This podcast episode elucidates the paramount importance of customer service representatives (CSRs) in the HVAC industry, positing that they are the critical touchpoint between clients and the company. We delve into the notion that enhancing the skills and training of these individuals can substantially increase business profitability and client satisfaction. Furthermore, the episode highlights the necessity of cultivating a culture that prioritizes exceptional customer interactions, emphasizing that a well-trained CSR can effectively triage calls and ensure the right technician is dispatched for each job. The conversation also explores practical strategies for creating a memorable customer experience, underscoring the need for active listening and thoughtful communication. Ultimately, we advocate for a transformative approach that champions the CSRs as the "Directors of First Impression," thereby reinforcing their vital role in shaping the future of HVAC sales and service.

In this episode of Close It Now, Sam interviews Stephen Dale and reminded everyone to not be afraid to ask questions to your client because in this industry, attention to detail is super important. Think a little bit different, don't be afraid to embrace new things and changes with the way that people but because the industry is going to keep on changing.

Stephen Dale brings over 20 years’ experience as an operations manager in the home services industry working for two large MEP companies in the Dallas, Texas area where he grew up. He has been a coach and trainer with Power Selling Pros for over five years now working with hundreds of companies and many vendors during his tenure. His diversified empirical knowledge is derived through extensive training from the following operations: Nexstar Network, Service Nation Alliance, Business Development Resources, Anthony Robbins Corporation, Airtime 500; just to name a few. He holds an MBA from Texas A&M and a B.A. from Abilene Christian University. His training style is unique through his ability to connect with others at all levels through humor, knowledge, and class participation. His passion for the home services industry illuminates through his ability to discover client’s pain points and help provide solutions for success together.

Takeaways:

1. The podcast emphasizes the importance of establishing oneself as a reputable expert in HVAC sales to influence the market effectively.
2. Understanding customer needs is pivotal; selling more is not just about transactions but about building lasting relationships.
3. A focus on training customer service representatives enhances the overall customer experience and boosts business success significantly.
4. The discussion highlights the necessity for HVAC professionals to adapt to modern consumer expectations and embrace technological advancements in their practices.

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.

All right, well welcome to another episode of Close It Now.

As you know, my name is Sam Wakefield, your host and I'm so excited.

Today we've got another interview with somebody who is another trainer in the industry.

I'm not the trainer or the person who's in competition with other other trainers out there.

I am the person that I 100% believe a rising tide raises all ships and when you choose to be a lifelong learner then you can you make a decision to learn something from everyone.

And it's just so fun to get to hang out with people who you know have gone before, set the standard they've done, you know, got the experience we want to learn from, you know, was it Brian Tracy says you can't live long enough to learn it all yourself.

So we learn from others and so welcome everybody to the episode.

Today I'm going to introduce this person.

He is a director of training with Power selling pros.

This is Stephen Dale, he lives in the Dallas, Texas.

So another Texas boy just like me lives in Dallas.

He came up through the industry like most of us have.

He was a tech H Vac tech for years.

He was a plumber, was promoted to eventually a GM for a couple of big organizations here in in the area.

Now of course as taking that knowledge and experience to help all of you out there.

We're on the same mission, walking together to just raise the standard of our industry, help bring this industry as such a old slow moving ship a lot of times and to help bring that into this century and beyond and to help every single one of you make more money at the end of the day.

Because why do we do what we do?

Yes, it's to help people, but if it's just to help people, we could do anything else.

We've got to make more money too.

And that's the only way we stay in business and are able to help more people.

So the way that cycles around is beautiful.

So awesome.

So welcome to the episode today, Steven.

So glad to have you, dude.

Sam, it is truly my pleasure to be a part of this.

And by the way, those that are listening right now, if you have not gone over to close it now, if you haven't checked out Sam's podcast, I'm telling you right now, you're missing out.

This guy has got some really cool nuggets of really helping you understand the customer's journey, what they're going through, and really how do you define that and how do you connect with that customer?

So I enjoyed listening to a few of the podcasts, and I was like, dude, I am hooked.

Well, I appreciate that.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so, yeah, again, Sam, I am happy to be on here.

I am with Power Selling Pros.

I have been here for the last six years.

We are a coaching and training accountability organization, and we work really specifically in this industry, and we work especially with customer service reps on how to book more calls, how to really wow that customer.

But it definitely transcends over into the technician side, which is the face of the company.

And so really, for us in our organization, it's all about creating the experience that a customer says, wow, that was amazing.

That.

That was different.

So I'm a big fan of this industry.

It's been really good to me.

And so I love the idea of this.

Close it now.

And really just thought process of where are things shifting and how can we make that pivot in a successful way?

Oh, I love it.

Yep.

That is.

That's absolutely fantastic.

And you're right.

Every single person that deals with the client, that's a touch point.

That's an opportunity for them to have that exceptional service.

And more importantly, referenced Brian Tracy earlier, Zig Ziglar, he always said that, you know, everybody walks around with a sign over their head that says, make me feel special.

When we can do that, there's no way that they're going anywhere else, because why would they?

Well, yeah, I mean, think of other companies outside of our organization and why do they thrive?

What is it that they really are so successful at?

You know, I mean, you.

And we've talked about, you know, Disney World before.

You may talk about a Starbucks, you know, here in Texas.

Apple Store, right.

Or oh, my goodness.

Yeah, I'm an obsessed Apple guy, so it's perfect.

But, you know, think about, you know, Chick Fil A.

What if Chick Fil A ran an H Vac store?

I mean, what would that look like.

Besides, wow, man, I tell you, that may be like the perfect exercise for the next trip training session you do.

It's like literally sit down and have everybody write out what that might look like.

You know, what's crazy, Sam?

And you know, so it's not always about that end product, right?

And a lot of us in the industry, we think it's always about price or we think it's, you know, objections and concerns, but really it's not always about the end product.

There's a lot of other people that make a chicken sandwich, but for some reason, six days a week, that place is packed no matter what time you go.

Right.

And the funny thing is, it's not like it's some sort of secret.

It's not like they do things and it's like, what's behind the curtains?

How does Disney do this?

