In this episode of the Close It Now podcast, we chat with Al Levi, the mastermind behind the 7-Power Contractor system. Although Al is usually known for his expertise in streamlining business operations, today he opens up about his real passion: sales.

Al shares how strong systems can make your sales game smoother and more effective. He offers practical advice and real-world examples to help you connect the dots between a well-run business and hitting your sales goals. If you've been struggling to streamline your sales process, this episode is for you.

Listen in to hear Al talk about the 7 powers and how they apply to your sales strategy. He also shares personal stories and lessons learned over the years, giving you a glimpse into how to shift your mindset and step up your sales game.

Don't miss this chat with one of the best in the business if you're ready to rethink your approach to sales and boost your bottom line. You'll walk away with ideas you can put to work right away to make your business stronger and more successful!

Make sure to check out www.closeitnow.net to learn more about our coaching programs, set up a discovery call to find out if coaching is right for you, or to book Sam to speak at your next event!

You can also grab a copy of the Close It Now online course which has the complete sales system at www.hvacdoors.net

Welcome to Close it now, the podcast that's revolutionizing the H Vac and home improvement trades industries. Get ready to dive deep into the world of heating, ventilation and air conditioning.

We're turning up the heat on industry standards and cooling down misconceptions. And we're not just talking about fixing vents and adjusting thermostats.

It's about the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of H Vac and home improvement.

We're the driving force, inspiring top performers who crave excellence not only in their professional endeavors, but also in fitness, nutrition, relationships and personal growth, proving that we can indeed have it all. This is Close it now, where excellence meets excitement. Let's get to work now. Your host, Sam Wakefield.

Well, all right. Welcome back to Close It Now. Sam Wakefield here. I am just beyond grateful to have the guest that I have today. He is a titan in our industry.

He's a legend. He has is a best selling author as well as just one of the most beloved people in our, in our industry, in our trades.

It super grateful to introduce this person today. In fact, I want to introduce, want to start the introduction by actually reading the title quote in his book the Seven Power Contractor.

And it so inspired me when I read this at first and then as I get into the book it makes total sense and I completely agree says it's only a real problem if time and money won't fix it by Irving Levy. And so I and after reading some of the book and listening to the audio, which you've done an excellent job with, this is super excited to introduce.

This is Al Levy of the he is the seven Power Contractor and welcome to the show today, sir. I'm so grateful that you're here.

Thank you. And I appreciate the great intro.

And you know, one of the legends and titans of the industry, people will be asking yourself, well, how do you become one of those, you just stick around a really long time and people just figure you've always been here so you must know something.

Exactly. It's like that guy's always here.

He's always here. He's in all of my Facebook groups. Who is this guy? So eventually I'm going to track you down. So yeah, that's kind of a, it's really great.

I appreciate this opportunity.

I always particularly love it because as I was sharing with Sam before we got started here today, I talk about the seven powers and it's planning, operations, staffing, sales, marketing, financial. And so you know, these, these powers, these are the seven building blocks.

We were only in the heating business at that point in Long Island, New York because I know my accent, you don't hear it very much anymore because I've been living in Arizona for 22 years.

So then my brothers and I showed up and then I realized if that we didn't get into these other trades, plumbing, gas heating, air conditioning and electric finally that we were going to be locked out of our own customers basement.

Here's the journey or the interesting part that I was sharing with them was that I was really great at sales and marketing and my team was really great at blowing those efforts up, which is why I got to be so good at operations. The org charts, the manuals, getting people to own their boxes.

Sure. Out of necessity.

So I get back to what I wanted to do. And then of course building my own staff, the right wire instead of constantly rewiring people.

And all of the best people at my company, Sam, they all started young and willing with no skills and rose all the way up to the top ranks. Sure.

Yeah. I can 100% understand that for sure. So let's dive into that a little bit. You mentioned something just now and you know where I'm at in my journey. It.

It's like really timing is perfect for this. You're talking about the org chart and, and designing the. The company and fill in those boxes.

Let's dive into that a little bit before we kind of move on to some other stuff. I. I've heard several different things and some of the I.

Good advice I heard not too long ago was design a position instead of like building around a person. Right. And I know you're like such a advocate for systems and those kind of things.

Tell us a little bit as there's so many growing contractors and one of the questions I get like all the time is, you know, how do I know when it's time to put somebody in that position and then when I do, how do we define what their roles are and those kind of things? So give us a little bit of insight into how we build out that org chart and then moving towards filling those boxes in the right way.

Yeah. So part of the background is we were New York City union shop. I stepped into the middle of this and we pretty much were at war.

And I just went to these guys and told them, I go, we're going to the edge of the cliff. And I'm okay with going over if you are. Or we could stop the madness and work this out together. And to their credit, they did. But what was going on?

And if you're in the H Vac business and you've ever put a unit up on the roof, you need a crane. Well, since it was nobody's job, would you like to guess how many cranes would show up on a given day? Oh, zero or two. And both are bad scenarios.

Will you be chaotic? Absolutely. You will be. And here's the sad thing for all of you guys out there, because I get this question a lot when I do the three 30s.

You know, I'm not big enough yet, but I know I need an org chart. And I have to say, with a lot of years of experience, not having an org chart is actually keeping you small.

It sounds backwards, but the reality is you have every box that I display on the, on that page, that sales page is really, you own all the box. The bad news is you don't have other people besides you to go do it. That's really the kind of the problem.

So yes, your name is going to be in a ton of boxes. Here's what I have to share. I didn't do that to you. The day you had an entrepreneurial seizure, you did it to yourself.

And so here's the benefit of it. And this is actually. So we created an org chart. And there's a quick story that I'll talk about that.

Sure.

My brother Marty, he was the inside guy, which was great because Richie, my other brother, was the outside guy. And I was kind of the bridge between the two. And Marty would get there early.

