This podcast episode delves into the critical importance of identifying and targeting ideal clients within the HVAC sales industry. We engage with Mike Claudio, an expert in sales training, who emphasizes the necessity of understanding not only the demographics but also the psychographics of potential clients. By honing in on specific client attributes, contractors can enhance their operational efficiency and improve customer experiences. The discussion further elaborates on effective sales strategies, including rapport building and the avoidance of objections, which are essential for closing deals successfully. Ultimately, we advocate for a systematic approach that fosters trust and consistency in client interactions, thereby elevating one's market presence and business success.

The cumulative client experience you create throughout all the jobs that your company does will ultimately make or break your market share. Part of putting yourself out there is making sure everything is consistent in a positive sense in order to show that yours is the right company for a job that needs to be done. Mike Claudio is an expert business coach, sales trainer, and the owner of WinRate Consulting. Mike joins Sam Wakefield to talk about creating a consistent and appealing client experience. Social media, guerrilla marketing, and referrals play a big part in today’s market landscape. Let Mike and Sam guide you through creating a client experience that will draw people in when complemented by these differing platforms.

The podcast episode delves into the intricate world of HVAC sales, emphasizing the pivotal role of establishing oneself as an expert influencer within the residential market. We engage in a comprehensive exploration of how to effectively build a reputation that resonates with potential clients. The discussion is enriched by insights from industry luminaries, who impart their wisdom on understanding customer needs and operational efficiencies. Our primary contention is that success in sales transcends mere transactions; it lies in cultivating genuine relationships with clients, thereby ensuring that we are their foremost choice when HVAC services are required. This episode serves as a foundational guide for listeners aspiring to elevate their sales strategies through nuanced understanding and practical implementation of effective marketing 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.

All right, well welcome back.

This is part two of the Close it now podcast with Mike Claudio who is an expert at what he does.

He is business coach, sales trainer.

Just overall what we we heard in part one is clearly expert in social media.

And basically there's an old book called guerrilla marketing that's kind of the whole theme.

Before there was Internet, before there were social media, it was all of these amazingly massive ways to guerrilla market.

Basically zero cost marketing to get the word out about your business, about your services, about your products, what you do without having to spend a whole lot of ad dollars.

Well now of course, because we have the Internet, because we have social media, there are mass to do that without a lot of ad spin as well.

And so Mike is an expert at now in the digital world online using that as from what we heard with episode one, guerrilla marketing in this century, guerrilla marketing and what works today.

So this will be continuation of part one.

So thanks Mike for joining us again.

Let's just dive right in.

We're not gonna have a big super crazy intro this time because if you haven't heard part one, go back, stop right now, go back and listen and then come back and listen to this episode or watch it if you're on YouTube.

But yeah, there's going to be a link if you're watching.

But yeah, let's just jump right in, Mike, give us a super quick refresher and then let's move forward.

Yeah, man.

So one of the biggest issues I see with contractors as a whole and kind of where my methodology came from is that everybody tries to take on every client, right?

I think we talked about that last time and we got into some of the details and that from the targeting and the qualifying perspective.

But my pillars are identify, target, qualify, then acquire.

And so people are afraid to say no around that.

And like look, I did this, I was in the trenches that a lot of you guys are in.

I sold to homeowners.

I sold B2B.

Like, I was a sub.

I was a remodeler.

So I've been on all sides of this.

And, you know, the first part of the.

Of the process is the identify part.

We really didn't dive too far into in episode one of this series, we'll call it.

But it's so important to know more about who your ideal target is and what your ideal client looks like.

Not just from a demographic, but also a psychographic perspective.

And you have to ask it both externally, like, what makes somebody right for you?

Like, what neighbor are they in?

Where they at?

What do they do?

Who are they about?

But also, like, what do we do best internally?

So that you are putting your best foot forward.

Because what happens is, and I see this a lot, you put your guys in positions that they don't want to be in.

Like they.

Maybe they're doing a job they're not used to.

They're not using the right type of tools.

They're doing something they're not used to doing.

And in general that happens.

People start to get complacent.

And one of the worst things you can do from a.

From a client experience perspective is has your guys on site complaining about what they're doing that day, right?

Especially complaining to the homeowner, right?

How many times we had crews out there, and the homeowner tells you later, it's like, oh, my gosh, your guy said you never do this.

And they don't even know why they're here.

Or even worse, they're like in the driveway smoking a cigarette, talking about how they can't wait for this day to be over, right?

Or they show up unprepared because they've never done a job like this before.

So even if they want to do it, they don't do a lot of it.

So they show up unprepared, which makes you look like you don't know what you're doing.

So it's incredibly important.

And I see this, obviously.

I came from a remodeling background.

I worked for a kitchen bathroom addition guy.

And putting flooring guys in a tile position isn't a great idea.

You know, I mean, sometimes they can do a good job, but sometimes they can't.

And obviously your.

This audience is more H Vac focused.

But in general, you want to ask yourself internally, like, what are my guys best at?

Which helps them get a better client experience, but then also allows them to do consistent work so they can start building systems and processes around, how to be more efficient, how to get more work done, how to be prepared, what to be prepared with.

Because they see the kind of the same things every day.

And the world in the days of no job too big or too small, it just doesn't work that way anymore.

Like, everybody that has a house with ductwork is not your ideal client.

Right.

There are a number of things that make clients better or worse for you.

So asking yourself some things and the activity I typically take my clients through is make a list of your last 20 clients in those 20 clients, or I guess your best 20.

