This podcast elucidates the paramount significance of maintaining a robust connection with clients in the realm of HVAC sales. We assert that establishing rapport and understanding customer needs are not merely advantageous but essential for success in this competitive industry. Our discourse further underscores the necessity of self-care and personal growth, emphasizing that one’s physical and mental well-being directly influences professional performance. We introduce a practical exercise designed to assess and enhance various aspects of one’s life, likening it to the spokes of a wheel, where each spoke represents a crucial element of personal development. As we navigate through these themes, we invite listeners to reflect on their own practices and strive towards becoming the most effective and trustworthy professionals in their field.

Work to become someone worth buying from and people will be buying from you. Remember the important stuff -- the value of your company and the value of you. Slow down and don't be overwhelmed with the number of appointments you receive and pay attention. Relate to your clients and match their energy.

On this episode of Close It Now, Sam talks about the importance of staying connecting to your clients, paying attention, taking care of yourself to improve your client's perception of you and learn about the direct correlation between sales and how you take care of yourself.

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.

Hey, hey, hey.

Welcome back.

Sam Wakefield here with Close It Now.

Hey, got a really cool topic for you today.

There's something I heard from somebody recently, got named Ben.

It was so impactful when I heard it that it just made me immediately want to record this for you guys.

If you.

And so what it's going to be is you know, how to stay connected to that client.

You know, it's, it's important to stay connected to the client while you're in the home and to pay attention.

So we're going to cover that today.

Some, a couple things too, reminders that will get you, keep you on pace, keep you on track.

One of the things that's going on now, two topics I guess today.

The other one is the importance of taking care of yourself.

I know in our industry we can, you know, go out there and just work your face off.

Especially this time of year when it starts to really warm up, when it starts to become busy, when it's pretty crazy out there so many times people will set different things.

Well, that's 100% not true.

And things self care things, things that are important, like your exercise routine.

I don't care who you are, you must have an exercise routine.

Also nutrition.

How many times do you find yourself driving and I've been guilty of this in the past for sure.

You know, driving through McDonald's or the fast food joints, especially if you're in an area like I, you know, I'm heck, I'm in Austin where there's more restaurants per capita than any other city in North America.

And there's.

The food is amazing.

So you know, the first year I moved here, geez, I think I gained 30 pounds just trying all the restaurants.

Was that good for my sales?

No, that was one of my worst years ever because I was so focused on everything else.

I mean I still wasn't bad, but it definitely wasn't anywhere like it wasn't, you know, the few years after that.

But the thing is, you know, sales is not the performance of an hour.

Sales is the overflow of a life.

That's why you hear me say so many times, work to become someone worth buying from and people will buy from you.

Increase your focus on your growth, your personal growth through reading the Drive Time University like we talk about all the time.

Gotta use Drive Time University.

But you know that imagine the, you know, so, so this will be topic one today obviously is imagine your life as like a wheel.

And you've got spokes on a wheel and each of those spokes represents something different.

One of the.

And so what we're going to do, here's a quick exercise so you can get a good idea of where you are and through the high performance coaching program.

And they're out there killing it and they're crushing it.

And you know, and my buddy Nathan Goff, he actually just posted a video in the Facebook group.

He is a stone cold killer.

He is a closer.

Like, you wouldn't believe this.

Last summer I think you were like 19 in a row, you know, 16 in a row, something like that.

It was just insane.

But he went through some of the, did some coaching with me and then it was, oh, two, three months later, he calls me up, it's like, bro, I'm in a slump, man.

I haven't sold anything in like two weeks, dude.

I don't know what's going on.

So what we did is we walked through this exercise and sure enough, three days later, he calls me back.

He's like, man, I'm on fire again.

I just closed two, closed two in a row today.

Working on my third.

Let's go.

Right?

And so the exercise is really simple, but I really want you to focus on it.

If are you in a slump or any time you're in a slump, come back to this episode and let's and walk through this exercise and it will help you recognize how to get out of it.

And if this isn't, if that's not enough, get a hold of me.

We'll do a discovery session and do a tune up.

So the thing is, so imagine that your life is a wheel, right?