So he's there, I guess like 6am he answers a call from a customer who's screaming about, you know, no heat yesterday and now they have no heat today. And so he goes across the hallway and starts screaming and yelling at the service manager.

My first job of the day is to walk the salesman service manager off the roof when I show up at 6:30.

And then I'm sitting at the desk trying to get the dispatch board set up for the day, get a phone call from a supplier, and they're saying, al, you know, you guys are usually pretty good. We haven't Gotten paid. When can you help me out? Be aware, Sam, my father raised myself, my brothers, that your suppliers get paid before you do.

Right.

Because in tough times, they'll take care of you. Which was true, by the way, when hurricane.

Absolutely.

So anyway, I go racing across the office to the accounts payable person and start ripping into them. And then Marty has to walk them off the roof.

So we're standing literally between those two shops and I look at him, I go, you don't like what happens in the service department, you tell me and I'll fix it. He goes, you don't like the way the bills are being paid, tell me and I'll fix it.

And then we just stopped and looked at each other and go, you know, we really should write this down.

Exactly.

So that's where the birth of the org chart is. And that's really what I always refer to as the bingo board it takes to run your company. It's not about the fancy titles, cto, cio, cfo.

I mean, there's no C suite stuff. That's great. But it's really the relationship when the call goes in to dispatcher, to getting the tech information.

The service wing, the sales wing is a very specific order to it.

And then I asked these guys to go get me $1 million a year in sales.

And they proved to be Sam, they could get me $1 million a year and make me go broke because they violated the rules about, you know, scoping the job outright, projected material, project labor, good communication, pictures, photos, and turning it over right to the install team. So we changed that whole equation.

But it was built on the sales system that I had put together, as was the sales system for service techs was built on because I did service calls, I did big ticket sales, and I did it right to the very end. And we were not a small company, as I mentioned.

Sure.

We were 70 people at that point.

One of the reasons I love to go out and do a service call or, you know, a big ticket sale is I love when one of my service techs would come to me and go, you know, you can't sell it for that much money and you can't do it that fast. And I go, I totally hear what you're saying, I tell you what, why don't you be my helper today and let's see how we do.

Yeah, exactly. Time and the same thing.

Yeah, same thing for the big ticket guys, you know, they, oh, you can't sell it for 30 to 50%. Which is what I used to do. 30 to 50% higher. But I really spent the time to really explain everything that I was doing.

And every line in the quote had feature advantage, benefit. And I would wait for them to tell me the same thing. And I go, yeah, you know what, let's go, let's go.

Just do a couple of calls together and see what happens.

Right?

And so, yeah, that's really what changes that thing here.

But coming all the way back to Sam's question is if you don't have the org chart and you don't have the manuals for it, everyone at your team today is free to go ask you the same stupid question they asked you yesterday and that they will ask you tomorrow and the next day and every other day from here on out to the day you put the key in the door and say goodbye.

And what a waste of time that is, too.

It's a giant it. People ask me, you know, I don't know where my day goes.

Well, I know where your day goes because, same as me, because your name is on every box, knocking on the door and saying, hey, got a minute, got a minute, got a minute, got a minute. Yes. Because they can't fill their own box.

And what you pointed out, Sam, was really true is so many guys want to, oh, I have this person, let's design a box around them. Well, what happens if they sick, die, quit, miss the bus when they cross the street? So it's the box and 80% of what goes in the box.

And then training that person to own their box.

And in my case, really what made a big change for us and our team, this is back in the 80s, is we decided that we were going to become the employer of choice. And what that meant is we only offer careers, not a job. I love that was the differentiator.

Talk a little bit more about that because I know recruiting is probably one of the biggest also questions I always get. And my answer is always, well, first of all, let's talk about how to create a mission and a culture where people would want to work here.

Yes. If you've ever read job ads, which I used to read a lot of job ads and I wrote really bad job ads until I got educated.

Everything was about what I want What I want, what I want, what I want. And if you were them and not you.

One of the great lessons I learned in sales, and it's great that there was no video at this time, was I was sitting at my desk late in the day and you'll understand why when everyone got home and I realized I was falling a little flat on my sales. So I'm sitting in my chair and I turned to my brother's empty chair and I go, you know, Mrs. Smith, it's time that you need a new heating system.

And then I would get up, physically walk and sit in her chair and look back and go, it's working now. And I would bounce it back and forth until I could already understand the objections.

And it's amazing when you physically get out of yourself in sales and go be them. I wear glasses since I was 13, and so I'm always looking out. The trick is to look in this way as well.

And that's really what changes to what I call quality sales.

Oh, my gosh, this is super powerful. I thank you. I think I'm going to use. I'm doing a training next week in Kansas City. I'm absolutely going to have them do that exercise.

I like that. And so part of the recruiting is to understand recruiting. If you're a good marketer, that's what recruiting is.

The problem is we're so focused on, I need leads, I need calls, and I need, you know, the right way to marketing power is think of a bathtub. It's the right amount of calls from the right customer at the right time.

Right?

And if you're any good, you're overfilling that tub. But the problem is, if you have bad csr, the train is wide open. That's why their box and their manual is so important, right?

To be able to maximize that. And so this really is where you start to get going. I don't know.

For those of you who know Ellen Rohr, who's very famous, she and I worked together for a very long time as a co consultant. She is the financial queen. She also was my partner at Zun Drain. It was a franchise nationwide.

But you know, Ellen, Ellen didn't drive when we would go together, so she would be the passenger and always ask me these inane questions while I'm trying to drive the car. And she goes, what comes first? Sales and marketing. And I go, sales? And she goes, well, if the phone doesn't ring, you're going to go out of business.

I go, if you can't sell to One of your target audience and understand what makes them tick. How are you going to send to sell to ten, one hundred, a thousand, a million of them?

