The primary focus of this podcast episode is the critical importance of painting an emotional picture for clients in the realm of HVAC sales, a technique that serves to distinguish one from the competition. We explore how this method not only enhances the selling process but also fosters a deeper connection with customers by addressing their emotional needs rather than merely presenting technical specifications. Throughout our discussion, we provide insights into effective strategies for engaging clients, emphasizing the need to facilitate their own realizations regarding their needs and the solutions available. By employing vivid imagery and relatable scenarios, we illustrate how to create a compelling narrative that resonates with homeowners, ultimately guiding them toward informed decisions. Join us as we delve into this transformative approach that promises to elevate one's effectiveness in the HVAC sales landscape.

People don’t buy from someone who simply reads from a product’s spec sheet; they either buy from someone who sells the product cheaper or from someone who really connects with them emotionally. An exceptional salesperson knows how to paint the picture for their clients, touch their pain points and lead them to the realization that they are giving their clients the solution to their problem. In this first episode of a two-part series, Sam Wakefield teaches you some ways to connect emotionally with your clients by using imagery, gap-building and future-casting. Using some examples in HVAC sales, Sam shows the power that words have over people’s emotions when chosen with care. Listen and learn how to get your clients to see the value of your offerings and move them to action.

The dialogue presented in this particular episode of the Close It Now podcast delves into the intricate art of salesmanship, particularly within the realm of residential HVAC sales. The host, Sam Wakefield, articulates the paramount importance of establishing an emotional connection with clients, which he coins as 'painting the picture.' This approach transcends mere transactional exchanges; it cultivates a deeper understanding of clients' needs and desires, thus enabling sales professionals to differentiate themselves from competitors. Throughout the discourse, Wakefield emphasizes that successful sales are rooted in empathy and psychological insight rather than a mere recitation of product specifications. He elaborates on the necessity of guiding clients towards their own realizations about their needs, thereby fostering a sense of agency and confidence in their purchasing decisions. The episode is rich with illustrative anecdotes and practical examples, providing listeners with actionable strategies to enhance their sales techniques.

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 by 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.

Greetings.

Welcome back.

Sam Wakefield here, this is Close It Now.

Today we've got a really cool topic that I want to talk about.

In fact, this is going to be part one of a two part series about painting the picture.

Are you painting an emotional picture for your client?

That is what will differentiate you from the competition in the marketplace.

That's what's going to separate you head and shoulders outside of everyone else.

So that's what we're talking about today.

I've got a couple really cool examples that we're going to go over and really start to understand the mindset and the basic philosophy behind how to paint the picture for someone.

So thank you for tuning in.

This is again the Close it now podcast, your source for not just H Vac sales.

Obviously H Vac is a big focus, but you know, thank you for listening everyone who does other stuff.

We've got electricians, we have plumbers, we have people who are in home security systems, we have people who listen that sell cars and automotive philosophy is the same.

You know, it's dealing with people.

One of the main things we have to understand is we are not salespeople.

We are in order to be, well, we are salespeople.

But in order to be exceptional, in order to be just a stone cold closer, you have to become a psychologist.

This is not just about learning the details of your product and being able to pitch a product.

Yes, it's awesome to be able to give a great presentation, but that is not why people buy.

I mean, how many times have you ever heard, you know, you gave the very best presentation of anybody.

But I still went with this other company because they were cheaper.

So that's telling us right there that yes, while people were impressed by a presentation, that is not why they bought or didn't buy.

Yeah, sure, we educated them and then they still bought from somebody else.

Or they took our concept and gave it to somebody else and said, hey, can you do this plan for cheaper?

And they did.

And so they went with them because people aren't loyal to a good presentation.

They're not building a relationship with a good presentation.

They're not building a relationship with somebody who just knows, knows the details of a product or knows all the manufacturer spec sheet behind a product.

So this is what we're talking about with Paint the Picture.

I've alluded to it a little bit in some of the other podcasts here and there and kind of loosely covered it.

But today I really wanted to dive in, thanks to my coaching student Jordan.

He was saying, man, we really got to focus on this.

This is huge.

It's been a game changer for him and I know it's going to be a game changer for you as well.

So painting the picture, what does it mean?

Let's use a basic example and, but remember, don't get lost in the weeds of what this example is.

Think about the overarching philosophy and the overarching concept of what we're talking about.

You know, explaining a, maybe a one stage system to somebody.

How many times have you heard people explain it like this?

