reason we do this.

So everybody go ahead and open your eyes.

If you're actually doing this one, then go ahead and open your eyes and you're out of that.

But I don't want to leave you hanging.

So the important part of this and the reason we do this, this is controlling our emotional state.

People buy sells us what, Transfer of enthusiasm.

Right, right.

So, Stephen, let me ask you this.

If you go out, say you're on call, and you go to an appointment that just happens to get booked at, I don't know, Saturday night at 7, are they signing?

Yes.

100.

We know that.

You with the mindset, you're like, man, if they're getting me out my butt out, away from my family, doing what I want at that time of night on the weekend, I'm not leaving without a signature.

It's not that we force them into it, but it just always.

Otherwise they would have waited till Monday.

You know, they've got a huge pain point.

If they're willing to take a Saturday night and they're willing to pay whatever it takes, whatever.

Even if it's, you know, $0, market elite.

If they're willing to spend their kind of time on a Saturday night, the answer is yes, absolutely.

And what I've always loved about it, too, is, you know, this.

And this is really fun.

Yes, that's part of it.

But when we're.

When I'm always trained, I'm like, let's just forget that part.

Yes, they're more motivated if they're willing to book on a weekend night.

Get it?

However, we're again, we're controlling what we can control.

What can we control?

I know my mindset.

My mindset is I'm out here right now.

I'm not leaving until I get a signature.

On this because it's going to be worth it for my time.

Because my time is valuable.

Correct.

Now, the whole point of anchoring, and this is what I love.

How do we take that same mindset and plug it in to say, I don't know, 10 o' clock Tuesday morning when that appointment normally sounds like?

Okay, well, email this to us and we're going to think about it.

Okay, well how about Friday when we get back to you?

Yeah, it's the same type of client.

We're the same person in the house.

Why is the conversation so different?

So you, you just saying that right now?

When you said Tuesday at 10, immediately in my mind, here's what I thought.

Sam, it's going to be a oneler.

They're getting multiple bids and I'll have to follow up and come back on Friday.

Now, why is it I didn't think that when you said 7 o' clock Saturday?

Because I did.

I seriously, that I.

Why would I simply navigate to the worst possible solution?

What is the mind doing?

Why would I say this has got to be the worst?

Right.

And it's probably a renter tenant situation.

I mean, I'm just gonna, I didn't necessarily go that far down, but I could start to see what you said Tuesday at 10.

I immediately thought, I wonder if it's a onele.

We have way less urgency too.

We feel like the week to work with them.

Yeah, but, but why would I go all the way down to this negative of the worst that could possibly happen before I've even showed up?

Right, right.

It's.

Well, a lot of it is just our conditioning.

Right.

It's what, it's the, this is really a conversation around the stories that we tell ourselves in our head that are either true or not, but we believe it is true.

This is why people say, oh, it's always price or well, here in our town, people don't care about that.

This is all they care about.

Well, no, that's just the story you told yourself.

Because in every market, and I know you can do it too, in every market, we can find people who are doing what somebody says can't be done.

In every market we know, you know, service technicians who are doing 2, 3, 4, $5 million a year in every market we know, you know, project managers who are doing 5, 6, 7 million a year.

In the same market, people that are barely doing 1 million say, oh, it's all about price.

And that's, that's all people care about.

I, I love that.

So you're talking about limiting beliefs.

And then there's this story that's playing inside this movie reel.

Whether it's true or not, but we're believing that.

So it goes back to this anchoring that.

And now if I got the call On Tuesday at 10, I may have to play my song a little bit early.

Yeah, exactly.

And we all know we can change our state and here's the reason why we know this and everybody that's listening right now.

And Stephen, you can confirm if this is true.

I've never asked you this question but on those days when you're in the field and you've got an appointment at say 10 o' clock and you are sick as a dog, literally you're about.

You literally feel like you're about to die.

But you've got to go to the appointment because your family needs money.

We've got to hold, you know, we're just well enough to be able to make it.

So what do we do?

