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.

Welcome back to Close It Now.

My name is Sam Wakefield.

This is your Drive Time University.

Are you out there crushing it today?

I hope you are.

I know I am.

So that is what's going on back and forth, forth between projects.

So yeah, let's do this guys and ladies, because this year 2020 has started off so bizarre.

But I tell you, go back and listen to one of my podcasts I did in late 2019.

I was predicting the future of 2020 being a record year for you.

There's lots of things that are pointing to this being a record year and I'm so excited about it.

It's going to be a record couple years.

The overall equipment sales has been down by like 30% in North America anyway.

I don't know how it was in the rest of the world.

I haven't taken the time to do that investigation.

But if the Global climate for 2019 was just milder, it was a milder year temperature wise, both cooling and heating, which led to a downturn in equipment sales.

So what does that mean for us?

That means there's so much pent up replacement right now in the world that we are going to cash in this year and it's going to be around here a record hot year.

I'm super excited about it.

That means we're going to be able to crush it.

Let's go set some records.

Let's work less and sell more.

Higher ticket prices, higher close rate.

How do we do that?

Well, one is what we're going to talk about today.

We have to paint the picture for ourself.

What does that mean?

If you listen to last week's episode, we talked about painting the picture for the homeowner, being able to give them a vision of what it's going to be like after you've completed the project.

Once they've done the project, what are they going to experience?

What are they going to feel, what's it going to be like?

We have to future cast that vision a little bit.

We're basically leading them through a visualization exercise.

In order to be closers, in order to close the deal, to be stone cold closers, to be top performers, you have to be way more than just someone who learns all of the manufacturer spec sheets.

You have to be way more than somebody that just knows all the details of your product or service.

We've got so many people listening to this podcast that are electricians or they're plumbers or sell cars or even sell home security systems.

Welcome all of you and whatever else you do, let me know.

I would absolutely love to connect with all of you because yes, this is originally this podcast is dedicated to the H Vac project manager, comfort consultant, sales professional.

The philosophy is the same and so what I'm finding is people from all different trades and industries.

Basically, if you deal with people, if you deal with a person and you are responsible for presenting a compelling offer and someone writing you a check and buying your product or service, the philosophy is the same.

And with that, that means we have to be more than just an order taker.

We have to do more, be more, become a person worth buying from.

That means really, we've got to become psychologists.

We cannot just present the logic of why they should go with us.

We have to be more than just someone who knows all the details and all the manufacturer specs and all of the different things about your products and service.

We have to psychologist because your product, your service that doesn't write checks, that is not going to write you a check knowing all the things about somebody's house, the house is not the one that writes you a check.

People will write you a check.

And people are complicated.

There's a lot to learn about people.

It's all of the psychology behind why people buy and why people don't buy.

We have to paint a picture for ourselves where basically we're fact finding.

We find out all of these pieces of information and we have to really kind of build a narrative in our own mind of how what's going on?

What's the big picture?

We have to listen between the lines.

We have to figure out what is going on in their life and in their mind.

That is one, why are you there now?

And two, what's keeping them from just saying yes right away?

What is holding them back?

What are the triggers that are keeping them from making a purchase, from making a buying purchase, from doing the deed.

Right.

So that's what we talk about when we mean paint the picture.

So painting the picture for yourself.

A great, great, great example is say you are, you get an appointment, you go to a house and the system is working.

Maybe it's working, maybe just not super well.

I mean, we've all had these appointments where they're like, well, you know, we're kind of shopping around, we're just getting an idea.

It's working right now, but we know that it's older system.

We had it maintained and the technician said, maybe it's time to start thinking about getting it changed.

I'm not in a rush, but just wanted to get an idea.

We've all had those, especially in the shoulder months in the spring and the fall when it's like, okay, there's no urgency here.

How do we create urgency?

Well, a big part of creating urgency is find out why they called you.

Because if the service tech was out or even if they weren't, even worse is when there's been no service tech there.

They just out of the blue picked up the phone, they got up one morning and said, you know what, I'm just gonna call a bunch of companies and just get a bunch of bids for air conditioners today.

People don't do that.

There's got to be a reason.