Like if you look at your last 612 months, look at the best 20 clients you had and try and find similarities amongst them.

Where did they come from, where'd you get them from, what referral source, what networking group, what was the project?

And then compare, like, what will happen is you look at your top 10 or 20 client experiences, were the best clients and your top 10 or 20 profitable projects.

And ideally you're going to find eight to 12 that kind of overlap.

These were great clients, we made the most money doing them.

So that helps you kind of find the list of attributes.

Where were they, what are they into, how do they operate, what they like, what was good about them, what was bad about them, what side of town, how many kids, things like that that allow you to branch into the targeting side and be a lot more focused on who you're looking for.

Because if you say, hey, you know, anybody that needs heating or cooling is great for us.

And no job too big or too small, no one can align that with a person or a thing or an environment.

But what you want to get so grainly with telling that story about the attributes of your ideal client or project is you want someone to be able to raise their hand and say, that's me.

Right.

And exactly, yeah, that gets a lot more difficult when you're trying to be for everybody.

And what happens when you try to be for everybody is you create, even if it's subconsciously amongst your audience, some brand confusion.

Right.

If you're posting about a commercial project today and a residential tune up tomorrow, the commercial prospects and say, well, if they do tune ups on residential, like they may not be big enough for us.

And if there's a commercial or a residential tune up, saying if they do commercial work, they're probably too expensive for us.

Right?

Right.

So you create that brand confusion because you have not identified and been willing to target a specific group of people.

And I'll tell you, I've Done this and it can be scary, but I've proven it to work.

When I went from the remodeling company to the roofing company, I cut out 50 plus percent of our revenue because it just wasn't the right type of work.

It wasn't type of clients.

And when we, we realigned ourselves with specifically what we were best at, we literally doubled our business two years in a row.

And like we're talking about millions of dollars.

Like we were a $2 million business and then we were a $4 million business and then we were training for a $6 million business.

Before I left, like the year I left, we were, we had a pipeline and contracts that if we would have continued as we were, would have been north of $6 million.

That's amazing.

Yeah, fantastic growth.

But what we did was we got.

So we were roofing, siding, windows and gutters.

I got rid of siding, got rid of windows.

And our work is we had our in.

We had an in house cruise was our.

Was our focus.

Very rare for roofing companies have in house crews, but we would sub our crews, other roofers to keep them busy when we weren't as could have enough work for everybody, sure.

But we made like no money on that.

Like that was practically a break even just keep our guys busy.

So when we took that away, like I literally went, we went, We're $2 million business.

I took over a million dollars off our books and said, we're not gonna do any of this work anymore.

Wow, that had to have been scary at the same time.

I mean, it was.

And I'm the new guy.

Like I was only six months into my role saying, guys, like, this isn't worth it.

Like, we're making too many mistakes.

Our guys aren enough at it.

If anybody who does windows, when you order replacement windows, if you're off by a quarter inch, that window's trash.

Yep.

And it's your fault for mismeasuring it.

Right.

So in our guys just weren't good at it.

Me as a salesperson, my sales team weren't great at it.

And like, we're losing money here, but we're great at low slope and specialty roofing.

So we basically pivoted.

And I said, like, literally, I'll never.

It was October.

I said, we're not doing any more sub work.

I'll find a way to fill our guys time with the work we be profitable on.

We're not doing any more of this.

And it wasn't all like, it wasn't a light switch.

It Wasn't like a boom.

We're there.

It was kind of like steering a ship to an extent.

Yeah.

Within two or three months, everything that I wanted off our plate was off our plate, and we focused on what we were good at, and we still doubled the business.

So literally, we quadrupled our core.

Our core workload.

And, man, that was really cool to see happen.

Like, I thought it would work.

In theory, it would work.

And it panned out.

And then I could imagine the crews were so much happier because now they're doing the things that they were good at, the things that they knew, and they're not all over the map.

So, I mean, it seems like morale and the company culture would even go up.

But what happened.

Really, what happened was, is we were able to better prepare ourselves for the work because.

Because we're doing the same things we were to build better systems and strategies around consistently setting our guys up for success.

When you're on a different type of job, like, if you're on shingle roof today, cedar roof tomorrow, siding repair the next day, window install the fourth day, you can't prep your guys well for that.

You can't prepare.

Like, it's different tools, different skill sets.

You're moving guys from one crew to another because they have the window expertise, and they're like, it just.

It's simplified.

Yeah.

You know, one of the best things it did for us, it was.

It simplified our approach.

And literally, I've coached dozens of businesses in the last year and a half or so, and every one, I had them cut out what was not.

And they've each grown.

I don't have exact numbers.

I don't dig into the books after I leave.

Like, my.

I work with for three to six months.

But they'll all tell you.

Simplifying what they were going after and not being for everybody made them win more of the right types of clients because it allows you to tell a more granular story about who's the right client, what's the right project, what makes you good at those types of projects.

And I'm not saying saying no to the.

Like this.

Like the fish that just jump into your boat and say, hey, can you do this for me?

Like, you did a project for me, like, last year.

You just think for me, like, oh, we don't do that anymore.

Like, no.

But there's a certain, like, don't say no to stuff when it comes to putting the message out there.

And you're.

You're tooling your sales team or your technicians for upsell I mean, like in your world, like going in and upselling the environment is a really great way to pad profits.

Right.

That was huge.

Yeah.

Especially right now in the current climate.

Especially right now, you have to advantage of every client you're in front of because very few, even a lot of them in your house.

