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.

All right, welcome back to Close It Now. Hey, this is a quick little intro because I realized once we got into this episode that we just jumped in and didn't do a whole lot of introduction or announcements or anything. So there are a couple quick announcements that I want to make sure that you are aware of before we hop into this episode. The first one is in Boston. We are hosting the Close It Now Spring Bootcamp. It is going to be awesome. It is called Relentless, the ultimate sales transformation. And it is true. It's going to be exactly that. For all of you who have been wanting to get some training that you're wanting to uplevel, you're wanting to get ready for 2025 to make it your most incredible year ever, this is the perfect time to do it. It's going to be April 29th, 30th and let's see, let me look at my calendar here. It's going to be right at the end of April, right at the beginning of May. So April 29th, 30th and 31st is what it looks like. You can go to the Eventbrite link which is in the show notes here. Also make sure to click on that ur that QR code that came up on the graphic that will get you to our link tree and new announcement. We have launched the YouTube channel. You can now find close it now on YouTube. We are Daily uploading podcasts and just a ton of other stuff we're going to be putting on the YouTube channel. So make sure to check that out. Last thing before we get into this episode is we are booking for 2025 for the on site trainings for your company. Make sure to reach out to get us on the schedule because those spots are going fast. There has been a lot, a lot, a lot of people reaching out Getting booked for 2025, reach out as soon as you can. You can hit me@sam closeitnow.net or just go to closeitnow.net, and you can fill out a form there. Email me directly or you can go to the Facebook, find Closing out on Facebook, join the Facebook group that will make sure that you are in a ton of the trainings that we do in there and you can contact us that way. So make sure to reach out. Let's get in touch and get the training scheduled for your team for this coming for 2025 because it is going to be off the charts. So last, very last thing here on that topic, everyone who reaches out and books for 2025 before the end of 24. So if you're booking for 2025, if you're hearing this and you are in 2024, reach out and get booked. If you book during this right at the end of this year, there is an extra special bonus for you that no one else will get that books for 2025 in 2025. So I want to make sure that you are aware of that as well. All right, let's get into a little bit of it's been a minute since I've done a what's in your cup? So let's do that. I am really excited about my coffee today. It's kind of a mix though. So we're back in back in regular coffee land. We only had a little bit of the has anybody out there tried the Starbucks special reserve yet? It is pretty dang good. I'm going to give it that. It is a really freaking good coffee. I recommend it. I haven't tried all of the different regions yet, just the first one, but. So this is a mix of a Starbucks special blend. And also there is a little roastery in Longview, Texas that I actually picked up a couple bags of beans at. This one is the Silver Grizzly. So we've got some mixed match going on, some hodgepodge. But if you're like me, you're, you know, I'm a coffee snob, but also I hate wasting coffee. So we've got this last little bit. We're going to mix it up, see how it is. So what is in your cup today, everybody? Let's take a drink. As a community of top performers, top achievers, we earn our coffee. And so let's in 3, 2, 1, take a drink with me. 3, 2, 1. Ah, that is good for the day. So. All right, everybody, let's get into this episode you are going to love truly is one of the cool things about doing what I do is we get to talk to a lot of people in and outside of the H Vac industry. Now this guy, he's pretty cool. I mean, everybody's cool that's on the show. But this one's different because he comes from the world of door to door, right? And you're going to get a lot of we're going over recruiting, we're going over training, we're going over a lot of different things of scalability in this episode. But one of the interesting things that you need to know also is this gentleman also owns a heating and air company. And in one year, in less than a year, they are pushing $5 million strictly because they haven't spent any marketing dollars. They have just built a team of people on the doors and they go out and literally door knock for H Vac and their company is going to do 5 million year one on the doors exclusively. So this is proof that it works. And so you're going to love this episode and you're also going to love what program. I've got a couple different coaching programs that and basically it's a done for you package to get your door team up and running and get them going as soon as we possibly can. So you can see that kind of growth as well. So let's get into this episode and I want to hear what your big takeaways are. Also, if you've ever gotten value from Closeit now, I would absolutely appreciate it if you went over to Google, to Facebook, to Spotify, all the places that you can leave a review, especially Google reviews and Apple podcasts and leave me a five star review, that would be incredible. And if I read your review on an episode and mention your name and you hear it and you message me, you get a free coaching session, which one off. Coaching sessions are usually about a thousand bucks. So that is my gift to you for leaving me a review and that will be much appreciated. And everybody, thank you for joining me today. I'm excited. Let's get into this episode.

One of the most unique podcasts on the web. We talk about H Vac and home improvement, yet we throw in fitness, nutrition and personal growth. This is Close it now. And here's your host, Sam Wakefield.

Well, all right, Sam Wakefield here. Stoked to have you back to the another episode of Close It Now. We are rocking out today. We are back on the doors today for all of you that have been reaching out lately about, hey, you were talking about Door too. A bunch. Then it seemed to disappear for a little while. Well, yes and no. It didn't disappear. We just have a lot to cover. So that's why sometimes things go in seasons. But I'm stoked because we've putting together something really incredibly special for all of you and it's going to be really exciting when we, when I get this package put together, we're going to have a couple different ways that you as the H Vac professional, can capitalize on the incredible opportunity that is door to door. So all of that set aside, I'm happy to introduce our guest today. This gentleman is, if you're anywhere around the door to door space, his name and reputation, reputation goes before him. He, he has been involved in building, growing and selling sales teams. In fact, he founded and grew the largest door to door team in history of 15,000 reps that sold for nine figures, everybody. That is pretty freaking incredible. So we're talking about numbers that a lot of us in H Vac don't quite get our heads around just yet, but we're going to. And so we're talking about just the sales team, not the whole company. We're talking about just the sales team sold for nine figures. So I want to emphasize that for a second. But anyway, super excited to have you on the show today. We're going to talk about a whole lot of different things. Clark Manwaring, thank you for being here today, sir.

Yeah, thanks for having me, man. To clarify, I didn't found the company that would be super, super cool if I founded it, but yeah, did build that sales team. Super big blessing to be a part of and yeah, I'm glad that we were able to connect. I, I know I've missed like the last two times that I think we've scheduled, so. Yeah, it's all good.