I mean, they, it's wide open, you know, it's, it's just taking care of a customer, making them feel important and special, you know, respecting them, respecting their time, their money.

And again with a smile, you know?

Right, yeah.

And that's it.

Every time you go, you feel, you feel special.

It's like, what are they doing with their client, their, their employees to that it translates.

So forward into the customer experience.

Well, yeah, they, they take a 16 year old off the kid, off the streets, and within three days they're saying things like, my pleasure.

Mag, at your refill, mag, get your tray.

You're like, who are you people?

Right?

Can you do this at home?

Yeah, but see, that's what homeowners want.

They want that loyalty.

They want to have a company they can trust and believe in.

I always call it my guy.

When I ran calls in the field for all those years, Sam, my goal was to enter in as the professional, but to leave as the friend.

So I, when I left, right before I left, I always was looking for that customer to say, look, Steven, you're my guy.

No matter what, you're my guy.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to put your name, phone number, everything in my phone, right?

Who doesn't want to have a my guy?

Exactly.

Yeah, this is my AC guy.

This is my whatever.

Yeah, yeah.

You need anything?

Oh, hey, you gotta call my guy.

There's the referral, right?

And just, you know, and it's the same thing with like reviews online, but when you start looking at reviews and you start seeing a name, you're like, sam did this.

Sam took care of this.

Or someone says, you got to use my guy, Sam.

I Mean, the trust is already there.

They've already broken down all of the walls.

Right?

And so the phrase I really like to say right now is, it's not enough to just fix it anymore, Sam.

That's what you're supposed to do.

You know, think about it.

This I expect I'll call in and get a pleasant person.

You'll send out a certified technician.

They'll look at the scope of the work, determine what needs to be done.

They'll give me a price before they start.

They'll fix it right the first time.

You'll even pet my little dog.

And at the end, you ask for a review, and I'm like, for what?

For.

That's entry level.

You did exactly what you were supposed to.

Thanks for doing your job.

Which means it's not enough to just fix it anymore.

We have to understand your client, your homeowners, have greater expectations today.

They do want to feel special.

They want to be educated.

They want to be wowed, and they want it to be so memorable that they create a loyalty and a raving fan that, you know, ultimately they're not going to go anywhere else.

Absolutely.

Yep.

100%.

And that's, you know, that's one of the key topics that.

It's been a hot item or a hot topic lately for a lot of things we're doing.

But, you know, what are some of the ways that that can happen?

Because we, you know, from the outside glance, you know, for everybody that listens, they're like, okay, well, I'm, you know, I'm out here.

I'm doing the thing.

What's different?

What can we do different to give that experience other than, you know, fix it right the first time, you know, provide a better warranty.

Maybe I was $4 cheaper than the other or $100 more.

It doesn't matter what the price is.

Right.

What are some of the other things?

Well, you know, if again, you look outside of our industry and you say, you know, why would someone, you know, go to a Chick Fil A?

It costs more.

Why would you go to a Disney World as opposed to a Six Flags or, you know, why do you go to Starbucks and spend five bucks for a cup of coffee when you can go to a quick trip for a dollar?

What is it about?

I think the bottom line is there's a feeling associated with the experience.

It's why people go to a certain restaurant or, you know, they shop at a certain place or buy specific tools.

Right.

My tools are all milwauke.

And if yours are blue or Yellow.

I won't judge you.

Exactly, exactly.

So to me, what I'm thinking about as we, you know, again, hats off to, you know, the industry that we're a part of, that's been around here in the US of A for, you know, 100 years now or so.

But, you know, as things shift and you look at the technology that's out there, sometimes some of us old dogs are afraid to embrace that.

You know, it's the fear of the unknown or I don't understand that.

Or look, I never write a review, so what's the big deal about reviews, right?

Okay, well, 80 million millennials out there are going to read a review and judge you based off.

And you may say, well, you know what?

We've been in business for three generations.

We got.

Or I saw someone the other day said, well, I have an A plus rating on the bbb.

And I thought so I asked my kids, I said, hey, kids, do you know what the BBB is?

Silence.

No idea.

No, it doesn't mean that.

Yeah.

So you know what?

But if they just said I'm a five star rated company on Yelp, that's a whole different story.

See, that's a game changer.

Now all of a sudden my kids are like, oh, five star on Yelp, dude, dad, these guys are awesome.

They're amazing.

Which means when you become that level, it.

Price is just part of the equation, but it is not the number one thing.

Absolutely.

You know, when I was growing the, growing the company in Austin, that when I was sales manager and sales trainer there, also the top performer, top producer, it was so cool to walk in.

And we were a young company, you know, in six years, seven years, we hit that, that level with reviews.

It was so cool to be able to walk into a house.

And it happened often when they said, you know what, we read all the reviews, we looked at Angie's list, we looked at Yelp, we looked at Google, and we decided on you.

We're not shopping.

Okay, okay, no problem.

What are we, what are we doing today?

And it happens all over the country all the time.

Yeah.

And so you get so wrapped up and worried about your pricing or, you know, objections.

Matt, you can overcome all of that by just having a great presence online, having people in the neighborhood talk about you.

I mean, I don't know if you have that app that's in your neighborhood.

App that people use all the time.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

That's a perfect one.

Yeah.

Something simple as that.

My wife is on it.

She's, she's always you know, someone will say, hey, I need a plumber.

Yeah.

Next door is.

You'll see, like, a few posts, three or four, where people will simply say, whatever you do, do not use this company.

Okay.

All right.

And it's always something small, like, they remodeled my bathroom and left a monster, empty monster bottle in the garage.

I'm like, really?

That's why you don't want us to use you?

Yeah, that's it.

And all of a sudden, you go down a few more posts, and you'll see someone that says, look, you got to use my guy, my company.

And to me, it's really interesting, the vote of confidence that a homeowner will have from a review or from a third party of someone else saying, look, Sam, you got to use this company.

Wow.

Absolutely.

You know, and also a really interesting study that all of you out there can do is go on nextdoor and read those comments.

More importantly, take a note of all of the little things that people just.

Just like Stephen was just saying, all the little things that people recommend not to use.

And the common theme you're going to find is its attention to detail.