The world is educating everyone on the importance of indoor air quality.

We don't have to do it anymore.

Yeah.

They're like, man, I just feel funny in here.

Right.

Like so.

But in general, if you're going in and trying to sell every service you can always do every time you're not going to be as successful.

You go in with a specific strategy around, hey, if we're going to do these services, these are two types of things we need to upsell.

Because of the neighborhood, the age of the house, the type of service you're doing, you need to get granular on that because it makes everybody better at doing it consistently.

Because when you do something consistently, you're going to learn to be better.

Right.

But if every day you're showing up and you're doing something different, you never catch that wave, you never get in the routine, you never go about it in a great way.

And that works as well in B2C as in B2B.

If you're a commercial H Vac company in that world, it is a lot more temperamental because typically in the commercial world, they're looking for more of a relationship with somebody.

They don't want to have to hire somebody new every time.

And if they don't know what you're best at, they're not going to trust you.

They'll take the guy that says we do commercial roofing the best, specifically in tpo.

Right.

Cpo.

H Vac roofing guy.

Yeah.

People that, that market will begin to trust you more and it allows you to charge more.

That's one of the biggest things I missed in when I made that transition was because we got better, because we got faster, because our systems, because we looked and acted more professionally and consistently, we were delivering a better service.

We were.

Our client experience increased.

So we were able to charge more.

Yes.

But not only, not only did we get rid of stuff we weren't good at and we're losing money on, we started doing more what we were good at and I able to start charging more for what we were good at and I mean, part of that was the market and labor went up and material went up and like the roofing industry went crazy in like 17 and 18.

But everybody's industry did like labor materials have gone up for everybody.

Right.

It's only going to get worse.

So.

But in general, being able to be more targeted, being the person for a type of service, we were able to charge more.

Like, we went from not even sniffing specialty roofing to.

I close, I think I sold 10 or 12 cedar roofs in like a six month period.

Right.

Well, an average cedar roof is like 80 to $120,000.

Right.

And like, not only then we got good at them, we were good, but like, we all weren't good.

We had a few guys that were great, but we started doing them.

Then more of our guys got good at it so we could handle more of them at the same time.

Right, Same thing in your world, like if you have a certain guys that are great at one part of the job.

Right, right.

We all have that employee that like, not that he's got to be on this one because, you know, and like.

And then now the other crew loses their leader, which doesn't do well for your business.

And overall we just got better at closing bigger deals of the right type of work so that we could scale according.

It starts with the identified everything, even my online course.

Like I built an entire online course on these four pillars.

Everything starts with identify because then decisions around targeting.

What are you saying?

Where are you saying it?

Where are you networking?

Who are you talking to?

How are you qualifying?

Right.

Because if you don't know what a great client is for you, like what questions are you going to ask on that initial phone call?

Sure.

Yeah.

You don't have a clue.

Oh, you have a heat pump.

Great.

Okay.

No, yeah, you're perfect.

Like, right, like so there's so like the entire ecosystem of decision making around how you're targeting, how you're qualifying, what you're doing to close the deal and acquire the right client.

It all depends on the identifying of like what that demographic slash psychographic of the project and the person you want to deal with.

I think we might have talked about this last time.

I apologize if I'm duplicating, but no.

No, this is good because even if we did, it's a little bit different because of the time and it doesn't hurt anybody to hear it multiple times.

It's so valuable.

And just real quick, I love the fact that even hearing it the second time has hit me in a little different way.

And it just dawned on me that you literally have three steps and of course we're home at quarantine, so pardon the kid.

Noise in the background but you're not.

Dealing with your kids right now because you don't have any.

Exactly.

Yeah.

But yeah.

The thing that's really hit me is you have three full steps in depth before we ever talk about acquiring customers.

And that is huge.

Most people jump.

They skip steps.

1, 2, 3.

And just to kind of restate what we're talking about and just.

Okay, if we can, we all they.

The old saying is nothing happens till something gets sold.

And so everybody just goes out and tries to make the sell, but then kind of skips all those first parts and then wonder why they're.

They're kind of on this floundering sea of.

Well, I just can't get past these certain thresholds.

We keep running into these same walls and don't know why.

So beautiful.

Love it.

Well, in the acquire phase works a lot better when you avoid objections.

I'm huge on avoiding objections.

Overcoming objections is incredibly difficult.

And I'm explaining why.

I think it's important to say why what an objection is.

Is a client deciding to not hire you or they've decided in their head, I'm going to throw whatever objection at you that I think you'll believe to go away.

Yeah, right.

And very rarely is the objection they give you the actual root of the problem of why they're not hiring you.

Smokescreen.

It's a decision.

And any adult human knows someone changing your mind is very difficult.

Right.

Because if nothing else, if nothing else, you have to admit you made the wrong decision, which none of us like doing.

Of course not.

Yeah.

So if you can do a better job at avoiding objections.

And I kind of compare it to.

Have you ever seen the movie eight Mile with Emmett?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

You know the scene at the end where he basically bashes himself in the entire rap battle and the other two guys.

Because you know what to say.

If you talk about what makes good clients good and bad clients bad, you'll qualify out the wrong ones before you ever have to talk to them.

So you can say things like, hey, if you did, if you're in a 6,000 square foot house or more, we're the perfect contractor for you.

Well, if you're not comfortable saying that because you're afraid you're gonna get, you're gonna lose the 3,000 square foot house that has a much smaller budget.

Much.

Maybe one unit instead of several, you're losing out on opportunities where you can really hone in and be the expert on that thing.