All the spokes in the wheel represent something different.

So you've got the.

And for most people, the strongest spoke is your, your skills.

You know, the one spoke is, you know, is actual sales skills.

Your presentation, your knowledge of your equipment, your knowledge of your service, everything that you do.

Excuse me, I'm out.

Actually, I'm focusing on one of the other spokes we'll get to in a minute.

Right.

The second but.

So the first one is your knowledge of your industry, what you do.

But the other wheel, other spokes are what happens when we get busy and we get out there and the season hits and it's 105 degrees or it's 5 degrees and you're just out there working your face off all the time.

So the other spokes represent one is nutrition.

You know, what are you feeding your body?

You cannot operate on a million dollar plus level eating from the dollar menu.

Your body will not support that.

It will shut down on you.

Also total side topic, there is a direct correlation to your cells related to your weight.

And this is in the way that your clients perceive you.

And I'm not beating anybody up because I've 100% been the fat guy and 100% been the skill skinny guy in the house.

And what I've noticed is, and it has to do partly with confidence as you are more fit, as you are more in shape, the perception from the client part of it is your own confidence, but the other is the perception of the client.

And I've actually polled quite a few customers about this and quite a few clients about this and asked them.

And the general consensus from them is when.

And I'm just going to use generic terms here, and this is not, I promise this is not fat shaming at all.

But if you're sensitive to that.

But here's the thing.

What the clients basically said was when a, you know, an overweight salesperson comes to my house, they're not as likely to choose them because the, and this is subconscious inner monologue.

I really had to ask, you know, really pretty deep probing questions to be able to get them to, you know, kind of come to this realization.

But they're basically telling me that the subconscious ideas, if they this person doesn't have enough distance discipline and have enough ability to control to take care of themselves, how in the world are they going to be able to take care of my project if they can't take care of their own body with discipline and all the things it needs to do to take care of it that way, how are they going to get to take care of my project?

And man, that when I started asking people about that and it kind of shook me and you know, and it's not intentional, it's things that, you know, homeowners and clients, they things that they do unintentionally, but it's subconscious.

I mean, we're programmed different ways, just.

And it happens, you know, judging a book by its cover.

That's why I've got an episode.

Go ahead and judge book by its cover.

Yes, first impressions are massively important.

So that's one of the first impressions.

So your nutrition is one of the spokes.

One of the other spokes is your fitness.

What are you doing for exercise?

You know, I'm not here to say that you have to do, you know, weightlifting or you have to be a marathon runner.

You have to do anything.

But more importantly, I need you to understand that some sort of exercise is crucial, crucial for every single individual if you want to be a whole complete person.

We all know this.

Start with the little things, make the little changes.

So that's spoke number two.

Spoke number three is your relationship.

You know, relationship with your parents are alive still.

Relationship with your parents, relationship with your spouse or your partner, relationship with brothers, sisters, with your kids, with your whoever.

Especially family relationships are massively important.

Are those healthy?

Are you doing the things it takes to keep those healthy?

The next one is your spiritual life.

What does that spiritual life look?

Now again, I am not here to, you know, promote anything specifically when it comes to spiritual life, because even we'll take a.

An agnostic or an atheist has a spiritual belief or they wouldn't claim even that.

So choose like what's the old restaurant Choosing, making a choice.

So it doesn't matter.

But everyone has their own spiritual beliefs.

How are you in that?

Are you doing the things that you know you should be doing that resonates with your soul and with your heart to be healthy in a spiritual.

And the, and the other thing is personal growth.

What are you doing for personal growth?

Obviously, if you're listening to this podcast, Time University, then that is, you're working on it, but also be reading, you know, listening to a book.

Audiobooks are awesome.

We said this before, you know, the 15 year career of an outside salesperson or outside service tech, the drive time, that windshield time, instead of listening to the radio or listening to music, whatever, if you actually use that for focused education time through audiobooks, through podcasts, through different courses or whatever, then that's the equivalent of three PhDs.

A 15 year career, if you use all of your windshield time, is the equivalent of three, not one, not two, but three PhDs.

So what are you becoming a doctorate in?

What are you becoming an expert in?

