How To Host A Virtual Sales Appointment With Aaron Courtney?
With everyone migrating online for work due to the global crisis of COVID-19, hosting a virtual sales call is almost going to be an inevitability. Time to step up your virtual game and get the results you would as if you went out in this episode. Host, Sam Wakefield, sits down with a sales Rockstar, Aaron Courtney, to discuss some effective ways to host a virtual sales appointment. Aaron is a Residential HVAC Manager at Elite Heating and Air Conditioning and a $4 million a year salesperson with an average sales of right around $11,000. Here, Aaron shares with us how they do things at his company in terms of virtually meeting and setting appointments with clients. He goes into the detail of setting the right expectations when conversing with clients, having the right tools in place for the appointment, and going about the presentation. Don’t miss out even when you are in with the tips and tricks Aaron shares in this conversation.
We are talking about how to host an effective virtual sales call, all the ingredients of it. What does it take? What tools do you need? Do you need any special tools or not? How effective is it in our society, especially with the global crisis of the coronavirus, COVID-19, as you all know? How could you miss it? If you don’t know about that, you’ve been living under a rock. We’re going to talk about that definitely. I know that in Austin, Texas, we’ve seen a huge rise in people requesting us not to come to their house or if we do, to take a bunch of extra precautions. I’m sure that all of the rest if you haven’t yet, you are going to start getting those requests. “Can we do this over the phone? Can we do this without you coming to my house?” It’s because people are, to be honest, freaked out.
The media has done a good job of there’s a lot of scare tactics going on and at the same time, there’s a lot of reason and value in the social distancing. That’s what we’re going to talk about. I’m going to introduce our super special guest here. His name is Aaron Courtney. This guy is a rock star. He has been in the industry for several years. He’s the General Manager, but like most of us, he started off at installation, as a helper. He worked his way up all the way through every level of the industry.
A couple of his big accomplishments personally, he is a $4 million a year salesperson with an average sales of right around $11,000, which is rock star status in anybody’s terms. At this point, he is the Service Manager, GM of two different companies at the same time. I definitely want to make an appointment sometime. Maybe get him to tell us about what that is because that’s unique and different. That sounds like its own type of challenge in itself. He has over 68 employees, six comfort consultants, every single one of them selling over $1 million a year, eight selling service technicians and that support $14 million in total sales. That is our special guest. Mr. Aaron Courtney, won’t you introduce yourself?
I’ve been doing this for a long time. I worked my way up and started as an install helper. I decided I didn’t like ductwork or any ductwork very much, so I decided to jump into service, hot attics, crawl spaces, and stuff and figured out it was a lot easier for me to sell and communicate with people. I focused on what was good and have been doing mainly sales. We’re a service-oriented company, so I’m still involved with the service department. To touch briefly on the two-company thing, we have struggled tremendously. I’m in the Louisville, Kentucky area which encompasses the southern bottom part is Indiana and most of Kentucky. We’ve got a 150-mile radius that we service. We’ve had a lot of issues with employees. Our new business model was going after new companies to acquire employees with the bonus of having a little bit of a customer base. Not huge companies or million-dollar sales companies or things like that. That’s our new business acquisition, doing things like that.
Expansion through acquisition, the Warren Buffett.
That’s the easiest way I’ve found. Getting new employees is a challenge. People are jumping ship for $2 or $3 an hour now. From when I started, we made $10 an hour as a service tech. Most of our service techs are making over $25 to $30 an hour.
When I started, it wasn’t a service tech, but on the install crew I was making $8 an hour and that was a good deal at that time.
If we could make $15, we’d have no more problems.
That was totally the thought. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. For everyone else, if you don’t know who I am, if this is your first time, I’ll introduce myself as well. I’ve also been in the industry for several years. I started off the same track as a helper on the install crew and worked my way into service. I ended up getting almost the same type of plan. I realized that for things to get better, I had to get better. I was tired of tearing my hands up and body up in the attics and decided I hated that as well. I went out and poured myself into sales training, bought every single course or book or anything known to man. I attended every single seminar and got my license and was a partner in a company up in the Texas Panhandle for a few years. I sold that company, moved into Austin to the much bigger market and I’m the lead project manager for one of the top distributors for Carrier in the Austin area as well as the Close It Now sales training. That’s a super quick nutshell.
Let’s move into the topic, of virtual sales. This is a conversation too. How many of you have had people already who have been asking for virtual appointments or asking for your company not to come to your house? I know that’s been us, for sure. I was talking to Aaron. I’ve been doing a lot of chatter in the Facebook group about how to have a virtual sales appointment is effective. Aaron pops in and says, “I closed 3 for 3 virtually.” I know his history and his sales record. I was like, “It’s time for us to have a real conversation about this.” I’m crushing it. He’s crushing it. I know some other people that are doing a massive amount of virtual appointments and closing them. How do we do that? What does it look like? How do we set the right expectations for the client? I’m a firm believer that something that has been done the same for over 50 years is ripe for a revolution, for a change anyway because technologies change and people’s expectations change. Let’s start with that, Aaron. Let’s start from the beginning. How do we set the right expectation for the homeowner when they call in asking for that? Even if they don’t, how do you set up that conversation with the client?
