Welcome to Close it now, an H Vac sales training podcast with Sam Wakefield.

Here we'll build your reputation in residential H Vac sales to be the expert influencer in your market.

You'll get insight into the top minds in the industry as they share their skills and hacks to help you on your journey.

This podcast isn't just about selling more.

It's about understanding your customers needs and building efficiencies behind the scenes so you can sell more but work less while being top of mind when people think H Vac.

Now let's get started with your host of the Close it now podcast.

This is Sam Wakefield.

Well, all right, welcome back to Close It Now.

Sam Wakefield here.

I am really super happy to be able to get into this episode today.

My guest is somebody special in the industry.

He is.

If you've been in a lot of any of the Facebook groups, you probably have seen him name bounce around here and there.

He's definitely a leader in the industry, someone a lot of people look up to.

And you know, I recently actually interviewed one of his, his top people on the show, Mr. Kevin Polit.

Kevin Polito.

I have to say it properly and if you didn't listen to that episode, go back and listen because there was some massive fire in that episod.

He's doing 5 million this year.

He's actually going to be helping me out, assisting me with some of the coaching that I'm doing and some virtual stuff too.

So we're excited.

He said he'd be happy to help out with that because he knows the system so well and he is clearly implementing it.

And so today we actually have the owner of Green Energy Mechanical.

This is like I mentioned, somebody who's been around the industry for a while.

He's a humble guy, but he is doing some really great things, really partnered with some of the top leaders and just doing things a little differently.

He, he leads with heart, leads with compassion.

And one of the things that just knowing him the, the time that I have leadership is clear in this gentleman.

So please welcome to the show, Mr. Jonathan Neves.

To thank you for joining us today, sir.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, excited.

I've been listening for years.

I think back, I want to say around maybe 20, 20, 2021, maybe you're driving around fire.

So.

Absolutely.

Yeah, man.

I've always been a fan, dude.

I just, I like your, your cadence.

I like just your whole style.

It just really resonated with me, you.

Know, I love it.

I love it.

Yeah, that's, you know, that's funny that you mentioned that.

You know, I started, literally started my podcast driving appointment to appointment on voice recorder on my cell phone.

And then I found a place, I was like, where can I put these voice memos?

And then just found a free app to start uploading them.

And that's how the company started.

It was more like, I just have a message.

And, you know, if my team at my own company keep asking me these same questions over and over, I bet other people have the same, you know, the same questions.

And so it was just really strictly to, you know, help as many people rise to the top as I could.

So.

Yep.

But.

So we always like to start these, these episodes.

Give us the highlight reel, man.

How, how long have you been in the industry?

How did you find the heating and air industry?

And tell us a little bit about your journey and, and some of your, your philosophy along the way.

Yeah, man, I, I owe my life to this industry, bro.

Like, I, I grew up in a bad area.

I actually grew up in the same town Kevin Polito did.

We end up going to high school together, so we were in the same shop.

That's how we met.

And I used to torture him.

And I would wire up my.

I was a year ahead of them, so they, they would help the, the older students.

And I was like, hey man, could you help me with this?

Just grab that, that pole and I wired it live and it started like, shocking him.

So we would just do all these pranks all the time.

Probably stuff that you get kicked out of school for now, you know.

Oh, sure.

But, yeah, back then it was pretty wild.

But.

But anyways, yeah, man.

And then we kind of went separate ways.

But for me, it really helped save me because I just didn't have any real good role models around me.

The people I hung out with weren't really great association.

And when I found this industry at a.

As a teenager, I was like, that's it, man.

That's my ticket, you know.

And so at 17, I started working and as soon as I graduated, I just went full time into it and kept, kept, you know, kept going.

And then at 27, I started this company, Green Energy Mechanical.

And like you said in the intro, my focus from day one is always just to be different, you know, just to look different, sound different, and just to be the type of company that people would just love to work at and just have a lot of pride and same thing with my customers and just every single way around, you know, making sure that every, everybody's winning, you know, and so, yeah.

And so, you know, it's been a long road.

For many years, I didn't know what I was doing.

I had like an entrepreneurial fever while I was working for someone else.

And I came home like with one of those like Johnstone supply receipts.

And on the back of that, I just had some like, wicked basic business idea.

And I came home with my wife and I'm like, hey, what do you think?

You know, this is what I think I need to make to happen.

Had no client, no anything.

I think I started with.

It was.

It's not Home Advisor service magic, I think it was called.

Yeah.

That's why I started getting clients.

Right.

Yeah.

Some of the different, like lead crazy sites back then.

And that was it, man.

And then just, you know, kept it moving.

And then about 2019 we really started taking off and this year we're on pace to do 10 million.

So I'm blessed, man.

I'm so happy.

You know, I think it's like less than half of 1% of all corporations even get to that level in America.

Right.

Right.

I'm living my dream, man.

It's crazy, man.

You know, I love it.

I was, I'm actually taking a course right now on some just financial management and learning how to read PNLs better and you know, that, that kind of thing.

And I heard a crazy statistic yesterday.

They said of all entrepreneurs, less than 4% ever generate over a million dollars a year in their business.

Wow.

4% is the number.

So you're easily.

You made it to the top four, that's for sure.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

And.

Yeah, and sales is a big part of that growth, you know, like really.

I thought even from a long time ago that I was good at sales.

And I'm in a group called Certain Path and my coach was like, oh, great.

You know, you.

Are you drafting your sales?

And I'm like, no, pretty good, you know, and then like, right, like, what's your average ticket?

Like, no idea.

Yeah.

What's your close rate?

No idea.

They started tracking all this stuff and my close rate was 19.