We, you know, we hit the nyquil and all the things the day quill and the most incredible thing happens.

We drive up to the curb and this is all the NLP stuff aside, we drive up to the curb and by the time we get out of the car and get to the porch, it's almost like every.

If you've ever seen the ending of the Usual Suspects with Kaiser Selzig, all of a sudden he's crippled and starts walking and his feet, every single step, his feet get straighter and straighter and straighter until he has incredible posture and perfect gait.

That happens when we get out of our car when we're so sick.

And every single step it's like your energy and your focus and your brain where it goes higher and higher and higher till the time you knock on the door happens to be they open the door and.

Hey Mr. Dell, Sam Wakefield here with close it now.

I'm so happy to see you today.

And they would never know that you're sick.

You go through it, you muddle through it.

We think we usually close the cell in a moment like that when leave and by the time we get back to the car sink into the seat and almost die.

But what happened?

We were able to control our state, if even only for a short amount of time.

Now when we combine that concept with the Saturday night versus Tuesday morning concept, this is how we're able to doesn't matter what your slump was, however many negatives in a row, if you actually re anchor into the the positive and the.

The winning, we're able to Reset that call after call and clean slate it.

And to the positive side to get in the right state of making the sale.

Because when's the best time to make a sell?

Right after we make a sell.

Right.

We're already right after you got.

You got the momentum.

Yeah, yeah.

So that I like this idea of this re anchoring.

And so if.

And again, an anchor, I mean, you put an anchor down the boat, it doesn't move.

Right.

And you're maybe getting into this.

But I'm kind of curious about how to re anchor either while I'm in a call or I understand after, maybe I had a tough call, my next call, I could re anchor pretty easily there.

But I'm really curious how to re anchor when I'm in a call and things may not be going the way I thought they were going to be.

Yeah, that one's tough, right?

That one's like always the big struggle because it feels like we get into this downward spiral and then like once we start down the slope, it's like all it feels like not true.

But what it feels like is every step now is twice the work just to get back to ground zero.

Now we have to remember, of course, our feelings are necessarily not always the truth.

So this is how we're able to temper it a little bit.

So anything you want to add to that before we kind of get into the.

The rest of this?

No, it's.

It's interesting.

I didn't know we were going to get so deep into feelings on today's podcast, but I think you, when you understand your customers have feelings and you're serving them, but some of us, it is true.

Is it this feeling that I'm having?

And where did I.

Where did that resonate?

Where did that come from?

Because when you talked about the feelings, I immediately went back to that house where I had the most amazing sale.

And I was like, I was able to re anchor without my song during that.

When you were sharing that, I went straight back to that house and I was like, wait a minute.

I'm a service professional.

I'm very knowledgeable.

I'm here to take care of my customer.

Let's get back into the game, man.

Exactly.

Yeah.

No, you got it.

And so in those moments, and in fact, the very, very first time I ever heard anybody talk about.

It's funny.

We're.

This must be a.

An episode to give a shout out to Weldon Long.

So what's up, Wally?

Years and years and years ago, I remember the story.

It was the very first Sales training I had ever taken in our industry.

And it was, you know, he was teaching a class of about, I don't know, 15 of us in Lubbock, Texas.

It's like the second Bryant class he ever taught.

And the story was he was like a couple years ago, because it was a couple years ago then when he's in the field doing sales with his first company, it was this.

It was a Saturday.

He had in desperate times.

Of course, his context was they had no money to pay the bills.

He had to make the sale to keep his own family's lights on.

And he goes sitting with this homeowner and his wife Saturday morning, perfect timing.

Not a one legger, but it was a wall of resistance.

Wall of resistance.

Wall of resistance.

And he's like, I'm missing something.

So what he did in that story, which is really relatable.

They're sitting at the kitchen table and kept hitting this wall of resistance is.

You know what?

Hang on just a minute.

I need to double check something in the basement or in the crawl space, wherever it was, goes and leaves the room.

Leaves this.

Gets himself out of the environment, goes and sits.