I hope that is so that's your personal growth, you know, and so when, and so like right now I mentioned I am out.

I am out walking.

I started the 75 hard program, which is, it's a lot of work.

It's two 45 minute workouts a day is part of the program.

One of them must be outside.

So that's what I'm doing.

And it's really dawned on me the importance of this, to connect to you guys, to relate it to you.

So that is, that's what's going on with me right now.

That's why I'm out of breath and recording this for you, because it's important.

So when Nathan called me up, he was like, bro, I'm in a slump.

We went through every one of those folks and then I said, okay, now rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 right in this minute.

It doesn't matter what you've done in the past or where you've been.

You could have been at a 10 at some point.

And any of those folks, and it's fluid, they can change over time as we lose our focus and we lose our balance in life.

But rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 on all those books.

What are you not doing right now that you were doing before when you were crushing it?

And for him, we pinpointed one thing as, all right, change that one thing.

And actually it was combination of a couple, two of a couple things.

But three days later, he calls me up, man, I went back, I did exactly what you said.

We started this, you know, pinpointing those things, fixed my nutrition, got back in the gym because I had stopped doing that.

Now I'm not crushing it again.

And it was as simple as that.

And you can do the same thing.

Raise yourself on that scale of 1 to 10 on each of those spokes and see where you're lacking.

See what, where you need to shift some focus and work on the.

And it doesn't have to be huge changes.

Try to just improve it maybe from three to a four, four to five.

Just pick one or two spokes because we all know that we can improve.

Life is a, you know, constant improvement, right?

So that is topic number one.

Topic number two.

Well, first of all, raise your hand if you get some value from this.

This is really crucial.

I mean, when you call me up, I'm going to take you through these things and we can walk through it together and pinpoint where you need some.

We need some changes to get changes.

You have to make changes.

Otherwise that's insanity.

Do the same thing and expect different results.

So topic number two is how do we stay connected to the client?

Because there's a the saying that I heard from my friend Ben, if they ain't vibing, they ain't sign it.

And we all know this.

We've got to remember.

So as we start getting into the season, as it picks up and gets busy, what I want you to remember is slow the heck down.

Don't be so overwhelmed with the number of appointments you're going to have that you start just rushing through your appointments.

Slow the heck down.

Slow down.

Pay attention to the client.

If you need, you know, match their energy.

If they ain't vibing, they ain't signing.

It's our job to connect to them on a personal level.

People buy from people.

The choices they're making is to choose your company, choose you as their representative.

It doesn't matter what product you're offering.

That's not what the choice is.

Now in a client's mind, they think that it's almost like a decoy.

You know, when it comes down, they're like, okay, well tell me about this brand and this brand and this brand.

But it's not about that.

We all know it's not about that and they know it's not about that.

However, we've got to remember the important stuff and communicate the value of your company, the value of you, the value of the design that you put together.

Because the on the other side of things, it's not about brand.

There's nothing to do with the actual equipment itself, itself.

It has everything to do with connecting to you on a level that they know they're going to be taken care of.

That know like and trust factor has to be there.

If that is not there, then they're going to easily make it about price.

They're easily going to make it an apples to apples.

They're going to make it about some, anything else if they don't trust you.

So that's the message is slow down, pay attention.

How do you need to adjust your presentation?

Is this an engineer you're talking to or is this a grandma you're not going to use.

So don't use the same words for those people.

Use words related to and try to use analogies related to what they do.

Find out what they do for work.

If you're talking to a doctor, then all of a sudden all your terms are going to be when you're talking about ductwork or you're talking about the refrigerant flow, you know you're talking about ductwork.

That's man, that's now your arteries and veins for the house, right?

Does this make sense?

And you're talking about the compressor.

That's the heart, it's the heartbeat of the system.

If you're talking to somebody in the medical field.

Field.

If you're talking to somebody in a totally different industry, say they're in it or now everything becomes computer related.

You're like, all right, cool.

So this, the operating system in this heating and air system.

So now you're using terms related to their industry.

Does this make sense?

It's so subconscious.

It's so subtle, but it's so powerful.

These are the little things that take.