But then when you get to the actual acquire phase, the close, there's significantly Less objections because they already bought into the fact that you were telling a story that related to them.

And the minute a client can see themselves as a character in your story, you've won.

Right.

And so the objections kind of are different.

You know, sometimes it's timing, sometimes it's, we're going to hire you, but we got to figure out how we're going to pay for it.

Right.

Like, we think your price is fair, but we still need the money.

Like, Ferraris are great.

Like, you know, like what do you offer?

Is it financing or whatever?

How can we solve this problem?

So just talking about that, if you just try and dive in and just try and sell everybody, you're gonna spend a lot of time trying to close the wrong people and it'll turn into long losses.

Right.

Like there's fast wins, there's slow wins, there's fast losses and there's slow losses.

Slow losses are the worst thing you can have as a salesperson because you invest a ton of time into that person then did not close.

Right.

I'd rather lose you on the first phone call, then come out and spend three hours with you to find out three weeks later that you fell off.

The face of the earth.

Right, right.

Yeah, exactly.

So I think that kind of covers the identify part of it.

Yeah, for sure.

You know, we kind of, we went into the targeting and some of the qualifying last time.

But I want to reiterate this.

I think it's incredibly important.

There are three things that you need to uncover in the qualification process and there's a number of ways to do this, but it is how transparent is the customer, how flexible is the customer, and what is their geographic location?

It is incredibly important.

If any one of those three things is not good, it's going to be a challenging experience.

Right.

Because we've all had clients who are hiding something.

We've all had clients who won't budge and want you to do it their way.

We've all had clients are just way too far out.

We shouldn't have taken it.

So you can ask things about scope and budget and flexibility around time of meeting.

Like if someone can't meet with me during the normal 50 hour work week, it's subjective.

But in general, you can't meet with me during the 50 and you have to meet on late nights or weekends.

What's going to happen when it's time to write that check or pay that invoice?

Right.

Oh, no, I'll get to it.

I'll get to it.

I'll get to it.

And then like all of a sudden they're not getting to it.

Right.

So then when you get to the actual acquire phase, you know, this is where I personally shine.

I've sold nine figures worth of sales in my 15 years career.

So yes, it's cocky, yes, it's.

But I'm not trying to boast.

I'm just saying, hey, I've proven I know how to close deals.

Yeah.

No, it's confidence.

There's a difference between cockiness and confidence.

Yeah.

But it's because of the process I created.

And so I'm go over the five parts of a sales process I think everybody needs to nail.

And I think they're the five parts that most people miss.

Wild.

Right?

All right.

So the first one is when you get to the client's house, like you've qualified them, they're right, you're there.

Whether it's a technician or a salesperson, you have to break the ice and you have to then build rapport.

And break the ice is the first part.

And I did this for years and honestly, Andy Frisella was the one that kind of put this in terms for me.

But give a compliment, ask a question.

Right?

Give a compliment, ask a question.

Hey, that was a great picture of your family.

When was that taken?

Let them talk about themselves.

Open ended to an extent.

But like we've all those clients that want to spend three, four hours talking about their kids or their boss or the plants or their garden or we've all had those people, right?

Yeah.

So once you've done that, build rapport by understanding their decision criteria and setting an agenda.

So, hey, what's one of the best questions I asked or I learned to ask?

I didn't always ask this.

When I learned it, man, this changed the game for me.

But is what is the problem you're hoping I can solve for you?

Love it.

How important is that problem to solve for you and what are you willing to invest to solve that problem?

Right.

So you uncover a lot of their decision making criteria in that and then asking questions like, have you ever been involved in a decision like this before?

Who else will be involved in the final decision?

When do you plan to make the final decision?

Like that's building rapport.

You're letting them tell you their priorities, agenda, timeline and everything.

And that is some of the most powerful information.

I see salespeople miss all the time.

They get in, they collect information, say, great, I'll send you a proposal.

Let me know what you think.

Yeah, exactly.

You didn't uncover Any, you didn't build any rapport that they're not going to remember.

You're going to be like, who is that guy?

I can't remember.

You didn't do anything.

You came in, you took some information, you sent a proposal and you walked away.

Right.

Well, and one of the things about asking about when they're planning on making decisions, but this is different than when you ask this at the end.

Well, traditionally salespeople have gotten lost in when they're trying to close the deal.

Okay, well when are you planning on making a decision?

So they're just building follow up in.

That's unnecessary.

Asking it fret in is so different because you're showing them, you're concerned about when they're wanting to their timeline, which is important because traditionally in the heating and air especially, too many salespeople have gotten lost in the concept that if I don't close it in the house right now, it's not going to close, they're going to go with somebody else, which is totally not true if we handle it properly.

So keep going.

You get several things out of that rapport section.

If you understand what the problem is, why it's so important, what they're willing to invest, what their timeline is.

When you get to the third part, which is the information, the scope collection, you're able to now be a value added consultant instead of an order take.

Because if you understand what the real problem they want to solve, why it's so important what they're willing to invest with their timeline is you can start giving them professional consultative suggestions and pushback.

And pushback is scary for some people, but it is absolutely necessary to differentiate yourself from everybody else.

If the client called you as the expert, they want you to guide them and they say, hey, like, well, you know, this is the problem I wanted to solve and here's how I think we should solve it.

Well, client, I don't think that that's the right.

And here's why.

Right.

And then, and then you're still building that rapport.

You're giving them value added suggestions.