Well, you know, when you're a big baller like yourself with the corner office and the, the windows looking over, you know, out in Utah, it's good to. It's pretty hard to get on the schedule.

Zoom filter.

Yeah, Good stuff. Well, that was a little bit of the highlight reel, but give us a little bit more in depth, man. When we start these interviews, people want to know a little bit of your history. There was one piece that I left out that I'll let you land with, but yeah, give us a little bit about where you came from and, and why you're in the hot seat today. Why should everybody be listening?

Your choice if you want to listen. But yeah, I appreciate it. I've Been in the door to door space for 13 years now. So over a decade, everything from selling religion. I was a Mormon missionary out in Columbia. I did landscaping door to door back when I was a teenager for my uncle's company. And then, you know, I, I've been in everything from roofing to solar to H vac to fiber to windows. If, if there is a door to be knocked to sell something direct to consumer, there's a very damn good chance that I help build a team for it. So, yeah, as of right now, I'm one of the partners and CRO over at JKR Windows, we're approaching a hundred million dollars a year also. All fueled by door to door. We don't do any other advertising. I don't know if you want to call it traditional advertising, but people probably door to door as traditional advertising. So we'll flip the script. And then apart from that, I am a majority owner over at Mint Heating cooling out in LA. We're ramping up. We're at about 5 million, which I would consider still very small per year and kind of, I mean, it's less than a year old, so.

Hey, hang tight. Let's pause real quick. I just want to camp out that. Yeah, 5 million. An H Vac company that's less than a year old.

Yeah, 100%. And I mean, it's a hybrid. It's, it's fueled by door to door. Ideally, you know, we want to start moving to the point where we're reinvesting funds from door to door into, you know, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, LSA, all types of leads and just diversify a little bit more.

Oh, I love this. So for everybody listening, don't let that pass you by. We're talking about door to door today. This H Vac company is driven by door to door. And first year, the number, it is approaching 5 million, which of course in the industry, you know, to do 1 million in year one is setting some pretty serious, like pretty seriously fast pace. So I love that you're 5xing it right, right out of the jump. So congratulations for that. That's a huge accomplishment for sure.

Appreciate it. Yeah, 100%. It's been really fun to be a part of and I, I think there's only more to come. I mean, we're introducing a lot of, I think, really groundbreaking things. Generational comp plans, a path of progression which is a staple of door to door.

Right.

Yeah. I'm just really stoked on what's to come.

Wild. I love seeing that Come into the H vac space because it's never existed before.

Not really.

Seriously innovating some things here, which is pretty cool. So let's dive into this a little bit though, because for a lot of people listening, they're thinking, how in the world is that even possible?

Right?

I don't even know. Like first year, 5 million. How'd you even put the people together to. To do that, let alone to do that type of volume? So let's kind of start there. Let's. You know, recruiting is always a big topic that people ask me about. How do we find people? Where do we find them? Tell us a little bit about that. How'd you find the people to get started?

Yeah, I mean, to answer the question, what makes it possible? People make it possible every single time. There's. I, I would say people and systems. Right. And I, I see recruiting as this five part ecosystem. I remember as a kid, you know, being in class and they talked about Yellowstone and how there was. I think they killed off all the gray wolves at one point. And so that makes, you know, an overabundance of whatever deer they were eating. And then that eats the grass. And the grass doesn't support certain types of, you know, bugs that pollinate other plants. And then you start to get this ecosystem that dies. So, like one thing's out of whack. The entire thing goes out of whack. And so I think it's kind of this balance, and I see it as, number one, sourcing more than anybody, like having. And I'm not trying to say hire more than anybody. That maybe is the byproduct. Like nowadays I'll hire 100 people plus for my window company that go out and sell for us. However, it's really just saying we have more of a selection than anybody. We have more people, more eyeballs that are ready to take a look at our vision. Number two is that we fire quickly. So we want to make sure that. Yeah, that really the top performers feel like they're valued by making sure that they're not sharing airspace with people that don't give a. Sure.

Yeah, yeah.

And, and likewise, you know, the, the, the dead beats, if you want to call it that. I think that's accurate. We'll look at the top performers and be like, oh, I'm in the wrong room. So you get attrition both ends. So just like the, the Yellowstone thing, we're kind of like setting fire to the forest artificially so that we're keeping the whole forest healthy. When forest fires do come. So it's, it's like artificial attrition with which I think is healthy. Number three is that we promote just as quick, if not quicker than we fire. So we want people to see quick promotion. That doesn't have to mean money, that doesn't have to mean even title. That could be even just responsibilities. Like hey, you're running this sales meeting today. But I want my people to see growth and quicker than they've ever seen it in any other place. For four is that once we've promoted them, we want them to go and share it. So like what I do naturally, like I'll source from and we can talk about sourcing. You said that's kind of a sore spot. You're right, sure.

Yeah. Nobody really even knows where to find people, right?

No, not at all. And I'm happy to comment on that. No gatekeeping today. So.

Yeah, good stuff.

But yeah. So in, in that step we now want them to grow by multiplication. What I do is just bricklaying, right. I just, I just lay one rep on top of another rep on top of another, train them and then do it again. And, and I'm, I'm growth by addition. Like I, I should be a supplement to my team. But the best recruit, highest quality is going to come from the, the organic network of reps that are already there. There's a good chance that even myself, you, we all have higher performing people than us potentially already in the context of our phone. So I want to multiply at that point. I want them to bring in their friends. And then number five is, if you're a big reader, it's the 21st of the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. It's that we live the law of legacy and we should desire for the people, if you want to call it under us to have what we have, be what we are, know more than we do, be more successful in every way. And so we design a comp plan that, that does that at the companies I work with. So the combination of those five things now is rinse and repeat and we scale responsible scale. Right. So hopefully that, that kind of gave a, a little bit of a, I, I guess the ecosystem so that this doesn't sound super irresponsible. I'll have people be like, you know, it, it sounds like it's just absolute gasoline on the fire when we hire. And that, that sounds crazy irresponsible. I, it couldn't be more opposite. I'll kind of show you what I mean. Right. So yeah, for sure. But you know, when we talk about sourcing, I see it like, I don't know if you have kids, but whether you have or not, I hope you've seen it. Emperor's New Groove.