And then I'm going to do it again a different way and see if you can tell me the difference.

See if you can feel and hear the difference in the way it's explained.

So most of the time when somebody's explaining a single stage system, they say, okay, cool.

So there's lots of levels of equipment.

Let's start here.

You've got your single stage, which it's on or it's off, 100% or nothing.

Right.

So that's like when you are getting in your car, the light turns green and you put your foot all the way to the floor and you floor it.

So 100%.

Then you get to the next stoplight and then you hit the brakes and every single time it comes on, you're flooring it and then you hit the brakes.

That's not very efficient.

Right, right.

Okay.

They move into, you know, the next type of system.

So the next is two stage or wherever else you're going.

So that's one way to explain it.

That's usually where most people stop with an explanation.

But at the end of the day, all the homeowner heard was this thing turns on and turns off and it's like air conditioning that we've always had.

Okay, so what, what does it matter?

What does it mean?

So the way to properly go through this and explain to someone and get Them emotionally connected.

Because really what we're wanting to do is we're wanting to set a stake in the ground and emotionally tie them.

You want to put them in a situation mentally where they can feel the difference.

You want them to feel as you're describing.

You have to use word pictures.

What do we mean by this?

So here's a great, a lot different explanation of a single stage system.

Okay, Mr.

Homeowner, just, you know, imagine the sun's up in the air, you know, wherever you're at.

I'll use the example of a super hot summer day.

Right.

It's a hot summer day, typical July day.

The sun's up, it might be 100 degrees outside, the heat's blasting on the house.

And so ideally, the system would have a nice long run cycle so it can dehumidify, because dehumidifying is the number one purpose of the air conditioner.

As it dehumidifies, then it feels cooler in the house.

Right?

Right.

Okay, great.

And that's what makes it feel awesome.

But then.

And so when you've got your thermostat, like you told me, you set it at 74 degrees, and so that's what it's doing.

As the sun goes down, however, the cooling requirement starts to drop.

It doesn't need as much air conditioning to get to temperature.

So what happens is it doesn't run as long because it gets there a lot faster.

So let me ask you this, Mr.

Homeowner.

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and thought, oh, man, it's really getting hot in here.

This is weird.

But when you look at the thermostat, it's exactly where you have it set, and you're like, gosh, this is bizarre.

Why does it feel hotter now in the middle of the night when it's so much cooler outside?

And you even have the temperature set a couple degrees lower at night than you do during the day, but it feels warmer than it does at night because the thermostat's exactly where you have it set.

Right.

That's bizarre.

Right?

Well, what's happening is because the sun went down, it's not raising the temperature on the house.

So the temperature's right.

But because it's not running as long, it's not dehumidifying.

So that gives you that 3am gross mugginess.

When you wake up in the middle of the night and you're just like, ugh, that's gross.

Right, Right.

And because what we're doing in this story is we're leading them in the story so they have the epiphany moment on their own.

We can't just give someone our epiphany moment when we realize what's going on.

We have to give them their own epiphany moment where they realize, oh, and usually at that point the homeowner says, oh, it feels gross because it's the humidity going up.

Right, right.

They realize what's going on.

So we did several things with that.

We gave them their revelation moment of realizing, hey, this is more about humidity than it is temperature.

Anyone can come in and say, hey, this holds the temperature steady.

But why?

What does it matter to the homeowner?

It doesn't.

It doesn't matter.

They need to understand the foundation of it.

And when they come to that revelation on their own, which they always do, if you explain it this way, we've set the stake in the ground and we've set this foundation of where we can come to later and say, if you're okay with waking up in the middle of the night being hot, then of course the single stage equipment, you know, might be a good fit for you.

But if you don't want that anymore, we have to look at some of these other levels of equipment in order to solve that problem.

And they, they're already mentally there.

They're mentally prepared to make that change.

That's how they, you know, homeowners will disqualify themselves from basic equipment.

When you go through it this way, and so can you feel the difference?

Because at the end of the day, people don't care how the equipment does it.

They just want to know how it's going to make them feel.

Because how many times have you gone to a project and, you know, you've asked them, you know, what are you really looking for?

And they'll say, well, I want it to be cool when I want to be cool, and I want it to be warm when I want to be warm.

And I wanted it to be cheap to do it right.

They're not telling you, well, I want it to be variable speed and I want it to have this ECM motor.

I want it to have all of this control.

No, they don't tell you any of that.