You're, you're saying, hey, if you're thinking about doing this the next six months, have you also considered about this that might actually go also go bad in that time?

Oh no, I didn't think about that.

That's a great idea.

Thank you so much.

And now you're starting to build rapport by being the value added consultant as opposed to just doing what the client asked you to do.

And nine times out of 10, the client's not right.

Well, no, no.

All they're asking you to do is what they learned on Google in two hours worth of research.

Yeah, so.

Or what their neighbor told them to do and they were probably wrong too.

But when you're in that position now, because you have that information prior to the scope review, now you're able to guide them to the right solution for the actual problem they wanted to solve.

And then understanding why, like what's driving the decision when who's involved.

Now you're able to as they're giving you information in the scope or you're doing your research.

You know, in the H VAC world, there's a lot of diagnostic stuff you can look at to say, hey, I see this, or this needs.

Like you're able to do better at giving them value added because you're relating it to solving the problem while you're there.

If you just walk in and start looking and say, hey, I think you should use 12 things and they're all equally prioritized, you're just not going to be able to get them to connect the dots on how that works for them.

There's the thing you're trying to upsell them.

You're like, hey, here's the 12 things you could do.

But these three things relate to that problem you said you wanted to solve really well.

Now you're giving them a reason that what you're selling them or how you're upselling them connects the dots with the problem while you're there.

Right.

So then this is something that I did for a long time and I didn't realize it was unique.

But immediately at the end of that, because I asked all those questions already, I can say, hey, if I can do X scope within Y budget by Z timeframe, are you prepared to move forward with me?

Like that soft close, that pushing them to actually make a verbal confirmation with you in person, you either then now feel really confident because they said, yeah, I mean, like, you answered all my questions.

You may feel really comfortable.

We're definitely feeling we're ready to move forward with you.

Or you uncover the actual reasons you may not get it.

No, we're not.

Well, you know, what?

Why?

I mean, like, why?

Sure, it might sound abrupt, but it's the reality of the situation.

They'll say, hey, we're getting a couple other estimates.

Hey, I need to talk to my husband.

Hey, I need to talk to my wife.

Hey, we're just not, we don't have the money yet, whatever it is.

Right, but what's Stopping you from moving forward with me right now.

And now you know what you have to overcome.

Sure.

They say something along the lines of, well, we're getting a couple other estimates.

Great, I think that's a great idea.

I always, if someone's doing that, I think it's a. I think it's good to just, you don't know me, I don't know you.

It's probably going to get a couple ideas, but in that process, what can I provide to you to give us the best chance to win your business?

Nice.

So now I question.

Nobody asks.

Because now I know what they're using to compare it.

Because, like, sometimes be like, hey, we're just gonna go with the cheapest guy.

Well, you, I mean, you should have known that already.

Like, that's been part of the phone call that you had before you went out to their house.

But that's not always the, that's not always how it goes.

But, but saying, hey, okay, I appreciate you get a couple other restaurants and that's a great idea.

What can I provide you in the meantime to give us the best chance to win your business?

And they might say, hey, we've reviewed you, we've talked to some people, we know you're good.

We just need to make sure we're getting great.

Now the next step is to set next steps.

No matter what happens at the end of that question of are you praying for with us, the final step is to set next steps with deadlines and who owns it.

Because sometimes might be.

Okay, great.

Well, I need you to do this so that we can do this.

I'm gonna need that by Wednesday so I can have you the formal proposal by Friday.

Can you commit to that?

Like, get there, buy in, but and then be done.

Like, don't oversell it.

Don't talk yourself out of the deal.

Like, don't sit there and just like, keep trying.

Great.

I know your priorities.

I know the scope is.

I know what, what's stopping you making a decision.

Here's the next steps.

Here's what you need to do.

Here's what I need to do.

There it is.

As part of the next step, discovery.

When you're building it out, you want to reverse engineer the steps from whatever they decided or told you their deadline or when they want to make a decision.

Because if they say, hey, we'd like to make a decision by the end of the week, great, I'm gonna need that from you tomorrow.

I'll send you proposal on Wednesday.

Is it okay if I fall with you?

On Friday.

So now you're setting the actual next agreed upon conversation.

Because so many was like, great, I'll have it to you tomorrow.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Right.

We've all said that in our sales meeting.

And they'll never get back in touch.

With you or, or you're sitting there on Thursday going, like, well, I don't want to bug them.

Like, but, you know, I don't, I don't know when to follow up.

You should not leave an in person meeting without a defined next step and definitely deadline.

That's right.

Get a meeting.

Book a meeting from a meeting.

Bam, fam.

Every time.

I don't end any conversation.

Literally.

In business and life, actually, I got, I, I, it became such a habit.

I do my wife.

Okay, like, what are the next steps?

And when we have it done by, like, it doesn't matter getting groceries or taking the kids for a walk, like, I just want to do now.

It's weird sometimes, but I do it all the time.

Well, no, it's great.

And that's just as a side note.

This is what you find with truly successful people in life.

They act.

They act immediately and set schedules and deadlines with everything in life.

Compared to the people that seems like they're always about to do something but never actually accomplish anything.

That's one of the big missing pieces.

Well, and the big thing there is, is that because you were so professional and you set the next step, even if they forget to get back to you when you call them and say, hey, it's Mike.

Just following up on Friday, like I said I would, just the differentiating and you saying you're gonna do something and following through on it, they're probably still waiting on that proposal they have not gotten.

That's probably three, ten days later than they said they were gonna get it.

And you're the guy following up, he's more likely to win that deal.