You and I were talking before we started this. A lot of us have been doing this for years. They may only have been 5 or 6 a year or something like that myself in the summertime. It was super easy even to have, as easy as a phone conversation and sell something and then communicate through pictures or emails or things like that with customers. A lot of people are a little funny about coming to their house and then everybody works. Convenience is an issue for a lot of customers. This is more convenient. As an example, my wife had a doctor’s appointment and this is how we did it. We did it with the doctor, a smooth, a little awkward face-to-face. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.
Beginning with customers is setting the expectation of, “We offer this.” We threw a fast commercial. I sent it to you letting people know this is available because a lot of people don’t even know how this works. People are getting accustomed to Zoom. I’m doing Zoom with my family members to stay in contact. People are getting more accustomed to it. To be honest, once this catches, you’ll stay. This is something that will be in our industry from here on out. This is something people will be open to. Face-to-face is always going to be a little better to build rapport, to build trust with. This was a good option. What we do, we screen customers, we know we assure customers on service and on sales calls. We have their health number one in our mindset.
Virtual Sales Appointment: Face to face is always going to be a little better to build rapport and trust with your clients.
Our guys are coming in the morning, we’re taking their temperatures and asking them questions, “Have you had any symptoms in your house?” We’re doing the same thing with the customer. We’re setting the expectation both ways and then we’re saying, “Here’s another option we have.” With things going on, we know people don’t want that six-foot rule, but some people don’t want you in their house. Even on our maintenance calls and stuff, a lot of them are doing the outdoor units and coming back and putting you on a list to do the indoor units later, the coils, and things like that. People are open to this. We have not slowed down in service one bit. Initially, when this first came out, it did slow down, but we put a plan together, started making those statements, and asked customers if our guys are working full-time hours is normal. It’s business as usual for us.
When somebody says, “That sounds interesting. I would totally be open to doing this appointment virtually,” how do you prepare them ahead of time for what we’re going to need? They have to participate a little more than traditional if we’re doing it in person. Because when we go to a house, we can take our measurements ourselves. We can look at it all ourselves.
We’re giving them options. We’re telling them that video calls are our easiest way to face-to-face. If they’re not comfortable with it, a phone conversation still works, but we would need some pictures of what we’re looking at. They’re taking pictures of model numbers, even prior to the actual estimate sometimes. FaceTime is an easy one. 80% of the population have iPhones, so people have been doing this for years. It’s super comfortable for them. Facebook Messenger, things like that. There are a lot of options, on Snapchat. There are a lot of different options for people that they have on their phones already. Finding something they’re used to using is always the first question.
“Do you use FaceTime? Are you familiar with Zoom?” You go from there with it. We’re setting the expectation with them of, “Here’s how this goes. It’s going to be no different than us coming to your house, but we will need you to walk us around your house. We will need you to answer questions like normal.” We encourage the face-to-face because that helps us build our trust. Knowing who you’re talking to is always going to be a plus. Some people are flat-out not comfortable. They want to lay the phone down and see you talk. Sometimes we’ve run into that a few times and then we have people that, “Let me email you the pictures, and let’s discuss.” As always, we’re getting the people where “Let me take pictures and email me a price.” We’re still getting that too.
I’ve run into every single one of those as well. I can honestly tell you that like you, I’m sure, I’ve sold projects under every single one of those conditions in those circumstances. Where we’re headed with this is the importance of the sales appointment doesn’t change. I’ve talked to a lot of people at this point of how they’re doing this and what they’re experiencing. What most people are running into is there are a tendency and a knee-jerk habit or reaction to shortcut the process of building value and instantly give a price. Like Aaron was saying, if they email pictures and you send them a number back, there’s zero value in that. We have to remember, price has no value but value definitely has a price. What do I mean by that?
That means as salespeople, as professional consultants, we have to build our stack of value bigger than their stack of dollars. Remember, we will never be the cheapest and there’s no point in trying to be the loss leader for your area. What do we have to do? Otherwise, we have to build the most value. We do that by building a rapport with the client, and building rapport is not talking about golf, it’s not talking about the weather. It’s about being professional, being friendly, but not their friend, and asking the right questions. Questions are the answer to solve all of these problems. They don’t know and we don’t know until we ask the right questions. The important thing is don’t skip the sales process. It has to be the same.
We’ll get on the video call. Before you walk around to your furnace and your outdoor unit and all that stuff, let’s have a conversation first. I don’t know about you, but what I’m finding is where in the past, people might be a little more resistant when you pull out your questionnaire and start asking questions, now that it makes more sense. You’re like, “I’m not there. I’m going to need to ask you some specific questions about your home and what you’re experiencing. That way I can put together a picture of how I need to build your system for you because I can’t be there to do it.” Are you finding that people are even a lot more open to answering those questions and being involved in the process?