I thought in my head that I was this amazing sales guy, you know.

And so my coach was like, you want to take some sales classes?

And once I did, I just, oh my goodness, I love sales.

Like, I just, I did a lot of it for the company for years.

I. I finally got the company to place now where I don't need to.

But if I sold the company tomorrow and I still needed to work or wanted to work, I would never take a general Manager position.

It would 100% be a sales position just because I just absolutely love the game.

I love it.

Oh, that's beautiful, man.

You really hit on something important.

I'd love to park there for a minute.

Is the importance of tracking your metrics and knowing where we're headed.

When you started doing that, what was the big realization?

Obviously, it was like, hey, maybe you need to take some classes now that you know.

But talk to us a little bit about tracking those numbers and what that does for both an individual and a company to be able to kind of have a roadmap.

Yeah.

It's something I'm.

Honestly, I'm.

I'm terrible at.

So for me, like, anything I'm terrible at, I always try to find, like, technology or something to fill in the gap.

So that's what I use now is technology for the company to track certain numbers.

Right.

Like, we had a big problem last month with days over schedule.

Right.

And I'm like, okay, we had it cracked.

So we know who was going over, why they were going over, what job they were going over.

And it's like, I'm saying, does that individual need more training?

I know he knows how to do it.

Perhaps he just needs a poaching moment.

Maybe he has something going on in his personal life.

Right.

So I'm not tracking that stuff.

It just looks like a big, hot mess.

And it's like, well, the guys aren't doing their job right.

You know, same thing on the sales side.

Like, we might get these ideas where, like, for myself.

Again, I'll just speak for myself.

Where you're going to these jobs, and you're like, yeah, they love me.

And you leave, and then it's like, crickets.

Yeah.

And, you know, that's all you're going off of.

When you really start to track these things, you start to.

It opens up.

It just makes me call it clarity.

Like, it gives you clarity, and then you start to see where the issues are.

That's what usually think.

It's kind of like a gut punch sometimes, because that's what it was for me.

And I was like, wow, like, I'm not as good as I thought I was.

And thankfully, my personality, I'm always, like, trying to learn and grow and be better than I was yesterday.

So I'm like, well, I'm gonna start taking classes.

And I think around that time, when I started watching your videos, I went to certain staff has some field training and stuff like that.

And I really just became a student, started reading a ton of books.

On neuro linguistic programming.

Yeah.

So here you talk about that the other day because I love that stuff.

I'm gonna ask you if you had any, any books to recommend because I'm reading influence right now.

Oh, that's a good one.

I don't think it's exclusively a neuro linguistics.

More like, you know, psychology and stuff, but similar, I guess.

Right, right.

You know, my gosh, where so much of my came from is.

And thanks for that.

Thanks for telling us about that journey.

That's really fun.

Yeah.

You know, P is massive.

It's.

I. I don't use it directly as much as probably, you know, maybe like a Tony Robbins.

But he's one of my biggest influences for it.

I've been to a couple different ones of Tony Robbins events.

I've read, you know, Waking the Giant within is one of his foundational books.

And was it Unleash the Power.

He has two, two of his classic books that are really big, that walk people through visualization and how to instantly change.

Change those moments.

And then a lot of the study was just through less NLP and more just general psychology and personality.

Gosh, I've read probably an entire book on every single kind of personality style test that there is out there.

And so I.

Man, I always recommend that if there's.

If you're wanting to dive more into that, that's it.

Yeah, you recommended years ago, maybe on the group or to me, I can't remember.

But Brian Tracy, the psychology of sales.

I think that's a really good one for people because I know I. I still use a lot of that from that book to this day, you know.

Yeah, the cherry tree and algae and things like that.

And even psyching yourself up before you get to the house.

I think those things are so powerful.

But yeah, if you answer your question, fine.

My brain goes like this though.

That's fine.

My wife says she needs to like rain me back in sometimes.

We will follow those rabbit trails.

I'm the same.

But yeah, to answer your question, that's what really helped me is like.

And that's what I do for my guys today, right?

Because I have a sales guy.

And they'll be like, oh, I've been crushing it.

But the numbers don't lie.

So it's like, okay, let's see what the numbers are selling and.

And what your average ticket is or what your closing rate is.

And what really helped, I think, really helped my guys the last this year in particularly was, you know, you have this market that's a little Uncertain, and there's all these noise going on.

Everybody's worried about the economy, worried about this, customers are being flaky, right?

And I said, listen, you have to figure out a way to block all that stuff out.

And here's what I want you to think on, right?

One of my guys last year, he had a 30% closing rate.

And I said, let me show you something.

What do you think your closing rate was last year?

And he was like, probably like 50, 55%.

Okay, we'll show you exactly what it was.

It was 31 at about a nineteen thousand dollar average ticket, which.

The average ticket was good, right?

And some places would be fine with that closing rate.

But I was like, let's just say it's like, you know, 30, 33%.

Do you feel that, like out of 10 people, seven people didn't want to do business with you?

Like, like, is that cool in your head?

Like you're, you're cool with that?

And it was like a wake up call.

Like, no, actually.

And I'm like, and then when you extrapolate, because when you do it small and you're like, hey, one out of three, that's not bad, right?

No, it's not bad, but like, you know, whatever the number is.

Out of 20, 14.

Out of 20.

Like, are we, you really saying that 14 people out of 20 didn't want to do business with them?

Prof. Company, they didn't want to do business with the best salesperson?

Like, let me ask you a question.

Are you the best?

Well, you know, second to you, I'm like, no, do that, bro.

Like, are you the best?

Damn.