Of course it's credibility because you're basically, you've created.

You create the, and shown the fact your professionalism, integrity, and you can follow through.

Well, because at the end of the day, the reason so many people want to get multiple bids, it's the trust factor.

If you'd had a bunch of projects in the past that all turned out awesome and they were the great price, they wouldn't even be shopping around.

They'd be like, hey, when are we getting this done right?

And so it's building that trust.

And those little steps do that along the way.

People expect us in this world of Home services to drop the ball and not deliver.

Like that's the unfortunate reality of the world is they don't believe in you.

That's the standard.

Yeah.

Right.

So the more you can do to avoid objections by being on time, by being professional, by being prepared, by setting next steps and by following through just that alone are all things you have control over that will differentiate you compared to your competition.

Yeah.

And so many people miss those steps, man.

Like they're not.

People don't think they're necessary because they're not really mission critical.

Like they're not gonna close the deal in the moment, but it's building that reputation.

And then here's what really important you know, those are the five steps.

Let me just recap real quick.

We got break the ice, build rapport, collect information with value added suggestions, Soft close, set next steps.

Those are the five steps.

But where most businesses fail is they have a really good salesperson, they move into management who doesn't know how to teach that stuff.

Everybody else.

Yes.

And what happens is your client experience becomes inconsistent.

And now just like if your messaging is inconsistent, if your client experience is inconsistent, no one's going to be able to trust to refer you because they don't know which version of you, your business they're going to get that day.

Exactly.

And that's when businesses really start to like stagnate or decrease in market share is because your market has lost trust in you because your people are not operating congruently.

And that's huge.

So like setting some sort of systems and processes around a sales, an actual sales process that you hold people accountable to, even if it's not exactly that, it has to be consistent so that people are confident enough to refer you so that they know that whoever they're referring you to is going to get taken care of.

Because if you don't know this at this point, I'm sorry to break this to you, when someone refers you, they hold the responsibility on how that goes.

And if you do a bad job, you make that person look bad.

Right.

Not only do you not get the new client, you lost a referral partner in the old client.

And that's how people start to lose market share.

The people who did hire you had a great experience refer you to somebody else and you let the somebody else down.

And now no one is comfortable referring.

And that's really where companies that scale too fast and don't have solid systems and processes in place start to suffer because everybody's kind of like they'll hire be like okay, you're in the field.

Go.

Oh, you're in the field, go.

And like, there's never any type of accountability and structure created.

So everybody's kind of operating on an island.

And the bottom line is, is no one's going to care as much about your business as you do, of course.

So you're setting yourself up for failure if you're not structuring that system and process in place.

You have some sort of an identified standard operating procedure on how, you know, in home sales consultations should go.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's.

It involves that and culture to get that buy in from everybody.

But yeah, in fact, I've seen.

And in fact, where I'm at now, when I first started with them years ago, it was just a wild, wild west.

We got a handful of people all over the map doing basically whatever they wanted, kind of pricing however they wanted.

Oh, yeah, there was the.

And it really came to a head one time when one guy did, we did an awesome job for this guy, referred his neighbor and it wasn't six months later a different consultant goes out and the price was thousands of dollars different just because he felt different that day.

And so they called us out, what happened?

What's going on?

You're taking advantage of my neighbor.

I referred him.

And exactly what you're describing.

And from that moment forward, we said, okay, we're going to have consistency.

Here's our standard pricing, here's our book.

It cannot vary from X amount of.

You know, obviously there's a little bit of negotiation factor, just a tiny fractional amount and beyond that, end of story.

These are our prices.

Everyone gets the same experience.

And just like you're describing, from that moment forward, this company, you know, has just multiplied in growth because now everybody's getting the same experience.

And you build a relationship that with your marketplace.

And whether you realize or not, you are building a relationship with your marketplace, with your content, with your social media, with your website, with your technicians, with how your vans look, with how you consistently deliver on what you promise, you're building a relationship.

Yeah.

So think about it.

Would you be friends with your business?

Right.

Yeah, of course.

Would you?

Yeah, I could totally say with somebody.

Who operated the way your business does.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean that.

It's that simple.

That's huge.

Yeah.

Look in the mirror.

Would you buy from you today?

Yeah, yeah.

It's a hard truth a lot of.

Times, but the reason people can't do that is because they're trying to win everybody.

They're trying to Close every deal and be what everybody wants them to be.

And that's just not realistic in today's marketplace and ecosystem.

Right.

It's just not.

It's not how it works.

Yep.

No, I totally agree.

Let me ask you, like, I mean, to be fair, like, I've never sold H Vac specifically.

It was part of remodels I sold, but I did not do in home H Vac sales.

What are one of the.

What's one of the biggest issues you see?

Your market, your ecosystem, your peers dealing.

With one of the biggest ones for sales.

And this is an interesting one.

In fact, it's really top of mind for me because earlier today, before we had this interview, I was on site with a project that's going on and I'm having this conversation with the lady and it came down between us and one other company and they weren't.

So the example is had to do with the copper line set.

The other company said, oh, it's not necessary to change the copper line set even though it's too small.

They said that the new equipment will function just fine.

Shouldn't be a big deal.

It's going to be hard to do.

So, you know, we're not going to do it.

Well, of course, I'm.

My price is a little higher because I'm quoting in there, say, listen, it's necessary.

So the conversation with the homeowner today, she said, I'm so glad I went with you because I was just talking to my neighbors.

It's in this kind of condo complex.

I was just talking to my neighbors across the way and they've had their system changed.