Definitely. I found that the husband and wife are home now, so we have divided attention a lot of times. People are more comfortable in their homes too. They’re in control, they can show you what they want. We’ve been doing it for years on the phone and some video calls. We’ve done experiments with fixing customers that can’t figure out their new Wi-Fi thermostats on the phone, doing FaceTime with them to correct the setting problems and things. They’re successful with that too.
People appreciate that. It’s like, “Don’t charge me a sales visit because we figured it out over the phone.
As a service to the community, you have to go, “We can probably fix this by phone on our service department.” We’re saying, “If it’s something simple, then we know at least we need to come out now.” It’s like when you call the cable company or the dish network or somebody and they walk you through ten steps and they’re like, “We can’t fix it. We’ve got to send somebody out.” They’ve been doing it for years.
That’s nothing new. It’s a decade’s worth of that type of work there.
Aaron and Sam, I’ve got a question. It’s Rob. On the front end, on schedule on it, for model and serial numbers and some expectations, do we send in and out, maybe a little to-do list to set up the appointment?
I wouldn’t make it too complicated for them because it scares them off. An interaction with them, why you’re there. “Take me down to the furnace. Let me help you find the numbers I need.” We record most of our numbers, so we usually have the information already. Take advantage if your company tracks that stuff and it has the model and super numbers in there, so you already know what you’re looking at before you get there. That’s been helpful for us. I wouldn’t overload them. A template that you can mail them out saying here’s what they expect or something like that. Maybe before the appointment, “Here’s some information and questions we’ll be asking you,” would help. I definitely would watch overloading them with, “I’ve got to do all this stuff now.” That’s the only thing I would fear.
Are there things that they could do ahead of time? Absolutely. At the same time, I’m finding it’s exciting to see them involved in the process in real-time because forever people have trained, when you’re taking measurements like, “Here, hold my tape, measure, read me what that number is.” Now it’s like even the next step of getting them involved in the process so they’re feeling like it’s their project and they’re not getting you info and waiting for a number.
I appreciate exactly what you’re also saying because I spoke to Sam and Aaron through Facebook. I’m fairly new. I’m starting tomorrow, so I’m following these guys for a little bit. This is exciting. One of the other project managers or comfort advisors, we were talking about interacting with the customer and I brought up the customer experience. The other fellow I’ll be working with, I brought up the Build-A-Bear Workshop where people are involved in making a teddy bear, trying to get the customer’s experience of, “You’re going to help put this together.” It’s almost like the customer experience, them helping to do it. Things like you said, Sam, to interact.
Anything Else You Want To Add, Aaron, Before We Move Into The Next Area?
Having premade templates and stuff up, some people want to see stuff on Zoom. You can definitely screen share slides you have and things like that. I would practice with it at home for one, if you’re not familiar with it. Grab your wife, your kid or anybody. Practice with Zoom or FaceTime. It’s a good time if you can’t see your family is to play with Zoom. That’s what we do. We get together, talk, laugh and figure it out.
We’re moving into some of the tools. It would be the next part of the conversation. I’m finding that Zoom is a great platform because it’s easy to do a screen share especially when it comes to a time if they have questions and stuff. To wrap up that last piece, remember, the process is the same. You’ve got to set your credibility pieces in place. If they’re already your customers, awesome. It depends on your company. If you’re a newer company, if you’re a smaller company, I know our company. Even though we are one of the largest residential companies in Austin, we’re still in newborn. We’re barely ten years old. Most of our leads are still marketed leads, which means we’ve got a lot of credibility pieces to set in place at the beginning of the call. We don’t have a lot of history like Aaron was talking about.
They’re much older companies, so they’ve got a lot of that already established. It depends on the type of company they are. They have marketed leads too. Remember, in your sales process, in order, it needs to be credibility for the company, credibility for yourself, and agenda. What is this meeting going to look like? Go into the questions and phrase it like that. “What’s your experience? What are you concerned about? What are you experiencing living in your house?” Let’s discuss that before we look around. People appreciate that you’re concerned, you’re taking the time to find out what is going on in their mind. Don’t talk in terms of telling me about the details. Tell me about the customer experience. That is the time to have them walk you around the house.
In an ideal situation, if we’re on a video call, have them walk around. You can tell them, “See that right there. That’s mold growth going on,” or “Here’s what’s happening in this bedroom over here.” You talk them through it, get them hands-on to the problems. The concept is the same. Ask them, “Can you see how this is causing that problem?” Once you’ve explained it and when they say yes, when you present your solution, “Can you see how this is going to be the solution to that problem?” Clarify along the way. That’s where we’re at in the sales visit. You can’t shortcut any of that. Otherwise, you’re a number dropper and those are people that get a 30% close rate industry average and they’re down the road. You might as well be writing a number on the back of your business card. We’ve got to build the value.