I'm like, okay, you believe it?

Yeah, yeah, I believe it.

I'm like, okay, then let me ask you again.

Do you feel like 14 people or 21 or 50 people out of whatever, 150 people, right?

Didn't want to do business with you.

Didn't want to do business with the best salesperson.

And then like once that happened, and I feel like that's the key is like sales is, you know, one of my friends, Freya, I loved her, her statement, you know, sales is a transference of belief.

And it's like, I feel like the belief has to start right there.

If you don't love yourself, if you don't believe you're the most badass salesperson that's gonna come there.

And I'm, if I'm coming to Sam Wakefield's house, I'm like, listen, Sam, I'm looking at everything Sam got going on for this call, all Right.

Sam's looking for a heat pump system.

He wants to save some money.

I'm looking at your house, I'm looking all this stuff online.

I'm like, you know what, Sam?

I don't care if you have other people or not.

You're buying something from me today because I am the most badass filled person that's coming through the door.

The minute I get there, Sam's going to love me, he's going to start smiling, and we're going to be friends, and if he has a wife, he's going to be mad cool with me, and everything's going to go great.

And we're signing this deal today.

And I'm telling you, just doing that type of stuff and really understanding and believing it and then again tracking it.

So if I do go to your home and we don't sign, I have it written down, what we talked about, what happened, and then how I'm going to follow back up with you and again, because it gets lost in the weeds if you don't do that.

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Oh, my gosh.

Well, this is a very clear picture to me of why your company is growing and doing what it.

What it's doing and obviously why Kevin and another guy, big shout out to Phil O'Reilly.

He's gonna.

He's gonna love the shout out.

It's one of your newer guys that all of a sudden his numbers are going up like crazy.

Because clearly, you know, I've heard something long time ago that it was in a negative way, but it's also in the mirror image, the opposite way when it's positive.

You know, if a fish stinks, it stinks from the head down.

I'm talking about leadership.

But at the opposite of that is true.

And clearly you're setting a really great example and modeling what the right mindset should be for your people and everybody listening.

Rewind that section that we, that we just recorded that Jonathan just went over because, oh, my gosh, that is.

That is exactly it.

If we would I buy from me today, and if I wouldn't buy for me, then there's no use of me walking in this house.

Right?

So you have to have that belief first with yourself.

Right?

You know, I'm the.

I am a badass.

And this is going to be the most incredible experience that these people have ever had in their whole lives.

Right, Exactly.

And if I'm not in that frame because, you know, especially as the owner, that's why I had to step away because, you know, I'm Being pulled in a million different directions, right?

Sure.

I'm coming to Sam's house to selling something, and I'm trying to get in the frame of mind, and, hey, there's a water leak at this person's house and wants to talk to you.

And I'm like, oh, my goodness.

Like now.

I'm like, ah, all right.

Ding dong.

Like, hey, Sam, you know, Jonathan at Green Eric, all that energy that I'm carrying from whatever I'm dealing with, you're gonna feel it.

You don't know what it is, but you're just like, you're picking up on, you know.

You know?

Yeah, you got it under having a powerful mindset.

You know, there's a difference between a positive mindset and powerful.

And I feel like, you know, if you can understand.

But, you know, there's a lot of talk about being positive, and it's like, listen, nobody's positive every single weekend moment.

Maybe, maybe Kevin.

Right?

Like, positive every minute of the day.

Well, you know, I bet he's not always, except for that hour and a half drive in gives him the chance to reset, right?

Yeah, but that's it.

It's the reset.

That's what it is for me.

I'm like, hey, you know what?

Let me grab my iced coffee.

Let me pull around the corner.

Let me listen to some music.

Let me just roll the windows down, Listen to the wind going through whatever it is.

Reset.

Give yourself five minutes.

I like to do some breathing.

Like.

Like, you know, little, like, meditation sometimes helps me get, like, into a really good state.

Words of powerful, powerful words of affirmation.

And then, like I said, then I psych myself up, and I don't care what's going on, if I'm doing anything else.

Like, if you're an owner and you're in the sales moment at that point, I've literally been on a sales call, and my operation manager is calling me because a unit got lit on fire.

And so there was a fire in someone's house.

I'm like, you're gonna have to deal with it.

I'm in.

I'm in the middle of something because I'm giving Sam 100 of me, right.

Right in the zone.

You know, my average ticket's stupid.

It's like, I don't know, in the 30s, 40s, some months, right.

If you're paying 30, $40,000 with me, like, you deserved 100%.

I mean, that's a lot of money to spend on a heating system or system, right?

Yep.

Absolutely.

Oh, I love it.

So let's circle back a little bit because something you mentioned a bit ago, before we got into the Mindset section, you were talking about what's going on in the environment.

And so for everyone listening, this is September 8, 2023.

And if you paid any attention at all to the heating and air industry or just trades in general, there's so much noise, there's so much chatter in the industry about, oh, call volume is down 20 to 30% and all these things.

But we're hearing from you how your company is strictly growing right through the middle of this.

And it started with the reset.

We just talked about resetting your people.

What is the, what's our mindset?

Do we care what everybody else does?

Are we looking at the finish line?

Right.

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

Right.

And so it doesn't matter what everybody else is doing because Green Energy Mechanical is going to the moon.

Right.

And so, so let's dive into that a little deeper, though, because I know there's a lot of companies that even if they're wanting to adopt this mindset, they're struggling with it because there is a lot of stuff going on in the industry.

And how do we.

What are you doing to even separate yourself a little more from that and as a company as well as just individuals for Mindset to, like, stay on the right path?

Yeah, no, great question.