There has to be a driver behind what is causing them to take that action.

So that's what I call asking the obvious question.

You've got to start asking obvious questions in the house.

People are tired of self speak and dancing around a topic.

Don't ask seven question that are deflecting questions that are kind of alluding to something.

Just ask the question you wanted to ask to start with.

So anytime I'm in this kind of situation, always ask them.

So, hey, I see that your system's working just fine.

Why now?

What has caused you to pick up the phone and call us?

Why did you schedule this appointment?

And if they dive into, well, you know, we were just thinking about it and it's getting older.

Then press it a little bit, say, okay, yeah, I get that.

But that you could have done this at any time, you know, across the last several months, the next several months, why now?

There had to have been something that sparked you into making the call today.

Would you mind sharing that with me?

And most of the time you're gonna hear something like, well, it was actually giving us problems the other day.

And you're like, oh, really?

Now you have questions you can ask, really tell me more about that, what was going on?

Or a lot of they're like, well, you know, this whole neighborhood was built at the same time.

And I noticed two or three of our neighbors have had their air conditioners changed recently.

And I was asking them about that, and we would much rather do it before ours goes out than have to live several days hot in the house.

Oh, really?

Okay.

And of course, in any time I talk about air conditioning, because that's typically my market here in Austin, Texas.

If you're more in a heating market, but just change the wording to furnace, don't think that this philosophy doesn't apply to you because you're in an area that's mostly cold and you sell heat furnaces and heat pumps.

Okay, it's the same thing.

But you're asking them, you're like, why?

Okay, so now we're starting to recognize if that's the case.

If they've noticed several of their neighbors have had to change their air conditioners and they want to get ahead of the curve on it.

You're like, oh, okay, great.

I understand that, and I applaud you for taking action before required.

That way you can be prepared.

So now you have something to stand on.

The urgency is.

They're starting to become urgency.

At first, it didn't seem like there was urgency.

So this is how we're starting to paint a picture for ourselves.

We do it through questions.

Another example, let's kind of skip that example.

Let's move on to the next example, and let's talk about a homeowner.

The only information that we've been able to get out of the homeowner is, yes, their system is down.

No cooling at all.

No heating at all.

The system's broken, right?

So we get there, and the only information we get from them is we found out the gentleman is like an accountant.

And there is.

So we start to ask more questions.

We're like, okay, well, great.

If you don't ask what somebody does, start doing that and do it in passing.

Don't just ask directly as part of your question process, but in the process, while you're walking around the house, I always ask, oh, so what's your background?

What do you do?

What is your profession?

And so what that will tell you.

And here's where we start really diving into psychology.

What that's going to tell you is how they think about things.

We don't really care what they think about.

We want to know how they think about things.

Because if they are like, this guy was an accountant, okay, that means they're really numbers driven.

You can start to use terms like return on investment, use roi, you can start to use money term.

They're going to be a lot more conscious.

They're also going to be a lot more detail oriented.

So this is not the appointment where you can grab your notepad and just scribble general round numbers.

They want to see numbers to the penny.

They want to see exact numbers.

They want to know exactly how much.

You can't be like, well, you know, it would be about $500 to add this accessory to your system.

They want to know, no, it's going to be $473 to add it to the project.

That's the type of person you have to learn to communicate in the type.

The way people think, how they think about things.

If somebody is in the medical field, lots of clients, for example, take a doctor, start to use terms that relate to them.

When you're describing the heating and air system, the unit outside the compressor instantly becomes the heart.

The refrigerant lines instantly become the blood vessels.

It's pumping your things like, it's pumping the refrigerant back and forth.

It's pumping the prions kind of the blood of the system.

It's pumping back and forth.

Then you start using descriptors and like, so your ductwork, those are like the arteries, right?

Getting the airflow into the house.

Use those kind of terms.

Don't be scared to use analogies that relate to how people think.

If somebody is computer programmer, that's where you all of a sudden, when you're expl the system or you're explaining different things, you're like, okay, great, you're gonna love the system because they've really designed the perfect algorithm to keep humidity control and to keep the temperatures right on and to be most efficient.

You're gonna love the way they've programmed this system.