He didn't need to measure anything.

What he was double checking is his own mindset.

And sat there and went all the way back through it and says, okay, I am.

I have the best solution for this problem.

I'm here to help them the most.

This is what.

And just really kind of replayed the conversation.

This is what they told me.

What am I missing?

We stop asking, you know, telling ourselves, you know, I can't do this and start asking ourselves, how can I do this?

Yep.

So we replay it.

What am I missing?

So just the.

So what we can do is just step away.

Remember something.

Need to grab some.

You know what?

Hang on just a second.

I just remember I need to grab something out of the truck.

I need to grab something out of the van.

I got to check something at the unit outside.

Up in the attic.

It doesn't matter.

But to remove it and like then have that.

The ability to have the space, to have that reset is really important.

I love that.

I think that's a very practical of separating yourself just a quick step away.

I just need to go check on this.

Not to see where what I'm not doing.

But how can I do this?

And maybe it's some of those incantations.

I'm a five star technician.

I believe this is the best solution.

So I. I love this idea of maybe it is a walk away for a moment.

Just separate Yourself.

And it probably gives the homeowners a, A little bit of relief as well.

Yeah.

So now they can have a little.

Bit of a conversation.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

It takes the pressure off and so be like, hey, listen, guys, let me go check something.

Let's double check and make sure this is the right thing.

The amount of trust.

The amount.

If you like.

You know what?

Let's double check this.

The amount of trust you gain with them by confirming yourself is huge.

Right.

It's wild.

The what we can.

And at the worst, I mean, even better case scenario is we catch our own mistake if we made one.

If you're just confirming and it's still the same, that's awesome.

If you're confirming and you catch your own mistake and are able to fix it right there in front of them, say, I'm so glad we did this.

This is why we're as thorough as we are.

You won't find anyone else that's this thorough.

Yeah.

I'm glad we double checked it because now here's what we're looking at.

Wow.

The credibility is huge.

That's a great separation.

Then the story you tell.

I just want to double check something and then do check.

Make sure you didn't miss anything and actually do check and then check yourself before you wreck yourself.

That's the song.

You know, there's a song for everything.

It's a song for everything.

I, I again.

Yeah, you better check yourself.

Okay.

I love this idea.

So it goes back to the anchoring of what is the feeling?

What did that feel like, smell like, taste like?

And then what do you have to do?

Hit the song.

Maybe it's a song.

Right.

We had a technician that before he got to each call, he would pull over and actually get out of his van and, and do five jumping jacks, get back in his van and then get to the house.

Absolutely.

The weirdest thing, but that was his changing his state immediately, you know, So I, I love those things about the.

Your thoughts drive your behavior and being very intentional and, and having an anchor, that would be a great challenge to find that acre.

That's it.

Because again, it's the, you know, the best.

The reason we say for everybody, and this is why it's important when the reason we say the best time to make a sale is right after we've made a sale.

This, this absolutely builds on this idea because.

And everybody driving, I mean, raise your hand if you know what that feels like.

You make this awesome sell and you walk into the next house and the next house and it goes so smooth and so easy, and it feels like you're just taking an order all day long.

Well, it's because you're already in the right energy.

Right?

We're already expect it to happen.

So it happens.

It didn't have anything to do with the leads.

It didn't have anything to do with the season.

It was when we start to take radical responsibility for ourselves.

Hey, it was.

That was me.

It was a my fault.

If it was good, it's my fault.

It was bad.

If it's to be, it's up to me.

So let's make it happen, right?

Radical responsibility, man.

You're dropping some nice ones today, Sam.

Radical responsibility, man.

Well, this is fun.

I don't normally.

When normally I'm like the interviewer and I kind of feel like we turn this and you start interviewing me.

So it's just kind of.

It's really fun because you're able to pull.

So this is a great lesson, everybody.

I'm dawning on me and I appreciate you for doing this, Stephen, because I see you with this almost little grin is.

This is a good example of what a good coach does for everybody.