Let’s start talking about tools, and things that we use during the virtual appointment. How do you explain things? I’ve set up my little mini office in the corner of my bedroom right here and I’ve got my whiteboard. I’ve got my tripod. A tripod on Amazon is $20. I love to draw things and when people have specific questions, I flip over to my phone on the whiteboard. You don’t even have to have that. If you don’t have a whiteboard, get yourself a sheet of paper and turn your phone around, and show them. You can talk while you’re drawing stuff. It’s important to have visuals along the way. If it’s strictly this the entire time, a conversation without visuals because when you go to a house, you’ve got tools, brochures, all the things. If you start leaving those out, we start losing the values. What other tools are you using, Aaron, to go through the process?
I’ve got some templates built, which we’ve had for a long time. We mainly email out things like that with differences between a 16-SEER and an 18-SEER, things like that. We use a lot of those on email templates. We’re pulling them up during the video screen and showing them the front page of the brochure for 19-SEER. We do carry here for Carrier and Infinity and the benefits. We have breakdowns walking through financing and things like that. We have different templates for all that. People want to see the visual thing. They get tired of looking at you and it makes them more comfortable since they can’t have the brochure. If you’re sketching out, you can always mail them the brochures or things.
We have gone to a lot of digital brochures anyway. It’s business as usual with that stuff, the SEER rating, different graphs, things like that. We’re using that. We do a lot off of a computer program we use that already gives us a lot of the information, the customer’s house, the square footage of the home, and things like that. We’ll write down, we know what the utility bills are as we’re talking to them, key points they’re doing and we’ll keep that up on the screen with them to remind them that your bills were high. Once we recommend a product to you to help the solutions, we always point back to you said thing, and everybody’s sales training always had that in there. You said this, so push it back to them to say, “Here you go.”
Other tools, are definitely the pictures, cameras, and screenshots on your phone. Even as you’re talking, you can screenshot when they’re showing you the equipment models, your numbers for reference. There are digital apps that even if you have a picture of the furnace and coil, you can use that app. It will measure it out for you. If you need to know if it’s 17 or 21 inches wide, this app will convert those measurements over the pictures. It’s an app that does it. Our distributors went this route with this too. They’re using tools now. We use a Carrier distributor, Cook Air, and they have put tools into place, something where Cook will connect as we’re on that link. It’s like a Zoom. When we’re on there, we can zoom in on the core. If they’re in their basement and within eight feet, I can zoom in or read modern server numbers off of my phone. They don’t have to do anything. They used it initially as a service tool for a field rep for the manufacturer to be with a service tech on a service call and go, “I need to see what’s going on. Let me see this.” Those things they were using. The slides on here, you can show videos, you can interrupt this and show them a video on a REME HALO or something like that so you can break it down a little bit. It’s still a 45-minute to one-hour process easy, if not longer.
Virtual Sales Appointment: Eighty percent of the companies out there don’t explain the differences between units and their benefits to the customers.
I’m finding the same thing. An important sales tip for all of you, if it’s live or virtual, either way, a pattern interrupt is important. If things start to get in a rhythm or a rut, that’s when it’s the perfect time to say, “Let’s look at this. Let’s talk about it,” and all of a sudden have a video, brochure, graph or something to break up the monotony of the same sales call. That’s definitely something I know I use all the time. This is the second-level sell stuff, but to change the energy if you feel that they’re getting away from you energy-wise. That’s why video is important. You can see everyone’s energy. To use a video at a well-placed moment, brochure, graph or something is a perfect pattern interrupt because they’re like, “Something is different.” It brings them mentally right back in and they check back in with you. That’s a super important quick sales tip there.
Other than that, the customers are getting used to it and they like it. They’ll ask you, “Can you send me that?” You can FedEx it to them or email to them the brochure.
Something else that I’ve done for our team is I write on the whiteboard I set up and I recorded. We have our own way that we do system presentations to take everyone through the different levels in a way that they’ll understand it by talking about benefits. We made a prerecorded explanation. As a reminder, we can send this to them because we’re going to go through it with them in person, but it’s so much information. People want to be able to refer back to it and so we could send it that way or that client that says, “I’m not comfortable with the video. Let me text or email you these pictures.” When you send back the proposal and that thing, send the video with it. That way, if they haven’t been able to do it in person, you can do it on the phone verbally, but you’ve also sent them the video.
The same presentation, but now they can see as you’re drawing things out or however you do your presentation, take a few minutes and record one and it’s simple to everyone. If you have an account on YouTube, you have your own channel. Load it in right there because it’s easiest to send a YouTube link. Mark it as unlisted. It’s super simple to do and then send them that link because it’s a great way to get that communication to them as well. This is something that not many companies are doing. Everything we’re talking about is something that if you do this in your marketplace, there’s no reason you can’t dominate because most people are shortcutting the process. I say, “Send me a couple of pictures.” Email them back a number when is the time to dive into this because people have the time. As Aaron said, they’re there. They’re not going anywhere. They’ve got the time to look at this. That’s why we see a rise in business too because people are at home. They don’t want to be quarantined at home in a hothouse. They know the heat’s come in and they have the time and the ability to tackle these projects and it makes sense for them to do it.
