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.

Welcome back to Close It Now.

Sam Wakefield here.

I am ready to rock and roll with you today.

So let's get started.

Super stoked about the episode we've got.

Rocking out it is.

It will really help you, especially sliding into the fall.

It's just a tip that will take you over the line with a lot of people, especially if they're, you know, if you're getting into the fall and people are losing urgency, especially this year in 2024, there's such a lack of urgency and people shopping and all those things.

We have to adjust with the market.

Right?

We can force things, but we can also adjust.

So got a quick tip today that's going to help you a lot with that.

And before we do, I want to feature a review.

So I would love, love, love if you've ever gotten value from closeit.

Now if you would go over to Google and leave me a five star review, that would be awesome.

You can also leave reviews at Apple Podcasts.

It would be much appreciated and I would love you forever.

This one today is from Johnny Guerrero.

What up Johnny G. I did not know he was putting this review up but it says it is a five star review and it says I've been training with Sam for over a year now.

I went from a tech to a selling tech and in one quarter I've made more money than I did all last year.

Sam is amazing in one on one coaching.

So that is awesome.

What's up Johnny G. Mint went from a selling tech and from a tech to a selling tech and in one quarter made more money than did all of last year.

Dude, I love it.

And more importantly Johnny, you've been putting in the work.

That is what happens.

Remember everybody, success happens at the speed of implementation.

You know, you can learn a thousand new techniques and all these things.

But if you're not putting in the work, well, it doesn't do anything.

That's called knowledge on ice.

It's just going to sit there and freeze.

It's actually worse if you go down the journey to study and learn all these new things and then are scared to implement any of them, and you stay with your old habits and your old way of thinking.

I'm gonna tell you that that actually is worse than if you just say, you know what?

Screw this, I'm gonna stay the same and not change.

And the reason that is worse, because if you just stayed the same and didn't change, you wouldn't know what you didn't know, right?

And you wouldn't have this struggle and constant strive to achieve and to be better and to overcome and to set records or wherever you are at in your journey.

But you're into some personal growth and getting better or you wouldn't be listening to this podcast.

So I'm so such an advocate of implementation implementing right away.

The reason is if you are that person that says you want to grow, you want to do better, you want to implement, or even just have a little bit of a desire to do that, and you learn about better ways to do things, and you learn about different ways to do things and what starts to happen.

And this is why I say it's better to just stay where you are than to learn something new and not implement it.

Because now what happens if you learn new.

New techniques, new conversation skills, whatever your new skills are, if you learn those and you put in the effort and you don't implement, what happens is you find yourself in cognitive dissonance.

Basically, your brain starts fighting with yourself internally because now you're in a worse situation than if you didn't learn or didn't know to start with.

Because now you're in a place where you know what to do.

Now you're fighting with yourself of why you can't make yourself do it.

And that is a horrible place to be because the longer you're there, the more things fall, start to fall apart around you with your metrics and with your numbers.

And then you end up in this moment of, okay, I'm not practicing, I'm not trying the new stuff because I don't know if it'll work.

But now my old stuff isn't working.

And then it ends up in this horrible downward spiral and we don't know where to go from there.

Raise your hand if that has ever been you.

I know it has been me in the past, that's for sure.

So the way you stay out of that is literally just choosing to find where the edge of your comfort zone is and kick a little more at that comfort zone every single day, to expand it and to expand it and to expand it.

Because what happens is when you start to do the things that are uncomfortable, you start to do the things that are difficult.

The things that are uncomfortable and difficult now become a routine and normal and not difficult anymore.

So then you have to find new things that are uncomfortable and difficult.

And that is how you stay out of that cycle of learning but not doing right, learning and not being scared, but being scared to do.

And then you don't want to go down that mental spiral because it just ends up in such a bad place.

So constantly just do it with the little things.

It does not have to be perfect.