Again, another exercise we did with our every single way possible, like with leadership, why people should come work for us, why a customer should choose from us.

Yes.

Going through 2020 to say, honestly, from 2011 to 2022, the economy is just booming.

Right.

Everybody's winning.

It's easy to win when everybody's winning.

Right.

It's easy to win when you know, the economy's going, people are happy to spend money.

Now you have this 30 downturn in boxes being sold and most of the companies around have this model selling blockchain.

You're a salesperson.

That's your job.

And so like you said, you're hearing all this noise.

One of the problems is we're, we're, we're creatures of, of comfort and habitat.

We're used to doing something the same way and realizing that, well, this isn't the same market it was.

People aren't buying the same way they were before.

You can't go in and try to apply tactics that worked five years ago to today because you're just going to be one of the guys selling in the same business or matter.

Right.

Whatever.

Right.

So understand, first of all, understanding that's number one.

Then the next one I feel like this is so important is what is your unique value proposition?

So what's my unique value proposition for somebody to leave another company and want to come work for me?

What's a unique selling proposition or value proposition for why your company should hire me?

I loved one of your podcasts recently or one of your webinars where you were saying, you know, hey, you know, you could have called a thousand other companies.

What's the reason why you called me?

And then they start to tell you the reasons why.

Right.

And obviously, I give you a ton of great feedback, and then you're like, you know, well, do you feel like maybe we could be just the one company you're looking for?

Right.

That's powerful in my.

And so the other side with that is, is when I found a challenge, everyone.

So, again, if you're an owner of a company, what's your unique value proposition for your business?

And you can't say, we've been in business since 1970, because guess what?

The next company coming out, they've been in business since 1960.

Does that make it better than you?

You can't say, we're super customer focused.

And, you know, we're.

We.

We have the best customer service.

Okay, Guess what?

The next company, Joe Smo Plumbing, said they the same thing.

Right.

And so on and on.

We're the most innovative.

Right?

So for us, it was kind of a me in a dark place because I'm like, damn, like, maybe we're not this rain.

Are we just like everybody else?

Right?

Right.

And so one of the things that I really started to think about that really set us apart was our unique buying.

Buying journey with the customer, where I was like, you know, typically you got a salesperson that's going to come, they're going to sell you something.

Installers are going to come, they're going to install it, and then hope that you never have a problem ever again.

Our model is completely different.

We don't want you to worry about anything.

We're going to hold your hands off the entire process.

And so for us, we have this process here.

I'm going to custom design a solution for you.

After that, we have our project manager who's going to come back and he's going to walk through.

If you have a ductless system, he's literally going to take a picture on the wall and draw on the wall with that ductless.

He's going to draw the line, hide on the outside of the house and put the Condenser with literally like everything on it, the quick swing and the tag.

And he even put stuff, you know, he goes very artistic.

At the end of that you're going to get an email with all those pictures there and you're going to sign off and say yeah, that looks fantastic, that's exactly what we want.

That way you and Green Energy are on the same side.

Once that happens, that information gets inputted into our software that all of our lead installers and service technicians and leadership here see.

And on game day on Monday we have an install meeting.

Everyone gets a placket and then we have a big screen that everybody's also seeing your job and they're going through it with the install manager and the project manager and if they have any questions, it gets resolved there.

All your stuff gets delivered to your home together.

So the guys show up right on, right on time at 7 o' clock in the morning.

They know exactly what they're doing when they're done.

That's not it.

They're then going to have a quality installation verification where we're going to send someone back to just go through everything and make sure you're super happy with it.

Then after that we have our ongoing labor and maintenance agreement for as long as you want because it's a specific subscription based and so if you want lifetime warranty, you can have lifetime warranty.

In our area nobody's really offering anything like that.

So that's again another unique value proposition.

And so I make it source.

Like sometimes we have these things in our companies that are so different but we don't talk about it because for us to just you know, palm in place and we just.

But to a consumer and here's the big thing, you could say all that and get start to get like eyes glazing over.

So the point is that was a very long way of going about it.

But everything I'm going to tell you with that is going to be how does that benefit Sam?

Why should you care about that?

Like why does that even matter?

What's the, what's the alternative?

How would it normally go?

And now that's the reason where at the end you can ask for more money and, and for us we have great reviews that get very descriptive and so I'm able to pull those up like well Sam, you know, I know you're getting heat pump install to offset your oil.

I want to show you something.

I know you said you saw our reviews, but did you see this one from Kathy Lou, Notice what it says here about the way they did this, the way they.

And I already know going into it, because I'm prepared and I can show them that.

And that's social proof.

That's another psycholog.

Like, you know, I love it.

So the social proof is so powerful and, and everyone listening.

This is some major, major, major nuggets because not only is it social proof, one, it's, I think, as an industry overall, there's some, of course, some standouts, but generally speaking, especially the sales and just technicians in our industry are.

They don't think they are, but they're really lazy when it comes to a lot of this stuff.

And so to set ourselves apart is doing that due diligence, doing that work ahead of time.

And I've always been a big fan of I don't want to know a lot of the notes from where I'm headed, but just enough to be able to prepare our side of things.

So knowing.

Knowing our own testimonies, knowing the fact that they're descriptive and have.

Have them in a, you know, in a brag book or whatever we call it that, you know, here's this testimony.

Here's this testimony.

Here's this testimony.

So it's social proof, but it really leads into if everybody's hearing this right.

Every single thing that Jonathan has just gone through has been a struggle story, or it's been painting a picture of what life is going to be like once this project is done.

It's not been a technical detail.

It's not been, well, we're going to do 18ft of line hide out here, and we're going to use three bags of crushed granite.