What do you think is the best way to go about that?
It’s a normal conversation. Are you talking about maybe when they call in initially?
When he was saying, “I’m starting to build value,” so I’m calling you saying, “Mr. Jones, I’m John from Precision,” and then going into there.
I would start this. Don’t skip what you’re doing. Continue your same presentation as before. Still, ask the same questions. Build the same rapport with the customer, go over the comfort concerns, all that stuff in, and still stay the same. I don’t think that part changes. You have to adjust as you see if they’re taking this as awkward. We’re looking face-to-face with each other. If that seems awkward to them, give them other options. Turn the camera around and show them slides or show them units. I do a lot of these from the office, so we have displays there. A lot of times I’ll turn the camera around to go, “Here’s what this 19-SEER Infinity looks like,” and you still continue to talk. Let them look at an object. That’s what I’ve found. You’re going to learn about people in their eye contact with this for sure. A lot of people will not look you in the face. Even with the video, they weren’t looking in the face.
Something else that Aaron wanted to cover with us is looking at the big picture. That’s something that we’ve got to be and I 100% agree. Not concerned but acknowledge people’s concerns and how we do that. I know that’s something you wanted to cover, Aaron.
People are scared. They’re uncertain of what’s going on, and how long this is going to last. Financially, a lot of your customers that had high incomes are now wondering, and even getting unemployment is an issue at this point. People are scared of that aspect. They’re scared that you’re going to give them something that somebody has to come to your house. It’s uncertainty. We’re a necessity. Even though they lived without air conditioning 50 years ago, they lived without heat. It’s not the way it works anymore, especially people that have these breathing problems. When we had a little flash of 80 degrees, we had service calls ringing off the hook.
People are concerned. They’re going to react when the weather reacts. They’re still going to be there. Your job is to say, “This process is still the same. We’re still here for you.” Our commercials are, “We’re still here. We’re in essential service. We’re still here to serve you. We did have to change how we do business a little bit.” Initially, I wouldn’t go into financing options until 3/4 through your presentation, but now I’m like, “Here’s what we got. We’ve got 0% interest for up to 72 months,” which we’ve never had before. “We’ve got no payments, no interest for 18 or 24 months.” We added in those options to help ease people’s minds with this. “This is a big purchase. I don’t have a job anymore. I’m unemployed. I’m not working,” or whatever.
We had a physician that we were installing a system for and she said, “I don’t have time for any of this. Give me some prices. Can you shoot me some prices?” We literally had done the whole thing through text. That’s how fast it went. She was already our customer. The confidence was already there. She’s like, “I’m not going to be home. Nobody in my house is going to be at home. Can you put it in when nobody’s home?” We’ve adapted. That’s a little weird. In these times, we’re definitely open to doing things like that. The big picture is they still need heating and air. Your job is probably one of the best out there, except maybe a plumber when they start flushing all these non-flushable wipes.
Our jobs are going to be secure. It may be a little different than we were before. The peak may not be a peak. You don’t have to look for replacements unless they have to. We’re lucky it happened at this time of the year because there’s a need for us. People had problems last season. They know it and they’re going to address them. We still have business versus a lot of people can’t go to work. For us, don’t get too wrapped up into whether you believe the hype or not hype or whatever. It is what it is, business as usual for us with a lot of precautions. That’s the way we’re going to do business with it.
They had a graphic built for their organization that somebody made that is a no-contact service technician in this cool little logo that’s got the mask on the service and technician. He made a post about it in the Close It Now Facebook group. Anybody who wants that to use on marketing and business on your website, he’s volunteered that. Thank you, Aaron, for that. That’s generous of you.
Get people out there to know you’re still there. People are wondering, “Is this place open? Is that place open? Can I still call these people?” My wife and I have those conversations every day of, “Is this place still open? What are their hours now? I wonder what they’re doing.” Restaurants have done a good job at reacting here locally where we’re at with, “We deliver now. We do this,” and they’re getting that word out. We need it too. We immediately jumped on it, changed our TV commercials, and changed any marketing and advertising. We do Facebook and then we are upping our SEO game. We’re going to up our online presence because that’s where everybody’s at. They’re at home, they’re online, they’re on their TV now. Those are the options we think are going to get more people and more people’s attention. TV and SEO are where we’re sticking our money right now.
Look at how the profits and the businesses that have soared. All of the subscription services, Netflix, all the video streaming services, Peloton, anything that can be done virtually, all of those businesses are going through the roof. There’s no reason that we can’t do the same thing as well. It’s definitely the time to reallocate the marketing budget to digital means and online and TV because it’s amazing. I’m going to jump to a question from Preston Hayden in the comments here. “The customer decides to move forward. Are you letting them know this is an estimate and a site visit is required before we do the installation?”