Two years ago, they didn't change the line set.

And they said last month their system froze up 14 times.

Well, that's exactly why.

And the conversation was.

And here's where the.

To answer your question specifically, here's where the struggle happens is on paper, the companies may have similar reviews.

On paper, the company may be using the same, exact same brand or model of equipment.

On paper, so many things seem like, well, it's just a little bit cheaper price for the same thing.

And so the biggest struggle is communicating those differences of the importance of the little things outside of just the appliance and how it's installed and those extra levels of detail and, and that struggle.

And so of course, after she had the conversation with her neighbors, she was like, oh, it was an easy decision at that point because we didn't want to have that problem.

And then of course, that's where we circle back.

We're like, listen, this is why we have our guarantees and all of that, but how would you handle that situation when that's a great.

On paper, y' all look like the same company.

So what's the difference here?

They're like, I don't care how good you are in person on the spot, that's difficult to overcome.

Right.

Because you're basically like, they got to take your word for it.

And it's basically your word versus their word.

And you're like.

And they're like, oh, well, like, for eighteen hundred dollars less, their word sounds better.

Right?

Like, that's what we go up against.

But what I have found the best way, and this sounds easy, saying it more difficult implementing it is overcoming that objection by avoiding it.

And so in that situation, what I would have done if I'm you today, I'm getting on my social media in my face, shooting a video with my phone, telling that story so that people, when they're finding me and they're researching me, they're watching the content, they're saying, my sales guy just said, we didn't do chase the line set.

He's saying, I do.

And why That's.

I don't want that.

So I'm avoiding the objection by educating them through my content ahead of time.

So, like, yeah, you can't, like, overcome that today if you haven't been doing that.

But in general, the world.

I think we talked about this on the last one.

The world of just saying, I have integrity and saying we do the right thing and saying we put clients first.

Just saying that doesn't mean anything anymore because everybody says it.

But if you were to get on today and say, we had this awesome client situation today where we were able to save them a lot of heartache.

And here's how.

Yeah.

If you're putting out videos like that all the time, you won't have to deal with the question because they're gonna say, hey, they're gonna call you even if they weren't getting a competitive bid.

Because that you taught them to listen for.

For.

Hey, if someone says don't, they don't replace their line set.

Make sure that you actually don't hear some ways to look at it.

Sure.

So they now trust you.

They built a relation with you because you educated them and saved them some heartache.

So they might even call you and say, hey, like, I just talked to a guy.

I was gonna move forward with him, but I just saw your video and you said, and I just want to better understand, can you come look at my stuff.

Right, right.

That work incredibly well and.

But no one in the service industry does a good job about having that their sales and technicians on their social media, like telling stories and you know, having that, that situation where like at the end of every day, what was the biggest problem I solved today?

And getting on your platforms and talking about it will be how you overcome those objections.

Because that person built a level of trust with you that nobody else can do in a single sales call because they've been following you or engaging with you for a period of time where one of your educational videos, AKA you just talk about a problem you solve, why you solved it the way you did.

Right now they believe you more than the other guy they never met before.

Because bottom line is people build relationship with people online, right?

Period.

Like when we all have somebody we follow on social media that if we saw them in person we probably run up like, dude, what's up?

And like they've never met you and.

They'Ve never seen you before.

Like you build a relationship with them.

You don't have to have a hundred million followers to be an interview influencer.

Right.

If you're an H Vac company and you have 50 property management companies and 50 real estate agents that follow you on social media, you're an influencer.

How you communicate to them, what you're saying, how you're educating them, all impacts how well they feel about you.

So how I would overcome that objection is by avoiding it, by telling consistent stories on my social media about problems I solve, why I solve them things.

Look out for questions to ask, you know, way to diagnose one proposal to another.

So educating them on things that help them overcome the fear of making the wrong decision.

Because that's really what you're doing, right?

Of course, yeah, absolutely.

But if things, that's one of the.

Things I teach is how to value stack in the proposal to start with.

Yeah.

And that's huge.

And that's not like, that's not made up.

Like that's not something that, that's real.

That's how people make decisions.

So if you can tell stories that say, hey, I know we're more expensive, but here's why we do things differently, here's how we make decisions, here's how we replace units, there are plenty of ways to do it, here's our way and why we do it that way you'll have People who agree with how you make decisions, and they won't question you.

Right.

And so that's how you kind of, I guess, does that.

That's how I would do it.

That's how I would do it.

Yeah.

No, that's great.

And I love it.

And then what you have is you've created a very, very valuable tool.

And the more you do that, the more you have this basically library that you can pull from.

So that next person you come across with that same issue say, you know what?

Here's what we're doing and here's why.

But I would share this story with you, and you just send them a link to that video and say, we came across this before.

Yeah, here's how we solved it there.

And so they can watch someone else's story and someone else's experience, which now becomes, hey, they're not making it up on the spot.

Look, when this was dated months or years ago, they've been solving this for forever now.

And it's evergreen and it's passive.

Right.

Like, we all have to say the same thing to people every day.

Right.

So just tell the story online.

And then it gets those touches with your market that are passive.

It's not you actively going on talking to people.

It's there.

You're putting the message in front of the right people at the right time.

And that's evergreen because.

Yeah.

I mean, videos I shot last year are still relevant.

Your world hasn't changed much at all where, like, the problems you solve this year is different than two, three years ago right now.

So, yeah, I mean, it's incredibly evergreen.

And, like, once you do it, it's there forever and it's always exciting.

