The central tenet of today's discourse revolves around the pervasive phenomenon of resistance encountered by sales professionals during client interactions, particularly when imparting new information. We elucidate the fundamental necessity of engaging clients in a manner that mitigates this resistance, thereby fostering an environment conducive to effective communication. To this end, we delineate a triadic methodology designed to enhance understanding: first, seeking permission before presenting data; second, conveying information in a clear and accessible manner; and third, verifying comprehension through strategic check-ins. Through the exploration of these steps, we aim to equip listeners with the tools required to transform their client interactions, ultimately yielding more fruitful engagements and stronger relationships. Join us as we delve into practical strategies that can elevate your efficacy in the HVAC sales realm.

Do you find that people only pay half the attention to everything in their life including your sales pitch? Today, Sam Wakefield discusses why your customers are mentally primed to say no to you, and reveals the three steps to success you can take to make them pay attention to what you’re telling them. Learn how to communicate in congruence to your customers’ brain waves so you can be understood, differentiated, and preferred.

The discourse presented within this episode elucidates the essentiality of adept communication in the realm of HVAC sales. The host, Sam Wakefield, articulates the prevalent phenomenon of consumer disengagement during sales presentations, particularly when novel information is introduced. He expounds upon the societal inclination towards distraction, attributing it to an overarching ADHD-like mentality fostered by the omnipresence of digital devices. This lack of attention often manifests as a resistance to sales pitches, wherein prospective clients exhibit a glazed-over demeanor when confronted with technical details pertaining to HVAC systems. To counteract this resistance, Wakefield proposes a tripartite strategy that encompasses: firstly, soliciting the client's permission to share information; secondly, conveying that information in an accessible manner; and thirdly, verifying the client's comprehension of the presented data. The profound implications of these steps are discussed, emphasizing that a confused client is predisposed to decline offers, thereby underscoring the necessity of clear communication in fostering successful sales relationships.

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, welcome back.

Sam Wakefield here.

This is the Close it now podcast.

It's been a little bit.

I have to apologize for being away so long.

I know it's been a few weeks.

Life happens.

How many of you have been on a steady journey doing something, accomplishing something and then life just kind of smacks you in the face for a little bit.

But I have to say that I am back.

We are rolling again and time to get this train moving down the tracks.

So today we are talking about how many of you have experienced when you go to give new information in a sales appointment, the resistance.

And it's weird because people, they say that they want to hear why you're there, they say that they want to hear your information, but as soon as you start to give them any type of new data or information about if it's about equipment, if it's about system sizing, if it's about airflow, whatever it is, when you start to go into that, they get that glazed over look in their face, that glazed over look in the eye and they have, it's like this moment of they literally just asked me about this, but now they're not paying attention, they're not listening.

They totally check out and move on to something else.

I think it's actually, you know, two parts that.

Cause this one is just our society.

Our society is such that you in that we are just such a ADHD type of a mentality with all of our devices, with everything that they just kind of jump into.

They didn't really want to hear the answer, but they just went ahead and mentally jumped onto something else out of habit.

I think that's a lot of what happens is it's a habit to, you know, only half pay attention to everything in their life.

And when you're doing that, of course, and we're all guilty of that too.

Raise your hand if you're the, you Know, you watch a movie at home with your wife with your computer going, your laptop beside you, got the iPad on the other side and got your phone in the middle with this movie going on, thinking that you're paying attention to anything.

But you've basically missed most of the things that are happening all around you.

But we all do it.

We've all had those moments.

And I know, I've been guilty of that myself.

So we have this ADHD type of mentality that instantly moves on to other things.

The other thing that I think what causes this is people are so conditioned to just being resistant to salespeople, generally speaking.

So there is a way, and we've covered this a little bit in another podcast I did about asking permission.

But there's a way to give data, there's a way to give new information that will keep that resistance down.

And we're gonna.

This is kind of springboarding off of that permission thing.

But there's a three step process.

Anytime you give a new piece of information, which makes sure that they lock it in, lock it in their head.

Because you've got to check in with people too.

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

The three simple steps to one, keep the resistance down so they will actually open their mind to hear and pay attention to what you're telling them.

Two, you actually get to communicate what that is.

And three, to lock it in and make sure that it's understood before you move on.

Because if you just keep bouncing from data point to data point to data point without checking in with people, if you lost someone, say step two, but now you're on step five and they didn't catch steps three or four, they're absolutely not going to catch five.

And you know what the confused mind says?

The confused mind says no.

The confused mind says no.

So if you've lost them at any step along the way, they're just going to say no to you.