You're gonna love the ease of programming and the interface for this thermostat.

Use those kind of term, that kind of terminology.

This is painting the picture.

We have to really, really, really take a huge step back because so many times the problem is when we're in the house, you get bogged down in what's the first level problem, which is maybe the system's broken, or maybe there's a room in the corner of the bedroom that's too hot or too cold.

You get bogged down in the.

That's the first level thinking.

And we forget to take a step back and then ask them, why is this a problem?

Is this a concern or is this just an observation for you how big concern is it?

Tell me more about that.

What do you experience because of this?

And then once we understand what the driver is for why something is a problem, not just the fact that there is a problem, but when we understand the driver for why it's a problem for that person and we've taken the step back to paint the picture big enough to see, okay, this person, this is a profession, this personality type, somebody who's just a bottom line person, they want to get right to the point, or somebody who want to kind of meander through the conversation and learn all the details along the way, just talk in terms of how that person is, what is their personality type, Start to study psychology there.

And when you do that, then we can start to be able to communicate in a way that they understand, in a way they relate to, and in a way that they're going to reciprocate the conversation, they come back with the right questions because you've led them down the path in a way that they appreciate, in the timing that they appreciate.

And it's just a fun conversation.

And this is that mental chest match.

This is what makes what we do so much fun.

Because remember, we got to keep fun in this.

If you're not having any fun anymore, find something else to do.

You gotta have fun with what you're doing.

We've got to have fun in the house.

That's the painting the picture for ourselves.

When somebody says, here's a good example of painting a picture for ourself of why they're not buying, right?

Actually, I just had this with two different people this last weekend.

They were pretty positive on the project.

On the scale of 1 to 10, I would say they're probably about a 7, maybe an 8.

Both of these circled around money.

So I had to paint the picture for myself.

Take a big step back.

Okay, what is going on here?

Because they were all excited about the project, ready to get the deal done until right at the last minute.

And it was like, okay, well we're gonna have to talk to my partner.

Okay, well, gosh, we got to think about this.

What are some of the other opt options for payment?

And I'm like, oh, okay.

So then you start, take a step back, really observe.

You're like, okay, these people have their clients of ours, they're repeat clients of ours.

In fact, I know a little bit about what they do, a little bit about their basically kind of income level, all this, the details.

So start asking questions.

I'll say, okay, it's got to be something around the money that's holding them back.

And so I'm going down my mental checklist.

Is it because something changed because of what's going on in the world right now with COVID 19, did something happen to their situation?

Is it something?

Because going through all these things, you know, really kind of thinking about what the situation is.

So then you start to ask the right questions.

So the right questions turned into, okay, so we offer pay by cash or check.

We take credit card or we have finance financing.

What works best for you in both situations?

They both came back with, well, you know, we could pay for it right now for the total project, but we don't want to outlay that much liquid capital at one time.

What other options are there?

So of course then I went back with our financing, which is an option for a really low monthly payment.

So there's some interest attached to it, but it stretches it out for a long time so they get a real low payment.

In both situations they said, you know what, that's not going to work for us.

We don't want any type of interest.

What other options do you have?

Do you have anything that is interest free?

So of course I reached back and said, well, yes, I do.

I'm glad you asked because we have a six month same as cash.

Would that work for you?

In both cases, they were really excited about the project.

It seemed like they were ready to get the project done.

But when it came to time to pay for it, all of a sudden there was hesitation.

So that's when I took the step back and said, okay, it's got to be something surrounding the money.

What is it?

Is it that they don't have the money?

Is it they can get the money, but not right now.

What is going on?

So that's where questions come in.

You have to ask the follow up questions, keep asking questions until you find out what the real reason is that's keeping someone from buying.

And so asking the questions, okay, we've got this.

Would financing work you?

Would credit card work for you?

If I could offer you a little bit of extra discount by paying by cash, would that work for you?

This is great.

So you have to just keep asking the right questions.

And so like Tony Robbins says, ask better questions, get better answers.

And it's just a fantastic way to get to the conclusion, get to the bottom of what's going on.

So that's the topic for today.

You've got to paint yourself your own picture.

The last episode we talked about painting a picture for the homeowner or for the client.