I guarantee if you ride with any top, super, top producer, this is instantly what they do.

They will morph into the person that's the most relatable to the client they're talking to.

I used to do this all the time, still do.

And all the top producers.

In fact, so many interviews got coming up, we're hearing the same thing over and over.

And it's this.

You've got to become the person that client wants to buy from.

How do we do that?

By developing the trust factor.

By developing the, the know like and trust.

And a lot of that is by relating to them getting on their level, vibing on their level.

If they're not vibing, they're not signing.

We've got to get the vibe going.

That's the, that's just crucial.

I mean, without that, then it's just a race to the bottom.

Without that, it's a commodity buy.

And that's why so many of you, I hear over and over and over, oh, 85 of people out there are just concerned with the price.

Well, I'm here to tell you that is bull crap.

10% are concerned with the price.

10, 10% of your shoppers are commodity buyers.

Everyone else, I guarantee it is about value.

Every single time you clarify, they'll say, well, you know, I don't always just buy the cheapest price.

I just want to make sure I'm getting the best value for my dollar.

How do we communicate that?

It's so wildly important.

So one of the ways is by one taking care of all the spokes on the wheel, showing up as your best self.

And I'm not saying be somebody you're not, but what I am saying is being the best version of you.

When you walk through that house, the question is, you have to ask yourself every day, would I buy something from me?

Look in the mirror, would I buy something from me today?

Would I spend 50 grand on a project with me today?

And if your answer Is no, you've got to get to work on the spokes.

Where is your threshold?

Close your eyes, put your hand over your heart and ask yourself, would I, and start with a low number.

Would I spend $5,000 on the heating and air project or whatever you do, whatever service, whatever project and walk that up.

Would I spend $10,000 on this project?

Would I spend 15 on this project?

And go in $5,000 increments until you hit your threshold.

Where is your internal dial set to?

Where personally you feel like the value you get from you and your company stops.

I could almost guarantee you when you look at your numbers, that's about the biggest systems you've ever sold.

That's about the biggest projects you've ever sold.

So this is the example of what I mean when I say work to become someone worth buying from.

That is believing in your value, believing in your company's value, believing in the value the client gets.

If you look to your own company and your own services and you don't believe that you know a top end System is worth $25,000, your, your client is definitely not going to believe it.

If you don't believe your basic system is worth whatever you charge for it, your client's not going to believe it.

That's why people discount.

It's like, you know what, I know these prices are high.

So let me, let me just drop my pants for you.

Let me just drop those prices down.

Because you don't believe they're getting the value from you, you don't believe they're getting the value from your company.

You've got to fix that.

Step one is going to work with going to work on the spokes.

Know that you provide something that nobody else out there is providing.

Know that you are giving value on a level that nobody else out there is giving that value.

And here's the, here's the just straight up truth too.

And I can say this because I am completely removed from you and your situation.

If you don't believe that your company provides that value.

But you know a company across town does, you know, don't, you're not a tree move.

I mean if you're, if you're so I'm talking on the consultant level right now.

You don't have to stay in a place that sucks.

If the culture is bad, all of those things, yes, work to fix it.

But if you get to a place where there it's just a dead end road and you're beating your head against the wall, find a better place.

There is Always a better opportunity.

Your opportunity is once you make it.

Yes, but don't get stuck in a dead end street.

Now if you're an owner or a manager, let's talk to you.

Talk on your level.

If you evaluate your company and you realize that it is that that bad culture or it's a place where you know people and be honest with yourself, check your ego at the freaking door.

This is your company, it's your livelihood.

You are in charge of it.

If the fish stinks, it stinks from the head down.

You are responsible for everything.

Take radical responsibility.

Don't say, well, it's just the people that are in my company.

No, you are the, you are the hinge.

You are what causes everything to happen in your company.

If it's the people you hired, it's your fault, right?

So when you do that, when you evaluate things on that level, what happens is now you also empowered yourself to make the changes necessary to create a great culture, to create a company that provides the value that the client actually gets.

The value that you're charging.

Don't be the company that you know, puts it in and then runs down the road and hopes that, that they don't have problems because you know your service department or sucks or you know that you know your install department sucks and you've got great text to go back and fix the install department.