Dude, Sam, you just hit a gold nugget.

Okay, everybody, if you're driving, you're going to need to pull over.

One of Sam's great podcast that I was listening to the other day, he was talking about implementation.

It's like, wisdom is great now.

I mean, knowledge is great, but unless you implement, and I think you had a great quote about that, I don't want you to have to repeat it, but that's right.

Yes.

Success happens at the speed of implementation.

Then he says, look, are you just, you know, are you actively listening to this?

Are you just passively, like, there are times you need to pull over, you need to write something down.

This is a golden nugget.

Go to the Nextdoor app.

What are people saying about you?

What are people saying about other people?

And it rarely is it gonna be that these people were crazy overpriced.

It's gonna be things like, you know, he parked in my driveway, he moved the box, he used my hose, didn't.

Roll it back up, didn't even ask permission.

Didn't even ask permission.

Yeah, it's all.

It's all in the details.

And so I think that's a great idea.

First of all, look at what other customers are saying, because there's a thread and a theme there, which is they are very detailed.

So it's not that you showed up on time.

It's not that you even fixed it.

Right.

That's what I expected you to do.

But when you went above and beyond.

I was working with a company the other day because so many people have these ring doorbells.

One of the things they do when they are about to leave and they closed everything up, they go get their, you know, truck, they put their tools up, they come back and they bring a broom and they sweep the porch off the front porch.

It's, I mean, everything's already done, money's collected, they're done, they come back, they sweep the porch and then they leave.

Because that's the lasting impression is I'm looking at my ring doorbell like, hey, what's this guy doing?

Is this guy sweeping my porch?

That's it.

It's so interesting.

What happens in the middle is easily forgotten.

The first impression and the last impression are one of the biggest important bookends that you can possibly do.

And most people completely forget about the back end.

Yeah, I saw an interesting study about, on emails and sending out estimates and certain things.

And they said the subject line and then the after the subject line, the next thing that's going to be looked at in the email is a P.S.

always put a P.S.

because my eyes will go straight down to that.

Right.

P.S.

is it better be awesome.

It's the bottom line.

Right.

That's what people are looking for.

Good point.

Love it.

It's interesting how that correlates.

Oh, this is such a fun topic.

And so, yeah, doing that, you know, doing that due diligence.

Well, and to all of you, listen, don't be scared to look at the reviews, at your own reviews.

I know a lot of, you know, a lot of business owners, they're like, I don't want to be on social media because people have the ability to, you know, to badmouth me there.

Yeah, but what if you're not on social media?

At what cost?

Because now you have thousands of eyeballs that are not seeing you, you know, be relevant and in the, you know, in, in the face of everything.

And it does.

It's not like you need to hire a whole person to do it at first.

I mean, at some point it's helpful.

But little things, it's the attention to details, the little things that make a huge difference impact there.

You know, that, that reminds me as we, as you start to build up those reviews, my friend Mike Montano who owns Review Buzz and of course there's a lot of great third party podium, et cetera, that that can help you get reviews.

But one of the things Mike says is how important it is to respond to every review, not just the negative ones, but the positive one.

You get a great five star.

Someone needs to respond and go, oh, my goodness, Sam, we love working with great clients like you, yada, yada yada.

He said, you know, Google and Yelp start to find you very relevant.

Just a simple thing like that.

Respond.

Absolutely.

That's one of the things that, you know, the owner of our company did from day one, is there was not a single Yelp review ever left that didn't have his name, face and a response.

Not one for years.

I mean, he'd stay up till midnight every night answering Yelp reviews just because it did that very thing.

Yeah, it starts to create like a community and especially when you're trying to, you know, dominate in your market share in your community.

And that's why the Nextdoor app is so great.

That's why, you know, there's some HOA internal things that you can be a part of as well.

You know, my HOA actually has an intranet, so people that live in my neighborhood that have different businesses get to advertise on their free.

So I need concrete work done.

And I went there and I saw the guy, you know, he's going to do a great job.

He's in my neighborhood.

Right.

He lives there.

You know, where to knock on his door if he doesn't do a good job.

I'll come.

I'll come see you at midnight, man.

So just getting kind of creative, I think.

And you kind of shared a bit about, don't be afraid and start slow.

That's great.

If you're not doing it, if you are doing it, kudos to you.

But you should continue.

You should have a culture of creating reviews because that's how homeowners shop.

So I love it.

Well, let's do something.

I'm really interested.

Let's shift gears a little bit because I know one of the key, I guess, foundational things that you and your company do is work with.

Of course you do sales training and lots of different things, but working with csrs, you mentioned that earlier, to give that great customer experience from that very first touch point on the phone and that interaction.

What are some keys there that make a big difference?

Yeah, you know, it's interesting and you've been in the industry long enough, but, you know, the person that is the least trained is the one person that has the most amount of responsibility to actually book that call.

Right.

They are truly the voice of the company.

As a matter of fact, I started changing their title Instead of customer service rep, I changed it to the director of first impression.

Right.

I mean, everything is on the line.

Like, literally when the phone rings, everything's on the line.

Sure.

So, you know, simple things as opposed to just like, for instance, like, giving me a price up front just because I say, hey, what do you guys charge to come out?

How about saying, oh, absolutely, I can help you with that.

May I get your name?

Those are Sam.

Well, hey, Sam, I'm Stephen.

I'm going to be taking care of you today.

Why don't you talk to me?

What do you got going on?

Look, we're gonna get down to the price.

We're gonna talk about the details.

That's the transactional side.

What I always focus on is the connection side up front.

If you can connect with me.

And it starts to feel a little bit different than when I have to call my Internet or cable provider.

Some of you guys are like, you have cable still?

No, I don't have cable.

But I had to use that as an example.

You know, I saw a statistic the other day, Sam, and it said one third of all Americans would rather clean a random toilet than have to call.

In to a customer Service rep. Oh, 100% believe that.

My wife for years has been like, literally, she would possibly even rather go get a root canal than have to pick up the phone and call a customer, a company, for service.

100%.

Yeah.

So.

So it's already a bad rap.

It's already bad.