But you got to paint a picture for yourself too.

You've got to take that step back and listen between the lines.

Here's where the resistance is.

Here's the hesitation point.

What is causing this?

If I ask this question, is it going to clarify why they're hesitant here?

Or sometimes the question just needs to be what one thing is holding you back from doing this project?

I asked that with somebody recently.

He said, you know what?

We all of a sudden have to replace our roof this year.

So we're going to push the systems off until next year, but that'll be our next big project.

It's like, I get it, no problem.

You know, your timing is your timing.

We're not here to convince someone to do something that is not in their best interest.

We're here to help them overcome their objections of things that are keeping them from doing the project as long as it is in their best interest.

Never sell someone something they don't actually need or want.

But we can show through education the things that are, that really will be a benefit to the client, benefit to the homeowner, to whoever you're dealing with.

But we've got to figure out what is keeping.

And just asking the obvious question sometimes is the right question of, you seemed really excited about this project.

What's keeping you from pulling the trigger right now?

And just ask them and just ask the straight ahead questions.

Ask straight ahead questions more often than you ask the weird, obscure questions.

Don't listen to sales training from the past that says you have to dance around the subject and dance around the topic and not ask a direct question.

Ask the direct questions.

People want that.

This is the society we live in.

No one has time for the patty cake dance that salespeople, especially in heating and air, used to dance around.

That's silly.

There's no reason an appointment should be more than 45 minutes an hour.

And that's doing everything right.

That's for normal appointments, of course.

You know, obviously depending on your industry and what you do, it may vary or your market complexity of houses, that kind of thing.

But you know, the days of the two, three hour appointments, those are long gone, man.

Better embrace technology.

I mean, so many times appointments nowadays are part in the house and part virtual.

I do a ton of that.

In fact, I've got a whole training that I'm putting together a new method of doing in home sales to be able to use different, to use video, to use all kind of different stuff to use virtual appointments.

So it's more Efficient this way it saves time and people appreciate it and they actually, they buy more and buy better products from you by using technology.

So, so anyway, putting that together, that's going to be awesome.

That's the topic for today.

Paint the picture for yourself.

Ask the right questions to figure out taking a step back and looking at the big picture, what is truly going on here that's keeping them from pulling the trigger with you.

So if you haven't gone to CloseItNow.net and one found our Facebook page, go do that right now.

But also I want to tell you about there is what's called next level coaching.

It's the high performance coaching part of the website, which is basically connects you directly to me.

If you are ready to put your sales career into hyperdrive and start winning the trips to the tropics, winning the big bonuses at your company, at your organization, if you're ready to start adding commas, start getting more comma channels, checks every week, every month, then reach out to me.

We can get you on that path to work less and sell more.

So you can really have a blast in what you're doing, but also crush it in your marketplace.

You know, my idea of competition is their doors are closed because you've taken so much work.

You put them out of business.

That, my friends, is closing it now.

That's dominating the market.

There's no reason you can't dominate your market.

It doesn't matter what size company you are, what size organization, you'd be the only person in your company right now.

Or you could be one of 400 service technicians or 85 comfort consultants.

It doesn't matter any size in between.

There is room to grow and there's plenty of market share for all of us, especially as you start to learn the skills needed to dominate your market.

So reach out to me.

Go to closeitnow.net, send me an email samoseitnow.net and I would love to talk to you about that, see if you're a fit for that program.

Also, let me know what your biggest takeaways from this podcast are.

I love to hear from everyone that's listening.

Let me know what part of the world you're in.

Let me know if there's something you want me to cover in a podcast.

That way we can get your questions answered.

Because if you have a question, that means somebody else does, too.

So thank you for listening today.

I look forward to the next episode.

It's going to be a really good one.

We're going to be talking about integrity.

Integrity is something really important, but more importantly and this was going to be a fun twist how the homeowner does and doesn't have integrity and how to play that chess match.

So that is going to be a really, really fun topic that I'm covering on the next episode.

So everyone, you go out there, make 2020amazing.

Make it awesome.

You go crush it in your marketplace.

Go save the world one heat stroke at a time.

Go save the world one frostbite at a time.

I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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