So your sales skills, really well developed is already leading you to a better marketing. They are hand and hand in glove. And what I usually say is they're two sides of the same coin.

Sure, yeah, absolutely. 100% agree with that. And it was the classic. Was it Zig Ziglar or Brian Tracy have always said nothing happens till something gets sold. Right?

Yes, yes, yes. And they are two. Two of the giants. Yeah, they're great.

Absolutely. So. Oh, man, this is so good. And so now that we've got, you know, a bit of the understanding of the org chart. Org chart, we've got the flow going.

You mentioned cells and I love this because being a sales focused podcast and you mentioned before the show, most of the time when people have you talk, we're talking about the different tiers and the different organizational aspects of staffing.

How do I build my own staff? So I end that because you were saying, like, where do I find great people?

And especially during COVID land, people were saying this all the time in every group that I was in.

Right.

And so we created our own pipeline of willing people with no skills and had the skill training that we could take them up. So there's five steps to staffing. Always recruiting, always hiring, always orienting, always training.

And here's the one we all miss because we think they're on the team until they're not. Always retaining. Those are the five steps of staffing.

And so if you do a really great job in the first four, you have a much higher chance of the retaining. But I'm. It's a lot easier for you guys. And everywhere I've ever worked, all of these people will attest to this. It's much easier.

You have a bigger talent pool or when you put out the net for your recruiting, if you can take young, willing people with no skills and train them your way instead of trying to constantly rewire. Otherwise you're going to do what we did for years and years. We were always trying to catch what I call lightning in a bottle.

That willing person with great skills who will do it your way.

Right? Yeah. Without bad habits.

Without bad habits, Yep.

Right. Yeah. Oh, 100. That's. I had the same experience when I was sales manager and trainer for here in Austin. The owner was like, man, just all the hot.

We pick up maybe one good person every year. And I'm like, let's just do this. Let's just grow our own. And that's why I started developing the sales process.

That's such the way to go. It's such the way to go. And people go, well, I need somebody right now. And I go, you'll need somebody tomorrow.

And if they show up and they came to you, we used to call it dollar hopping. Dollar hopping means is, well, how do you get somebody who's already got a job to come to you? Well, you have to offer more so dollars.

And if they came to you for more, as soon as somebody else, they're going to hop on down to somebody else.

Yep.

Where I built people that when they came, they always knew they were advancing their career because we always were talking about, talk about right culture. They knew what was ahead of them and they stayed on the team. And most people stayed to the very end.

Sure. Yeah. You know what your, your job description is?

There's no guesswork, there's no mystery because now we've got the org chart and everything's defined. So it's like a clear picture, not just stabbing in the dark of what I do next, boss.

It is, you know, a lot of them, why can't they take initiative? Why can't they do something? And my brother Richie was really great at that. He would say, well, just use your best judgment.

And so when we put these manuals together, it was 150,000 in today's money and it's a fraction of what is now in the program. And also I didn't know the lessons, I didn't know Sam.

But we had agreed that we were going to settle because I had hired my industry friend to help us put this together and run all these meetings. And he keeps saying that. And finally I just go like nose to nose. I go, who's best opinion? Because you want them to read your mind is what you mean.

And you can always second guess them. So we're going to put in an objective. And that is why the union guys bought hard into these manuals.

Sure.

They sold it to their union rep to put it in the contract. So why would they do that? Here's why. They hated waking up thinking that they were doing a good job.

And then one of the four levies would show up and go, no, that's not what I wanted. Based on what? Yeah, on what?

Compared to what? We had no idea.

Yeah, no idea. Thought I did a good job, you know. And now you're here giving me a hard time.

So the lesson for you guys listening is running things on opinion, which is a fancy word for subjective versus running on objective or what I need to fill my box. Actually, one of the guys I trained, I'm sorry for laughing, but he was a guy who was flipping pizzas. We found. And I trained him up.

And of the five install crews I ran, he was one of the best installers. And we had a blowout one day, one of these jobs where it was all wrong because my brother Richie showed up and rewired the whole job that I sold.

Oh, no.

And we went out to the truck and we had it out. And in that really painful moment, he expressed, you know, that I think you wake up every day, Al, trying to figure out how to ruin my day.

And I looked at him and I go, bobby, that's what I think you're trying to do. And we realized we can ruin each other's day if we're not careful. And so he came up with the line, do what's in the book. You're off the hook.

That was not my creation.

Oh, that's beautiful.

Yeah, yeah.

Now, of course, it's digital, because if you're working with tablets and stuff, you don't print it up, but it's still the same idea, and that still is the same thing here. That's why it's really. Now it's.

The great news is it's in Australia, New Zealand, uk, South Africa, the contractors all over the including USA and Canada.

Oh, that's. It's so powerful. When there's great systems that are developed, it. It's really powerful how it spreads.

And you're one of the people I was really excited to talk to. I've had a lot of different guests on this show, and I'm sure you've seen all the talk about gurus in our industry and all these things.

And personally, I've been in the industry 18 years, and really, at least to me, you've been under the radar until the last few years. Covid was great for bringing our industry together with the Facebook groups and the different things. And I love it because you've been silently.

Not silently, necessarily, but just churning away great results for lots of people around the world for so many years. And it's incredible to watch the. Now that I've been exposed to the culture and to your world, I'm just really blown away by one.

Why this book is not on every single person's bookshelf, why it's just now Becoming a thing because it's so powerful. So for everybody listening, the seven Power Contractor is Al's book.

And the tagline here is run your contracting business with less stress and more success. And I have just about finished it in my. I've actually listened to it and have just about finished reading it this week, so. Highly recommend.

It has the Close it now stamp of approval for everybody listening. Thank you. Please get this book. Your organization will thrive once you. If you implement even a single thing out of it.