And so if you just make it transactional, you know, you call in, my AC is not working.

What's your address?

What's your phone number?

Have we ever been out there before?

Okay, how about, oh, my goodness, You've got no AC right now.

It's 100 degrees.

Oh, I am so glad you called.

Sam's awesome.

Heated in an air.

My name is Steven.

Talk to me.

And so you start to make it more about the relationship and the connection.

That's one of the first things I teach is simply connect with them, man.

Yes.

Don't make it sound like a number.

And worst off, don't make it sound like they interrupted your day.

Sure, yeah.

I'm so busy here that I have such a hard time.

I'm in a rush to answer this phone because there's four more lines ringing.

Wait a minute.

Who's calling who here?

You know, that that's actually a real concern, as you have noticed and have seen, you know, with the labor pool being short, the demand so high.

We work with a lot of companies that they're like, look, we can book the call, we just don't have the manpower, the bandwidth.

So we teach them values of how to schedule a call better or, you know, how to build more value about your technician that's going out there or the company or what it's going to look like.

People will wait.

And at the same time, we probably should start talking about increasing your prices at some point.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Maybe not today, but you know what?

I've seen this.

I'm like, why are we still charging what we charge when it costs a sheet of plywood 100 bucks?

I mean, come on.

Exactly.

We're charging plywood is $5 prices and it's 100 now.

It doesn't work.

I've literally seen companies lose money, like the entire service department is a complete loss leader intentionally just to hope that they get the install, to hope they get the replacement, which is a horrible way to do business because the money you're making on your replacement is barely keeping you afloat to make up for the service department.

At that point.

I mean, think about that.

Hope is not a business strategy.

I know companies are not even profitable on their service agreements.

They're like, well, that's a loss leader.

It's a changing dollars for dollars.

Are you kidding me?

Yeah, it keeps us in the house.

Yeah, it gets us in the house.

Is that what you said?

Yeah, exactly.

That's the philosophy that, you know, there's some really well renowned and famous training places across the country that literally, that's been the motto about their maintenance agreements.

It keeps you in the house.

So gives you the opportunity, if you just barely break even on it, you don't lose money.

But it gives you that opportunity for system enhancements.

Let's upsell everything, which is great.

Yes, absolutely.

However, you can't lose money anywhere.

But what's the Warren Buffett's number one rule?

Don't lose money.

Yeah, Warren Buffett.

Yeah, don't lose money.

I mean, he was the richest person in the world at one point.

I might want to listen to him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, that's a great point.

When you start looking outside of your industry of who is successful, you know, Warren Buffett, I get it.

But you can even take Jeff Bezos with Amazon and think to yourself, am I delivering, you know, a service that your homeowner wants?

Am I making it easy for them to shop for heat and air or for filtration or IAQ products or even my service?

Or am I still doing the old school and holding all the Cards against my chest.

I'm like, well, we can't give you a price.

And again, that's probably another topic, but.

I love it because we said we weren't going to go there, but now we are.

You said we weren't going to go there, and then you told me, you said, dude, we always go here.

The service is one thing.

Everybody knows.

I can't price it until I figure out what's wrong with it.

I mean, that's the.

Everybody understands that it's the mechanic, but when it comes to the rest, our entire society has changed the way they buy.

And our industry is locked in the 50s and has not moved with it, so we try to avoid it, but it's just.

It's the elephant in the room.

It is.

And.

And my concern with that.

And I'll move off of this subject, though, Sam, but I just don't want contractors to get Ubered.

I just don't want them to get Ubered.

And what I mean is, taxicab industry around for 100 years.

Uber comes along and.

And it.

They still did the same thing.

They took you from point A to point B, and even if you took the app out of it.

But the whole thing is they just made it easy.

Right?

And that's what customers love.

A lot of people will say, well, you know, how do you create this wow experience, Matt?

Just make it easy for your homeowner.

Just wants to get back to their life, right?

They just want to get back to Netflix and figure out, did Carole Baskin kill her husband at Tiger K?

I don't know, man.

Well, it would take about a gallon of sardine oil.

So that's what we know at this point.

That's what we know.

So, you know, again, whenever a homeowner has a heating and air plumbing, electrical issue, it's an interruption to my life.

So if you can simply make it easy, like things like DoorDash and UberEats, they may.

Here's an idea.

Let's put our schedule actually online and let them book their own appointment.

Oh, my goodness.

Now, that's how.

That's.

That's.

You could do that with free apps.

You don't even have to pay for it.

Oh, man.

The guys, there's another Golden Nugget.

Another Golden Nugget.

Allow your customer to schedule with you online.

Right?

Service engine is one.

I don't know of the other free ones, but trust me, there are some ways to do it.

Yeah.

Geez, you can even use Calendly.

Calendly.

And just in the notes, in the notes that it sent when it sends on the email after they book it, just be.

You know, this is a preliminary booking.

If our day changes, we may be calling, you may have to call you to alert you that we may be delayed or anything else.

But this is the time we're going to shoot for.

That's all it takes to set the right expectation.

Wow.

See, now all of a sudden, you made it easy.

I'm at work, it's getting a little warm, and I'm thinking, man, maybe I should have the AC guy.

But I don't want to call people.

Remember, I hate talking to them.

And if I do and I get a great one, that's awesome.

But how easy is it for me to book online for an oil change, to book online for my dentist?

All of those things are super easy, which means, guess what?

I'll use them.

And on the flip side is when you go out and you're doing a service agreement and maintenance, hey, how about go ahead and schedule the next six months right then and there?

Yeah.

Why are you sending postcards out and trying to call them and I mean, when was the last time I even looked at a postcard?

No kidding.

So how about being proactive like your dentist does?

All right, Sam, we'll see in six months.

Let's go ahead and look at the calendar together.

And for anything, anything changes, don't worry, we always call ahead of time.

You're all set.

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's it.

100%.

Pull it and just, you know, go ahead and pull out your calendar now.

Let's put it on there.

Just like, got your dentist appointment, your eye appointment.

Let's just do this.

Yeah.

And then when you show up, here's the other one speaking kind of circling back to those system enhancements.

The accessories, oh, in the verbiage changes now because now we can say things like, well, we have so many clients.