I mean, people will choose someone that they can understand over maybe someone who's more competent and someone who would do a better job just because they were confused and they didn't understand what you were saying or what you were doing.

Because people want things explained simply to you.

So this comes, this message today is brought to you by my experience I just had in a home.

Raise your hand if you've ever gone to a sales appointment and they tell you, well, you're bid number six.

I was number six today.

This lady has had five other companies out to give her pricing for a new system.

Now the Context here is this equipment is five years old, not very old equipment, but it's got serious problems.

The installation was horrible to start with.

It wasn't sized properly for the space.

All those kind of things which we're fixing to get to because it has to do with your due diligence.

So I was number six today.

Has it all been today?

And so we go into the process, and we'll get to the points here in a minute, but go into the process, and I start asking her these questions like, okay, well, it's important to size the equipment properly.

Has anyone else done a manual J load calculation on the house?

No.

What's that?

Really?

Okay, well, how did they size your equipment?

Well, they based it off of what I currently have, and they based it off of the square footage for that the city says that this house should have.

Oh, really?

Okay, well, do you know how accurate that is?

Well, not really.

I'm just going off of what everybody's saying.

So it turns out only one other company had any type of idea of semblance of professionalism.

They went.

Took the extra step to print off.

So in Austin, Texas, there is a appraisal district, has kind of sketches when the surveys are done.

I don't know if this is everywhere across the country.

I know most major cities have this.

The sketches when houses are built or appraised for tax purposes.

Just very rough sketches of square footage.

Well, if your town is anything like our town, a lot of times those are wrong.

So he's got this, and every bit of the rest of his proposal was built off of wrong information.

So I go through, I say, okay, well, I don't guess at what we do.

And this is a fantastic line that you can use, which is just, we don't believe in guesswork.

We want to be accurate because sizing equipment, there's.

It's just math.

There's a formula behind it.

It's just math.

You punch in the numbers, and it'll tell you the right answer every time, as long as you punch in the right numbers.

And people get that.

They understand that.

So they want you to not be guessing at what you're doing.

So I go through and I measure the space that we're looking at.

And she says, wow.

And that's when she pulled out that other drawing.

She's like, that's really different than what this one shows.

And I was like, well, did he measure it?

No.

I said, okay, well, let's measure it again.

Initially, I'd measured the space with my laser tape measure.

I Said, well, let's do it again.

Let's do it the old fashioned way.

So I pulled out my real tape measure and I got her involved.

I said, okay, hold this for me.

What are we reading?

So I'm writing it down along the way.

We go through, we go through, we go through.

I do the math.

And I said, okay, would you like to hear how big your house actually is?

Of course.

And so I tell her, and that matches my initial measurements, which is over 400 square foot different than what the other company had then I asked her, I said, okay, now we measured this together, right?

Yes.

Okay, here's what it is.

So one, she was blown away.

I said, this is good information for you because you're getting taxed on a bigger piece of house than you have.

So I would definitely talk to the appraisal district and have your house remeasured so you don't pay as many taxes.

But more importantly, we don't believe in guesswork.

We work off of accurate information.

So then of course I pulled out the manual J software and quickly did a manual J right in front of her and showed her what size system we should be looking at.

Now here's the important part.

Five other companies had sized the system at a 4 ton.

I'm sizing it now and with the load calculation I actually showed about 2.4 tons for this space.

So with modulating equipment, of course we're looking at a three ton system for the space.

And she was like, wow, I'm really, really concerned because if five other companies are saying this, I said, but did they do the due diligence?

This is why we win awards for our designs, because we don't cut corners in the process.

And so it was a fantastic visit, really.

It showed her some things.

But the important part of this and the importance that there's a handful of things I want to really stress to you.

One is the importance of doing your due diligence.

It's a crawl space house.

I looked in the crawl space, took a picture, showed her the level of insulation in her crawl space, went into the attic, measured the level of insulation in the attic.

All of that went into the calculation.

Not a single other person looked in either place.

So then my question to her was also, if they're just guessing at these other elements, what are they going to be guessing at when it comes time to really do the work?

What other parts are they guessing at?

So that's a good, great pop out for you, right?

There is use that, see if the other company is Guessing at this part of the work, when this is the easy part to do, how many other shortcuts are they going to make when it takes more time and is a little harder?

Because how you do anything is how you do everything.

And it's fantastic conversation.

The other part is, and I've been doing this along the way with you because it's become such an ingrained part of my conversation is anytime you give a new data point, step one is ask permission.

So by doing that, the questions are really simple.

When I asked her, would you like to see how big your house really is?

And then once I finish the load calculation, would you like to see what size system your house really calls for?