Tell yourself that 80% complete and usable is always better than 100% and perfect, but it's never going to get there and you'll never use it.

So I know that was a lot of, generally speaking, general talk, but it's important to remember that.

And so let's talk about what is happening right now in our industry, in our market a little bit.

And if you wanted some help with this, actually, obviously, just like Johnny said, one on one coaching, he earned more in three months than he did one quarter all of last year.

So that happens all the time with people who reach out to do coaching.

If you think coaching is expensive, you should try staying in the same place year after year after year with no hope for improvement.

That is even worse.

And I'll tell you, I've never invested in my own training, in my own self, that I didn't get at least a 10x return on my training as long as I implemented what I learned.

Right.

And the same thing could go for you.

But let's talk about this, let's talk about our market.

Let's talk about what's happening in society today.

You know, there's a lot.

If you haven't noticed this, then you're in a very isolated market.

But for most of the country, you know, things are slowing down.

Urgency is starting to go away.

There wasn't a lot of urgency this year anyway.

But now that we are in mid September, in 2024, urgency is definitely starting to slide and people have just taken longer to make a buying decision this year.

It's a combination of a thousand different reasons, of course, you know, it was a mild summer on top of insane inflation, on top of, you know, kind of all kind of crazy.

One, dealer fees as well as interest rates.

This is a year for.

It's an election year.

Election years are always a little bit rocky, but then anytime you get a very polarizing candidate, that also makes the election year extra rocky.

Well, this year, of course, on top of all of the other things that are going on that I just listed, let alone two major wars in the world, we also have two very polarizing candidates.

You either love them or hate them.

And this is not a political conversation.

This is observation of our current marketplace, our current society, what's happening in the world and how does that affect that?

Study into deep dive into macroeconomics for a minute.

How does that affect the way people buy?

Well, very clearly it affects the way people buy.

People will still spend the money, but we have to have to prove the value beyond the shadow of a doubt.

We have to prove the problems beyond the shadow of a doubt.

We have to prove the solutions beyond the shadow of a doubt.

And they have to have an emotional feeling connection to the solution and understand how their life is going to change moving forward.

And then they will spend the money.

They'll spend the money on just as big a project as they have been the last several years.

But there's no longer blind faith in trusting companies.

Yes, I get it.

There are some exceptions.

Absolutely.

Of course there are companies across the country that have built a solid, incredible reputation that, yes, they passed that test.

But for the most part, people are just slower in making buying decisions right now.

Raise your hand if you've noticed this.

Are there things that we can do to get them over the hump to, you know, have a one sit close?

Absolutely.

Of course, I'm not saying that there's not.

But I am here to help most of you that are not seeing that success.

And if you are, I also know that the ones of you that are killing it with one sit closes you do also, I talked to a bunch of you.

I know you're seeing people waiting and buying later also more than you have in the past.

So here's a really important thing that I want every single person to remember.

Right.

Because so many times we get in the house and we're so focused on the clothes that we miss the bigger picture.

And so I just brought on a brand new trainer.

I'm super excited.

He is a rock star.

His name is Stephen Dale.

You're going to hear a ton from him.

We're going to be doing some podcasts coming up.

I want you to hear some of his training because he's decade in the industry.

He's trained for a ton of different companies and a lot of you may know him, Stephen Dale.

So he is now a member of the Close it now family.

And I'm really excited because we were on a meeting earlier going over some things and he said something that I wanted to make sure to turn into this episode because this is what we have to remember when we're so focused on closing the sale, when we're so focused on that especially, especially for you techs that are like doing a lot of maintenance calls and things like that, they did not call you there to sell them something.

So this is where so many people miss it.

In the disconnect.

When you're called there for a maintenance, they did not call you to sell them something.

They called you to keep it clean.

When you go to the oil change place, you're not expecting that they're going to tell you you need to buy a new car.

Right.

When you go to the oil change place, you're not even expecting them to tell you you need to buy a new transmission or a new engine.

