3 Steps To Success
Do you find that people only pay half the attention to everything in their life including your sales pitch? Today, Sam Wakefield discusses why your customers are mentally primed to say no to you, and reveals the three steps to success you can take to make them pay attention to what you’re telling them. Learn how to communicate in congruence to your customers’ brain waves so you can be understood, differentiated, and preferred.
We are talking about how many of you have experienced when you give new information in a sales appointment. The resistance and it’s weird because people say that they want to hear why you’re there. They say that they want to hear your information, but as soon as you start to give them any type of new data or information about equipment if it’s about system sizing, if it’s about airflow, whatever it is. When you start to go into that, they get that glazed-over look in their face, that glazed-over look in the eye and it’s this moment of they literally asked me about this but now they’re not paying attention. They’re not listening. They totally check out and move on to something else. It’s two parts that cause this. One is our society. Our society is touched that we’re such as ADHD type of a mentality with all of our devices with everything that they didn’t want to hear the answer but they went ahead and mentally jumped on to something else out of habit. That’s a lot of what happens is it’s a habit to only half pay attention to everything in their life.
We’re all guilty of that too. Raise your hand if you watch a movie at home with your wife, with your computer going, your laptop beside you, you got the iPad on the other side, you got your phone in the middle with this movie going on thinking that you’re paying attention to anything but you’ve basically missed most of the things that are happening all around you. We all do it. We’ve all had those moments and I’ve been guilty of that myself. We have this ADHD type of mentality that instantly moves on to other things. The other thing that what causes this is people are so conditioned to being resistant to salespeople, generally speaking. We’ve covered this a little bit before about asking permission, but there is a way to give data. There’s a way to give new information that will keep that resistance down. This is spring-boarding off of that permission thing but there’s a three-step process anytime you give a new piece of information. It makes sure that they lock it in their head because you’ve got to check in with people too. That’s what we’re talking about.
The three simple steps are one, keep the resistance down so they will open their mind to hear and pay attention to what you’re telling them. Two, you get to communicate what that is. Three, to lock it in and make sure that it’s understood before you move on. If you keep bouncing from data point to data point without checking in with people, if you lost a one, say step two but now you’re on step five and they didn’t catch steps three or four, they’re absolutely not going to catch five and the confused mind says no. If you’ve lost them on any step along the way, they’re going to say no to you. People will choose someone that they can understand over maybe someone who’s more competent and someone who would do a better job just because they were confused and they didn’t understand what you were saying or what you were doing. People want things explained simply to you.
This message is brought to you by my experience I had at home. Raise your hand if you’ve ever gone to a sales appointment and they tell you, “You’re bid number six.” I was number six. This lady had five other companies out to give her pricing for a new system. The context here is this equipment is five years old. Not very old equipment but it’s got serious problems. The installation was horrible to start with it. It wasn’t sized properly for the space, all those kinds of things which were fixing to get to because it has to do with your due diligence. I was number six. Go into the process and I start asking her these questions like, “It’s important to size the equipment properly. Has anyone else done a manual J load calculation on the house?” “No. What’s that?” “How did they size your equipment?” “They based it off of what I have. They based it off of the square footage for that the city says that this house should have.” “Really? Do you know how accurate that is?” “Not really. I’m going off of what everybody’s saying.”
It turns out only one other company had any type of idea of semblance of professionalism. They went through and took the extra step to print off. In Austin, Texas, the appraisal district has sketches when the surveys are done. I don’t know if this is everywhere across the country. I know most major cities have this. The sketches when houses are built or appraised for tax purposes are very rough sketches of square footage.
If your town is anything like our town, a lot of times those are wrong. He’s got this and every bit of the rest of his proposal was built off of wrong information. I go through and said, “I don’t guess at what we do.” This is a fantastic line that you can use at which is, “We don’t believe in guesswork. We want it to be accurate because sizing the equipment, it’s just math. There’s a formula behind it. It’s math, you punch in the numbers and it will tell you the right answer every time as long as you punch in the right numbers.” People get that. They understand that. They want you to not be guessing at what you’re doing. We’ll go through and I measure the space that we’re looking at and she says, “Wow.”
That’s when she pulled out that other drawing. She’s like, “That’s different than what this one shows.” I was like, “Did he measure it?” “No.” I said, “Let’s measure it again.” Initially, I’d measured this space with my laser tape measure. I said, “Let’s do it again. Let’s do it the old-fashioned way.” I pulled out my real tape measure and I got her involved. I said, “Hold this for me. What are we reading?” I’m writing it down along the way. We go through, I did the math and I said, “Would you like to hear how big your house actually is?” “Of course,” I tell her and that matches my initial measurements, which is over 400 square feet different than what the other company had. I asked her, “We measured this together, right?” “Yes.” “Here’s what it is.” One, she was blown away. I said, “This is good information for you because you’re getting taxed on a bigger piece of house than you have. I would definitely talk to the appraisal district and have your house re-measured so you don’t pay as many taxes. More importantly, we don’t believe in guesswork. We work off of accurate information.”