Let's see, your system is this old and at this number of visit.

Let's see, this is visit two.

This is visit three, this is visit four.

Normally these are the items they look at purchasing to add to their system.

So now we've got social proof with their, you know, well, this is what everybody else is normally does on visit three.

Here's.

Would you look, Would you mind if I showed you some options?

Which one would you like today.

And there's a bundle price if you do them all.

And you know what's interesting is I find is your homeowner doesn't know any difference.

They don't know what they don't know.

Right.

All you did was be proactive and say, hey, you know what, Mr. Sam, this is our third visit.

On a third visit like this.

This is what most homeowners, like yourself, go ahead and get done.

Happy to take a look at this, happy to put a bundle together and we can move forward today.

It's the same thing.

When you get an oil change, oh, you're at 70,000 miles.

Oh, it's time for this.

Your vehicle needs this.

We can go ahead and get it taken care of today.

And I just go, okay.

Or here's another easy IAQ one.

Hey, well, you know, because this is what we do.

We keep a good pulse on what's going on in the.

In the world.

I pulled the pollen report just the other day.

Do you guys have.

Who's having allergy issues?

Because the pollens have been really high.

Would you like to do something about that?

It took three seconds, right, to pull it up.

I mean, these are the little things, the attention to detail like we were talking about earlier, that now they know where our best interest is, their best interest, not that we're just trying to sell them something.

Okay.

I want to make sure everybody just heard what Sam said, which is their best interest is our best interest.

Did I get that right?

Yeah, yeah.

Either way, ours is theirs.

Theirs is ours.

Yeah, I just.

That's such a great phrase because I think lot of homeowners have a lot of sales resistance.

And so if you come in strong to just sell me something, I don't need, quote, as opposed to taking the third party verification of.

Oh, by the way, I happen to pull the pollen count in your area.

This is where you're at right now.

By the way, who suffers from allergies?

Or have you ever noticed when the sunlight's coming in and you got all these little, you know, dings or dust in the air?

Yeah, I think that's awesome.

I love that idea.

Yeah, it's just literally spitballing on the spot here because, you know, it's kind of our topic today is the attention to detail.

What are the little.

And more importantly than just everybody listen.

Just giving you ideas, of course, take these ideas and implement them like we talked about.

More importantly, I would love for you to pay attention and learn how to think outside the box so I can, you know, we can teach you to fish.

We can give you a fish.

But if we teach you to fish, then you can be creative, thinking about anything like this and being able to.

How can we turn this into an opportunity to serve our clients?

Yeah, and it's.

And it's really kind of just going.

And this is why I'm a big fan of looking a bit outside of our industry.

You know what's important to homeowners today?

What are they?

Is really important.

Okay?

We all know IAQ, the air they breathe, etc.

Well, and two, never, ever, ever call it IAQ in a homeowner's house.

I don't know what that is.

All of you out there listening, completely obliterate that term from your vocabulary the second you step out of your own office.

Yeah, yeah.

Side note, but it's important.

Yeah, you're right.

It's an internal phrase we're using today.

If I say iaq, but I wouldn't say indoor air quality, but really, you're answering, what's in it for them?

And that's why I like that phrase.

When you enter in as the professional, but your goal is to leave as the friend, it's not just going in and just fixing it, but it's asking really good questions to determine what's really going on, what's the real challenge?

And then having those conversations to be the solution provider.

Not the parts changer, but the solution provider.

Right.

It's all benefits.

I mean, instead of iq, it's like, hey, how important is the.

You know, the air you breathe is being clean?

Boom.

How important is it that you don't have junk in the air that makes you feel bad?

Boom.

I mean, it doesn't have to be complicated.

Oh, yeah.

One of my favorite questions when I was a comfort advisor, or whatever crazy term they use nowadays, or you had one the other day, you told me it wasn't project manager, it was something new that you had come up with.

I like the system design specialist.

Okay?

The sds, we got to get a system design specialist, which is a.k.a.

salesperson.

Everybody knows.

Everyone knows.

But when I go out there and I'm doing my heat load and having conversations, I would say something like, hey, you know, just kind of curious, what is one item?

Or what is one thing you really don't like about your current operating system?

Or what is one thing you really wish your current operating system did?

They would tell me, you know, well, I wish it did this.

It never does this.

It's always hot here.

They told me everything they wanted.

Oh, that's rack, that one.

There's another nugget for everybody out there.

Get them to tell you.

It doesn't always have to be those leading questions.

Just ask them.

For too long, our industry, we were trained to dance around a topic.

But, man, I'm such a fan of asking the obvious question.

Oh, yeah.

Even if when it's coming down to price or I got to talk to my spouse and all these things, you know, you know, I've seen technicians go, okay, well, if you have any questions, call us.

They.

They literally tuck their tail between their legs, they run out to their van, and they debrief.

They're like, ah, this customer is not interested.

Not really one of our clients.

Right.

Don't be afraid to ask some questions.

You know, do you mind if I ask, you know, is it the price or is it the product?

You know, do you mind if I, you know, if I ask, you know, what are you comparing that to?

And it's not really pushy, hard sales, but I think we have to get bold and create some internal sales confidence to be able to ask the tough question.

Your homeowner called you for a reason.

They need something, they're going to get it done with you or someone else.

They called us.

Yeah.

Sadly, they still had to call us.

Okay, because there's the point.

Let me book online.

So.

I love this idea of, you know, becoming really good at asking good questions along with that.

And I know you have a podcast about, you know, the art of sales of that pause, but, you know, getting good at asking good questions and then listening.

Yeah, oh, absolutely.

You know, I did recorded that podcast right after I saw the most recent Mr. Rogers neighbor.

Was it Beautiful Day in the neighborhood?

The Mr. Rogers movie?

The Tom Hanks one.

Yeah, I recorded it right after I watched that.

Because talk about a master at the pause.

Just the lesson I learned there was he would ask a question and wait and then wait longer.

And the amount of information that people would just spill strictly from him sitting still and waiting was invaluable.

Well, rarely is the first answer all of the story.

All right.

And so if I'm asking a question, I may say, hey, Sam, so you know, what's.