We want them to clean and take care of what's already there.

That's why we called.

Does that grow into other things?

Absolutely.

But we have to remember why we're showing up to the house for some of the, for the reason that people call.

And first of all, don't beat yourself up for not turning a 16 year old maintenance system on a maintenance plan into a new system cell if there's nothing wrong with the damn thing.

Right.

You can't force that on people.

You can educate.

We can educate about the change in refrigerant, we can educate about all of the different reasons why it would make sense to take a look.

But you cannot make them buy.

There's no magic bullet that's gonna force someone to get a quote for a system change if they have no interest and don't want it.

Right.

So it's okay.

Give yourself permission to know.

That's okay.

Can you get a higher rate of those by getting better in your conversation and more compelling in your reasons why it's a good time to look at it?

Yes, absolutely.

Don't hear what I'm not saying.

But what I am saying is give yourself permission to be okay with the fact that not every single one of those is going to turn into a turnover.

It's okay.

Right now.

Every single one is a technician turnover.

But what we do have to remember, we're down this path.

Right.

If you're a technician, if you're a project manager, an advisor, wherever your role is, when you don't get the one, sit close.

When you don't get the cell in the appointment, it's okay.

Yes, we're going to do everything we can to exhaust that, but it's okay.

Because what you're going to do if you don't sell the project, sell the calendar, right?

If you don't sell the project, sell the calendar.

This goes for repairs, this goes for everything.

It does not matter.

This is called Bamfam.

Book a meeting from a meeting.

Never, ever, ever leave the interaction with the homeowner if without booking a day, a time, and how you're going to get back in touch every single time.

If you can do this, this will eliminate the need to follow up.

There's no longer any need to follow up.

If you never leave a customer interaction without booking the next one, if you don't sell the project, sell the calendar.

And so when you do that, what happens is now your calendar stays.

Yeah, it's going to stay a little more full.

You'll still have plenty of time for appointments, but you just have phone calls and text messages and, you know, go backs now on your calendar.

So your calendar starts to stay full, especially in the off season.

So when everybody's talking about, I don't know what to do, I don't know how to.

I only sold.

I saw this comment earlier in this Facebook group and I have to tell you, it's one of those things that yes, I see it and I understand because my mindset used to be exactly the same, right.

I would 100% go out and I would just have these moments of, you know, fall would hit.

And I remember one October I made $800 and I was just like so destroyed.

It's like, I'm not selling anything.

There's no leads from the company and I didn't know what to do.

That's why I thought for years I had to go build a side business, a side hustle, a network marketing business, mlm.

Something outside of the main thing I was doing right, because especially for the off season, I could never have enough business to sell a track all year round.

So that was my old mindset.

Now if I only had understood then what I know now about everything is directly responsible to me.

When I'm in control and I'm on commission and I can go get, I can go talk to people on my own, I don't have to have permission to go talk to people.

Wow, that's awesome.

So somebody's question the other day, not today, earlier today, like an hour ago.

It says with only and I'm not going to mention the person's name.

And this is actually even in a different Facebook group.

It's not in the close it now Facebook group.

I want to make that very clear.

Because people in the close it now Facebook group don't have this problem as much because they do what we talk about.

But anyway, this says with only having $11,000 in sales this month, does anyone have any advice to keep consistent?

So what I answered was, yes, go meet people, go to networking events, go call every single homeowner you have ever sat with, sold or not.

The sold ones ask how much they love it and then ask for referrals.

Who do you know of your friends and family, now that you know how smooth the process was and how incredible it's been and what it's like having this installed or having the project done, who do you know that we can help?

That way they don't get taken advantage of by other companies.

Right?

The last thing that we want is either some big company in town comes in and overcharges them for no apparent reason just because their prices are stupid expensive or they go with somebody else who complete.

Yeah, it might be cheaper, but they cut some corners and now they're in an unsafe situation because they went with somebody else.

