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.

Hey, hey, hey.

Sam Wakefield here with the Close it now sales training podcast.

So excited to be back.

It has been a minute since I've recorded one of these.

If you've listened to the other podcasts, something you might notice is there is a little difference in sound quality.

Yes, I have upgraded with a new microphone, got a mixer, all of the goodies to actually record a decent sounding podcast for you.

So that is step one.

And you know I'm just here to start of the new season, go over some things that have been happening in my life in the last couple years.

Hopefully that you saw a huge increase in your sales as well in the last couple years.

And we're just going to chat a little bit today.

This is the new, like I said, new season.

We're going to be getting into so much content that so many topics that I want to cover.

I can't do it all in one episode but it is time to.

It's time to up level.

It is time to take your cells to the next level.

It's time to really dial into what is happening in the industry, what is happening in the in North America specifically.

There's so much going on with the energy climate with.

I'm sure you've seen all kinds of things happening.

People are just.

Homeowners are tired of the old sales.

Just bullcrap basically like I said in the in podcast before, people can have their BS meter and it is instantly can sense the BS when it comes from salespeople a mile away.

So this podcast is about learning how to have a normal conversation with homeowners.

We educate homeowners and let them decide.

Of course we're going to help them make the right decision.

The best way that we can help homeowners is by what is by them buying from us.

That's how we know when we firmly believe and know we have the right solution for them then that means our Belief is stronger than their doubt that we can help them.

And so we help them by helping them buy.

People are so conditioned to not buy anything they want to buy.

They don't want to be sold.

People want to buy, they don't like to be sold.

But they're so conditioned not to buy on the first glance at something only because they really just, most of the time, it's either trust or they just don't know that much about it.

So that's how we can help them.

But, yeah, so let's just chat.

I am so happy to be back.

It's been a little bit since I've recorded a podcast.

If you are a longtime listener, I would love to hear from you.

You can email me@samoseitnow.net that's samloseitnow.net and yeah, let me know if you've been around for a bit, listening to the podcast, got a bunch of interviews coming up.

There's so many people that I've met in the last year and a half that I want to introduce to every single one of you that bring massive value, and there's so much I want to cover.

So, first of all, part of the reason that I stopped doing podcasts for a little bit, and honestly, the coaching program, it took a little bit of a break because I went to learn about a new industry and now I'm bringing it back to all of my heating and air professionals because there is something going on in the United States right now that is absolutely shaking things up.

I'm sure you have seen solar panels going up all over the place.

Solar is a baby, teeny, tiny industry.

But Warren Buffett obviously knows a little bit about wealth.

He says that is going to be the biggest wealth transfer in our lifetimes.

So I went to learn that industry so I can bring it back to all of you that are, that want to learn how to incorporate solar into your, into your offering along with your heating and air and basically add to that bottom line without having to add any more trucks to the road.

It's really, really, really cool the way that companies are doing solar and mixing it in with their heating and air right now.

So that's where I've been for the last year and a half.

I found a company to partner up with and learn that process.

So it's been pretty exciting.

Just, oh my gosh, some of the things that we've done as I record more podcasts as we go along, you'll hear more and more about it.

And, you know, if you want, you can you're going to learn how you can get involved as well.

I'm personally training companies how to incorporate it if that is something that they're wanting to add to the add to their mix.

Because I mean, who better to buy solar from than people that homeowners already know like and trust in the home.

So that is something we're going to talk a lot about.

I've got a program rolling out specifically to be able to teach you that and to work with you directly in the areas that it is a good fit also.

I'm so excited.

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited.

So originally when I created the Close it now company, when I created the trainings, when I, when I created the sales system, one of the things that was happening in the world is the reason I created Close it now to start with.

And I don't know if you've heard this story, I think I've told it before in an older podcast, but it's time to retell it.

One of the reasons Close it now started was I was a sales manager at a company in Austin, Texas and we're a growing company, I mean not necessarily enormous, but we tripled in size in three and a half years.

So you know, we went from right around three million two and a half million or so to over eight million in just over three years.

So we were seeing some really amazing growth.

I was bringing on a lot of new people and we sent them off to one of the kind of renown sales training week long boot camps.

I mean not what it's not called a boot camp, so don't go look for it.

But we sent them up to that sales training and they, these, my two, two project managers went up there, they took the week long class, they came back and they showed me the folders that they gave them at the lessons they gave them at the class.

They showed me their folders with the slide deck and it was the exact same slide deck that I had personally taken in that over a decade before that.

And it blew my mind.

I said, man, throw these in the trash.

This is gross.

This is junk.

This does not work anymore.

Raise your hand if you have recognized how over time as the Internet changes as information is more readily available as just people's buying habits, society's buying habits, they change over time.

So raise your hand if you've noticed that.

Also raise your hand if you recognize that if you don't change things, you're going to get left behind.