It depends on how comfortable you are with the information you got. If it’s our existing customer, I know I don’t need to know. If it’s a new customer and you have a doubt whether it’s 80% or 90% first, for some reason they can’t furnish that information, you’d definitely have to. You have to be a little bit flexible with that and maybe you let your install guys wing it and run them what they need. That’s the way we’re going with it. Get the customer schedule and say, “We’ll be there.” We’ve adjusted to having extra parts runners to be able to take the 90% furnace that we sent the 80% furnace instead. We’re adapting that. It’s how comfy you are and the customer. We are a little lacking in the sign-in documents. You can have digitally signed documents, but we’re trying to make it comfortable for everybody. If they don’t have the aptitude to do the eSignatures and things like that, then we’re letting that go by the wayside.
Are you starting some jobs without getting signatures first?
Yes.
I get the why, but that can be a little risky.
At my company, you pay before we start. We don’t start any job until payment is in full or you’re financed. We’ve been doing that for years. I get it if you’re in an industry or in an area where you’re letting them do the payment when we’re done. I get that, but we usually already have a credit card authorized or we have financing secured.
We take half upfront typically or have financing secured so that the money’s not necessarily the concern. It’s the formal agreement between both parties.
If you communicate email back and forth with each other and you send them a final estimate and maybe have another follow-up conversation with them or have them respond to the email, that would cover that part for you. As long as you get a, “Yes, I like this,” or “No, I want to change this.”
In that case, it seems like it would be have the crew that’s going out and saying, “Before we get started, let’s go ahead and get your signature on this.” This would cover that base easily without getting it. Dan is on my team. We’ve had projects where we get into halfway through the project and all of a sudden the client says, “That’s not what I wanted. I never signed that.” The intention of the client is to get more than they were paying for because they were trying to use that as leverage. The easiest solution would be inform the crew and set that expectation with them before you get anything out of the truck, go over everything with the homeowner, and go ahead and get the signature first and then that’s an easy way to clear it up.
Virtual Sales Appointment: As long as you’re building a rapport with your customers and they like you, then closing is still as easy as it ever was.
Let’s go to when you’re presenting. We’ve gone through this process and there are a ton of different theories and concepts, but we all know that when you present at the table. Take the virtual side out of it. When we’re going to sell the traditional sales is that when you present at the table, the energy is high, the excitement is high. Lock it in immediately is the ideal situation. I know everyone has different levels of some people are doing handwritten pricing, some people who have pages, and some people have the virtual presentation. How are you guys handling that? Are you doing a screen share of, “Here are our different systems. Here are the different prices. Let’s go ahead and lock you in?” Are you sending an email with prices and communicating that way? How’s that working for you?
We have set the systems we sell. The most thing we sell is certain types. There are about three different templates. We are screen-sharing with them on the estimates. We recommend this one to you and go from there. When we start getting the pushback from the price, the payment, whatever, we’re back down to the next step below. We initially are going to recommend what you’re getting, especially doing video presentations, “Here’s where we’ve answered your questions.” We do give customers ranges. When we first start. “This is going to cost you anywhere from $8,000 to $25,000, so here’s your expectation.” Nobody gets a heart attack whenever there is, “I want the best. That’s $25,000.” We get out of the way to start with. We make sure that you’re not thinking this is going to cost $2,000 to start with.
Our guys are good at pushing, “This is the product we’re recommending and based on what you’ve told us, so this is addressing all the needs.” It goes back to the sales process. We’re recommending that If they can’t afford that for some reason, then we’ll go to, “Here are some other options for you.” We’re using mainly three templates on there and we have templates and we’ve made it so simple. They’re three different colors. When we’re talking to customers, they’re like, “I like the blue one. I like green.” Our green ones are what we call our Greenspeed or 20-SEER. It’s a green one and this is the energy-conscious one.
We start with that one a lot of times and go down to our 19 into our 17 and things like that. They have three colors to pick from and the wife is like, “I like the blue one. I like the yellow one.” It simplifies the process and then they can look at the slides all they want and while you’re talking to them, you can say, “You can flip back and forth if you want. I can email these to you or we can text them to you, whatever is easiest for you.” You are giving your prices out. Things are changing and this is the way it is. To be honest, we’re not scared of our prices. We know where we’re at, we know where we need to be. I don’t care if anybody has my prices, to be honest.
There’s a whole concept of a mental headspace of covering this. The concern a lot of people have is if I let them go, they’re not coming back. Honestly, I function from a lot, and I know you do too because we’ve talked enough. Function from a much more of an abundance mindset of it is what it is. This is us, this is our prices. We’re better than everybody else and the people that are going to choose us are going to choose us. If they do it now or tomorrow, if I email back and forth, they’re still going to go with us. It’s not a loss if I don’t sell it right at that second. They can do their due diligence and they’re going to find out that we are the best relative to anything else that they’re going to look at either way. Don’t get yourself so concerned in fear of, “If I don’t close it, I’m not going to close it at all.”