Those are the last things I want to happen to your friends and family.

So who do you know that we can help?

That's how you ask for a referral.

It's not hard.

The non sold ones, right?

Close them, reach out, call every, listen, call through your database, call literally pick up the phone and then text and email all at the same time.

If they don't answer your call, hang up and call right back.

Double tap them.

And if they don't answer that, don't leave a voicemail.

Or if you do leave a voicemail, do it like this.

It's like, hey, it's Sam Wakefield with Close It Now.

Let's call them to let you know about our new promotion.

Click, then hang up.

They'll call back.

The point is not to sell it over the phone or sell it on the follow up.

The point is to re engage them.

The point is to set a hook so they re engage into conversation with you.

So unless you're thinking like this, you're always going to be a mediocre performer.

You've got to start thinking like a top level performer.

Think like this, right?

So call them back.

Double tap, leave the voicemail.

Hey, it's Sam, with Closing Now, I wanted to let you know about our new promotion.

I was thinking of you because it perfectly fits your situation.

Click hang up.

Like it cut off, right?

They'll call you back.

They want to know what it is.

Same thing.

When you text them, they that's it.

Hey, this is Sam Wakefield with Insert yout Company.

I just found out about a new promotion we're having.

I thought of you because it perfectly fits your situation.

Would you be open to more info?

So you're going to text that and you're going to email that at the same time after you've left that voicemail.

And then you're going to do it over and over again until you get an answer.

The only time you stop following up with people is when they say yes.

When they say, screw off, I went with somebody else, or when they die, when you carry their casket to the grave.

Those are the only three times you stop following up with people.

Period.

End of story.

So if you're not following up with that level of persistence month after month or every couple months or every few weeks, you're missing out on millions of dollars in sales.

I'm telling you right now.

The other thing that I listed here, contact your local HOA's.

Here's an idea for everybody.

Host a freaking Sunday afternoon ice cream social to meet the community.

Tell them you want to sponsor it.

You want to put up a little tent.

You're going to give away ice cream to everybody just to meet the community.

There's not many HOAs that will say no to that because they love having events for their community and they love it when someone else sponsors them so they don't cost them a dollar.

So do that, they will love you forever.

Sponsor and go to set up a booth at local like children's sporting activities, youth sports.

You can go buy your own leads.

If you don't know how to buy your own leads, all you got to do is one quick Google search or a super quick search on Facebook about buying eight track leads.

You will have more opportunity to buy those leads than you ever thought possible.

Because now every company that has a target for that, and there's a lot of them that sell leads, you can buy your own.

Did you know this?

You can buy your own.

Especially if you're with a company that pays extra for selfgen.

Usually that amount of extra you make on selfgen will cover the cost of you buying your own leads.

So it's basically like having free leads and you still have the same close rate.

It's still yours.

Handle it like normal.

The crazy thing happens though, because it doesn't hit the negative side, it hits the positive side of your close rate.

You're feeding into the top end of your funnel.

That doesn't come from the company.

That's how they can afford you to pay more.

Afford to pay you more because it's self gen, because they're not spending any marketing dollars.

You take that, run your life like a business.

Take radical responsibility for yourself, man.

Buy your own damn leads.

It's easy.

Or here.

This is the single biggest, highest ROI of your time for lead generation.

Go knock on some doors.

I'm about to repost the Becoming the Hunter series.

It's a six part series I did on door Knocking for H Vac where I broke apart every step of the conversation.

So go back, listen to those episodes and go knock some freaking doors.

If you knock 500 doors, which is easy to do in a week, five hours, that's 100 doors a day.

I guarantee you you're going to close $100,000 in business.

If you do that every week.

That's a $400,000 month and you can do this week in, week out.

It doesn't matter the weather, it doesn't matter the time of the year.

Go knock 100 doors.

Go knock 500 doors, you're going to do 100,000 in business.