Oh yeah, of course.

Disney movie. Okay. Do you remember at the beginning where Cusco's, he's got a whole bunch of concubines in front of him. As a kid, you don't know they're concubines.

Right, right.

He's, he's going too fat, too ugly, too skinny. You look like you'd have a great personality. He, what he's doing there is, he's saying, I've, I've got quantity, I've got choices, so I can get as specific as I want. It's so funny in, in the sales ecosystem you hear all the time leaders that are like, you just need to have an abundance mindset. But it's so funny, they, they have so few resources when it comes to hiring that when they finally get a recruit, they get a salesperson, they're like, I never want you to leave.

Right.

They resource guard they.

Or let them tear down the culture just because they. That can fog a mirror.

No. Spot on. Yeah. Or even people that do sell a million plus a year, it's like, well, that, that person degrades the culture. You could have three more million dollar producers on your team, but that person is, is, you know, limiting the whole team as a whole. So. But yeah, so to, to speak to sourcing. I mean, I see sourcing the way that, you know, our ancestors did the wake fields and the man wearings just like. Right. Or it caught one cottage next to the other. The way that they saw sourcing food was like, we either have to hunt it or we have to go farm it. And it's kind of, it's not mutually exclusive. Right. Like, it's not like we're just going to do one this year and then all the kids are like, no, we have to be vegans. Right, Right. So. So recruiting is the same way when it comes to farming. I mean, I developed a system about five years ago that essentially pushes out ad copy to 80 plus different places at a time. So when I make an ad for a position that I want to hire for, it doesn't matter if it's text, doesn't matter if it's Salespeople, at least 80 different places are going to go and push that out in the location that I want. So if I'm in Dallas Fort Worth, then that means I'm taking the multimillion person population and saying, how do I just buy up as much attention for the lowest cost? Right. Attention is the. It's the hottest commodity there is. It's more expensive than oil, than gold. So I'm, I'm buying that at a, like a micro dose, if you will, through my system. And then everybody who comes in through that, it's kind of this wide net. Right. It's just like the Cusco example. When I throw out a net into the ocean, I'm going to catch more trash than fish.

Mm.

But it has to happen that way, and I anticipate it. So jkr, for example, my window company, I came in mid May of this year and as of yesterday morning when I came in to check our applicants, we've had. We just barely got over the cusp of 12,000 applicants since. Moly. Moly yesterday.

Yeah.

We're not crazy big. That's like four markets, four cities. Right. So. So did we hire 12,000 people? No. Did we hire half of that? No. A tenth of that? No.

We.

We didn't even hire 5% of that. We hired like 3% of that, which this is unfathomable in the world of H Vac, but that's like almost 500 people. What that 500 does though, is it means that, like, I. I know that I'm picking out the needles in the haystack. I'm taking the fish out of the garbage net in fishing all of the.

Biggest fish in the smaller pond. Right.

You nailed it. I'm picking the one concubine out of the 15 that they're presenting. Emperor Cusco. Right. So that's kind of. Farming is just. I'm looking for entry level talent. I hear the debate all the time in H Vac, like, do you want to bring in entry level talent or do you want to bring in advanced level talent? And it's like, why do those have to be mutually exclusive?

Yeah.

Can I. Can I not poach incredible talent from my competitors? And then can I not cultivate ground up people that are loyal to me from the beginning? Like, you can have both. Right, Right. So. So farming allows me to find that entry level avatar. And then hunting is headhunting. So whenever I'm headhunting, which is a lot of my role, if I'm spending time on an interview, it's got to be with somebody who knows their shit. Headhunting for me means that I've got about 160 million Americans worth of data on a platform and I just send in something to scrape it. So I talked about being a Mormon missionary. Mormon missionaries crush at door knocking.

Right, of course, yeah.

So I can go look for that avatar if I know I do well with those. I could say, well, let's pick The Mecca, Provo, Utah, 25 miles around Provo. And let's say that they have to have gone through a two year Mormon mission and they have to be graduating within the next four years. So they're young. They have to have done at least one summer of pest control door knocking, which is a grind for very little money. And then I know that I've got my avatar. If I can then buy up that data and funnel them into an interview with me, it's game over, it's lights out. That's millions of dollars of revenue per person.

Right. So, yeah, and this is really cool because. So one of the things that we hear, and I'm sure you can probably speak to this, especially in a industry like H Vac, where the production side is a lot heavier. Right. Or solar or whatever. So I see this have been done in solar. Let's talk about H Vac for a second though. When we're talking about hiring this many people at a time, you know, even five or ten at a time, let alone a hundred people at a time that are just going to go sell. Right. So it sounds to me like there's a couple different things that are kind of the looming questions. One is how the heck do you train that many people at once? Is one the obvious one. The second one, the second second layer question though is what would happen if we brought in 50 people and everybody went and sold a system today? Then what would we do with that? Right. So talk a little bit about, you know, I'm sure you've got some incredible trainings built for the people you're bringing in, but also the production side, how do we pace this so we don't outsell ourselves? Because we've all seen huge companies go under that have been outsold.

Yeah, you know, I think that's great. So in terms of training, I think the. It's important to clarify, like my H Vac company is into the point where we're hiring a hundred a month, we're maybe hiring somewhere in between 10 and 20amonth, which still I'm sure sounds absurd to some traditional H Vac owners that I know. But the way that you. I mean, regardless of scale, whether that's five to 10 people, whether that's 50, it's having a system in place. I think that some of the best business leaders That I know are, you know, they're conductors, for lack of a better word. They're not like, incredible brains. Steve Jobs would consider himself in that category. He had Steve Wozniak to do his. His tech stuff. He had Tim Cook for the. The business stuff. All he had to do is lead the orchestra, just conduct them, and he knew that the system worked. If I have a system that catches people, then. Then we're golden. So I think that for training you, I can't preach enough. You know, I. I would say replicating your top guy, taking your top guy, dissecting them, and creating training that allows people to have everything that they have with no gatekeeping, but apart from that is just preliminary training. Like, for example, it, you know, at Mint, we have this preliminary training where, you know, they're having to memorize a script word for word before they even come into the training. Like, don't feel bad asking your people to do extra work before they come in. Your teachers made you do summer reading before a high school class. Like, you're telling me I can't tell a grown adult that they're going to make an extra 200k a year for doing a little bit extra reading to.