But actually, the first note I had was talking about building a dream, not a Frankenstein, but I feel like we've kind of covered that with the org chart. Yeah.

What I mean by Frankenstein was in. I know all of you who are listening today. I feel really bad for you and I've not even met you. Here's why.

Because when I was young and at work, you know, there was trade magazines, which I ultimately ended up writing for Plumbing Mechanical and then PFC News, but that was the main source of information. Then there were industry groups and then there were some webinars. Well, today I can't put my phone down.

And there is like Facebook, Instagram, all of this platforming for all these gurus. And there's great information. There's a seminar a week, there's a workshop, there's a trade show every week going on.

And so the question always comes down to do you need another great idea or you need an idea that's implemented?

Right?

And the answer is the second one. So when you start plucking ideas from everywhere, from quote, unquote gurus, it's good information.

But if you're pulling it offline, here's the question you have to ask yourself. Am I following a genius or an idiot?

Right, That's.

That's really part of the problem. Plus, all good information doesn't even work, right? And when I say Frankenstein, so you're pulling all these pieces.

The other analogy I use, Sam, is if I gave you the power to build your dream car, would you start with a Ford chassis, Toyota engine, Hyundai seats? The answer, of course, is no.

Right?

But that's exactly what you do. You pull these pieces from all over.

So in the seven powers, that is the platform, that is the filter, when you get it in place, as to how does this information all come together?

You got it. I love that you said that. In fact, this pearl that is at the end of the section for, let's see, which one is this?

Planning Power, the first pearl really applies to this. So at the end of each chapter, Everybody, there's the nuggets from each chapter, the pearls that he calls them in the book.

This one says, work on the right things at the right time in the right way, which does definitely applies to this. So when we're. When we're just wherever we are in our company. Right. So when we're first starting, of course, we've got to develop each of these steps.

And then as we grow and we hit each of the business walls, you know, it feels like. And. And correct me if I'm wrong, we have to go back through and just redefine each of these categories at every step of growth. Because with new.

New growth, new scaling, new challenges, we've got new components to it. So we revisiting each of the. This is just such a great roadmap because there's seven. Seven powers, seven components.

Just revisit them at every kind of systematically. Can you talk a little bit about that and, like, when is the right time to revisit those?

Yeah. So the seven powers in particular, like I said, I. I was. I thought I was a smart guy. I thought they were, you know, how come this is not working?

And there's a reason I picked that tagline. Less stress, more successful. I was making a ton of money, but I was 50 pounds heavier, and I was on my way to being very young and very dead.

Yeah.

So not a good combination.

Agreed.

Yeah. Unfortunately, my friend stepped in and told me to read this book, which of course is pretty funny because now it's got a whole new life again.

Michael Gerber's E Myth. And when I read it, I realized why things didn't work. And then I realized what I needed to do, but I didn't have any how, but I'm really good at how.

And that was what caused me to create your charts, the manuals, the training, the building the training center the right way and learning how to train my own people and do all these other things that we went on to do. But everything is a system. Sales is a system. And just letting people free will themselves is horrendous, in my opinion.

Now, we're not trying to turn them into sales robots. And here's one of the things I think is a good point to stop at. Systems do not make you robotic.

They actually, if you practice them enough, they free you up. And that is something that people don't get.

Say it again for the people in the back.

Yeah. Okay. All you guys in the back that are nodding off, I'm telling you that systems free you up.

If they are Practiced, and I mean practiced all the time and role plays and everything that you need to do. And having that foundational system is really important. Well, the seven powers is the building blocks or foundation underneath your company.

So if you want to build your dream house, which is your company, I suggest you have a really great foundation that can support the existing but also grow with you. So the box or chart that's on that page is now at work.

That one you're looking at in companies, 1 million to 200 million a year in sales in all different things.

We did plumbing, heating, cooling, electric, but now garage doors, carpentry, commercial roofing, you name it, pest control, paint, power, washing, all of them. Still use that same thing to this day.

Sure, sure. Oh, I love this.

So let's take a turn the corner a little bit because we had mentioned you don't get the opportunity very often to really dive in to like the big foundation for you, which was sales and the sales process and sales system. So you kind of teed it up a minute ago, but let's talk about that a little bit.

First question is, and this is something that I work with, as you can imagine, so many companies all the time is when they're practicing and when they're role playing, what is a good pace for that? When we're learning and really getting that launched and then once they've got it, learned to stay on top of it.

First question is, should that be a different type of pace and frequency and just kind of put some boots to the ground of like working with a sales team or technicians, what should that learning those skills look like?

So for me, for service tech, I'm looking for three skills and I can grow all three skills with the systems I have, which is great communications, which leads to great sales, operationally effective, which means I'm neat and clean, my truck's neat and clean, the job site's neat and clean. I follow the whole process all the way through and I get the review and I was there for no heat and tomorrow there is heat. So that's technical.

Sales operation technical. On system advisors, fancy name for the big ticket salesperson.

You're looking for them to have great communication skills, but I also expect that them to be presenting themselves the right way, which is operationally, do they look neat and clean? Does their vehicle look neat and clean? Are they following the steps operationally to get to the right thing?

So in system advisors, big ticket guys, what I'm looking for, and I mentioned about how the ones that made me go broke.

Right.

Is what I learned is projected material, projected labor, their commission, a small spiff reward for the installers to bring the job in on time, on budget with no callbacks for 30 days.

Sure.

And then the gross profit you desire, take pictures, measurements, photo, whatever they need. Speak to the install coordinator which is like a dispatcher and then you book the job. They block out the talent.

They help build the electronic job folders these days and if you need permits, filing fees, and then it gets turned over through the sales manager. So it's big ticket sales sold right to be done. Right. And the sales manager is very key. Remember I mentioned about the zero cranes and the two cranes?

Yes.