They really don't care.

They might use some of that terminology because they've given themselves the Google crash course of trying to all of a sudden figure out what's going on with their air conditioner and how to buy one and what to look for.

But more importantly, they really don't care about the Details.

They want to know how it makes them feel.

Now, let me ask you this.

When you have gone through that type of explanation and they've gotten so emotionally and mentally they're connected now to what's going on, they start to understand it.

And then all of your competition comes into the house and they say, okay, well, you know, you put.

This is a single stage system.

You put your foot on the gas 100%, you take it off.

And that's not very efficient.

Right.

And let's move on.

And that's about the extent of the explanation.

Then how much separation do you think that gives you from the rest of the competition?

An enormous amount.

Because now you can solve that problem for them by having that emotional connection to something, the way that you're explaining it now.

Painting the picture.

Let's talk about this a little further, because it's not just about painting a word picture as you explain things and giving them their epiphany moment.

We have to do two things.

We have to do what's called building the gap.

So they think they're at maybe a 5 on their pain level.

And they think that, you know, most people going into a project, they think they're maybe at a 5, and they think the new project is going to take them to maybe a 6 or a 7.

When reality, when our job is when we're in the house, is to show them that, no, this is not normal.

You've just gotten used to what you think is a 5 is realistically a 2 or a 3 on the 1 to 10 scale as far as good.

So you're way down here.

But no, it's not just going to take you to a six or seven.

The new project is going to take you to like a 9.

So we're showing them one how bad the situation really, truly is by basically asking the questions, listening, and then, you know, just having them explain the pain points that they have, the what are the problems they're having, and then showing them how it's going to be better in the future.

Now, how do we do that?

This is the rest of painting the picture for the homeowner.

And here's the part that most people miss.

This is where everyone stops, you know, explaining a solution to a problem.

Let's take a pretty simple solution.

Maybe it is just stuffy in the bedroom at night.

You know, we've gone through the questions, we've asked the right questions, and we've got them.

They've shared that.

You know, we always just kind of wake up in the middle of the night and it just seems really stuffy in the master bedroom.

You know, all the house seems pretty good, but at night when we lay down, you know, we go to bed and just always seems really stuffy in there.

Is there something we could do about that?

So then, of course, when it comes time for presentation time, the way that we paint the picture for the homeowner, we have to do some future casting.

We have to show, put them emotionally and have them envision what it's going to be like.

So that goes like this.

So you told me earlier, you know, Mr.

Homeowner, that, you know, one of the concerns you would like us to address was it seems to be really stuffy in the master bedroom at night.

Is that right?

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Remember we talked about that?

Okay, great.

So remember when we were talking about the different levels of equipment, the basic system, the on, off like we talked about, Remember that when you got up in the middle of the night and you said, you know, you experienced that every few nights you'll get up 3am and it's gross and muggy.

Well, so can you see how these continuous fans and the other equipment, because it's cooling almost all of the time and constantly keeping the air mixed, can you see how that's going to be a solution to your problem?

And so they're going to say, of course they're going to say yes, if you've explained it properly.

And that right there is where most people stop.

But here is where you, the beauty happens.

Here is the future casting that has to come in.

So the very next thing is, okay, great.

So when you wake up in the morning and you've had a nice, comfortable, nice sleep all night, night's sleep, all night, you didn't wake up at all.

And now you're more rested and ready for the day, that's going to feel awesome.

Right?

And so that's that one little extra piece of your future casting.

Though now they're thinking about, oh, man, Yeah, I just got a great night's sleep.

I didn't wake up.

It wasn't uncomfortable in the night.

You've situationally, emotionally connected them to the future of what it's going to be like once your project is completed and they're experiencing it because again, they don't care about the details.

They just want to know how it's going to make them feel.

So let's do the same thing with maybe a, maybe a kid's bedroom in the corner of the house.

When you're able to make a difference, there no, let's do, let's do allergies.

Allergies are a big one.

You know, indoor air quality, obviously, with everything that's going on in the world right now.

And that's the questions.

With everything going on in the world right now, how important is indoor air quality to you?

Oh, it's pretty important.

Okay, great.

So who in the house experiences allergies, asthma, respiratory issues, things like that?

Well, turns out, you know, little Ginny, the daughter in the, she lives in the front corner bedroom.

She experiences allergies and they're pretty bad.

Okay, great.

How bad?

Well, she has some medication for it.

Oh really?