Learn one little, like, paragraph? Really?

100%. So, yeah. So memorizing the pitch before they get there, word for word, passing it off. We've got an LMS that we use, so a learning management system that, I mean, it's just custom to the company you don't want to go by. I know there are people that are acolytes to the Grant Cardone thing, but it's like, Grant Cardone's never gone and sold H Vac. Grant Cardone's never sold a window, but my guys do. My guys would beat him nine times. 10 times out of 10, 11 times out of 10, because they do it every day. So we develop a learning management system that feels kind of just like modules that they go through. You can gamify it, make it exciting and fun for them and not just boring. And then they'll usually attend a prerecorded webinar with myself. So that means, you know, I want to buy myself back bandwidth. If you're a business listening to this, you are yourself, Sam. You know, we didn't go into business to buy ourselves a glorified job. So there's no glory in saying, I work 80 hours a week. That's like, awesome divorces, kids that you didn't get to see grow up, and you don't even use the money you make. That sounds terrible. So pre recorded webinar where I'm teaching the same thing over and over again. 5pm every day. My people think it's live, but I'll train them on para verbals, non verbals at the door, best practices, mindset, the path of progression and how to promote, how to harvest their warm network for recruiting leads or sales leads, all of those things. So before somebody even comes in, they know what promotes them, what fires them, what makes them great already. And they've at least have all the right words on the tip of their tongue so they don't have to reinvent the wheel. And I let the system do do its work at that point.

I love it. Use the tools. Don't be the tool.

That'S going up on the wall, man.

Yeah, it's huge. It's huge. That's right. And this is really powerful.

Did you want me to go to the tech side kind of scaling the ops?

Yeah, yeah, in a second. Real quick before we do. One thing that I really am hearing and for everybody listening, this is being reinforced by probably the last half a dozen of guests that we've had on here, which is get your systems in place. You cannot get them in place fast enough before you grow. Right. They just can't happen. You can only grow to the limit of what your systems will allow you to go to. So if you have a system that will train 100 people or 500 people at a time, you can grow to that or not. Does your system only allow you to train two people at a time? So everybody listening be thinking about that and see all of this through that lens. Not only what we're hearing from Clark, but also what does my system look like? What does it look like in my company? And how can we start to scale that and think in terms of multiplication instead of addition? So yes, let's get some more of the technical side of things because it's just as huge. And that's, that's. And honestly that's always been the big hesitant for most people is they want to be a hundred million dollar a year company, they want to be all of this, but at the same time they're scared to add salespeople because then they think they can't support them with leads. But then on the flip side, what if they did sell everything and then now we don't have anybody to put it in? So then we've gotta wait. People are waiting a week or two weeks for install and it's AC and all this. So talk to that.

Yeah, I Think, you know, I'll make sure that we don't push off that question anymore. We'll talk about the tech side and scaling that side. But I love to speak to, you know, I don't feel like I want to hire more salespeople because I'm afraid I wouldn't have leads with them. Now you and I both see the straight through that where it's just like.

It'S the whole dichotomy, right?

Yep, 100%. So when we talk about scaling, I think that the thing that, you know, I'll have salespeople sometimes that will put their foot on the, on the brakes. Like when I came into jkr, for example, a lot of the reps were like, oh, we're growing way too fast. Nobody's going to be able to install this. And the funny thing is that it's like you're watching in real time how we're masters at hiring, masters at training. You think that there's like magically we can't do that for the operations and install side. That's insane, right?

Exactly.

I've got somebody that knows the things that I don't. That covers my blind spot. So they know how an install should go, they know how service work should go, they know how the opside should go. But am I, you know, can you create a system that catches, you know, farms and also, you know, poaches top tier talent like that from other companies? Yes, absolutely. So it's it. You'd think that it's so different from the sales side and that they should operate different, but it's, it's ran the exact same way just with the salary, sometimes piece rate where, you know, it's just that five step ecosystem, the exact same hiring systems and then putting somebody just as competent that has a bare bones outline of what training and systems should look like for their side, they curate it and then they just drop people into the system and say if you do this and follow it, we know it works.

This is the recipe for success. You just have to follow the recipe that. That's it.

Yeah.

Don't be throwing bananas in the middle of your, you know, steak dinner.

Yep, 100%. And on the topic of, you know, being afraid to, to scale up, first off, like, I want to make sure, like there's a lot of people that hear that and they're just like, well, that's dumb. Why wouldn't you. I totally understand. That's like more risk and liability. That's more people that you feel like you have an obligation to that are following your vision and if it falls on its face, you hurt a lot of fam. I understand it. That's. That's crazy scary. But when I'm thinking about salespeople, I think first to the, the ideal avatar that I'm looking for and the avatar that somebody is describing to me when they say, but I won't have leads to provide them is a.

Exactly.

We don't like lead babies, man.

Yeah, let's talk about that a minute because. So there's a lot of people listening that are new to the show that maybe not have heard this terminology. So give us a crash course on a little bit about doors and lead babies and, and all of this real quick.

100. I, I think that, you know, if I, I can even like paint a picture like Picasso, what a lead baby is, that's like somebody who's like probably between the ages of 45 and 60 who have never had to cold call, never had to door knock, and if they did, they just sucked at it. So this is an excuse to get away from all of that. This is somebody who's like, oh, I'm, I'm the shit. You should be, you know, you should be just giving, just hand me leads on a silver platter. Not only that, but they have to be pre qualified. I should have to do no work. I get to be a tour guide when I go inside their home and just say, which of these two options would you like? And you choose. Right? Exactly that. And then it's the craziest thing. After all of that, I'll, I'll hear this conversation sometimes on a weekly basis. I'll go, cool, so what's the most you've ever made in a year? And they're like, I've made a whole whopping 90,000 a year.

Right.

I have guys on my team that make 90k a month.

Right.