No, it's.

Here's a visual of what it's going to look like.

Here's a recording of what this unit sounds like.

So, see, you can't even hear it.

So it's painting that right picture for the future and not the technical side.

So facts tell, stories sell, you know.

Classic Brian Tracy, right?

And so, yeah, I think the other nugget that I'd give people to right now is people blame someone, right?

Like, you probably know, I don't know the exact number, but what's the number of people that are going to buy an H Vac system in their lifetime?

One point people.

Yeah, most homeowners buy 1.3 heating in their systems in the entire life.

So basically one time, they're only gonna ever do it once.

So thinking on that, and again, to me, it's like.

It's like a big test that you've already given the answers To.

You just have to figure out, like, the question, right?

Like jeopardy.

So to me, it's like, you already know that they're doing this one time in their life.

If I'm gonna do one something one time in my life, I don't prepare, care for it, because I'm not thinking about it.

And then when that comes, I'm just thinking like, well, now I'm gonna get three quotes and probably just pick the cheapest one, right?

Because I don't know what I'm doing.

I looked on Google.

Everybody has great reviews nowadays.

So I picked three that were in the 4.24.9.

You know, maybe one person wasn't that cool.

I didn't like them.

I'm down to, like, two or three others.

The cheapest one.

So I use that when I'm speaking to people.

Like, I had a lady a few months ago who he was like, you know, my air conditioner is not working.

We want to get a new one.

It's broken.

Like, okay, what's going on with it?

He's like, well, my husband has to go.

It stops working.

My husband actually stops what he's doing.

He works from home eventually.

And he goes downstairs, and you just got to take the unit real quick.

And it comes back on.

I'm like, okay, great, cool.

And then I'm like, and how often do.

And I start asking a bunch of questions and.

But I'm not getting, like, great, like, buying signals.

I'm getting more, like, red flags.

And anytime I get red flags, for me, that's the time to start digging in, asking more questions, right?

So now, while I'm talking to her, all of a sudden, to my right, the husband comes swarming in, and he's like, well, if we need a new system or not, you know, like, this thing's been working intermittently.

And I'm like, okay, and so tell me what's going on.

But he says the same thing.

He goes downstairs and gives it a little fix.

He doesn't click the sign.

And then it, you know, comes on.

It works, okay?

So I'm like.

So I. I call this, like, a keto sale.

I like to use the people's energy against them, right?

Because I feel like what a lot of sales people do is it's like, sam, I want you to come to my company, and they're going to start pulling you towards me, right?

And just like real life, if I'm, like, pulling again.

We've done this a lot in our sales trainings at the office, pulling you.

Your natural reaction is to do what.

You could pull right against it.

Yeah, right.

So if my so on opposite, if I push against you, and my goal is for you to come towards me and work with me.

If I push against you, your reaction is to push against me.

Coming towards you, right.

I'm a big fan of martial arts.

And so like keto is very similar to that.

It's using people's energy or movements against them, right?

So I call it like a keto sales.

And so in this case, I'm like, well, hey, Frank, I have a great idea.

They're like, what?

They're like, super quiet.

I'm like, I have a great idea.

It's gonna be the cheapest possible way that you can get this done.

Why don't we go to the Lazy Boy store and we'll go to Walmart and we'll get a Lazy Boy.

And I already know what I'm saying, but I'm kind of like, you know, and I'm like, and we'll get a big umbrella and we'll put it outside right by the air conditioning system.

Open up the umbrella.

Lazy Boy.

You can work from home down there.

And every time the safety stuff working, you can just give it a kick, like in real time right then and there, right?

So instead all this, there's like a pin drop because they're like, yeah, what's the cheapest way?

You know?

And I, once I finished it, they both like were quiet for a second.

They looked at each other and they just like start busting out laughing.

But here's the, the key behind it.

Now it's Ticto, right?

I pushed against them.

So what do they do?

I get the real info because they're like, well, here's the thing.

Sometimes when Frank goes down there and pushes it faked it, it doesn't come on.

Sometimes it comes on and it shuts off in two minutes.

You know, sometimes it can last a day.

It's intermittent even when it is working.

It hasn't been working that well recently.

And so now I'm starting to get the real pain.

And if I didn't do that, what'll probably happen is at the end of the call, they're going to say, yeah, Frank goes and kicks it every once in a while.

So we're just gonna work with that.

And then I lost the sale, right?

So that, that's a really big part in my case is like, you know, I want to get a new air conditioning system.

What are you doing now?

Oh, we have a bunch of room air conditioning Units.

Okay.

You must love bringing those up now.

You know, it hurts my back and this and that.

Listen, how long you said you've been living here for 12 years.

And the system hasn't worked in a couple.

Like, the cheapest way would be just keep what they got going on to throw the limb away season.

What's wrong with that?

Most guys aren't talking like this, right?

And so you're getting them to be like, no, they're going to start pushing against me, right?

No, no, no.

You know, honestly, my wife has, you know, breathing issues, and the musty air bothers her.

And for me, it's so annoying when I'm trying to watch football, I got to turn the thing up, really.

Boom.

Now I have real pain.

Now we've got their pain points.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like, oh, just to keep doing what you're doing, it's okay.

Why am I even here?

Right?

I love.

That's the.

For everybody that.

That is just listening.

That's one of the best body language things you can do as well is any.

Anytime those moments come up, well, your hand, you kind of lean back a little bit.

Your hands come up kind of like almost like a surrender right about shoulder height, and just go like, why am I even here?

Hey, listen, I'm not here.

I'm not here to push anything on you.

You know, why did you even call?