Absolutely.

Oh, that's beautiful.

That's why I would avoid that objection by doing that.

That way you don't have to overcome it.

Yeah, that's good.

And that.

That ban, and that's the biggest one, I think, with anybody, it doesn't matter.

The industry is.

Well, on paper, y' all look the same.

Why should we choose you?

It's kind of where our whole conversation started, with the beginning of episode one.

Is that whole thing, how, why should we choose you compared to everybody else?

And here's why.

Because we know how to overcome all of your concerns.

Here's our story, here's what we've done.

And developing that consistency, one of the.

Best things you can do, when you have that asset that's already built out, you can say things like, hey, we may not be able to solve your problem the way you Want to.

But please look at how we solve problems to see if that relates to how you want it done.

Let them decide.

Because then if they come back and say, hey, you've closed them without closing them.

Yeah, yeah, that's that.

Inception.

Yeah.

It was in their mind first they.

Told, hey, I need you to work with you.

Yeah, right.

Not.

I'd like to, but I don't know.

Now it's.

I need to.

Yeah, it's not.

Well, everybody's telling us different solutions.

I'm not sure if what.

I'm not sure what to pick because they're all different.

Yeah.

It's not that anymore.

And you can't do that if you don't start today.

You can't magically appear a backlog of videos.

Utilize as an asset for that.

So you need to start creating that content now.

It doesn't be highly produced.

It just needs to be literally, as long as you can hear it and somewhat see it, it.

It's good enough.

Oh, my gosh.

You know what?

Some of the best ones I've ever made is literally.

And everybody is listening and watching.

Do this.

Everybody's got the cell phone.

Grab it when you're on site.

Is so effective.

And I literally took pictures earlier with the crane behind me pointing to the roof.

Yeah, you're standing right there.

Flip it on.

Make your video standing in front of your project.

Say, here's.

And if you want to show.

If you're on site, you want to show people something, turn the camera on.

Say, hey, here's what I found.

Does what you have look like this, this or this?

That's not supposed to look like that.

Here's what it's supposed to look like.

And it only takes two minutes.

You don't have to do.

You're right.

No production.

It doesn't have to be crazy, but it's a matter of just getting it.

Just doing it, getting it recorded.

Well, the biggest thing is too, is that I'd say H Vac, the roof and the crawl space are probably the three places that no one looks like.

Looks at.

Yep.

Or they walk past their equipment and have no idea what it's supposed to look like.

Sure.

Right.

So, like, yeah.

Telling them, like, they're like, oh, my God, that is exactly what ours looks like.

I didn't know that was wrong.

Yeah, exactly.

And so, like, it's just.

It's so powerful to build that relationship that shows you as the expert, you know, as the authority in your.

Whatever it is you do, industry irrelevant.

You can be the authority in what you do by just talking about how you solve problems every day.

Yep.

Oh, love it.

Oh, it's great.

And then this translates to everything we do.

It's, you know, basically hook, story, offer, hook, story, offer.

The hook is, are you experiencing this?

Or whatever they.

What's going to catch somebody's attention and then put them in the story?

And then at the end it's just like, hey, the offer can be basically as simple as, like, if you want more information, you know, follow our page.

Or it could be, hey, we've got a special on the solution for this right now.

It can be really anything you want.

But.

But you've got to have the meat of it has to be the story.

You don't even have to offer.

Every time just tell the story, people will raise their hand and say, that's me.

What can you do for me?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

The story is the meat of it.

Yeah.

It's incredibly more powerful than our industry gives it credit for because we're all used to the Labor Day sale.

Buy one, get one.

If you can prove you know what you're doing and people can trust you to get the job done, you don't get have to do that anymore.

Right.

And not if people are utilizing the content creation side, which is, I mean, honestly is what I specialize in.

Like tell the story appropriately.

Yeah, absolutely.

Makes it very difficult to win consistently.

Gosh, I got it.

That was a couple episodes, man.

Well, thanks for, thanks for jumping on with us again.

I know we're getting close to your time limit here and so everyone, everyone, everyone, you've got to check out Mike Claudio's information.

Give us the hit list of all the places they can find you.

Again, tell everybody about your podcast.

Yeah, so I have big Stud sales podcast.

It's a sales and marketing and just general business development podcast.

Mike Claudio on YouTube.

I post a ton of like very, very high quality videos there that are very educational, more longer format.

And then I have construction selling as a Facebook group I manage.

It's seven or 800 members of just people in the industry that are trying to get better at sales.

So love to connect with you.

If you found me because of this, let me know.

Reach out to me.

Say, hey, I found you because of love to just see where people are coming from and how it's happening.

And then if I can do anything to help you, winrate consulting on Instagram is probably the best way to DM me and get, get direct contact or if you want to email me.

Mikeinrayconsulting.com so it's I put out content everywhere.

If you watch videos or listen to podcasts or like to read.

I have a blog too, but YouTube, Instagram, Facebook group, podcasts, probably the main ones.

Perfect.

Awesome.

Awesome.

Thank you so much for this.

Of course you'll get copies when all of this goes up for everyone.

Thanks for listening today.

This was episode two of Basically, we've covered a lot of territory in the last two episodes.

Again, if you didn't listen to episode one, go back now and listen to episode one with Mike Claudio.

Big Stud.

I understand why you named it that.

This guy knows what he's talking about.

Thanks for being our guest for these times.

I look forward to what we do together in the future.

Okay everyone, this has been Close It Now.

Go save the world one heat stroke.

At a time time.

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