We did not plan this episode other than I said, hey, I want to talk about mindset today.

So that was literally it.

That was it.

And so Stephen, of course, started asking great coaching questions, which pulled out a huge topic that I'm really passionate about, but I've never trained at all on the show and it turned into that episode.

So that's.

This is a great example of how coaching is able to move people forward really quickly.

Because, I mean, it just happened and you heard it.

And that's.

That's why, of course, one of the reasons that I of course, brought Steven onto the team and it's just such a fun place to be when we realize we're able to help people achieve so much more than they even thought possible.

And because we can see the blind spots that they don't see.

Yeah, everyone deserves a coach, man.

Everyone deserves someone in their corner saying, hey, man, I got you.

But I like that.

Radical responsibility, man.

I like, hey, you know, it's not.

It's.

It's.

How can I do this?

It's finding that anchor and setting it on how that felt and then re anchoring if you need to just need to double check something, separate yourself.

But that would be the challenge, I would say on this episode, man, is find that acre and then reset as much as possible.

It doesn't not only work in the field for sales, but it Also works in relationships.

Sometimes I have to ask my, my wife, can I get a reset?

I'm an idiot, can I get a reset?

And she says yes.

Then I, we push a button and, and I get a reset.

Right.

It doesn't mean I don't get completely forgiven or forgot.

I still have to be responsible for my actions.

But sometimes I could get into my, my own world and for my relationship.

It's.

It's listening.

Let them feeling heard.

They want to feel heard and understood.

And if I don't do that I need to reset to be present in that 100%.

So 100%.

I love this topic so much.

So it is getting close to time to land this plane but I would love to take a minute.

So everybody that's been listening you have gotten a, you know, got a good feel for Stephen and how he thinks.

We think very similar.

We definitely are very, very, very, very much of the belief that you know, the way that people buy in the last handful of years has really dramatically changed and it is so permission based driven.

It's very feelings and emotion driven and really it always has been.

We were just lazy and we got, we did well enough to not realize this but.

And it's definitely very apparent now and this is why so many people are getting more want to think about it.

More people shopping than ever before because they're not not stepping into this method of how to communicate.

This is not sales training.

This is communication training.

It's training to care for people better.

Yeah.

Well, I was going to say trust.

Think about trust.

Trust is a feeling like you've been at a place.

You're like I just don't know about this guy.

I just don't know.

So you're right.

There is a lot of hesitation in coming out of a world of COVID where there's a lot of uncertainty.

If you walk in with certainty that you're going to take care of them and you're going to serve them, you're going to give them the best solution at the best price and you're going to spend time to get to know their pain.

They will feel that certainty and that feeling of trust will reciprocate to a yes, let's get you on the calendar.

So but you got to get that mind right 100%.

So everybody, this is one I wanted to introduce you a lot more in depth to Mr. Stephen Dale let you know he is the newest trainer on board of the close it now team.

First is he.

That also means that his slots for one on one Virtual coaching are open.

There is an incredible bonus that everyone who all of the people that sign up to initially fill his calendar, you are going to get the bonus of.

I'm also going to be your trainer at the same time.

So you'll get a both, which is really cool.

It's literally two for the price of one or half price coaching.

However you want to look at it.

More importantly, talk about being more than one set of eyes and ears to catch blind spots.

How much would you pay to be coached by two close it now trainers?

Right.

Do you think that you would be able to make more sales at a higher average ticket?

Yes.

Yes or yes?

Right.

So that is what's going on.

We've opened the calendar for Stephen, so definitely reach out.

You can email us at stephenoseitnow.net s t e p h e n closeitnow.net you can email me sam closeitnow.net that's s a m of course, closeitnow.net and go to the website closeitnow.net everything is very consistent.

So.

And make sure to join the Facebook group because also we are going to be doing a lot more training in there than we have we've done.

We do lots of trainings in there all the time.

We're going to be doubling up on the trainings.

If you didn't know, every other week I host a live objection roleplay training where to give you the chance all across the country, especially if you don't have support locally to be able to hop in.