You could still have a just as accessible close as you did before doing this. You’re being a little more personal with them. With us, a lot of times we’ll have certain things we can give them at the time of the appointment. You know why you’re doing this. We’re installing these air cleaners for anybody that can go in at this certain time period or things like that, putting a little deadline on what you have. Our estimates are only on good days. We have a lot of rebates that we have from utility companies and things and we always make sure everybody knows their deadlines. There’s a little implied pressure there. It’s definitely no hard pressure at all. It gives them time. Once you go through and they see the time that you spend, if you’re still doing the same process you did before, you beat 90% of the people out there. They’re writing their prices on napkins and all the prices and not explaining things to them. That’s the key to this for us. Our guys can explain the difference between a five-stage unit and a two-stage unit and a single-stage unit, what the benefits are to the customer. 80% of the companies out there don’t explain that to customers.
I’m going to be a little bit self-serving here. Explain to us how you explained the difference between your Greenspeed and your 19-SEER, your two top.
We use a lot of car analogies and things like that. We do it to relate to the customer. Our Greenspeed is our inverter. The inverter doesn’t have a size. It can be anything it needs to be. For you, you’re only using the power that you need to heat and cool the home. That’s where the efficiency is at. Here locally, we’ve had a lot of mild winters. You could imagine if you’re only using a quarter of the power of a unit to do the same thing in your house to reach the desired temperature. Here’s how much money you’re saving. The five stages, which is 19-SEER, have five stages. It’s like in your car if you had a manual car that had the stick shift, it’s the same scenario. There are still huge savings over the single stage, but the inverter dials in exactly what you need and only use what you need every time we have a little bit more complicated process than that.
I know that’ll help my team. The conversation everyone always has is it’s easy to differentiate single-stage to two-stage and this is for everyone with every brand because we all have similar models. It’s easy to differentiate between single-stage to two-stage and two-stage to when you get into your highest-end equipment. I know the biggest concern and one of the questions that I get is, how do you differentiate between the top couple systems in any brand? Because they are similar, they’re scared that homeowners will say, “Why should I go with the top one? This one is almost the same thing.”
It’s like the winters we had. Our winters were mild, you’re heating four-ton homes with two tons of energy and you have that capability with that. It depends on the price difference and if you can break it down and show them where they’re going to get the payback on it. If we’re only using a quarter of the power versus on the five-stage, you’re going to be using a third. You can break that down to them. For me, people want the best. When you’re focusing on it this is still only a five-stage, so you have to downplay the five-stage. It’s still a five-stage unit.
How are you handling the objection that they have roughly the same SEER rating that you’re rating? Savings from efficiency, if they’re savvy enough, they’re going to look at the SEER rating and they’re close.
For us, the Greenspeed side, we’re selling the 26-SEER now that come out. We have the 26-SEER inverter Carriers available now. They’re eliminating the twenty where we’re at. This is going to make it super easy. The exact scenario you explained, now we have a 19-SEER and a 26-SEER and they’re going to phase out the 19-SEER. That’s helped us with that. To answer the question, it depends on the weather. You still are using only the energy you need. Literally, we can be a 0.3 ton if that’s what it needs to be at that time. I do a lot of drawings with this. I’ll do drawings. I did draw, “You have a four-ton unit, and here’s what you’re doing.” We’re in Louisville. We have a lot of dual-fuel that you guys probably don’t have as much down there. We do a lot of heat pumps with dual fuel. Here, it’s a great selling in this area because of the heating side, the HSPF on the Greenspeeds versus your 19. You’re still getting good fuel from that. We do a lot of propane and then even dual fuel because gas here used to be expensive. Now it’s cheap.
The gas used to be expensive so we had a huge heat pump boom here. Knowledge-wise, if you break it down, is there a lot of savings? If that temperature is a normal summer and it’s 95 degrees all summer long, there’s a lot longer payback on that Greenspeed. With the Greenspeed now with the warranties they’re offering and things like that, I don’t know what you guys have. We get twelve years on a Greenspeed and only ten years on Infinity. They’re starting to separate those units. They give you a little more selling power. The 19-SEER is our bread and butter. Our average sale, we do 17-SEER. We do a lot of 17-SEER or two-stage still. We sell the most Greenspeeds of anybody around.
The Same Works For Our Company As Well. Rob, You’ve Got A Question There?
I’m nowhere residential, but I’m not new to the industry. On the 26-SEER and the 19-SEER or 20-SEER, we talked about energy. What about comfort levels? What does that do? Is there anything that’s worth talking about?
Dehumidification features. The units are quieter, the physical footprints. There’s still a lot of that. The 26-SEER is a lot smaller animal than even a 17-SEER, so quietness-wise. It’s about efficiency with that stuff. That’s what you were focused on or what I do anyway the payback. There’s a lot of dehumidification, there’s a lot of stuff for a technician side. There’s going to be a benefit to them. We have a lot more tools with the connected portals now with these higher efficiency units. We use that to the full extent. I don’t know if anybody knows what these are, but it’s where if they have an Infinity or a communicating thermostat, we have a portal and we can go into it and we can reset it. We can change your temperature. You have to allow us these when they set it up and we set it up for them, but we can say, “We can check on your system for you and monitor for you through this portal.” When this person comes in and says, “I can’t get my heat to come on,” we can literally go to the computer, hit a button and turn the heat off for them.