Like, you know, that's a legion choice.

You could be mediocre if you choose to and just think that you're really out there killing it. Yeah.

There's just so many limiting beliefs behind it too. And I say this with all the offense in the world to the lead babies listening to this, all the love too, because I know you can repent from this, come back to the good side and that's that like your limiting beliefs are holding you back from that type of income. One of those being, well, it's going to tarnish my reputation.

Right?

Like, look at, look at the. Well, I'll just put it out there. This isn't to brag about Clark Manwaring. This is just, I'm very proud of the brands that I build. Look at JKR Windows. Go look them up on Google. Right now. We don't scrub reviews. We even, we don't even ask for reviews. We now have over 2000 reviews in the last five years. 4.9 star average, A plus, Better Business Bureau, top rated. Most installing replacement window company in the western half of the U.S. so it's.

Like, and that's 100% door driven. Everybody listening. It does not ruin the reputation of your company in your town.

Spot on. Yeah, you can, you can go beyond that. So you're like, oh, well that's, that's Windows, right? Okay, cool. Let's go to H Vac. Right? Go to la. You're looking at Voltaic. You're looking at mint. Right? That's the, the combination. That's the company that, that we built together. Over a hundred reviews, no scrubbing. Only been around for a year. Five stars. Not a single non five star review.

Right.

All on doors and all door driven.

Yes.

Like, oh, well, I don't like the reviews that it gets. Or it's like, you know, a lot of, a lot of times they'll be like, well, I don't, you know, I, I can't imagine just getting yelled at and cussed out. But it's like, I, it's so funny if you've ever actually knocked doors, it's like one in every a hundred doors is like 100.

Yeah, that's the number I always say.

And, and then there's 1 in 100 that's like, oh, thank God you're here.

Like, yeah, like the hugs and the like, yeah. Giving you sugar donuts when you're leaving.

Spot on. And then not like 98% of them are like varying levels of just like, okay, yeah, I'll hear it out. Like, you know, that's not as extreme as you think.

You know, it's so funny too. I think that in the last I, I, because, you know, I like you. I've been knocking for a good number of years now. And it's really interesting because I think in the last. This is kind of a commentary of what I've noticed in the last couple years especially. I've noticed way more people just straight up walking outside just to have a conversation with you because they're lonely, let alone on the doors for any other purpose other than they're just like people to talk to. Yay. And they just come outside. It's why it's the coolest I have the most fun conversations with people literally just walking around knocking on their doors.

Yeah, no, 100%. And you think that it's like, you have it or you don't have it. And I hate it when I hear people say about sales, like, oh, you either have it or you don't. Like, my wife is like introverted, super quiet. Not the, the go getter, let's go do that. Right. She's the artist, the painter that. But like I, she's lights out on interviews because you just have a system that works. Like imagine that, that you, you say to yourself, only one type of person can succeed at this. And how much that that limits you as well. That's like saying, I can only work with this race or this religion or this level of college degree. And it's like, if you can only train one person, that person's like, you, what a terrible leader. Like, go get help, you know? And so you're saying the same thing about yourself though, when you say, like, it couldn't be me knocking doors.

Yeah. Completely giving your power away.

Really? Yeah, you really are. You're, you're like, yeah. If you've read four agreements, it's truly you're. You're letting people come in and take your income out of your bank account by not going and doing that. And it's a lot more, It's a skill that you get good at and you will have those experiences every day where people are like, oh my gosh, I've been praying for a friend and you show up at my door and it happens literally every day when you door knock.

Oh, sure does. Oh, I love this. So good. So let's talk about this. Let's, let's talk about some numbers a little bit because I don't think everybody fully understands the numbers yet. And so I'm going to drop an H Vac statistic here and then I'm sure you can really unpack this a lot more from all your different industries experience. So it blew apps. Everybody listening. This will blow your mind. It literally will blow your mind. The entire H vac industry is built on the backs of 5% of the United States households. 5%. That means something has to have been wrong with the house, with the system in the house or the air conditioner, furnace or whatever for them to reach out and fill out a form online or pick up the phone and call us. So the entire multi billion, however many trillion dollar, our H vac industry is now 5% when we knock doors. So one, that's what the entire marketing dollars are focused solely on that 5%. Nobody's paying attention to the other 95% except the people that go out and find it. And knock, knock, knock. Hi, my name is Sam. Right. So talk about that a little bit about what people don't understand about the blue sky opportunity that is available. And clearly that's how you've been able to get to the numbers you are in such a short amount of time so far.

I think some of the best people, like I think of Andy Hobaika was like an early mentor for us at Mint and like that. If you're listening to this at all, Lou or Andy, like, just absolute godsend for our business.

Great guy. Yeah.

They talked about how, like, can you imagine making buying decisions and thinking you know what you want for your customer? Like saying, well, I imagine you just want the cheapest monthly payment. And like, that oftentimes that's what reps do that don't own a home, that don't actually make good money is they're like, you must want this at the cheapest product, the worst possible financing, longest terms, cheapest monthly payments. Like an educated homeowner who makes decent, even semi decent money is like, no, we avoid interest like the plague. I'm okay getting something that's going to last longer and spending more to have it. Like you, you can't buy for your people. It's. You know, door knocking is the exact same way where you're absolutely right. It is this, this blue ocean where it's not marred by everybody coming in and killing all the fish. There is red ocean. Right. It truly is just. It is what you make of it. And if you think to yourself, like, my customers aren't there. Right. It's. Imagine the. The same way that like Michelangelo saw David. He said that he saw the David in the marble. He sees the marble. He's able to visualize David already inside of it. And he's just getting David out.

Had to let him out. Yeah.