It's the way it works.

If you actually want to sell millions and millions and millions of dollars, if you want to give yourself a few hundred thousand dollars a year raise, go get good at knocking doors.

I promise, I guarantee it will change your entire life.

When it comes to your revenue, do not worry about what people think about you.

If you actually knew how little they thought about you, it would set you free.

Because they honestly don't, they don't think about you.

They have too much stuff going on in their own lives, in their own head to worry about some.

If some company is knocking on my door to sell me an air conditioner, they don't care, I promise.

So go do it.

You will meet the coolest people and have the best conversations.

Most people don't lack resources, they lack resourcefulness.

So go find some business.

And the thing is on all of these, if you don't sell the project, sell the calendar.

Continue to book the next appointment, from the next appointment, from the next appointment, from the next appointment, start the referral train and start this process.

You won't ever have to beat your head against the wall about follow up again, I promise you.

So it's really, this is a good one because it's a skill that most people don't have, but they absolutely need to develop it.

So it's super important.

If you don't sell the project, sell the calendar.

So thank you, Stephen Dale, for that quote.

It is a good one.

It's going to go in the close it now quote section.

I need to start a quote.

Everybody.

Actually, I'm going to put up a post in the Facebook group.

Everybody, let's do quotes.

Drop your favorite quote on that post and let's lift each other up.

Let's share, let's encourage, let's inspire, let's motivate and get people to the next level.

So it is time.

September 17th.

Right now I'm recording this.

I'm going to launch this episode today as well.

We are taking applications for the fall and the spring fall of 2024, spring of 2025.

For on site trainings.

The spots are extra limited, so reach out ASAP to us about booking that.

You can reach out to me directly samoseitnow.net or go to closeitnow.net, fill out a.

Fill out the form on the website or go to go join the Facebook group.

Just search.

Close it now on Facebook.

Join the Facebook group and pop me a message directly.

We'll get you routed to.

Either you'll talk to me or you'll talk to Steven about what it looks like, we'll get coordinated and get you scheduled because those spots are filling up fast.

And if you want that type of story where your techs can say, I made more in a quarter this year than I made all of last year put together, that's what happens when we coach.

So that is the level of ROI that everyone sees when they bring us out to their facility.

I say everyone, you have to implement.

Of course, implementation is crucial.

If you don't implement and we come out and we train and you're not doing anything that we train you on, I can't help you, of course.

And we also have to make sure that we align.

Right?

If you're listening to this podcast, more than likely the message aligns, but at the same time, it's not for sure.

We gotta make sure.

So let's hop on a call, let's hop on a zoom call and chop it up and see if coaching with us and having us out to do some training at your facility is a good fit.

And I'll tell you if it's not.

That's the main thing is if you've listened to this podcast enough.

You know, this is about transparency, intelligence, integrity and truthfulness.

I'll tell you if we're not the right fit for you too.

There's definitely been companies across the years that I've said, you know what, I don't think we're a good fit for y'.

All.

Your culture is too different than what we promote and we're not going to be involved with it.

And it's okay because there's plenty of trainers out there that more align with your philosophy and your culture.

And that's what I love about our industry is, you know, we've got so many different specialty trainers with very different voices in our industry.

And I love them all.

They all have great information, they all have great content, they're all great trainers.

And I may not personally agree with all of the methodology, but that doesn't matter.

We're all on the same team to help every single one of you grow and become better and just be better people and to sell more and to change the community and change your companies and help grow your employees lives and just to change the world.

So that is the mission, is to be that person worth buying from, right?

And so thank you everybody for listening.

I appreciate it.

Again, go.

I would appreciate a five star Google review or a five star review on Apple podcasts.

And until next time everybody, you go.

Keep crushing it.

Go.

Keep saving the world one heat stroke at a time.

Until next time everybody, be someone worth buying from.

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

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

We hope you've enjoyed the show.

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

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

See you next time.