What's going on?

Or what's the challenge?

What's happening?

And you may tell me something.

Well, that may be surface.

I always follow it up with and what else?

Exactly.

How so?

How so?

Tell me more.

Right.

That's another.

Even repeating back to them what they just said is super powerful.

Well, yeah, like Sam just said, just simply repeating Back what they said.

I love it.

But think about it.

They're like, man, that's a lot of money.

Wow.

So that's a lot of money.

Or just whatever the case is.

Anthony Robbins.

Tony Robbins has a good YouTube on.

I think he calls it building rapport.

But it's a marrying effect.

It's kind of like.

What's the FBI negotiator guy?

Chris Voss.

Chris Voss, yeah.

Yeah, that's it.

He's got some great YouTube videos about, you know, marrying techniques and simply repeating.

So, yeah, yeah.

Amazing.

Such a.

Such good stuff.

That's.

You're giving away all my trade secrets here.

No, I'm totally kidding.

Everybody go, go listen.

Go watch that stuff.

Listen.

Literally.

So that's where I mean so much of what I love to communicate in the coaching and training and the podcast, like you mentioned, pulling things from outside the industry.

You know, I've interviewed, just recently interviewed a guy, he's an NLP coach, like master coach just for neuro linguistic programming.

Strictly on psychology.

You know, I say over and over in order to be excellent a top performer in sales, especially in our industry, it's 10% the presentation, 10% the.

You know that your.

Your actual knowledge of H vac and 90% a psychologist.

You have to.

If you can dive in and become that psychologist.

Understanding why people want to buy is half the game and the other half is understanding what's keeping them from buying.

And understand the psychology, it's game over.

Wow.

Now there's another.

That's a great analogy as well.

Why people, how they buy, why they buy and then why they don't buy or what is it taking them from that?

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, one of my encouragements, I would say for anyone that's listening today or in the future, you have some windshield time, you've got some drive time.

Right.

Some people call it university traffic or university road, whatever.

Look, in between calls, you should be listening to close it.

Now just listen to a little few nuggets.

And I'm using Sam because I really like his podcast.

But listen to a few things and then go implement that on your next call, right?

Absolutely.

I really think you're going to see some amazing changes.

So, okay, telling people, look, man, Chris Voss has got some great YouTube videos.

The reason I'm not afraid to say that is believe it or not, most of you won't go watch it.

And if you do watch it, you may not go put it in practice.

Now I don't want you to go, man, Steven's a jerk.

There's so there's so many great sources for information.

It's like everybody, if you don't resonate with the, you know, the way that I coach or teach or train or anything, that's fine.

It doesn't bother me.

Just find somebody that you do and implement it.

You know, it's much more important to pick something and do it.

It's like a diet or a workout plan or anything.

They all work.

If you work them, you just have to do it consistently.

Consistently is the key.

Simon Sinek has got some great stuff on consistency.

Oh, yeah, he does love it.

You know, I think it's really easy for me to watch videos, read books, listen to podcasts and gain some great knowledge.

But unless I really implement it on a consistent basis and take something away like Sam's talking about, real change is not going to happen.

So what he's saying is, look, you have access to so many great things, and if you can do it yourself, man, that is awesome.

For any reason, you need a coach.

You need someone to push you, to help you to become accountable.

Sam is your guide.

He's your coach that's going to say, look, man, I got your back.

And think of it this way, if Sam and I decided, I told Sam, I said, sam, I'm going to lose some weight.

I joined the gym membership.

I'm going to show up at 5am every morning.

Now, I may do that and I may not.

At least at the beginning, I will.

But if Sam and I joined together and I said, okay, Sam, you're going to show up at 5:00am he's like, Dude, I'm committed.

All right, well, now Sam and I have made a pact.

We're going to show up at 5am the day I don't show up, and I'm getting blown up.

Text by Sam, where are you, dude?

So the accountability to me, what helps.

Someone.

Push and get out of that comfort zone.

If you need a great coach, you need someone to help align you, to help push you a bit.

You need to check out, close it now and check out with Sam and just go, man, it's okay.

I need help.

And allow him to work with you.

It will be the best investment you have ever made.

End of story.

And this is not a paid advertisement, everybody.

I should clarify.

You're right, Sam.

This is not a paid advertisement.

This is the fact that I have been involved in a lot of training over the last 21 years.

I've seen the best.

I've been a part of a lot of great stuff.

When I find Someone that is very passionate about our industry and is willing to help and build and invest time and effort into another human being.

That's Sam.

That's your guy, and that's who you want.

I love it, man.

Appreciate that.

So let's, let's turn the tables around here real quick because my next question, well, that was my next question anyway, was tell us more about what power selling pros does and what, what you do with that.

We talked about helping CSRs, but that's not all you guys do.

A gentleman entry of ladies as well.

That's not all y' all do is just csr.

What all different aspects do you work with and how, how does that work?

You know, our main focus is really to start with what I call the lowest hanging fruit, which is if you can get that CSR to book more calls, right, build more value, connect with the customer, really set that technician up for success, you start putting large amounts of chunk of change to your bottom line.

Because look, you're already paying to get the phone to ring.

You're already paying for these leads, right?

What's the average now?

The last I heard it was around $600 or so to get a phone to ring one time.

Is it more than that?

At this point, I've seen anywhere from 500 to 750, depending on your SEO, PPC and all that jazz, right?

So how many calls does it take to.

I mean, so if I just booked one more call, let's say per day.

Okay, sure.

Average of 500 bucks.

I work 220 days out of the year, Whatever.

I don't know, it's like 125, $30,000.

Someone's going to do the math for me.

I know it.

That's 100.

110.

Okay, 110.

So if your average ticket is even higher.

Dude, invest in those people, okay?

They're your voice.

So.

So power selling pros.

And I'm not going to focus too much on some of the other things.

We do work with some technicians and leadership.

But I'm going to say our core, that we are hands down the best in this industry, is training your CSR team to win more moments, that we give them the tools, we practice with them, we listen to their own calls, and so they get coached twice a month and you start to see progress really quick and really fast.

And so to me, that's the lowest hanging fruit.