In fact, Steven, would you like to take a minute and talk to us about that importance of that support?

Especially if you're like on an.

I feel like you're on an island.

Somewhere from an accountability standpoint or for someone that, that.

I mean, that's why the Wednesday things on the objection, you're going to hear all sorts of objections and, and again, are they objections?

Are they statements?

But you get some great feedback and you think, man, I like that.

I'm going to try this.

Maybe that wasn't a real objection, but having a support system, man, you, I'm telling you, you've got to have accountability.

You've got to have someone that says, man, I want to help you in your success.

And this is why if you look at any great business person, entrepreneurial, they all have a coach.

They all have someone.

Sam has a coach, I have a coach.

You've got to have a coach, someone that is going to push you to become better because otherwise you're going to get into your own Little blinders, you'll get into those limiting beliefs and the next thing you know, the sky is falling.

100%.

100%.

I agree so much.

There's.

And you know, and like when I was starting, man, I was the, I was the only sales guy in a tiny Texas town with didn't know any other even companies around.

And all the training I had was just what I could find on CD or at the time to listen to.

And so if I had had a network like this online where I could just hop in every couple weeks and hey, I'm getting this objection.

How would you guys handle this?

Boy, I know that my success numbers would have been dramatically faster.

So for everybody, we do that every other week.

You can find out more about that in the Facebook group.

The in between weeks we do just live training on whatever the topics are that people put in and request us to talk about.

So if you have an idea for a podcast, if you have an idea for a deep dive into one of those video sessions that are free to everyone in the Facebook group, email it to us and let us know if you'd like us to cover something.

And the very last thing is so reCAP.

Email Steven S-T E P H E N@CloseItNow.net Email me samosenow.net or go to the website and fill out the inquiry form to get on our calendar for one on one virtual coaching to get you to the next level.

The other thing, of course, join the Facebook group if you've ever gotten value from this podcast reviews are everything.

So go to Google, leave a close.

Would love a five star review at Google.

Go Apple podcast, leave a five star review there.

Just if I read your review on this show and you hear it, message me and you are the recipient of one our free coaching session, zero strings attached.

That is what we're giving away.

If you leave, it's a five star review and we read it on the show and you hear it and you message us, you get a coaching session.

So I would love it to be like Oprah.

You get a coaching session.

You get a coaching session.

Everybody gets a coaching session.

Leave me a five star review, we'll make it happen.

Not me, the show.

So.

Well, that is it, man.

Thanks for being on.

I feel like this is the beginning of probably a regular series we'll do.

And man, I'm excited to have you on board.

And watch out everyone in the industry, we're making some pretty serious, very, very serious waves in 2024.

And the last request is who do you know, that has an inkling to be a trainer because we are have now opened the doors and if you feel like you have the criteria and what it takes with the personal growth and you have some verifiable closer numbers in our industry or home services, message me.

I would absolutely love to talk to you because the only way we can impact the amount of people that we have a heart to impact is by adding more team to be able to help more people faster.

And that's truly the heart of the company.

So, Stephen, any last words before we say our final departures here?

Man, just I, I would go back to the anchoring thing.

I would listen to that other podcast about the spiritual, financial, nutrition relationship, personal growth.

I would just say that Sam and I are here to simply help you in your success.

So whether it's the, the free every other Wednesday objections, whether it's the other free trainings, if you get to a point where you want the one on one coaching and level up where you're at currently, both Sam and I are here to help you in your journey 100%.

So it's not about us at all.

It's about you.

Oh, love it, love it, love it.

I couldn't concur more.

Dr. And everybody, thanks for listening.

We wouldn't, we wouldn't even be able to do this without you and your support.

So thank you so much.

Go join the Facebook group and until next time, everybody be someone worth buying from.

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

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

We hope you've enjoyed the show.

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

We'll be back soon, but in the meantime, find the website@closeitnow.net find us on Instagram herealcloseitnow and on Facebook closeitnow.

See you next time.

Sa.