If you don't like change, you're going to have to get used to extinction because it's really ridiculous what happens with so many of these places that they build a reputation on a really strong maybe sales training, you know, sales training curriculum that they've put together but they don't update it over time.

And when that happens you end up with people that.

So maybe it's better than not having a system.

But I mean how many people want a salesperson to walk into your house?

I mean use yourself as the guinea pig, use your spouse, use your partner, ask your mom and dad if somebody walked into your house and they start requiring, you must tell me yes or no by the end of this call if everything works out.

Money aside, no is a perfectly acceptable answer.

But you're going to tell me yes or no by the end of this call.

Who wants that anymore?

I mean we're literally talking about 15 year old verbiage that's not going to work in today's.

Yeah, it might work some, but there's a better way to do it.

I mean that's just one of the examples coming out of this training.

I was like, oh my gosh, this is no good.

So we started adapting, started creating a new system and it's in fact in the last year and a half it's evolved even more from what it was a year and a half ago when we were coaching at that point.

And so basically what I'm trying to say is you have to stay in touch with the buying habits of society.

You have to stay in touch with the buying habits of people, of just the general population.

Knowing those statistics and knowing those buying habits will absolutely inform you in how you approach things, how you move forward.

So that's what I've been doing for the last year and I have been studying a lot about how people buy things.

We've definitely adapted the close it now sales system to adjust to that.

Adjust with technology.

There's so many tools that we can use now that I mean who's watching everything that's going on with like ChatGPT and with ChatGPT, with AI, with all the, with Bard, all the different AI tools that are out there.

If you're not actively looking at using some of that in your daily life, you're going to get also going to get left behind.

We're absolutely going to be incorporating that into our sales process, into our follow up process and I'm going to teach you how because it's a really exciting time that we're living in.

Never before have we had the tools at our fingertips that we can use to help more people, to help more people save, help more people get more comfortable, help them solve the problems that are like weighing on them every single day.

And you have the solution.

How can we more efficiently use the tools at our fingertips to close more deals?

Because that's what it's all about, right?

That's why you're listening to.

I mean, raise your hand if you're listening to sales training.

Just strictly because it's fun.

I don't think so.

The end goal, we're not trying to, you know, we're not.

Nobody wants a half inch drill bit.

Everybody wants a half inch hole.

So the end of the day, we're here to make more sales, we're here to make more money.

Raise your hand if you like money, because I know I do.

And it's about helping people in order to accomplish that.

I mean, Zig Ziglar, the late, great Zig Zig Zig Ziglar said, excuse me, if you help enough people get what they want, you can have anything you want.

So the focus is always external, it's always integrity.

It's always with that heart of helping people.

And so that's where we're at.

So that's what I've been doing.

I learned a whole new industry and I've come back to share that.

I've updated the sales training system or the cell system.

I've updated the.

We've got some courses coming out.

The book is.

The book is just about completed, so that'll be coming out sometime.

Fingers crossed.

Sometimes sometime this year and.

But most, more than anything, you know, the emails, the messages, the.

All of the people in the Facebook group have just been.

Everyone is so.

It's such a great community.

I love the heating and air industry because it's something that people always need anywhere you go in the world.

I mean, this podcast, for example.

I didn't know when I started this podcast it was going to be as far reaching as it is when I look at the analytics over time.

Basically every country that gets warm at all and speaks any level of English, somebody in that country has listened to this podcast in the last few years.

And I'm just so blessed and so grateful.

And I live in a constant state of just gratitude for every single one of you that even just listen.

I do this because I like it, because I think it's fun, because I really want to make an impact.

I want to help you go from, from, you know, from just being okay to barely getting by to, you know, from those levels to being the rock star in your company, the rock star in your city, the rock star in your network.

Somebody that everyone looks up to and says, send that person.

They close the deals that nobody else can close.

I want to help you rise to that level of, you know, like I've said before, stop being weird and start selling.

Just get out there and just have fun.

Be efficient.

You don't have to just work your face off and get a divorce and your kids hate you because you work all the time.

You don't have to work that much to make a amazing living, to make a very abundant, high multiple six figure income in heating and air, still have an amazing life and more importantly, make an impact in people's lives.

I mean, that's what it's all about.

I love helping people.

I hope you do too.

Need to grab a drink of my water right now.

But also, I'm such a coffee fanatic.

There's some new coffee we've discovered lately that is actually a brand called Bones Coffee.

We had a friend of ours that we ordered a pack of coffee they had.

She's super into the Nightmare Before Christmas.

So actually Bones Coffee had a special run on.

All the different flavors were characters from Nightmare Before Christmas.

So we've been going through those different, different flavors lately.

In no way am I getting paid by them.

This is not an ad or anything.

I'm just talking about coffee.

So I love coffee.

If you're into coffee, shoot me a message.