The doors are an Easter egg hunt or like this truly like going out and Halloween trick or treating for customers. And you can't decide what the avatar is for your business if you decide that you've shot yourself in the knee. Right. So for myself, I think that door knocking, like, opens up your mind to the type of people that are attracted to your offer. And then it gives you more shots on goal to perfect your offer. So, for example, the way that people might advertise is like, is your heating broken down? Like, if you limit yourself to just. Is your Heating broken down or your, your cooling, then you get one avatar, right? Only get people that are like, I just need you to come and fix it. Who cares? I just want to cheat, right? But if I, if I say to myself, what if I work in a neighborhood that has H Vac systems that are 10 to 15 years old, they're not broken down, but I'm telling them this, look, you're going to scratch my back, I scratch yours. So we'll give you some free value here. This is. Imagine that I say you're going to do three things for me, I'll do three things back for you. You're going to put a yard sign in your front yard so that I get organic traffic that comes by, takes a picture, calls me from that sign on their way to school every morning with the kids. Number two, you're going to write me a review so I get SEO to my site. Then number three, you're going to give us a power bill that shows the before and the after. And we're talking about energy efficiency. One of the. This is a modern way of selling H Vac that they don't talk about in the past, right? Yeah. So I have, I have proof and maybe some sort of like video testimonial. So I've got those things from you. The likelihood that I go and get a deal from that any time during your time as a lifetime as a customer with me is incredibly high. So what am I willing to do for you, Mr. Homeowner? I'm willing to go $0 out of pocket for you and 30% off what a competitor might do, which, by the way, is subjective. For those of you listening, it's a frame, right? And then we're staying. And then we'll do whatever your, our warranty is or whatever extra thing. Like we, we would pair quiet cools with our offering out in California because of the proximity to the ocean and not needing your H Vac all year round. So, like, make it unique. Create a value that's super hard to say no to. You'd be surprised the number of people that hear that. And in their mind, they're reading between the lines and they say, look, I'm, I need this thing. It's commodity, not a luxury. I'm going to need to replace it at some point, probably soon. And they don't know when they need to, but they're assuming, yes, if you're here in my neighborhood and you've illustrated that problem that, yes, I'm going to be in need soon, I'm Never going to get it cheaper, better, better quality, better reviews, more taken care of or more perks than I will right now. So it's, it's essentially me just. And I don't want to sell them at the doorstep. Most people that have never knocked the door, like I can't imagine pull, having them pull out a credit card at.

Their doorstep, that's the exact 20k right on the door.

Can you imagine? Yeah, it's all it is. Marketing is baby steps. Learn more. They don't say buy now on YouTube. Learn more. That's it. All I'm trying to say is like, is this worth it enough to you to at least just take a look at. And if it doesn't make sense, I'm not the high pressure guy. I'm not the used car sale. I'll get out of there quicker than you can tell me because my guys like to make money too.

They're moving on to somebody that says.

Yeah, I'm not going to do it with you. Right. And then number two, if you do want to do it, we'll enroll you. No, no sweat. We'll help you do it better than anybody else.

That's it. Oh, I love this so much. And this is such a valuable pitch too. I mean this door pitch is like, this is fire. I can tell you've worked on it a while since we chatted a good bit ago, which is great.

When I came and found you, I was like, I can't even, I can't even fathom how you know, H Vac could work in door to door. And now I'm like, I feel stupid having even said that. It works right now.

It's, it's just the same. And it's such proof too. And this is, I mean I have coaching clients all over the country that are proven it out. You know, there's Oliver in. We'll see. He's in Phoenix. I realized that we, I did one, we had one one hour session like this. Had a guy in the session and he's like, all right, I can do this. And they went out that week and did like 30k in business straight from the doors in a, in a time when he was getting zero appointments via Google, zero appointments from the Internet. They went out and did 30k with this one guy on the door. So for everybody listening, it works no matter where you're at. I love this so much. So let's turn the corner a little bit because, and think for all of this, just completely transparent, giving value, which is incredible. Talk a little bit about when that, when the company starts getting a little bit of that momentum going with having some success on the doors. Let's talk about a little bit of what happens to the company culture and how that starts to develop into something completely unexpected, typically unexpected and something a lot like where that culture goes and what that looks like because it's a whole different beast than anything people have really ever seen before.

Yeah, culture at the end of the day is, I mean it's what your people do when you're not there. And so I think that, and you could break that down in a lot of different ways. But you know, if we look at cultures of companies that you're saying have never done door to door and then start to do it, how does their culture evolve?

Right.

Is the question.

I think that that's a good or however translation. That's the big win though because a lot of people listening, they want to give it a try but just don't really know what to expect. And so a big part of what I've been doing across this last year is one of the main things is just getting rid of the mystery. Like we're going to demystify a lot of it because. So they will try it.

Yeah, I, I think that you, there are, I'll be honest, there's positive and negatives as there are to everything. And I'd be lying if I said it was all positive. So like one of the two of the major positives are that you get the people that will do it are less entitled and more open minded and are generally happier. That sounds crazy, but it's, it's just true. And then I, I think that maybe some of the negatives of that are, number one, you get opposition. So like as a Mormon missionary, you know, for those of you that, that have or haven't they, oftentimes they say on the mission, obedient, good missionaries that are like following the rules and working hard, they, they won't get along with missionaries that are lazy, disobedient, doing ever, whatever they want to do with their time. And likewise, one doesn't like the other. But it's the funniest thing. You put two kind of crappy missionaries in the same room and you think like, oh, it's just going to create chaos. No, they love it. Like they love each other, harmonious relationship. And then two good missionaries in a room, same thing, and they go in pairs. Right. And so that's, that's why they use that analogy. I think that your team works much the same way that sales teams feed off of energy from each other to go out and do their thing. And you'll notice two camps very, very quickly. The best thing you can do for yourself is if. If this is something you want to commit to is burn the boats and make sure that people that don't oppose that for your culture don't get a platform, they don't get an audience to be able to do that.

Yeah, that's important.

You, you essentially get the culture that you promote. And we talked about attention being the rarest commodity. When you give more attention, you give somebody a megaphone and a platform. Whatever they say is going to start to be what trickles down on your team. And so you want to make sure that you are really firing quickly and that you're promoting even quicker than you fire and that you have an idea of the type of avatar that succeeds in that model. And it might surprise you. Be open minded to seeing something play out and being able to change your opinion. So few people are good at doing that these days. Watch it go. Watch the people that thrive and the positive effect that they have on the culture. Promote it out loud and cut off very openly. People that are opposing that good culture.