Well, until we had a sales manager making sure this handoff was really strong, that didn't happen. Then the installers know they have these three skills. Communication, operation, technical. They have to talk to the customer about what they're doing.

And the reason why I know this is I one day I was, I put in a steam boiler and to say that they're heavy would be an understatement.

Exactly.

And I got done and I'm you know, just admiring the work that I have created and I call the customer down and she goes it's really good. But it was supposed to be two feet to the left.

Oh man. Been there, done that one.

Yeah. So there's the communication issue. This communication is so critical.

And yes, it was neat and clean and I was neat clean, the job site was neat and clean and all the other things but I was going to be spending a lot more time squaring this away and technical skills of commissioning the job or starting it up. Right. So now I don't have to hijack the service department to come and do this.

Right.

And if we're just counting it out, if they get done, then well, the system advisor wins. And. And they went. But it's the same five step process for big ticket salespeople, assistant advisors.

You make or break sales long before you get to the door 100%. Where are you parking? What are you bringing to the door? What do you look like? What is the smile on your face? What is the eye contact?

What are the three questions that are open ended that you're going to ask to get more information? Are you taking notes? Are you being empathetic? Are you starting to do this?

And are you doing a survey, getting permission to do the survey so that you don't miss anything. It's not to sell them more. Yes, sales will go up.

I came up with these surveys because doing this job I got sabotaged Sam, people would buy a heating system for me for thousands of dollars even years ago because they wanted one room that never heated somewhere and that room was never going to heat even after I put the heating system in. So I learned to ask the question I should have always been asking.

Hey, Sam, is there any rooms that don't heat the way you like or is it too hot or too cold? Never asked these questions until I got shot in the foot enough. So that was one of the questions that I do.

The questions, and the best way I can say this is don't be you for a second. Go to a doctor. And they go, don't tell me what's wrong with you. Because the last person who walked in this was what was wrong with them.

Get up and leave that office. If your doctor is not asking questions and taking notes while you talk, you're in the wrong doctor's office. And the same thing applies to sales.

Whether you're a service tech or a system advisor, same thing goes, that's your thing to be able to do that, get permission to survey, put you on the right track, and then come back with a menu of options. I taught both of those people is imagine you have an invisible briefcase of solutions.

And the only thing is you have to ask the right question to see if that solution means anything. So for example, hey Sam, does anybody wake up with, you know, dry, itchy throat, stuffed nose, things like that? You go, yeah, yeah, can you fix that?

And so now I've earned the right to talk about humidification and things of that nature.

Yeah.

Is there anybody sensitive, have allergies or things of that nature, you know, coughing, that I've earned the right to, you know, do air quality. And if I'm doing plumbing is, you know, is the taste of water important to you and what's in the water? Because if it is, I have a solution for that.

And so that's kind of what I do.

I also look at a house and this is because my technical skills as much as my sales skills, I would look at a house and I would look at the northwest corner of the house, which is where the wind would blow. And their master bedroom was right above the two car garage. And I know this, when the garage shows go up, it's going to be cold in that room.

And the other thing I.

It's a frog, right?

It's a frog. And I know it's. They're going to wait all day on their cold tile for the hot water to come.

I have solutions for that recirc Lines separate, you know, lead leg systems. I can do all of that. So that's really what they were thinking about.

So question for you, because I know a lot. It's been back and forth over the, you know, the 20 years I've been in the industry and of course, plenty longer for you.

There's a constant back and forth with advisors specifically of, well, do they need to have a lot of technical experience or there's the whole train of thought that I don't want them to know that much because they're just going to confuse the homeowner. Let's just get sales skills and hire for personality and those things.

And then we'll train them just enough H vac skills that they can sell it, but then we'll turn it over to somebody else. Where do you stand on what's your thought on how technically, how much technical knowledge should they have?

Well, so in my own company, based on the org chart, as you rise up from apprentice, junior tech, senior tech, and then to field supervisor, which is all training programs, you are being freed up to sell more and more for more money. So I allowed them to switch over to the sales wing if they wanted to go in that direction because they already had sales operation technical skills.

They knew how to. What I always taught them to do, which I had learned.

Stop talking technically and speak plain English, just like if you didn't know something, you would want. And I had learned in one of the trainings, which is the magic word. And the magic word is like.

So I have a heating system that tracks the outside temperature and it goes up and down. Hey, you know what it's like, Sam?

Like your cruise control in your car knows when you're going up a hill and when it's going down, how to moderate speed. And immediately the light bulb went off of the customer because they could relate to what I was speaking to. So that's one big thing that they do.

I had great results with sales, but I also took guys that were not technical and they didn't fix anything. But I did make them attend my training when I was training people so they weren't selling black boxes.

Sure.

And so what we used to say it was. Our sales guys that we're sending to you are. We didn't call them sales guys, our system advisors that we were sending to you.

Just so you know, I wasn't selling Buicks last week and now I'm selling boilers. So that's. That's really kind of what. And nobody's buying Buicks anymore. So we'll have to update that.

Right.

I love weren't selling Hyundai's and now we're selling heating systems. How's that?

I love.

You know, it's funny that you mentioned that because for probably a dec. My last decade when I was still in the field, my part of my introduction was so, you know, I've been licensed in the state of Texas, own my own company, blah blah, blah. I wasn't selling newspaper ads last week. You know, I've been doing.

I love it. And so that because I knew everyone else who had been there or going to be there and I actually had visual evidence.

I call it an evidence manual that I built both for service techs and for system advisors. Because the mistake that I made, which is very common for most salespeople. I was very shy once, which you can see, I'm over it.

But when I learned to talk, I didn't learn to shut up. I just kept talking and I would talk right through it. So. And then I was just using my word, Sam. And people need visual evidence.

They need something besides you. And here's the other thing is I trust you, Sam. Kind of.

Yeah, exactly.