Let me know what your favorite coffee is.

I'm always looking for a new blend or a new bean to give a try because I just am a coffee fanatic.

I'm a coffee snob, if you will.

If you come to Austin and visit me, I will take you to some of the most amazing, amazing coffee places here.

There's some really good ones.

But back to topic.

So we've got a lot coming out this year.

The coaching program is in full swing again right now.

If you happen to catch this podcast in the month of May 2023, there's a spring training sale that's happening.

So reach out about that.

Also, the Facebook group, if you didn't know that we have a Facebook group.

We have over 1600, almost 1700 members now.

It's growing every single day.

You've got to get in the Facebook group.

I do a lot of lives.

Facebook lives in there.

Live video, where basically I go in and, you know, questions.

It's open question Friday.

It's like I was going there.

Free training Friday.

I call it.

I'll put a Post.

I'll do it today.

Usually Monday or Tuesday, I'll put a post in there and just ask what questions do you have?

You know, what are you struggling with?

Any topics anybody wants me to cover.

And then on Fridays I'll hop in, we'll do a Facebook Live.

We'll cover the questions from the week, cover the struggles everybody's going or whoever posts the comment is going through.

And there's been times where I've had people come on live or just put in questions while it's happening and just answer questions in real time.

It's really fun.

It's a great place to hang out and just get to know everybody in the community.

I love doing the free training Fridays because it's just a good time.

So join the Facebook group.

There's a link from the website.

Go to CloseItNow.net, you can link to the Facebook group.

Straight from there it just says join our group right on the front.

And so that's the easiest way to find the Facebook group or just go on Facebook and search.

Close it now.

Everything is branded under the same, under the same name.

The other thing that I'll be doing is we're going to do some role play.

We're going to do a lot of training and I'm going to record some videos.

We're going to be going into opening up the YouTube channel coming this year.

So I'm really excited about that.

And also I want to interview some of your favorite people.

We've got some interviews in the past.

We did Tall Paul from Contractor Commerce.

I've interviewed Jean Slade, we've interviewed Travis Knight.

Who else have we interviewed?

A bunch of interviews.

Tom Whitman.

Jimmy Jes has been on a couple times.

We've got a lot of interviews set up.

But I want to know who you want me to interview.

Who do you want to hear from?

Send me an email.

Sam.

Closeitnow.net or just hop into the Facebook group and leave a comment.

Hey, would you like, would you interview and leave me the name?

Who do you want me to interview?

I've got a lot of connections into some different spaces so we can.

It can be heating and air related, it can be solar related.

Basically anybody.

I have a handful of networks that I can reach into and really get some heavy hitters in for interview if you would like me to.

But I need to know who you want to hear from that is, you know, being the sole content creator here.

I sometimes it's not that I run out of ideas but I want to know what you want to hear how can I help serve you?

If you have questions about the industry, questions about sales lately too, I've been thinking about doing a whole series on all of the additional things that have to do with sales or just business in general.

Let me know in email or on the Facebook group if you would like me to do anything that has to do with like paying taxes or you know, how does an entrepreneur handle that?

We're definitely very entrepreneurial minded.

So we're going to talk a lot coming up about the differences in like you know, one is if you're a 1099, how to do your taxes.

Don't get behind on things.

What could be a tax write off?

I'm thinking about doing a whole segment on what constitute a tax write off, thinking about doing just a lot of different things.

So let me know what you want to hear.

If I don't know it, I can get an expert on the podcast that does know what we're talking about.

Because that's the beauty of being able to do this is sharing.

Sharing is caring.

And so I'm just so excited about 2023.

I'm excited about the future of home improvement.

You know, there's so many doom and gloom people out there that are talking about how the dollars get a crater and all these things going on in the world and China and just so much junk, so much negativity.

And I don't know about you, but from where I sit, I see the opportunity for home improvement, for heating and air, for solar, for any trade even to be bigger and better than ever than it ever has been.

Right now we're sitting in such a pivotal moment of one.

There's so much pent up replacement that hasn't happened in the last four to five years.

Heating and air.

That is especially because of the equipment shortage the last couple years.

So much pent up replacement that that's equipment in the United States that needs replaced.

Well, not just the United States, that's around the world.

This is global.

I mean it's a global problem that happened after the pandemic.

During and after the pandemic, so much pinup replacement has happened that and people just kind of put it off and put it off and put it off.

They were repairing and so now what?

Where are we now?

What's happened?

We're at this place where it's just we're going to hit a tipping point where equipment will die over and over and over.

Who is going to be there to be able to help these people and serve them who can be there fast enough?

Who can grow their business to the place where you have the staff to be able to support it?

Which of you salespeople is doing things right now to dig the well before you need it?

I mean, we all know what do we do to create a consistency year round?

You know, not just in the peak season, but in the shoulder months.

Man, I'm so excited.