Wow, that is. These are some of the hard things in leadership that nobody really wants to talk about very often. It's like, yeah, we always talk about celebrate the champions and you know, positive, positive, positive and well, what do we do with the rest? Right. So when you're making those. Get a little bit more granular though, when we're making those hard cuts.

Yeah.

What's that conversation sound like? You know, and what, like walk us through. Because clearly you've been growing the teens. You have. Clearly you've been through these prunings before.

I fired a couple people in my day.

Walk us through what that kind of looks like. So let me frame the question a little bit better. Describe, take a quick second. Describe the culture before the pruning. Yeah, walk us a little bit through the pruning and then what happened after. So to kind of feel a little bit of the journey there.

Um, I, I think that one of the worst things that you get from like the. One of the biggest, I guess, identifiers of bad culture is I am intelligent enough to do it my own way. And so people will start to say, no, I'm just going to do it the. You know, I'll use the names of my team, right. These are my guys. So if Spencer comes in one day and goes, you know, you know, f. Clark, I could do this way, way better if it's just me doing it. Number one, I didn't invite collaboration. So that's always on me. I take extreme ownership over that. And I didn't create a culture that wants to come to me and change things and innovate. But the moment that I see that, that is I think, the most out loud indicator that there's sabotage going on in my business. If you, you know, for example, work with like the, the 10x group, they'll talk about how 13 on average or more of your business is not only doing nothing to help out your business, but they are actively sabotaging you. And if you think that's not true, you haven't been in business long enough.

Right.

That is the first active like out loud indicator flag there. And I would say that so that the second half of that question, if I didn't get this wrong, was how do I go about firing that person?

Correct. What's the pruning look like? Yeah.

So it starts in a place that you wouldn't expect. It starts on their first day on the job with me telling them what a fireable offense is.

Sure.

And so day one on the job for a lot of my sales team is saying if you don't hit your effort or if you don't hit your result metric, like let's say I'm expecting three sales out of you this week. A lot of companies just see it as black and white and they go, if they are setting a standard at all, which some of them don't, which is, believe it or not, worse. It's, it's worse to not make a decision than to make a bad one. I'm a firm believer. But if they have a standard, it's something like this. If you don't get result, emphasis on result, then you're cut. Or if you don't get result, you get warning, then cut. Right. And that's the best it ever gets. Can you control outcomes? No, you cannot. I can't control if I get cancer. I can't control if I win the lottery. Why would I do that for my sales reps? Here's what you can control. You can control effort and attitude. So I'll tell people we're going to look at those two things in depth right now. Here's what effort looks like, number of doors, number of, number of days that you're coming in early to come and get extra training from me, number of questions asked when you, when you're in a meeting with us and trying to improve. Those are effort Metrics for me, why would I fire somebody who is increasing and getting better? I might give you less leads or less opportunities if you're shitting bed, but I'm going to help that person. The second part of that though, is attitude. And that's like, that is the most viable offense. And my core values should reflect the things that if you violate these things, it's out the door. So my core values aren't like, we treat everyone with a smile. It's like, so that would say that if I frown one day that I'm fired. Correct.

Right.

Core values are not this corny thing. Core values are our operating system. If you've read the book Traction by Gino Wickman. So my core values are the. They are the litmus test for are you staying or are you getting the hell off my team?

Right.

So that is said to them during their orientation. Maybe not as fiery. I want to build up some armor. I want them to be excited. But then by the time that they get fired, I say, you're violating this. Do you have any intentions of changing that? And then I just say, if you have no intentions, there's not going to be a warning. You're let go. And it's a 30 second conversation. It's not crazy, not hard.

Nice. Nice and simple. So once that happens, what happened? What do you see happening to the overall culture of the rest of the company? There's so many people that are scared to fire somebody just because they're a performer for whatever role. And it's like if they could only see the other side.

Yeah. You know those memes during COVID I, I don't know. This could be beyond the generation that will listen to this, but there were these memes. It was like, nature is returning during COVID because people aren't like driving cars and stuff. So they're like, my river isn't polluted.

Yeah. Dolphins in the, you know, in Venice.

Yeah. It's just like we talked about at the beginning. I see rep retention and attrition like a candle. And there's wicks at both ends. One of them is a top performer wick. One of them is my low performer wick. And I just say to myself, I need to keep these distance from each other. And I burn the candle out at both ends. When I allow somebody into the culture that does not respect the opportunity as much as the rest of the people in that room, because it can get sniffed out, people will start to smell that and say, I could do better just being by myself at that point. So you start to get people that, I would say, number one, they see that you are preserving opportunity for them and they're grateful for the op. They're more grateful for the opportunity. And then number two, they will. Generally speaking, this isn't always true, but a leader who's strong enough to be able to see disease and quickly take it out and make it known to the sales team that they did it for their benefit, those people will be loyal to you forever. The loyalty is just incredible. And they're, they're more willing at that point to collaborate with you and make sure that, you know, that doesn't happen to them, that doesn't happen to their friends. And they, they want to preserve their, their team. So I think you just all around get an attitude of respect, mutually.

Oh, that's. That. It's really refreshing when that happens too. I. Going through that a handful of times, it's like you don't realize. In fact, it's one of those things that creeps up when bad culture starts to happen, especially if it's with someone specific. We don't realize how bad it's gotten until it clears up. Then, oh, God, why did we put up with that so long? So I just want to encourage everybody out there. If you've got that one person, one or two people that are like, you're back and forth with, just do it. Just pull off the, rip off the band aid, get rid of them, fix the culture. You can always find another person that'll do the same, that'll do a better job. But the culture is everything, right?

Yeah, I, I think it's a, it's attributed, I think, to Jeff Bezos, although I wouldn't say that it, it. He lives it per se, given the Amazon culture. However, you really are one fire away from changing your business trajectory forever. And you're one higher away at all times. You might find somebody that is way more crazy talented than you. And I hope that you do, and I hope that you've created an opportunity that they feel drawn to, to even be a part of that. Because I guarantee you, if you do have an audience and you're not getting that person, there's a very good chance you just have to craft your offer better on the recruiting side. But yeah, you're, you're one higher way, one, one fire away from changing that business forever. Go do it.