That's your job, is to fix those departments.

So don't be the owner that blames it on anyone else.

It is your responsibility to make those changes.

And when you do, and when you start taking that radical responsibility for every little thing that happens in your company, that's when empowerment happens and you start to actually see the dramatic changes in your company and in your career that's going to take you to the next level.

So become that company that you believe the value is there.

So to buy from.

When you look in the mirror with no ego, nothing else attached, just take a completely blank look at it.

Start from scratch.

Okay, if I walked into this company today as an outsider, what does it look like?

And always be working on improving.

Always be working on improving.

Don't work, just work in the business.

Work on the business.

It's your job as an owner to create a machine that runs smoothly.

It's your only priority is to create systems and create, create something for your people to operate smoother.

Your job is making their job easier.

Their job is selling and installing and repairing heating and air equipment.

It's not yours.

Your job as the owner is working on the machine of Your business to make their job smoother.

Working.

That's what it means to work on the business, not in it.

Working in the business is as the owner, you're like, oh man, I've got to throw on the install cap today because somebody called in, oh man, I gotta throw on the service cap today.

Or you're, you're resistant to let go of your service truck because, man, somebody can, you know, I do it better than everybody else.

Well, that's not true.

There's always better people out there.

I mean, come on, there's millions of companies across the country.

Do you think you can't find somebody that's equally competent to take care of the project, take care of the issues?

You absolutely can.

But you've got to become the person you want to attract.

And once you do that, that's when your employment problems, the lack of people in the workforce, that is solved when you become the person that you want to attract into your business.

Okay, so I know we kind of went on a detour there, but that's what happens when I get, when I get jiving everybody's signing.

But no, basically I kind of warm up and man, these, these thoughts come out.

It's just like the importance of being able to recognize in ourself where that, that self recognition, self realization and choose to be 1% better than you were yesterday.

And then when we're working with the client, it's like we've got to be vibing with them if they're, they've got to be vibing with us.

If they're not vibing, they're not signing.

Remember that it's easy expression to learn.

If they're not vibing, they're not signing.

So do that by slowing down.

Pay attention.

Watch their responses.

Watch their energy responses, their facial, their body language.

That's not what they say.

What you say.

And what they say is 5% of the conversation.

5%, that's it.

The rest is body language and tone of voice and energy.

Pay attention to that stuff.

That's next level listening.

That's literally called third level listening in like the life coaching circles and psychology.

So pay attention.

And then so one is fix yourself.

Number two, pay attention to your clients.

Slow down to go fast.

And number three is become who you want to attract.

Become the person worth buying from.

Have your belief to the point that you would gladly pay your prices without discounts if you were buying from yourself and from your company.

And when you achieve that belief, that is when everything breaks loose and your sales start to skyrocket Ask any top producer and they will tell you the exact same thing.

You have to believe the value you provide is bigger than the stack of dollars that you're asking for them.

The second is they have to believe it because you have to believe it first or you will never be able to communicate what your stack of value is to the client if you don't believe it yourself first.

So that's the podcast for today.

Thank you for listening.

If you haven't, go join the Closing out Facebook group.

We've got oh my gosh, we've got so much coming out.

Got the book coming out, we've got the course coming out.

We've got Be on the look on the horizon is a will be a live event.

Don't know when, don't know where, don't know how, but I'm putting it out into the universe.

Leap and the net will appear.

Live event will happen.

It's going to be so next level.

You know, if you've listened to this podcast at all, the way that we look at things is different.

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

So that is where we are headed with next level.

Yeah, just the next level in in person event.

So we'll see what happens there.

Putting it out there.

So thank you all for listening today.

Go check out the website.

I'm getting a cool redesign.

I just would love for you to see it.

And from there it's the landing of place you can launch from there to the coaching programs.

You can, you know, really check out all the things we have to offer.

It's closeitnow.net otherwise everybody go make this year your best year yet.

Save the world one heat stroke at a time.

I will talk to you again.

I will talk to you again soon.

Thanks for listening to Close it now with Sam Wakefield.

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