We're going to talk a lot about that.

We're going to talk about.

You know, in the last couple years, I've really dove a lot into investing, into buying leads.

You know, if you're not taking ownership and responsibility for your own income and you're only leaving it up to the company to provide the leads for you, shame on you.

That is being lazy.

I'm here to tell you there is.

It's not necessarily that there's a better way, but there is definitely something.

So many more things that you can do to create leads that you're not doing right now that will change your revenue and change your income dramatically.

In the last couple years, I've learned so many different things.

One, from buying leads, I've learned about how to use so many better ways to be able to ask for and get referrals from every.

There's not a single appointment that you make a sale in that you shouldn't walk out of that house with at least one to three names and phone numbers of people from that specific homeowner.

That referral train should be going on infinitely.

Also, I mean, there's something that, and I know being in the heating and air world, I came from there, something called door knocking and canvassing that is happening across the country.

There's a movement right now where people are getting back to grassroots camp, guerrilla marketing like that.

And it's extremely effective.

It's so effective.

And I know what you're thinking.

I came from the same place you are right now.

Oh, my goodness.

Heating and air.

We don't ever have to knock doors, service, drive sales, all those things.

But I'm here to tell you you're missing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars of sales because you're choosing not to do the hard things.

So I'm here to tell you there's so many different ways to do things.

We're going to cover all of them in this upcoming podcast season.

I'm so excited.

Season three is on the books.

Episode number one of season three.

This is it.

Let me know.

You can email me again.

Samoseitnow.net, what do you want me to cover this season.

We've got so much happening.

I'm going to fill up a lot of episodes, but I want to direct them to you.

What are you experiencing?

What is your struggle?

What do you want to know about?

Who do you want me to interview?

Yeah, you name it, we're going to make it happen.

We've got so much coming out.

We're going to be doing a lot of training on different topics.

We're going to start doing some crossmodernation with that's where this mojo and that mojo cross moginates.

I don't know if you've ever watched Austin Powers, but that's one of my favorite lines from there.

But we're going to do a lot of that type of mix.

We're going to talk about some solar along with heating and air.

We're going to do some solar training.

I spent the last couple years learning that as well.

Last two and a half years learning that as well.

And I know a lot of you out there.

I see you in the Facebook group.

You're starting to.

Your company has brought on solar and is selling that also.

How do we handle that?

How do we mix them together?

Right?

That's a big one.

That's a big topic.

That's a hot, hot topic right now.

How do we mix it together?

Does it confuse the homeowner or is it simple?

I am all about keeping things as simple as possible.

So we're going to do that also.

Coaching program is really in full swing.

We've got just three people enrolled between yesterday and today.

Some of the spots are running out right now.

If you want to know more about the high performance coaching program, I haven't had a single person go through the high performance coaching program that didn't increase their numbers at least 20%.

Most people, it's been dramatically higher than that.

So let me know if you want more info on the high performance coaching program.

Pop me an email.

We can set up a call to see if it's a good fit for you.

But I'm here to help you make more money this year.

That is my mission.

My purpose is to inspire, encourage and motivate you to take steps outside of your comfort zone.

The magic happens outside of your comfort zone.

If you start feeling uncomfortable about something, if it's like a technique or something you're doing in your sales presentation, something to get more leads.

If you start feeling uncomfortable with it, that's when you know you're in the right spot.

That's when you know you're doing the thing that you should be doing.

Because here's the secret.

Millionaires and wealthy people do the things that people that are not wealthy don't think they do.

I'm going to say that again.

Wealthy people do the things that people who are not wealthy don't think they do.

And by what do I mean by that?

I mean the simple things.

The simple things that actually move the needle forward in productivity.

You know, there's a big difference between being busy and being productive.

We're going to talk a lot about the difference in just busyness and, and actually income producing activities.

We're going to become so efficient in your income producing activities that people will look at you be like, how in the world, how in the hell are you accomplishing so much in that amount of time?

Because for most people, they just, they get stuck in this rut of time wasting activity.

They might get a little bit accomplished, but it's mostly time wasting activity.

Momentum is so hard to gain and so easy to lose.

Momentum is gained and lost daily.

So we have to remember that and be very intentional with our life, be very intentional with ourselves, very intentional with our training and very intentional with where we focus and where we put our time.

Because what you focus on, you find.

And so what we are going to find through this podcast and through this training is more money, more service to others, making a bigger impact in the world, making a bigger impact for our own lives, for others lives and just overall a better way of life.

Let's be more efficient.

So yeah, stop being weird and start selling.

That is still the main tagline of this podcast and I'm so excited to be back.

I am here to rock and roll with you and let's get this party started with season three, episode one in the books, Drive Time University.

I hope you're out there crushing it.

I know I am.

Let's go make a difference in the world.

Let's go save the world one heat stroke at a time.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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