I pulled out my Manual J software and quickly did a Manual J right in front of her and showed her what size system we should be looking at. Here’s the important part. Five other companies had sized the system at a four-ton. I’m sizing it now, with the load calculation, I showed about 2.4 tons for the space. With modulating equipment, we’re looking at a three-ton system for the space. She was like, “I’m concerned because if five other companies are saying this.” I said, “Did they do the due diligence? This is why we win awards for our designs because we don’t cut corners in the process.” It was a fantastic visit. It showed her some things. The important part of this and the importance that there’s a handful of things I want to stress to you. One is the importance of doing your due diligence. It’s a crawl space house. I looked in the crawl space, took a picture, and showed her that in level of insulation in our crawl space. I went into the attic and I measured the level of insulation in the attic. All of that went into the calculation. Not a single other person looked in either place.
My question to her was also if they’re guessing at these other elements, what are they going to be guessing at when it comes time to do the work? What other parts are they guessing at? That’s a great pop-out for you right there is use that. Say if the other company is guessing at this part of the work. When this is the easy part to do, how many other shortcuts are they going to make when it takes more time and it’s a little harder? How you do anything is how you do everything. It’s a fantastic conversation. The other part is I’ve been doing this along the way with you because it’s become such an ingrained part of my conversation is anytime you give a new data point. Step one is to ask permission. By doing that, the questions are simple. When I asked her, “Would you like to see how big your house is?”
Once I finished the load calculation, “Would you like to see what size system your house calls for?” You ask permission, you ask them, “Would you like to see?” When you’re showing your equipment, when you’re showing your presentation, “Would you like to see all the options that are available to you?” Another question could be, “Would you like to see all of the different models that are available?” “Would you like to see the benefits and the features of this system and how it affects these concerns that you’ve expressed to me?” They’ll say yes. When you use these words and make it part of your conversation, it’s not weird. It’s not different. It’s not out of the ordinary but you make it part of the way that you speak. You’re asking permission for that. They give you permission, then you tell them.
Steps To Success: In an industry where cutting corners and doing guesswork is the norm, establish your credibility by providing accurate information to your clients.
Step two is to give the data. Step one is to ask permission. Step two is to give the data. You go through it in such a way that they understand it. Don’t use industry jargon. Break it down for them. Tell them what’s going on. She was asking about, “When you do this work, does that mean that the furnace and all of these, everything gets changed? What does that mean?” I was like, “That’s a great question. Would you like to hear what a system means?” Asking the permission to tell somebody what it means. I went through and explained to what the definition of the complete system actually means. When you break it down, break it down to them. Don’t go into all kinds of jargon or whatever unless you’re one in a hundred clients that’s an engineer or something that wants to hear it. Step two is giving the information and then step three is crucial.
Step three is so important. It’s the step that’s the most commonly missed and skipped. You’ve got to check back in. Once you’ve asked permission, you’ve given that piece of information, step three is, “Does that make sense? Do you understand everything we’ve talked about? Do you get what we’re talking about here?” Use any of those questions. My favorite is, “Does that all make sense?” It’s so important. If it doesn’t, that gives them the opportunity to ask further probing questions about what it is or anything that popped up in their head during that conversation. It also lets you know you’ve got to be clear. You have to know that they understand what is going on before you move on to the next sections before you move on to the next part. If you lose it or omit any step of the way, anything else along the way, they’re not going to get it. They’re still thinking about that one thing that they didn’t understand and it goes back to the confused mind saying no.
The three steps of communication. The first step is asking permission, “Would you like to hear some examples? Would you like to see some examples of this?” They say yes. Step two, give the information in a way that they understand without using too many complicated words. Think in terms of their perspective, not your perspective. Step three, you’ve got to check in, “Does that make sense? Do you understand? Any other questions about this before we move on?” That’s a great one, “Perfect, all right. Great. The next step is.” There’s your segue into the next step, “The next step is,” and then move into the next step. It’s such a beautiful way to communicate. Each segment of your appointment is those little building blocks put together. You think of it like a conversation. Think of it like a paragraph. Anytime you’re reading a paragraph, you don’t want it to be one run-on sentence. That’s what each of these sections does. It breaks it up into an easily digestible sentence.
When you check in, “Does that make sense? The next step is.” That’s the period moving into the next sentence in your paragraph. At the end of the paragraph start to finish, it won’t be disjointed. It will read normally and people can digest each sentence along the way because that’s what that pause is, to stop and make sure that they understand each section before you move on. We don’t want them halfway down the page and not remembering what they read. That’s the message. That’s how to keep that resistance down when you’re giving new information is by one, the asking permission part. Two, how to communicate it clearly. Number three, you’ve got to check-in. Put the period on the end of your sentence, check-in and make sure they understand what you talked about. Those three steps will take you dramatically into a better understanding, and better relationship with your clients and they’ll connect better.
You’ll find that people connect a whole lot better and relationship and rapport building when you start to communicate like this versus telling them. No one wants to be told anything. They want a conversation. We don’t like it. I’m the same way. I know you are too. You don’t want anybody to tell you anything especially your spouse or your partner like, “Stop.” No matter who it is, if someone’s rattling a machine-gunning information at you, that is never the way to communicate. It’s this three-step process that will take it to the next level when it comes to in-home sales with heating and air.
That’s the message. I’m thankful for every single one of you. Shoot me a message, Sam@closeitnow.net. Let me know what’s going on in your world. Where are you in the world? That’s the message. Go check out CloseItNow.com. We’ve got a lot of things to go in and come join the community. It’s a fun one. I am back and back in action. You’re going to hear a lot more from me in the near future. Take care out there. Saving the world one heatstroke at a time.
