The primary focus of this podcast episode centers on the intricacies of managing customer expectations regarding deposits and down payments in the HVAC sales process. We delve into a specific case study wherein a potential client, despite favoring a contractor’s proposal, hesitated due to a previous negative experience with upfront payments. Through this narrative, we examine the importance of understanding the client's perspective and the necessity of establishing a rapport that fosters open dialogue about financial policies. We further explore effective strategies for negotiating terms that address client concerns while safeguarding the contractor's interests. Ultimately, this episode aims to equip HVAC professionals with the skills to navigate such challenges, thereby enhancing their sales efficacy and client satisfaction. The discourse presented within this podcast episode meticulously dissects the intricate dynamics surrounding the topic of deposits and down payments in the realm of HVAC sales. Speaker B elucidates a scenario encountered by an HVAC professional, wherein a potential client, despite being presented with a superior proposal—both in terms of pricing and service quality—expressed hesitance primarily due to a prior negative experience with contractors. This client’s stipulation for zero upfront payment starkly contrasted with the industry-standard practice of requiring a 50% deposit, thus illuminating a significant friction point in the sales process. The episode emphasizes the necessity for HVAC professionals to not only acknowledge these objections but to engage in a deeper dialogue with clients to uncover the underlying sentiments driving their hesitance. Through a methodical exploration of the client’s narrative, the episode advocates for a transition from a positional bargaining framework to one that fosters collaborative problem-solving, thereby enhancing trust and facilitating a more favorable negotiation outcome. Moreover, the speaker presents a comprehensive strategy for navigating such objections, which involves actively listening to the client’s past experiences, validating their concerns, and then positioning one’s own policies within the context of shared experiences of being taken advantage of in business dealings. This reframing of the conversation serves to humanize the interaction, shifting the dynamic from an adversarial negotiation to a collaborative discussion aimed at finding common ground. The insights shared in this episode are invaluable for HVAC professionals seeking to enhance their sales acumen by fostering trust and rapport with potential clients, ultimately leading to increased sales success and customer satisfaction.

Welcome to Close it now, an H Vac sales training podcast with Sam Wakefield.

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Now let's get started with your host of the Close it now podcast.

This is Sam Wakefield.

Drive Time University, back in session.

I hope you are having an awesome day today.

I know I am.

Got a fun topic today about deposits, down payments, all that kind of stuff.

If you are not a member of the Facebook group, you've got to get in there.

There's so much awesome discussion, positive group of people that support each other.

One of the guys in the group, Chris, had this question, he had this issue come up so I wanted to talk about it.

It makes for a great topic for a podcast.

And that's the thing.

If any of you are struggling with something, something that means more than one person is.

I've personally come across every single one of these issues in my career and I know plenty of other people have as well.

So let's talk about today's topic of interest.

He was at a, at an appointment, probably, I don't know, second or third or fourth, not the first person.

Clients had other quotes.

His gave him his proposal.

Turns out he was actually $200 less than this other company.

But the client had a big issue because they didn't.

They liked him better.

They told him they liked his company better, they like him better.

The project that he was proposing better.

But they had one big sticking point, one thing that was keeping them from moving forward.

That issue was they had been burned by contractors before and didn't and now they don't do.

They don't give money up front.

They only pay contractors when the project is completed.

Everything works correctly.

Well, of course his company's policy was for a 50% down payment, which is pretty normal in our industry.

Right.

So it turns out the other company, which was $200 more, they had a zero down policy and we're going to let them just pay when they, when the work was completed.

So that was the issue.

Interesting.

Right.

So stick around.

We're going to cover several ways to handle that and what we can do.

But before we do that.

Let's talk about a couple things.

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We've got so many things happening.

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We're going to have, if you have an idea or a topic that you want me to cover in the podcast, message me, let me know, join the Facebook group.

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Sam closeitnow.net and I will answer the questions.

If it's, if it's something that we need to address, heck, we'll make a podcast about it and put it up so it can, you know, we can answer the questions for everybody.

So if, yeah, so if you've.

What are you struggling with?

What's going on in the world right now?

Where are you listening from?

What is your friction point?

What's the struggle?

Are you making all the money you want to make, Making all the sales that you want to make?

Are you a business owner and you are looking for a way to grow your bottom line by 20, 30, 40, 50, 100%?

You want to double your bottom line?

We need to chat.

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So reach out to me.

We can have a great conversation surrounding how to increase your bottom line without changing anything, really changing a lot of what you're doing.

You don't have to add any more resources to do this.

Anyway, let's get back to the topic.

We've got a lot of stuff going on here, but this is a fun one.

This is one that, you know, if you go into an appointment like that and it's every your typical posture.

And by posture I mean your mindset, your philosophy.

You go in as just the regular old air conditioning guy.

The positioning that you end up with is you.

The client is called basically a buyer in power.

If the buyer in power thinks that they get to set the terms for everything, then they are basically telling you what they will pay, they're telling you how they want to pay.