And so you ask permission, you ask them, would you like to see, when you're showing your equipment, when you're showing your presentation, would you like to see the, all the options that are available to you?

Or another question could be, would you like to see all of the different models that are available?

Would you like to see the benefits and the features of this system and how it affects these concerns that you've expressed to me?

And of course they'll say yes.

And when you use these words and make it part of your conversation, it's not weird, it's not different, it's not out of the ordinary, but you make it part of the way that you speak.

So you're asking permission for that, they give you the permission, then you tell them.

So step two is to give the data.

Step one is ask permission.

Step two is give the data.

You know, you go through it in such a way that they, of course they understand it.

Don't use industry jargon, break it down for them.

Tell them what's going on.

You know, like today I had the, we had the conversation about, she was asking about, so when you do this work, does that mean that the furnace and all these, everything gets changed or what else?

What does that mean?

And I was like, oh, that's a great question.

Would you like to hear what a system means?

So just asking the permission to tell somebody what it means.

So then of course went through and explained to what the definition of complete system actually means.

But when you break it down, break it down to them, don't go into all kind of jargon or whatever, unless you're of course, that one in a hundredth client that's an engineer or something that wants to hear it.

But so step two is actually giving the information.

And then step three is crucial.

Step three is so important.

It's the step that's the most commonly missed and skipped.

But you've got to check back in.

So once you've asked permission, you've given that piece of information.

Step three is, does that make sense?

Do you understand everything we talked about?

Do you get what we're talking about here?

You know, use any of those questions?

My favorite is, does that all make sense?

But it's so important.

And if it doesn't, that gives them the opportunity to ask further probing questions about what it is or anything that popped up in their head during that conversation.

It also lets you know, you know, you've got to be clear.

You have to know that they understand what is going on before you move on to the next sections, before you move on to the next part.

Because if you lose them at any step of the way, anything else along the way they're not going to get.

They're still thinking about that one thing that they didn't understand.

Again, goes back to the confused mind says no.

So the three steps of communication A asking permission.

Would you like to hear some examples?

Would you like to see some examples of this?

Of course they say yes.

Step two, give the information in a way that they understand without using too many complicated words.

Think in terms of their perspective, not your perspective.

And step three, you've got to check in.

Does that make sense?

Do you understand any other questions about this before we move on?

That's a great one.

Perfect.

All right.

Well, great.

The next step is.

And then there's your segue into the next step.

The next step is.

And then just move into the next step.

So it's such a beautiful way to communicate.

And then just it's each segment of your appointment are those little building blocks just put together.

You think of it like a conversation, think of it like a paragraph.

Anytime you're reading a paragraph, you don't want it to be one run on sentence.

So that's what each of these section does.

It breaks it up into an easily digestible sentence.

And then when you check in, does that make sense?

Okay, the next step is that's the period moving into the next sentence in your paragraph.

So at the end of the paragraph, start to finish, it won't be disjointed, it'll read normally.

And people can digest each sentence along the way because that's what that pause is to stop and make sure that they understand each section before you move on because you don't want them halfway down the page and not remembering what they just read.

So that's the message today.

That's how to keep that resistance down when you're giving new information is by one, the asking permission.

Part two, how to communicate it clearly.

Number three, gotta check in.

Put the period on the end of your sentence check in and make sure they understand what you just talked about.

And those three steps will take you dramatically into a better understanding, better relationship with your clients.

And they'll connect better too.

You'll find that people connect a whole lot better and relationship and rapport building.

When you start to communicate like this versus just telling them, telling them, telling them.

No one wants to be told anything.

They want a conversation and we don't like it.

I mean, I'm the same way.

I know you are too.

You don't want anybody to tell you anything.

Especially you know, your spouse or your partner is like, oh my gosh, stop, stop, stop, stop.

You know, and no matter who it is, if someone's just rattling, rattling machine gunning information at you, that is never the way to communicate.

So it's this three step process will really take you to the next level when it comes to in home cells with heating and air.

So yeah, so that's the message today.

I am so thankful that everyone checked in.

I'm thankful for every single one of you.

I am.

So this is the end.

We're into mid September at this point.

How did your summer go?

Is your summer still going or has it started to really slow down?

Shoot me a message samoseitnow.net Let me know what's going on in your world.

Where are you in the world?

And yeah, that's the message for today.

Check in, go check out closeitnow.net and we've got a lot of things going and yeah, come join the community.

It's a fun one and I am back in action and you're going to be hearing a lot more from me in the real near future.

Take care out there saving the world one heat stroke at a time.

I will talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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