Wow.

That bad?

Tell me more about that.

Well, you know, she did shots for a while but we're past that.

But now we're just on to, you know, some pills she takes, it's a prescription, blah, blah, blah.

So you've got them to share all that information.

So when you're offering the solution, don't talk about the details.

It's much more about, I mean, yes, go through the details, say, okay, great, you know, we're going to install this, maybe this germicidal lamp and this air filter, it's going to clean the air up, it's going to, you know, get rid of the VOCs out of the air.

It's going to do this, this and this.

Of course you have to go through those details and then the rest of that, the future casting looks like this.

And so when once we've gotten through this project, we're able to turn your house into a sanctuary from all of the allergens and everything that's bothering little Jenny and she wakes up the next morning and she's going to come running in here and give you a big hug and say, oh my gosh, thank you so much, I've slept so much better because now I'm not sneezing all night or you know, now she's not fighting the allergies or you know, you're able to give her a lot cleaner environment so she can have, you know, a lot better sleep.

Just the houses sanctuary away from the allergens.

We're able to make such a huge difference with that.

And that's that next piece you're future casting what it's going to be like for their daughter to live a lot more allergy free life in the house.

So the little bitty things we've got to.

And so again, don't get lost in these examples much more and don't try to copy it word for word.

Think about the Overall philosophy.

Think about the idea that if you just go through and say we'll stick on the allergy topic.

If you just go through and say, okay, we're going to install this bitter filter.

It's thicker filter so it'll pull more stuff out of the air and you don't have to change it as often.

And we're going to install this UV light which is going to prevent growth in coil and in the plenum.

And it's going to be this much.

Would you like to add it to the project?

That's a whole lot different.

That's just going through the details.

Anyone can read the detail spec sheet.

It takes really becoming that psychologist and saying, okay, great.

Remember we talked about those allergy issues.

Once we have installed this filter and this UV light, the house is going to be really be a lot more like a sanctuary for your daughter and she's going to wake up with so many less allergy issues.

Man, that's going to be great.

When you're not having to have to take as much medication and she's not nearly as affected by the seasonal allergies here.

Right.

It's a different conversation.

It's not about the details.

It's about the solution to their problem.

So that's painting that future casting, painting that picture, what it's going to be like.

Now, here's the thing with your competition in your area, nobody's doing this.

Only the very top people in your area or anywhere else are having a conversation like this, using this kind of language with a homeowner.

And it makes all the difference because I'm gonna say it again because it's so important.

People don't really care about how your product does something.

They only care that it's going to work and how it's going to make them feel.

The.

That's the podcast for today.

That's part one, Part two.

We're going to actually kind of flip the script and we're going to talk about how do we paint the picture for ourself to discover what it is that's holding your client back from purchasing from you, what is holding them back from buying, what is holding them back from doing the deal, Getting the deal done.

So thanks for listening again.

My name is Sam Wakefield.

If you are not part of our Facebook group, go find it.

You can get the link right off of the website.

It is closeitnow.net so there you can learn all about our coaching program.

Really, really, really have some such amazing results with our clients from the especially, especially I do private coaching.

Reach out to me.

I would love to hear from you.

Maybe you are a fit for the coaching program which will just amplify and escalate your success.

It'll grow it to such a, it's such a fast rate that you're not wasting time anymore.

You don't have to go out and you know, trial and error, all this stuff because I already got it figured out for you.

So reach out to me.

Go to the website CloseItNow.net and you can email me Sam CloseItNow.net and I'd love to hear from you.

Let me know what topics you want me to make a podcast for.

I love to get your feedback.

What are you struggling with?

What are you seeing in the marketplace right now?

You don't have to be an air conditioned salesperson, a comfort consultant, a project manager, whatever we call ourselves nowadays.

You can be from anything, any industry.

Reach out with your questions.

I would love to answer them.

I'd love to build a podcast around it to be able to.

Because if you have a question, other people have the same question.

So let's join together so we can help as many people as possible and share this.

Share this podcast with someone.

Share the Facebook group.

Let's grow this culture in this community of, you know, living life where we are able to work less and sell more.

You don't have to lose your life to by working all the time to make amazing sales in your industry.

You can actually do it by increasing that close rate, increase your ticket size and just crush it, crush it in your marketplace.

So until next time everyone, let's go out there and save the world one heat stroke at a time.

Go save the world one frostbite at a time.

I will talk to you again soon.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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