It's just not a good situation to be in when they are the ones that are running the show.

That's a buyer in power.

So his situation, he was sitting, you know, he goes in there as a buyer in power and he is the, you know, the sales sell side of it without a lot of posture.

Because the second that client said we're not going to do this and here's why, we've been burned in the past by contractors.

So you know, he, what he originally did is he offered, you know, okay, well let's, we can cut it back to 30% deposit and then the rest on completion, etc.

Etc.

But they still didn't go for that.

Now my advice, and we covered this in a, in a Facebook Live, if you didn't know, every Friday we do a one hour free sales training in the Facebook group.

Call it Q and A Friday.

So I covered this and it was a good topic.

But so what we do though, and my advice was to do it like this.

You listen to understand and clearly this client, the reason that they're doing this came from a story.

Start with getting their story and really be concerned and caring.

Say oh my gosh, this sound, I can understand your concern.

We've all know people who've been burned by contractors personally or know somebody close to us.

This sounds like you have a story.

Tell me your story.

Get them talking about their bad past experience.

Get them talking about what happened that caused them to basically set their foot down, establish their own not company policy, but family policy of not paying any money up front to contractors until the job is completed and operational.

Get the story out of them.

You've got to hear what's going on.

And dollars to donuts, it was probably some fly by night company without the reputation, who knows what the situation was.

But you've got to get their story first.

Listen to their story, find out what's happening and what caused that.

Let them talk, ask them about the details, how so, how was it?

And once they tell their story to you, once they really get it off their chest, then ask them how many times that's happened.

Has it just been Was it just that one time?

Have you done other projects in the past?

Have you burned by every single con, been burned by every single contractor you've ever used?

Or was it just a one time experience?

So really get to fact finding what's going on because there is not a single objection that you can have that's not solved by asking more questions.

It's 100% true.

So find out what caused them to have this policy.

So then after you've done that, then we start to turn the corner.

They've shared, they've gotten it off their chest.

Then we really start to turn the corner with, okay, well you know, I've been in business this many years and we're going to use our referrals and our testimonies and then we'll ask them, say, did you read our reviews online?

Did you see that we're a, you know, call it a 4.8 star company with Google, did you see that we have 650 reviews.

You know, whatever your numbers are, use your numbers.

And I like Google a lot because it's a number.

It's a review site that everybody knows about.

Everybody reads those reviews.

Ask them, did you see our reviews?

Did you see our rating?

Did you see how many reviews you have?

So this is step one.

We have to make sure that they are familiar with our reviews and the reason for that reviews are social proof.

Because when we bring the reviews up, we're going to tell them.

So do you think that we would have so many four and five star reviews from, from 650 clients just like yourself in our community?

If we were out there taking advantage of people with price, if we were out there taking advantage of people and not delivering the work that we promised, if we were out taking advantage of our clients and they're not getting the delivery of what project that they are paying for the project that they promised.

And then shut up and let them answer that question.

Of course their answer is going to be, well, no, no, they definitely wouldn't review you that well if that were the case.

That's when we say, exactly.

Now here's where we're going to turn the ship for the posture because this is now a negotiation conversation.

It's not a I have to do this or else it becomes a negotiation conversation.

The conversation is now, now, Mr. And Ms.

Homeowner, you do a handful of projects a year, maybe just very few.

Right?

Right.

Okay.

We deal with hundreds of clients every single.

Now I have been burned by lots of customers in the past, which means that's the reason we have our company policy of 50% down.

Now, how do I know that you are going to pay me once the project is done?

Because I've had our company's done projects in the past where we didn't get payment once we've done a project from lots of clients and had to write off thousands and thousands of dollars worth of work.

That's why we have our company policy.

What assurances do I have from you that you're going to pay for the project?

See, because I have hundreds of reviews from clients just like yourself.

But I don't have any way to verify or check or reviews for you as a buyer.

Now, I know that sounds kind of silly, but that's why we have our company policy.

It's not about you specifically.

It's about the number of times that we've been taken advantage of in the past and we can't afford to keep letting that happen.

Just like you can't afford to pay money and a contractor not deliver.

Now let me ask you, Mr. And Ms. Hellmander, what do you think would be a good solution here?

So now what we did is we completely turned around the posture, we turned the conversation around because in all honesty, that's true.

As a company, you have hundreds of reviews, in some cases thousands.

But it doesn't matter how many reviews you have.

You have reviews saying that you did awesome work.

We have no idea if this client is lying to us or not.

We take care of hundreds and thousands of people.

They might deal with one contracting project every year or two or three or four.

So it's not about.

And that's why we get their story first.

Was it just one time or was it lots of times?

How has this affected your life?

And then you tell your story.

The reason we have this policy is we've been burned by lots of customers over the years and we just put a policy in place to not let that happen anymore.

How do we know that you're going to pay your bill once the work is completed?