If I can start booking more calls, making them better qualified to send the right tech for the right job, trust me, well worth your weight in gold.

Absolutely.

Oh, geez.

I mean, how many times.

Raise your hand if you're listening to this.

And you've been frustrated in the past at showing up to an appointment that went to the wrong department.

It was, you showed up as a salesperson, it should have been a service call or vice versa.

Or you show up to something your company doesn't even do.

It wasn't even screened right to start.

And then.

So now we not only have the frustration, we also have the opportunity lost.

Because at that same moment, we could be across town at a highly qualified appointment if the person screening the call and giving that customer experience did a better job of filtering and triaging.

Especially when we get super busy, if we can triage the appointments better.

Or another situation is you show up to an appointment and it's some super low priority, they're just a little concerned about this one thing that their system is doing.

And when you start asking about, they're like, oh, we told them it wasn't an emergency, you could have come in the fall.

But then you also have the same appointments with dead compressors in 120 degree heat.

So a little bit of triage on the phone would have handled all of that.

Made it a beautiful experience for both clients.

So 100% believe in this all the way.

And really it is, Sam.

It's a better experience for the homeowner.

It's a better experience for that professional, that technician going out there.

And really, again, it's more than just trying to book a call, but it's really discovering what's going on, asking good questions, connecting with them.

And so we teach some really easy skills, principles and some tools to be able to triage like you said, and figure out, you know, we even do a class, I call it H vac 101, where I do a 90 minute class and I teach CSRS just basic heat in an air good, not how to diagnose a heat pump or try to figure out superheat.

I just.

So now they can ask better questions.

So if someone says, yeah, my system's 17 years old, it keeps tripping a breaker and a CSR goes, sorry, we're all booked up.

I'm like, are you kidding me?

I'll run that call.

Yes, absolutely.

That's a system going in tomorrow.

Yeah.

So no fault of their own.

The fault falls back on us as leaders.

Stinks.

It stinks from the head down.

Yeah.

And I was guilty, Sam.

My training we had, I think nine CSRs.

My training basically consisted of this.

Answer the phone book the Call.

Any questions?

Got it.

That was it.

Of course.

That's.

We've all been guilty of that forever.

And so we'll spend weeks and days and months on end training technicians on new equipment and sales and things, which we should.

But trust me, the voice of the company, man, when you start investing in those people and you start to see them get engaged, you'll see them fight for that customer.

They will fight.

And even angry customers, they turn it around where all of a sudden the customer says, oh, my goodness, Sam, you're the greatest thing since, you know.

Absolutely.

Sliced bread.

I don't know.

And again, why sliced bread is so amazing.

I don't.

I don't either.

At some point it was just bread and then someone came along and like, hey, man, we should slice this.

Should cut this in pieces.

Boom.

Game changer, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

And so, man, you know, going back to that, it's.

It's so cool to one, when you mentioned that, that csr, that what did.

You change the name to the Director of First Impression.

So when your director of first impressions gets.

Catches the company culture, catches the fire, they get to the level where, like you mentioned, they start fighting for that client.

I can imagine that the turnover in that department goes way down because now they're invested in the organization.

Okay, that was another nugget of engagement when, trust me, because a lot of CSRs are churned.

They just.

Sure.

But again, and this is with really any of your team members, but when you do start, when you do invest back into them, the law of reciprocity is they will invest back.

And if not, they're not a good fit, trust me, they'll leave.

It's okay.

And that's okay too.

If they're not a good fit, don't try to keep them around if it's only causing stress in the office.

Right.

You pay good money to get that phone to ring from your branding advertisement, ppc, your trucks on the road.

When the phone rings, it's game on.

And so to me, the lowest hanging fruit is really coaching and training those CSRs.

And I'm just going to say, you know, if you need that.

Powersellingpros.com or.

Of course.

Yeah, I was just like to ask you how people can get ahold of you.

Yeah.

Powersellingpros.com and you know, just.

And all the links will be in the notes of.

So every, every podcast gets turned into a blog as well.

And so all of the notes for this will be in, in.

In that.

In all the notes for the, the links Hyperlinks, all the different ways to get ahold of Stephen and power selling pros.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

This.

This has definitely been great.

You know, I like some of the ideas, think a little bit different.

Don't be so afraid to embrace some new things, some new changes.

With technology, with the way people are moving, with the way people buy.

The industry is going to be changing and moving.

We have to.

If you had a really cool conversation the other night with my wife, she's my sounding.

She's basically my board of directors.

I'm always throwing ideas at her and seeing how it bounces back.

But an interesting conversation we had.

And so this will get a little bit more out there.

Since you mentioned Tony Robbins.

I'm sure you'll be okay with it.

Perspective of time.

The perspective of time is so interesting when we think about it, because I imagine and it kind of this idea that came to me, you know, we've always heard the expression, you're either moving forward or you're moving back.

There's no standing still.

However, it's.

It's interesting.

It's from the perspective of who's doing the moving.

So, like, when we have friends and, you know, say we have friends in life, we go.

We go through a personal growth phase and they don't.

We.

They no longer basically become our friends, that they're still friends but not running in the same circles.

They kind of fall off for new seasons of friends or work people or whatever the perspective realization was, if we're on this train together and they just happen to get off at a station, get off at a stop, and we keep moving, to us, it seems like they're moving backwards, but to them, they're standing still.

But in our perspective, they're completely moving backwards.

They see us moving forward.

So it's kind of that moment of like, okay, it depends on where this perspective comes from.

So you can get stuck in the station of wherever you decide to stop growing and be comfortable while everybody else just moves ahead and the industry will not stop moving.

It is on this train that is constantly going.

So don't be the person that gets off at the stop and watches it move forward and tries to fight it and say, how can we slow this train down?

You can't.

It's gonna keep going.

Don't get off at the station of.

Well, we've always done cells this way, so we have to stay there.

We've always done it this way.

That.

That's just the real truth of it.

Wow.

What a way to wrap it up.

Sam.

It'S those.

It.

My brain just works in different ways.

Things just got deep, folks.

I love that idea, that perspective of time.

And we do.