I want to know what Al who looks just like me, who lives near me, who's used this solution. So I teach to lean on testimonials because what you say is interesting, but what they say is really what I want to do.

So that's also built into the visual proof in your sales programs.

I love it. Yeah. That social proof is so, so, so important. So what's in the book you. You alluded to? You know, a book for kind of a brag book, I guess.

Yeah, it's a brag book. Exactly.

So basically one for tech, one for sales.

Yeah.

This the difference between the system advisor is just what you touched on, which is what brought about is I had my licensing and my certification for all these things. So I was certified to sell Teledyne. I was certified to sell this.

You know, I was all that as I was flipping and I would customize it depending on what I was doing.

Sure.

But also it would have the 10 great reasons to choose us. This is where I talk about sales and marketing. So it doesn't matter, Sam, who we send to your house.

We have one of a kind operating manuals, which means we all pretty much do it the same way. So whether Sam or I'll come to your house, you're going to have an expert job.

Number two, you should know that we're not coming to your house to learn our job today. We're trained and certified in our own hands on training center. Here's what it's looked like.

And you're welcome to come attend and visit at your yourself, but we're not practicing in your house. We've already been trained and certified.

We're able to offer the best warranty out there because of the manuals and the training that we do and an industry leading thing. So we just go down the 10 things, right? I don't recommend that you do all 10. I recommend you put it on your website.

I recommend you do all the rest of it. Here's what I do recommend. Hey, you know What, Sam? There's 10 great reasons to choose it.

But may I share the three that I think are the most important?

Sure.

And then I would customize it based on what I was talking.

Yeah. Pick the three that most apply to who you're talking to in the moment.

Yes, exactly. And have those three or even the three that you love the most. That's been effective for you.

And so as you're just sliding through this, also showing other jobs, what they look like similar to theirs at the beginning, what it looks like in the middle. And then the happy customers in front of their equipment. And the customers, my friends, is 50% of the photo.

Absolutely.

50% of the video. We don't care about the equipment. I don't know why people put this all over your trucks. I don't know why it's in your brochures.

It's like a cat watching television. We don't know what you're doing.

Yeah, exactly. I teach something called the benefit lens. We have to filter everything through the benefit lens when we're in any contact with the homeowner.

And I love this because they're stuck on the features.

If we're just showing pictures of equipment, it's like if people understood what our equipment did and what our IQ products and everything else did, they would already have it. So we need to show them what life is like once they have it. That's what they want to see.

Yeah. I believe that first Fire was invented and then Features, Advantage and Benefits came right after it. And here's what I'm going to help you out with.

People only buy stuff on benefits, which Sam and I are talking to. So I haven't heard one better. I'm just going to lean on what I taught and what I learned because this is what I was trained on.

Nobody goes to Home Depot because they want to own a drill. They need a hole in a wall so they have to buy the drill. That's the same thing for us. They didn't wake up this morning and go, my lucky day.

I get to spend a thousand dollars with the H Vac guys today.

Yeah, they wouldn't give us a single dollar if they didn't have to. If the weather was always perfect, we wouldn't even exist.

I have a funny story about that. Shares with this. I think so. My dad was great at sales. He was everything. What people misconstrue in terms of being. Why was he a great salesman?

He was very quiet. He was a great listener, had a huge smile on his face. And his way he went to the door is he was a servant, not a salesperson.

Sure.

And so when people would see that and the rest of it, but, you know, he would make great recommendations and, you know, see if that was what they wanted to do. But he really, you know, understood what made people tick. And one day I said to him, I said, you know, dad, I need a really good closing line.

And he very kindly looks up at me and goes, please take this the right way. If you need a great closing line to save the sale, you've been awful to now.

Oh my God. I, I resonate with that so much.

So since you're mentioning your dad in the going through your book, there's something that you said several times in here that I would love for you to expound upon is you talked about that he was great at this. And what you obviously recommend for everyone is to be persistent but not pushy. Can you define that for people?

Because I feel like so many people get those confused.

Yeah, yeah. He was never pushy. You know, you got to do this now or you know what else? The whole house is going to blow up. Whatever kind of thing that was.

Never a scare tactics, anything else of that nature. But he would call, he would stop back. You know, nothing pushy in the rest of it. Just recognizing that people have a busy life.

This isn't what they, you know, are focused on solely. But we, we also did residential, commercial and industrial. So commercial was very big for us.

And he would go to this house of worship, you know, once a week, they'd have a meeting. They loved him. They invited him for coffee and donuts, but they never used us.

And they said, you know, we're happy with who we have and we love you, but, you know, we're not going to switch. And he goes, listen, I just like being with you guys and you never know what's going to happen.

Well, guess what happened one night they couldn't get reached their company and the rest of it. And Irving just says, I'll call my boys. And me and Richie were over there in a flash and we never lost that account.

So if you want a definition of persistent, that's a good one.

Oh, I love it. Something you mentioned a second ago as well.

When I'm training, everybody asks about follow up because as you know, our industry and just people in general are bad at follow up. And I say it's just because they don't know the language to use, so they feel disempowered when they try to follow up.

But something you mentioned, which I train all the time, is the best follow up is go back by. So yes, just go knock on the door again. It's like I was around the corner, I saw your truck, I wanted to stop back by and continue the conversation.

Right, so talk about that a little.

I love that because really great. You know, we're in this world. I'll send them a text, I'll send them an email. Yeah, you and you and 8,000 other people.

Not that you get political ads or you know, questions all day in your texts and ads. The reality is you're just going to be lost in traffic.

And in this world today, face to face the works is kind of funny because my career, I told you I was shy.

Well, of course, when I came full time to the business, having worked there as eight, but you know, by the time I was 20 something years old, I was in full time. And because I was shy and I needed to do sales, my father made me go door to door sales.