What assurance do we have other than a deposit up front?

So that's asking the right question.

And then propose, you know, have them propose something, say, now I'm willing to work with you here.

Our normal policy is 50% down or whatever your normal policy is.

I'm willing to work with you here and meet in the middle somewhere.

What are you comfortable doing?

Ask them, get them to propose a number.

So you.

And clarify.

So you're.

You.

You like us as a company, you like me as a representative.

You like the project that we're looking at, and you're comfortable with the price, it all makes sense, right?

Right.

Okay.

Well, if that's the case and this is the only thing standing in our way, can you see my concern here?

Because I've had customers in the past that seemed like awesome customers that didn't pay me once the project was done.

Can you see my concern about getting paid has nothing to do with you, Mr. And Ms.

Homeowner specifically, but we had to establish a company policy for that reason.

Now, I'm willing to adjust it, but I can't get rid of it altogether.

What do you think we should do with this?

And ask them, and that will one, it completely changes the mindset and the posture because it's true.

We don't have any idea how.

We have any idea if they're gonna pay or not.

Sure, they might be nice people.

It could be.

It doesn't matter who it is.

It could be a, you know, a college professor or a pastor of a church.

We've all had situations where doesn't matter who it was.

They didn't pay at the end, and they turned out to be dishonest customers.

That's why we have our policies.

So don't completely just get rid of your policy and, you know, cower to the customer's or the client's demands of no deposit or whatever they're demanding.

When you have a company policy in place for a reason, do you understand the.

Raise your hand if you understand the philosophy, the psychology behind what we did in that conversation.

The conversation can be very powerful, and we can.

It doesn't have to just be about the deposit.

It can be about lots of things.

That conversation can, you know, it can turn it around for so many things that a sticky point for a customer.

Any objection they have that has to do with, you know, surrounding reviews, surrounding trust, surrounding, you know, them being taken advantage of by a company or by a person in the past.

You can turn it back around because at the end of the day, we deal with way more people than they do.

We have the ability to be taken advantage of way more than they do.

But we.

The.

That doesn't stop us from working for more clients, does it?

No.

If the fact that they were taken advantage of by one company didn't stop them from calling you to do another project, they just adjusted their policy.

That's the same thing we did is adjust our policy for a deposit.

So that's how to turn that conversation around.

Listen to their story first.

Listen to the story.

Get Them to share all the details, then get to quantify it.

How many times has this happened?

Then ask them, you know, what made the decision for why did they call, Right.

And just start sharing.

Say, listen, you know, ask them if would they like to hear the reason we have our policy.

And that changes the whole conversation.

It becomes a conversation instead of just, it's got to be my way or the highway.

So I hope this was helpful today.

This is a big topic that I hear, actually I'm hearing more and more often.

So there's no reason that we should be doing work without a deposit.

I mean, come on.

And that's obviously for the cash buyer.

If somebody's financing their approved financing, you know, then awesome.

Let's rock and roll.

But if they're a cash buyer, there's got.

They know there's got to be a deposit.

There's got to be a deposit for a cash buyer.

Credit card, check, whatever.

They have to give a deposit.

Don't.

And the deposits that you get, don't let them.

You know, if you're in a state that'll allow it.

I know there's a couple states across the country that you, by law that you can't take a deposit.

I feel bad for you, son, because that just kind of sucks.

That's a silly, silly law.

But it's customer protection.

I get it.

You have to work with where you're at.

But in most cases, get a deposit.

If you get a deposit, that stops cancellations, because now they've got skin in the game.

They can't just call you and say, oh, we decided to go with somebody else get a deposit because it's sticky for going to project as well.

So that is the topic for today.

I hope it was beneficial to you understand the psychology.

It's less about the exact wording and much more about understanding how to build the words and build the verbiage into the answer to understand where somebody comes from, the reason for their objection.

It's not just about hearing an objection.

It's about understanding the reason for the objection.

When we understand why an objection exists and we ask questions around that objection and understanding the reason for it, then we can have a great conversation about how to overcome that objection.

Because if you're at this point in the conversation, they like you, they know you, they like you, they're starting to trust you.

And if they truly trusted you, that wouldn't even be a conversation either.

But it's a matter of figuring out why they're buying and why they're not buying so hope that was helpful today.

Go check out the new website closeitnow.net.

the new website's been updated.

We've got a lot of stuff going on.

All of the podcasts should be playing now.

I know I had some broken links for a little while, but new podcast host everything is operating super smooth.

Also, big announcement if you didn't hear.

We've got hats and shirts that are coming out.

So hats, cap or caps?

We've got T shirts, some really cool clothes at Nashwag that's going to be rolling out.

So go check the website.

You'll be able to in the Facebook page you'll be able to find links to how to order that.

Otherwise go out there, keep crushing it.

Drop me a line, let me know how you're doing.

It's the new thing that I can cover for you.

Go save the world one heat stroke at a time.

I'll talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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