I love this. And the other thing. Listen to what, listen to what collector said, to think and think in these terms. Craft your offer better as an employer. Right on your hiring side. That's thinking in terms of a marketer. We're not just, hey, we're expanding the team. Come join this great culture. No, talk to the person. Who is that person? What are their pain points? What are their. What do they want out of life?

Oh, I love it. Offer is everything, man. I. I love when I hear, you know, salespeople say, like, they bought because of me. It's like, you're a vessel at the end of the day. I'm sure that. I'm sure that you're awesome to hang out with, but offers sell things. People communicate offers. That's the difference. So, like, I see offers, and I don't want to take too much time here, but I think it's. If there's.

This is good. Take a value I could give.

There's value I could give. It would be this. This changed my life in business. Reading $100 million offers by Alex Hormozi. He defines what he calls an value equation. And if you're on my team, you know the value equation. It's. It's like life or death. That is so urgent that you know that and use it and abuse it. The value equation is two parts. So you've got, like, this fraction bar in the middle, and then you've got things that you want to maximize up top and things you want to minimize on the bottom. Just like any fraction, right? The amount of pie you could eat up top, number of mouths to feed down below. You want to minimize mouths and maximize pie. That's it. So the top half of the equation is. Is two parts long. And it's the dream outcome of the person that you're talking to has nothing to do with you. And then number two is the pro. The. The perceived likelihood that they actually achieve it. And then you divide those two things by the time to achieve it and the effort that it takes to achieve it. And we fool ourselves all the time in sales and thinking, like, I'm doing what can't be done for this person. That's absolutely untrue. Like, I. At the end of the day, the quicker you learn this as a salesperson, the quicker that you succeed. You are there purely for convenience. Somebody could go find somebody to do it, probably cheaper. They could go and learn to do it themselves. Like, they. A lot of these things, they could go find an alternative to you. Why should they spend more money with you? You are convenience at the end of the day. So helping them know, I understand what you want, where the destination of your interaction with me today is. Here's the likelihood that you achieve it based on my track record and things that we do that are unique to our competitors divided by my ability to do that for you. Quicker and less hassle. Right. So this is again this one is attributed to Jeff Bezos and it's true, he said on an interview when Amazon hit a billion dollar market cap. What are you going to do now that Amazon has peaked? Not even close to peaking. Right. We're talking about now close to trillion, if not trillion dollar market cap. So you know, and he, he's credited for having said to the reporter that I'll know that we've hit our peak when we have an offer that feels stupid saying no to it. Essentially just saying I'll know that I, I have that when my offer is perfect. The offer is. Or so he's saying. If this is 0 to 100 up top, 0 meaning there's no value to you, no good at coming out of this hundred is maximized. You couldn't get better. And then there's on the bottom half, zero to 100 as well. You know, zero being no risk, I'm taking it all on. And 100 being there's maximize risk for you. The closer that I can get to 100 over zero, which isn't necessarily possible, but you can get damn close.

Right.

The more I'm going to win. And Amazon is that way.

Right.

If me and my wife are going on a date night, the man wearing date night is target credit to my wife. You know, we'll buy something that later we'll totally regret because we were like we could have gotten that better in a different variety of colors for cheaper. We didn't even have to leave our home. It got delivered for free right to our doorstep in 24 hours or less from Amazon. That is an offer that makes you feel stupid having gone and chosen the alternative.

Right?

Recruiting is selling. Anybody that thinks that recruiting isn't selling, you're fooling yourself. And so if I'm, if I'm recruiting, I'm the vessel. I hope that you feel good energy and it's a transfer of energy for you to buy. However, my offer is doing the work for me. So I have to look at my company's value and say why wouldn't somebody go and start up their own H Vac company? What makes them stay with me and decide not to do that? I hope that I fill in the gap. I give enough value that it's like it would not even be close to me going off and doing this myself or doing it with a competitor. And when they feel that, that's where you start. If you already have eyeballs that are looking at your offer, you already have ears that are listening to your vision, that's where they start to say it's undeniable. I'm into the opportunity.

Gorgeous, gorgeous way to recruit. And then of course, that's what happens with that culture. And just everything starts to build into itself. And now you have this place that people flock to. And it's not hard to recruit because people want to be there to start with.

It's momentum at that point. Right now, I don't have to do the talk. I can sit back and say I could tell this company to not grow and not sell and they would defy me and go do it by themselves. That's how much momentum this ball has rolling down the hill now.

Yeah, love it, love it. And it's, I mean, clearly we're proving it. So almost would you say $100 million annual numbers right now? Approaching that. And then, I mean everybody knows that continue on the same pace in this next year or two. That's, we're going to multiply those as well. So thank you for, thank you for hanging out with us today, man. This has been very insightful in a way, especially from a perspective we don't normally hear, which is insanely refreshing because anything that's been done the Same way for 50 plus years is ripe for revolution, which is exactly what's happening right now in the H Vac space. So I'm excited about what we're, what we're going to chat about in the future. And man, just thanks for being on the show today. It's been great value.

Thanks for having me. Likewise. Very excited to be here and I hope that the theme was that it's value. Without any gatekeeping. I believe I could teach every secret to the world. I'll still be better than you as my competitor. But with that being said, come and seek me out. Clark SALES RECRUITER on Instagram I'm happy to connect with whoever I can and provide that value anytime.

I'll make sure to get that in the show notes as well. So. Clarksells RECRUITER on Instagram and yeah, everybody listen, you are going to see more from Clark here in the future. We're working on some fun stuff. So yeah, that is going to be a really, really, really cool thing coming out to help all of you get better and blow your companies up too. There's no reason Clark's company should be the only one to do 5 million in the first year. You can all do it. Let's get you there. So thanks for joining everybody. It's been a great episode. And until next time, go be someone worth buying from.

You've been listening to the Close it now podcast. Our passion is to dive headfirst into the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of H Vac and home improvement, and at the same time, covering fitness, nutrition, relationships and personal growth, proving that we can indeed have it all. We hope you've enjoyed the show. If you did, make sure to, like, rate and review. We'll be back soon, but in the meantime, find the website@closeitnow.net find us on Instagram @thereal closeitnow and on Facebook closeitnow. See you next time.