Love it.

Staring at your shoes, not making eye contact, everything you do. Guess what? You get enough doors slammed in your face. Oh yeah.

You get pretty good at getting to the point and learning how to build a bridge really fast and how to be persistent, how to stop back, how to follow up.

And I love, I love guys like Tommy Miller who I work with are now using the same thing with door to door and things like, God, people were telling me, you know, marketing, oh, the direct mail doesn't work. And I go, yes it does. You're just doing it a bad way.

Right? Exactly. Yeah. In fact the, there's.

I did a series recently, in fact that was, it was a two part podcast series that was four ways to generate free leads.

You know, you've been following the industry 20, 23, you know, all of the numbers they were call volume because of digital marketing was down, et cetera, et cetera, 30 to 40%.

Well, in that during all of this, the last couple years, I partnered with door to door experts, with Sam Taggart up there, so that's where my course is. And him and I created actually a module for the door pitch for H Vac.

And if anybody wants it, you can grab that course@h vacdoors.net but more importantly, that's one of the most incredible ways to generate leads at such insanely low client acquisition costs. But it's something that's been so lost with the digital revolution. So I know if you don't want history, there's a lot back there.

Yeah. The reality is nobody wants to do it. We'd like to just do the easy. And guess what, my friends, that ship has sailed.

Yeah.

But if you've been around the business as long as I have, this is one of those cycles, the boom. I can always tell when the bust is coming because when I would go do sales, people would interrupt me and just go in the middle of the pitch, go.

Okay, sounds great. How soon can you start? And never ask the price. You're in a boom. And what comes after a boom is a bust and the easy money is gone.

Now that's why you have to be really great at marketing, which is proactive, is having a marketing plan in writing, having marketing budget, which is fuel in the tank, how much money you're putting percentage wise allocation, what are your three main drivers. And Sam is speaking to door to door is one of those.

And then a marketing calendar which drives you through the year proactively trying to minimize this falling off a cliff to make it falling off out of bed. It's a totally different kind of thing that you're trying to do.

I'm a big fan of guerrilla marketing, but I big fan of guerrilla marketing all the time. It's just a matter of when you turn it on, turn it off. That's what the best kind of marketing is. And so, yeah, you're on a very good streak there.

Plus, it will hone your sales skills. That's true.

Yeah. I tell everybody that when they're like, how do I get better posture with homeowners? They're like, I feel like they're leading.

I was like, go knock a hundred doors, go knock 200 doors. You'll instantly, in two days, your posture will be so insanely different.

In a house, if that's all you ever do, one, you're gonna set one to three appointments an hour. Every single time we go out, we do that.

So everybody listening at just legwork, you can set one to three appointments an hour that's daytime or in prime time. So that's a really incredible number. But yeah, your posture is everything. You build that up super fast that way.

You know, system advisors are like all of us, hand me a fish, hand me a fish, hand me a fish. But we also, you know, in your downtime you were expected to know how to fish.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Some of the best companies, and you can verify this, some of the best companies I've come across have a minimum number of self generated lead requirement for their advisors. I think it's great across the country.

Yeah, I think it sharpens your skills, no question about it.

So let's talk a little bit more about and I love this topic, the boom and bust conversation because as you know in boom times this is where a lot of people get like big renown for putting up incredible numbers that they're incredible and then a bust happens and some people if they're paying attention realize oh, they were just order takers. They don't actually have sales skills. Their company just had all of the other components together. So let's dive into that a little bit.

The, the trend, the difference between just taking an order and actually having the sales skills in a home.

Yeah. So you know, when the tide goes out, we find out who's been swimming without a bathing suit and that's really what it is.

And so our business has obviously had a long. Actually it's onto my nephew, fourth generation, my middle brother is still there and I've been gone 22 years.

So that speaks to systems and rest of it. What I would say is that the boom and bust, you need to be ahead of it, not run over it.

And that's kind of the situation anyone can sell when there's more calls than you need to do and people are interrupting you like they want to do but when now they're getting different price quotes and you know it's got to be able to do part of it is true.

The better your brand is, the more Google reviews you have, the more things of that nature and referral business and I worked referral business constantly.

It was very key to us to you know, like I mentioned before, what I say about myself is semi interested but if I get a referred customer, it's a whole different kind of sell.

Right.

But working on sales skills all the time versus order taking is really kind of the thing. And the best thing is to do that work in your house, not my house.

Which means when you build the right hands on training center which is in this second program That I talk about signature staffing. It's not just for techs to learn how to do the work. It's not a sell and do the work.

And it's also for system advisors to act like they're going to run a call. Now, before I had a training center. If you're small, my house was training center, and my wife Natalie was. Knew I coached her to be nice.

And then when we moved further along, to be a nasty customer.

Yeah, crank up those objections.

Yeah. If you're not going to get the objections. I also learned some good sales skills, and this is what I taught in sales. I call it ethical sales power.

If you wait for an objection to be raised, you may never hear it. And once they raise it, now you're playing defense. Now, this takes a lot of training, but if you know the most common objections.

What I learned to say is, you know, a lot of people ask me about, you know, can I find it cheaper? And, you know, if I were you, I'd be thinking about the same thing.

But at the end of it, if I'm planning, you said you plan on staying here five to 10 years and maybe better even having your kids live here. I see it as a, you know, a lifetime investment for you. Am I right?

Exactly. You're right.

And I have to get them to talk. That's. That's kind of the. It's sales 101, and all of us are looking, oh, what's the next trick? What's the next trick I'm missing in sales?

Tell you what, go back to sales 101 is let them do 75% of the talking and you take notes because the only words that matter at the end is their words.

What they. It doesn't matter what we say. It matters what they say.

Yep. Get them talking.

Super, super good. So last thing, because I know we're. We're getting close on time, is.