And the tonality changes.

And, man, that's that takeaway.

Officially, it's called a takeaway.

You're like, hey, I don't even have to do anything today.

Then they're like, well, wait a minute.

No, we called you for a reason.

Here's what the real reason is.

Yeah.

Yep.

I love it.

It's so powerful, man.

This is great.

I knew we would.

So everybody listening.

If you ever are a guest on my podcast, there are no plans.

We just come in and chop it up and see what happens.

And it's very intentional, too, because in order to be good at sales, and I know everyone that I bring on is, or they probably wouldn't be on this podcast, you have to be good at rolling with the punches and being very good at improv.

Here's a hiring tip for everybody.

Anybody hiring?

I've always had the best luck hiring bartenders, for one.

But the.

The missing piece.

Everybody tries to hire from, like, the business school at the colleges and stuff.

The best people I've ever hired come from the theater department.

The theater department for salespeople, because they already know how to learn a script.

They already know how to model character.

And they already know how to.

I mean, they literally are taking classes on how to improv on somewhat.

Someone else say, says, so quick nugget for everybody that needs to hire salespeople.

Go to the theater department at your local college.

Yeah, my buddy Steve.

Aan.

Shout out to Steve.

He.

We were just talking about that.

He just hired somebody who's actually like a real actor.

He's saying the same thing, so it's funny you say that.

Yeah, well, I mean, who else is better Learning the script.

They'll have it learned in a day.

You give it to somebody that's a technician, they're like, three weeks later, they barely got the script down.

And these dudes, they're like, they've got it nailed with tonality and every.

And facial expressions.

They've been practicing in the mirror 400 times the first night.

It's like, wow, that's how.

How do we get you in.

Into this other person?

Right?

And so.

Yeah, it's good.

Yeah, I love it.

So.

Well.

Cool, man.

So this is.

This is good.

So I always like to ask this question too.

It's really fun.

What are you really excited about right now either in the industry, in your business, specifically in life, what's really getting you fired up right now and, like, the reason you wake up in the morning?

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that.

I. I've been doing a lot of work with the state level to really try to help get more minorities into our industry, you know, for the Department of education does a horrible job at promoting the trades, if at all, honestly.

And we have a super huge labor crisis going on across the country.

And a lot of minorities, especially, like, young black men, black women, brown boys, brown women, whatever, they don't know anything about it.

They don't know about the money we could be making.

And so I try to be.

I'm not that vul.

Like, that loud of a person, you know, like, there's some of these boys on the west coast, man.

I have a Jets and Lambos, and I'm not that type of person, but I. I feel like sometimes they kind of have to be a little bit louder to gain attention.

So I give them that respect for that because I feel like that's what does get people's attention sometimes.

But my biggest goal is to try to help as many young people, all colors, really, but just helping them to see, like, listen, like, yeah, college is cool and all that stuff, but there's so much money to be made right here in this industry that, like, nobody knows about.

And here's the problem.

What ends up happening is you're young, let's say you didn't go to college, you get a job and I don't know, you're doing whatever and eventually you're making 30, 30 something dollars an hour.

You're comfortable, you bought a house, you got married, maybe you have a couple kids.

It's really hard to go back at that point and try to get into a new field like that.

And so you could stay stuck away.

So my opinion, it's like these high school students though, are the ones that like really, let's start talking to them and start pitching these ideas.

And so I live in a great state, my company's in a great state where they put a lot of money into workforce development and they're, they're curious to know, hey, what's the correct, what's the curriculum look like?

Who should be the people that were reaching out to, you know, where should we reach out to them?

I go to a lot of high schools and speak there for like different events they might have like a career day or, or different things like that.

And I really just try to help them.

And so, and I tell all the students the same thing, like, I don't care what companies you go to, I want to lift the whole industry up, you know, so for me, that's one thing.

Like I don't know what my future is down the line with green energy.

Like, you know, if, let's say I sold the company five, ten years from now, whatever, my next goal at that point would probably be doing something on maybe like a more grander scale to really help drive that message, you know?

Right, right.

I love it.

Yeah.

So, so everyone listening also, I'm sure green energy is always looking for great people.

So they are in Boston, Massachusetts area.

And so a quick plug for green energy, if you are looking for.

If you've resonated with what Jonathan's really talked about today, he's the leader there.

And if you resonated with that and you are in that area or just want to relocate to a cool new place.

Right.

Go see sunrise instead of sunset if you're on the west Coast.

Right.

Boston, Massachusetts, it's the place to be.

So they are doing some really amazing things.

So I 100% endorse them as a great employer for people who are wanting to expand your horizons.

Because clearly the vision here is different than a lot of just the regular everyday Joe companies that you could run into or the nothing against the big, you know, chain companies.

But there's a lot different vision here versus just, you know, turning numbers at the end of the day.

And so I love connecting like this.

Yeah, it is true, man.

And we're at the point now we actually have a waiting list going on.

So if people are interested, I would absolutely say like call and, and let's talk.

You know, we, we usually like to have a conversation and then just kind of stay in connection.

So that's something that's really different with me where a lot of companies are like, we need first club right now.

And it's almost like a turn and burn model.

And I feel like it's not humane, it's not mythical.

You're just using people's numbers to hit numbers that you want to hit.

And everything at, at our company is all about the people, the person.

We're in a people business, right?

And the, my.

I was just talking to someone the other day that was referred to us and he, he came over and I'm like, listen man, like I've learned a long time ago that, you know, you can invest in stocks, real estate, business, whatever.

My favorite investment is in people that want to invest in themselves.

But people, because I get to see the coolest stories, you know, like, you know, even Kevin you were just talking about, right?