We want to try to slow it down, but trust me, the momentum is so strong right now of being a success central and being in such high demand and indoor air quality, all of that, it is moving at a very fast rate.

Absolutely.

It's time to hop on board.

I dig it.

I dig it, man.

So, Ed, one of the easiest ways to do it is fixing the people that answer the phone and giving your clients eat.

I say fixing them, helping them, training them, encouraging them, creating a culture where it's cool to actually have a great interaction with the client on the phone instead of the culture of we're too busy to be able to take this call.

So that's better.

Better wording.

I love it.

That's.

That's that $110,000 that we came up with a minute ago.

That is strictly opportunity cost.

That's the.

If when you put those numbers across to just the leads you paid for, if you took those same numbers and actually turned that into an average sell, you're looking at probably, you know, at least three quarters of a million bucks there that just by answering phones, better.

You could put in the bottom line.

Of your company that was just booking one more call per day.

One call a day.

What would that look like?

Yeah.

And so really, what if you had two or three people answering phones?

What if they booked more than two?

So now you start to go, oh, my goodness, I can.

From a three million to a four and a half million in a year.

Yeah, you can.

Oh, Yeah.

I mean, 100% can prove that.

We had at our company, we were at three and a half and we went to eight.

And how.

One of the.

I mean, there was a lot of things we did, but one of the funnest ones was I saw our call center go from two people to five.

That was it.

That was one of the main things that we could.

So instantly we had more appointments booked and we had to scale and hire the people to support them.

And it was just a really cool.

Just watching that transition happen, you know, those three to eight in about three and a half, four years.

So it was just from scaling the number of times we answered the phone.

Well, everyone listening know this.

You're not alone.

You have resources out there to help you in your success and in your journey.

Whether it's.

Close it now with Sam, whether it's, you know, your own listening to podcast or videos or reading power Selling pros.

Use the resources you have available.

We're here to support you at all, for sure.

Can't live long enough to learn it all yourself.

So if we can leverage.

This industry is classic, classically known for R and D. Rob and duplicate.

Yep.

And.

And do it because.

Just implement it.

Everybody out there, just do it.

You know, just rob it from Nike.

Just stop thinking about it, stop waiting.

Say, create in yourself this massive sense of urgency that, you know, what normally would have been, okay, I'll get to it.

Monday is like, okay, I've got 10 minutes right now.

Let's do it.

You know, it's just like the way we talk about following up for sales appointments, sitting with somebody instead of, okay, it's Tuesday or Thursday.

Good time to get back with you.

Okay, how about it's 4 o' clock now.

You said your husband gets home at about 5:30?

How about 6:30, we talk again?

Yeah, the day.

Yeah.

How about this?

That'll give you an hour.

Yeah.

You guys like pizza?

I'll bring a pizza pie around 6.

6:30, we'll sit down at the kitchen table, we'll talk about this.

Compare apples to apples.

Will eat some pizza.

Yep.

I'll show back up.

Yeah, I'll show back up.

Matter of fact, I call it, look, I'll bring the popcorn.

And they're like, what?

I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna bring an HDMI cable.

I'm gonna hook up to your big screen tv.

We're gonna look at everything you want.

I'm bringing some microwave popcorn.

We're gonna sit on the couch.

It's gonna be freaking awesome.

You're gonna love it.

Love it.

Oh, my God.

You mind if I borrow that for a podcast?

Of course.

Bring the popcorn, man.

Dude, I love it.

Let's break the popcorn.

Bringing the popcorn, baby.

That is a great positive way to end this episode.

Bringing the popcorn.

Absolutely.

So awesome.

Stephen, thank you so much for being here today.

This has been a total just.

It's great to just jam on stuff.

Everybody listening?

Most of the interviews that I have, we might have an idea for a topic, but I don't script out any of this.

It's just basically whatever we end up jamming on.

So fun times.

So thank you for being here again.

That's powersellingpros.com right?

Yes, sir.

Powersellingpros.com see it.

Best CSR training in the industry.

Reach out to them and they will get your.

Get your people.

I'm sure they have a game plan of if you don't have one, how to get one and how if you have just a few, how to get more and how to make them top level experts.

Thank you so much for your time, Sam.

I'm really grateful.

You know, guys, stay healthy, stay safe, drink lots of water, hydrate, hydrate and just share a kind word to your next interaction with someone.

That's it.

The biggest thing that I like to preach this time of year is slow down a little bit.

Slow down and listen.

You know, focus on them, not your four appointments ahead of you.

You're right.

While you're in that place, that's the only place you are and you can't do anything else with the next one.

Focus on that one.

So stay tuned for the next podcast which is going to be called Tap the Breaks.

We need the brakes, folks.

No, I'm kidding.

All right, awesome.

Couple quick announcements and we'll wrap this up.

So there is some big things coming.

Everybody that's listening.

We've got the book is in first draft right now.

So it's going to be coming out soon.

So pay attention for the Close it now book that is going to actually in the book it's going to have the sales process as well.

So some secret sauce moments in there that you'll be excited to listen to.

Also, about 90% done with the online course which will also be coming out.

I'll have videos as well as the workbook to go through to.

You can scale that through your teams to create the.

If you don't have a sales system, consistency is key when it comes to that client experience in the sales department.

So the online course is out as well or will be out soon.

Group coaching and private coaching with me directly.

Both of those are getting a full renovation.

I'm adding in some really special moments, some more secret sauce like we say, you're going to love it.

It's coming out.

Be on the lookout.

Otherwise the brand spanking new website revitalization is ready.

So go to CloseItNow.net be able to check out the new website with all the new podcast links.

All the ones that were broken in the past that didn't play, those are all getting fixed.

So big things happening this year with Close It Now.

Again, Stephen, thanks for being here and we'll wrap this up the way we normally do with all the podcasts is all right everybody go save the world one heat stroke at a time.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

Subscribe to the podcast now so you're first to hear new episodes jam packed with actionable tools tools and tips to make you the top H Vac professional in your market.

If you have friends and colleagues who would like this show, share it with them and send them to our Facebook community for more in depth discussion about the challenges we all face and how to overcome them on the Close it now podcast.