So this podcast is known that every episode we give, like, and you've already, you know, of course, covered a ton of things, so thank you. But we have a very actionable item that people can immediately use, like, the second they hear it.

So you mentioned something a second ago about referrals. I would love for you to take people through the language of the right way to ask for a referral and then actually how to get one, because we are.

We talk about, hey, you got to get referrals, you got to get referrals. But all people miss the language of, you know, in the right process and the right timing to ask if I'M.

A big ticket salesperson and even the service tech. What I taught my own people and what I taught all of my customers in SalesPower is the time to ask for the testimonials before you begin.

So, Sam, I so honored that you would consider me for this work and going ahead with it.

Just so you know, we're going to work at a level and you're going to be so happy that when I come back in two weeks, you're going to be happy to give me a video testimonial because I have earned it.

And at the same token, I would love to have help your friends and your neighbors and people that you know and your relatives also have a great experience. We have a referral program that gives them a discount on service and great work like we did.

And when they use us, we also have a credit that goes towards you as well. So everyone wins in this situation because we want everyone to be served the right way.

Love it. That is beautiful scripting. And so then the timing then is do the install, do incredible work like you said.

And then when you go back in the two weeks, well, one, there's a big gold nugget.

When is the system advice? Yeah. The system advisor is setting the stage.

Yeah.

And what they're also telling the customer in the way that I just said it is what level do I work at and what level is going to separate me? It's already in their head.

Right.

So buyers remorse and things of that nature tend to be handled way better on the front side than you. Now there's an objection. You got a problem. And then making sure that the team really knows what they're doing.

And when I stop back in two weeks and I'm set up, they're already set up to go over everything and make sure I delivered everything and everything's great. And now's the time to take out the camera and let's just do a quick video.

Right.

I love that this sets the expectation properly with the homeowner because so many times of course the the advisor doesn't go back because either they don't have full confidence in the install crew or something and they just are scared that if something goes wrong in the install now, they're going to be mad at me and all these things.

But I love this conversation because it sets up that expectation also without even saying it, that if things don't go 100% beautifully, this is our QC time. This is the two weeks where you're basically asking for pre permission to solve work out all the bugs and all the kinks within that two week period.

So the homeowner is way less upset or angry if something does happen during day of install. They're like, okay, well this is part of the process. We're going to work it out.

And so it alleviates a lot of the instant like impulsive type of response and anger and kind of sets it up to like give the ability to just manage it and full communication too.

Yep, no question about it.

And again, setting expectations, which is what I learned to do really makes the best quality sales and it does line them up to become your, your testimonial heroes.

Sure, sure. Oh, so good. So good. Well, it is time to land this plane.

Before we do, I would love for you to one go over a little bit about what all programs that you offer. What does the seven power contractors as a company offer for the companies? Listening and how do they get in touch with you?

What's the contact information?

Yeah, so as Sam mentioned, the book is really good place so you kind of get the idea about it. Which is seven Power Contractor. It's a book, it's an ebook, it's inaudible and place to go to. That is Amazon.

Now I don't say this my friends to make me any money. Amazon keeps the majority of it. Yeah, it's really out there and I put it that way. I am not a great reader. I'm dyslexic.

And you can read this book in within four hours. You can listen to audible if you're stuck in the truck and you can do what Sam did, listen to audible and come back and highlight the book.

But it was designed for you to read it over and over again. That's a really good place to start.

Then there's a signature operating manual system which is that work chart and then how to cover those boxes are the manuals and there are videos on that whole page. So if you go to 7powercontractor.com and you click on the products tab, you will see both of those programs.

Signature Operating Manual system and the second one which is Signature Staffing System.

The second program, the staffing which is, I know is what you want, but you got to eat your, you know, dinner first, your vegetables before you can have dessert. And there's a reason, because you leverage everything you learn in the first program into this seamless connection in the second program.

Sure.

That's the best way to do it. And if you're interested, I do offer a free 30 minute call.

All you need to do is go either Hit the connect with us on that page in the bottom right or else you can just email me at al@7 the number7power contractor.com.

I love it. Thank you so much for that.

I know that I will be I'll be recommending this to companies all over the country and yeah this, this has been so enlightening today. I appreciate you being a guest on the show.

Like I mentioned earlier everybody if you do want to get a hold of the on the course it has the entire close it now sells system in it which is especially after having a conversation with AL is very much in alignment with permission based selling with emotional connection and selling with the elements that we talked about today not be being persistent, not pushy. Every bit of that is in there as well as a whole module on handling objections and a whole module on scripting for the doors.

And I wasn't kidding when I told you one to three appointments an hour every single time I go out to train doors with people we're setting those appointments and so that's what it looks like and it almost you know very little client acquisition cost. So that's in the course. I started doing some one on one coaching again. I haven't done that in a long time.

Reach out to me if you would like to hear more about getting sales coaching one on one just like this and otherwise it has been a great episode. Any parting words that you want to leave anyone, everyone with and we'll wrap it up here.

You know it. I. I'm going to fess up. I hated sales at the beginning because I. I was awful.

But because of that I will not stink at anything for any long period of time. I will get good. I went to a ton of courses. We were talking about Dale Carnegie training.

I went to so much training and I just kept applying and learning each and every time I debriefed myself what I did right, what I did wrong and then I let myself go and just go you know what next one I'm going to do better and yes that's how I create it. But you do want to have systematic selling. It'll free you up for better and better sales.

100% agree. It gives you so much freedom to not have to think about it. You could just focus and know you're not missing anything when you follow us at system.

So super powerful. Well thanks for being on today. It has been a pleasure.

I'm sure we will run into each other at events coming up this year as well as and fingers crossed we'll share the stage someday. I am definitely pulling for that, and it's been a pleasure having you on. For everybody listening, you know how we end this?

Go save the world one heat stroke at a time.

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