Heaven was making, I don't know, 50, $60,000, you know, like kind of in a dead end type of position.

And now this guy is literally like a leader and has people around the country like calling them, texting them, asking them for advice, you know.

And I tell him the same thing, man.

I'm like, dude, like green energy is, is this vehicle that's going to get us to everywhere that, you know, our games and stuff.

But for him, like, dude, you, you know, the side's the limit, bro, because of the type of person you are.

And the satisfaction I get is being able to be like, I had a part in that, you know, Amazing.

I love it, you know.

And so, man, you're inspiring me so much because doing what I do, I work with a lot of owners of different companies and one of the biggest things I see is they fall into such a scarcity mindset when it comes to their, their, their collateral of their people they're not open to.

Well, even recently I'm working with the guy and he's actually, he's made some serious sacrifices to join the virtual program that I just have rolling because his company directly, they were burned by some other trainers in the past that, you know, some things have happened and they've completely shut the door to anything outside their own company.

And he, he could literally get in trouble if they knew he was doing training outside of their own company.

He's like, but what we're doing is not working right.

We're, our numbers are only declining and I'm looking for a way to better myself.

And it's just such a struggle.

So many times with owners that see the seed as competition or see it's like, well.

Or the ego gets in the way.

It's like, well, have I not trained you well enough that you've got to look somewhere else?

And they're like, no, but we just don't ever train.

They're like, you don't have time.

So like, we're just trying to be efficient here.

But man, the scarcity mindset when it comes to the people is so sad to me.

And that's clearly why you're seeing such a different, you know, you have a waiting list for people to work for you.

Where most people I've talked to, they, they beg, borrow and steal and will put up with so much riff raff on their, you know, in their employment team strictly because they can't get people to work for them.

So this is a culture conversation.

Shout out to that guy.

You were saying?

Because that's.

Because most I talk to, they're like, well, my, my, my company won't, won't buy that for me or buy this for me.

And so for him even willing to invest in himself like that, like, shout out to that guy because that person gets it.

Like, no one, not, no one's not going to invest in it because they will.

But like, you have to be investing in yourself, you know.

Yeah, you know, maybe that company isn't the right company, but at the end of the day, like, man, if you're the type of person that's going to be willing to, to invest in yourself and I, whoever it is, I guarantee you working with Sam, you're 100 going to, it's, it's whatever you're paying is nothing compared to what you're going to get on the back end.

I'll put it that way.

It's 100.

I love it.

You know, that's what I, I thank you for reinforcing that.

And I get that conversation a lot when people reach out to me, especially individuals.

And that's part of why I'm putting together the virtual in more of a group setting to especially give those guys that are, you know, maybe in a smaller.

Because first 10 years of my life in my career, I was the one guy in this little, tiny town.

I did it all on my own and just bought books and courses and.

And all the things.

I didn't have a support group.

So I'm putting together a bit of a brotherhood and be like, if you're that one or two people at a company that's smaller, let's put together a support network to build this brotherhood, to lift each other up.

People that are focused on investing in themselves.

Because what we're doing is we're building your muscle and your skill for something that no one can ever take away from you.

And the second that we hit this threshold, you literally can throw a dart anywhere you want in the country and have a really awesome position before you ever move there.

That's what.

When we.

When we moved, I told my wife, I was like, where do you want to move to?

Because I. I've set some records where we're at.

I can have us.

I can have something anywhere we want to go, you know, and it's the coolest position to be in because you can literally.

You determine your own destiny with that type of a skill set that you build.

Because not everybody can do what we do.

Story with that.

One of my buddies was in Ohio, and he was like, a dental manager for CJF out there.

They're great company, doing big things there.

Family.

He had some family issues and had to move to Tennessee.

And so I was like, you know, talking like, man, we're in Tennessee.

I thought you were going to be a lecturer over there with hopping.

So he was telling me some of the family stuff, and I'm like, well, you know, what are you doing running a company?

Like, you know, managing the service department.

Installed.

Like, what are you doing?

He's like, man, I'm in sales.

Oh, like, what?

You know, he's like, listen, man, we can make like 200 grand a year or something being a manager or whatever of this department, that department.

Like, come on, please.

A million dollars this year.

Like, you can't make that type of money being a manager for someone.

And I'm like, listen, if there's nothing else that, like, to exactly your point, like, you just push yourself out of Ohio, flop yourself somewhere in Tennessee, and you're gonna make half a million dollars in his first year there, mind you, like, because he's been out of the sales game for a while, so I'm sure he's gonna do better.

Right?

Right.

But I was like, man, I completely feel you.

Because like I said, I'd be on the same pick because I just.

Amount of money you can make and be successful.

Crazy.

Oh, absolutely.

It reminds me of the Jim Rohn, one of my.

My favorite mentors.

You know, if everyone out there.

If you don't know who Jim Rohn is, R O H N. Look up some YouTube videos.

He was, you know, the mentor's mentor for a lot, a lot of years.

He died In, I think, 1998, but one of the best personal growth speakers ever.

But there's a quote from him that has always inspired me.

It's like work to become a millionaire.

Work to earn a million dollars.

Not for the million dollars, but for the person you have to become to earn that million dollars.

Because they can take it away from you and it'll be no time at all.

And you'll have it right back because now that's where your own internal thermostat is set.

And it's just.

It's who I am.

It's what I do because I became that because I believe, kind of circling back to how we started.

I believe that's who I am.

So I have no problem doing it again and again and again.

And so it's all about that personal growth and, and investing in yourself.

That's the only way to do it.

I love it, man.

Ah, it's good stuff.

I mean, you gotta, gotta link up in person, bro.

Stop it up.

Have some old fashions or something.

I don't.

You've been working out a lot, but I don't know if you're drinking.

But.

Actually this year I went.

I, I kind of played a little bit with it, but I've.

I've basically have gone pretty.

I'm straight up sober now.

That's why my, you know, I've got my coffee of the day lately, in fact, right here.

I've been on a route.

We'll see if it comes in the video.

I've been on a root beer care.

I've been journeying through all of so what the.

So for this episode of what's in your cup.

This is Boylan bottling company.

I've been all the different.

The big breweries also usually make a root beer.

So it's been kind of fun to go back through some of my favorite because I was a beer nerd for years and years and years.

Go back through all of my favorite breweries and find out, hey, wait a minute, do they make a root beer?

Because all the root beer is a little different.

So that's been my journey lately, is I've been on a Root beer kick.

I like that.

Yeah, good stuff.

But yes, we definitely got to connect in person.

What's next for, for green energy Mechanical and for Jonathan Neves?

What's, what's, what's your next big.

Next big thing?

We're looking to really.

So our focus on our company is really helping our clients save energy.

And by popular demand we get so many people that are like, hey, do you guys do installation services, energy audits, like that?

So again, our state has this great programs already set up for this where customers can get $0 home energy assessments and like 75% off weatherizing their home.

So we're in the process now of becoming one of those contractors where we'll be able to do an energy assessment, a weatherization, put in heat pumps to help offset, you know, people have oil here and stuff like that.

You know, saving on a carbon emissions and saving energy and money.

So it's having a much more well rounded, you know, ancillary services that really focus on our mission to help our customers go green.

So that I'm hoping is going to be wrapped up by the end of the year and then next year just starting with our insulation department and weatherization and as well as like home energy audits and.

Yeah.

And the other side is just expanding.

You know, we're currently kind of servicing like the bottom portion of Boston and we get a ton of customers from north of Boston that are always like, can you come up here?

And servicing customers and being able to be there quickly is a big deal for us.

And so.

Right.

I'm like, you know what, it's about time that we actually have a lot of people that travel north of Boston, some of them an hour and a half to come work here.

It's, it's super humbling and, and I love it because they probably, you know, they all say the same thing.

I talk like 50 companies on the way here.

Right.

So my thing is, hey, you know what, let's open up a shop north of Boston.

Sure.

Let them work out of that and then we can actually increase our services to more people.

So.

Right, right.

That's really my focus for, for next year.

Love it.

Love it, man.

That's, that's, that's a good plan.

Very cool.

We will talk offline, especially about the first half of that that you just said because I have some, I don't know if you knew, you've probably heard me talk about it over the years.

I owned a, I was involved with starting and growing for five years the home performance side of the company that I was at where I got started.

And so it was a really big key involved in all of the sales to sell that stuff.

So we could totally, totally connect there.

I was a doctor, energy saver dealer for quite a few years there.

And so there's a lot of experience that we can chop it up on.

But man, it's been a great podcast today.

Thanks for guesting with me.

And I know that there's so much fire in this episode.

Clearly everyone at your organization is.

They're at the right place, the right place at the right time.

And it's really great to see Jules, you know, company.

I look across the country and I see, you know, a jewel in different cities of companies that are really doing things right.

And green energy is definitely one of those.

So thanks for being a guest today, man.

It's, it's definitely been honor.

Appreciate it.

Yeah, definitely been an honor today.

So, yeah, we'll land this plane and everybody that's been listening, thanks for listening.

If you have never, if you've ever gotten value from this podcast, I would appreciate it if you would go and leave me a five star review on the Apple podcast link.

That would be fantastic.

I realized it was four years in before I ever started asking for a review, so it's time.

I should have done that early on, but that's all right.

We're moving forward.

So go leave me a review.

And yeah, if you want to get connected.

Sam, Apple, bro.

Stop, stop, stop discriminating against this.

Android users.

Good question, man.

Yeah, so Spotify has actually started.

So the other most.

The, the second biggest platform that people listen to podcasts on is on Spotify.

They have actually started a really cool place where you can go in and leave comments to the, to the podcasters in Spotify and you can review on there as well.

So that would be.

I believe you can leave some reviews.

I know you can leave comments now on the episodes.

That's what they're starting.

But find me on Facebook.

Close it now.

The Facebook group is there.

Close it now.

Just search that.

It'll come right up.

You can email me, Sam, close it now.net and actually I'm in a big rebrand.

Not rebrand, but a big website renovation.

So hey, there we are right there on the lab.

So real time, baby.

Love it.

Got the reviews going.

Love it.

Thank you.

But yeah, so I've got a big website rebrand.

So everyone listening.

If you have gotten value, I would love if you will email me a testimony of some of the big takeaways that you've gotten from the from the show.

If I've been to your location and we've worked together or you've ever been in one of my virtual courses, email me sam@closingnow.net tell me what how your life has changed, what you know, what you're able to implement, what your numbers have changed.

Because I'm working on collecting testimonies for the new website, so that would be super helpful as well.

So.

But that's it for the plug.

This podcast is going to drop after the event, so we don't need to mention Profit Rocket.

By the time you listen to this, it will have just happened.

Actually, it's going to drop the Friday of Profit Rocket.

So if you're listening to this, I I am at Profit Rocket right now speaking, so that's going to be a funny one.

So good times and all right everybody, go save the world.

Let's see, we're wrapping up the summer.

We'll say go save the world one heat stroke at a time.

And this is getting into the part of the year we're going to say go save the world one frostbite at a time.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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