It’s funny because I do a ton of greens, a ton of the high-end as well. I focus more on comfort than I do efficiency. It’s that we’re on opposite sides of that coin. Here’s a great turn of phrase to any of you guys can use is, “I’ve done this long enough that in all of the thousands of systems I’ve installed, I’ve never once had somebody come to me and say, ‘Sam, I wish I’d gone with that cheaper system.’” I have had people come back to me and say, “This one’s great, but I wish I would’ve sprung that little bit of extra for the better one.” That’s a great way to handle that conversation.
The Greenspeeds are amazing on the heating side. In Texas, you guys don’t have this as much, but here, our heat pumps go down to zero before they ever kick over. We’re heating the homes to zero with the heat pump.
I’ve got a picture of my thermostat. It’s 8 degrees outside. It’s blowing 100 degrees out of my air vent with that one. Let’s circle back and nutshell us. The virtual appointment. We’ve gotten into the weeds a little bit with system presentation, but a plug here. Also, the group coaching, if you’ve got some value from this, this is something that I do every single week. Monday nights at 8:00 Central, I host a group online coaching like this for sales training and I’ve opened it up. It’s typically $300 a month. I’ve opened it up free of charge to anyone who wants it from now until the end of April. That’s my way of helping everyone through the pandemic, whatever it is, but there’s no reason that you guys can’t be crushing it.
These are a lot of the topics that we cover every single week. The topic is going to be exactly what we were talking about, how to present systems in a way that makes sense to people. The way that we’ve designed our presentation that we train, people will disqualify themselves from the basic equipment. We hear all the time, I know my team will definitely tell you that, “People tell me all the time, ‘I don’t want anything from that level. Let’s only look at these top ones,’” because of the way they explain it. It’s like Inception. We’re planting those seeds along the way and then they’re telling us, “Let’s only go with the top stuff.” That’s how we present our systems in such a way that they choose before you can even ask which one would be the best fit for you.
That’s going to be the topic. If you would like, go to the Facebook group and give me a message, drop a comment, and shoot me a message, any of that if you’d like to be part of that sales training group. It’s a Zoom meeting. It’s open. It’s free until the end of April. I want to help everyone rise above your competition. Let’s do a little blurb about that, but the virtual appointment. Aaron and I’ve been doing for years and years and I’ve sold top-of-the-line Greenspeeds literally over the phone without them sending pictures. I popped in for five minutes. The babysitter let me in the house to look. I called them and they’re traveling and I’ve done that. It’s about the conversation. It’s about building the value. This is totally different, not a different animal than we’ve always done. It’s using the right tools and handling it properly. Don’t be scared of it. I do recommend, if at all possible, whenever you can, set up a video call because it is more powerful but at the same time, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be as equally effective through texting pictures and having a phone conversation. Build the value. Don’t skip the part of, “Our clients tell us it’s important to know about the company they’re working with. I’d like to take a second and cover that with you. Would that be all right?” Go through the same process you normally would. It’s important.
What Are The Negativities That You’ve Run Into With The Virtual Appointments?
Older people who aren’t technology savvy, they’re still against it. You’re going to have a lot of them still waiting to do this with you. The negatives will be you lose some of the personal stuff if you’re not able to figure out where the customer is comfortable. That’s the most important thing. A lot of them are going to be more comfortable on the phone having a phone conversation, but you’re going to lose a little bit if you do that. You need to reapply the video thing to get them comfortable with it definitely. We’re going to flourish in this time because we have two homeowners, the wife and husband, together. Decision-makers are there at the table with you. As long as you’re building a rapport, they like you, it’s still as easy as it ever was.
In my mind, I see as being a hiccup is you sell the job, maybe if it’s your customer existing. I’d hate to get to a job and say, “I only got three tons of air and I got a five-ton unit.”
If you don’t check your square footage of the house and you’re going to have those hiccups probably. You can go on Zillow and check the square footage of a house and do drop by. You can literally go to the outdoor unit and look at yourself. Even though this is a virtual appointment, you can still physically look. I’ve made an appointment outside the customer’s house by their air conditioner unit, exactly doing what we’re doing here. I physically came to the house and I can look and see, “Is there a 90% vent sticking out of the side of the house or not?” You can get more information without ever physically going into the house.
Thank you.
John Harris, do you have a question?
When it comes to your presentation itself, have you been keeping the same duration for the most part? Are you streamlining a little bit? I know if I’m showing them slides, I can’t gauge their reaction well.
For me, it depends on what the question they’re answering. Like when you’re in the house, some people you’re getting information and they’re not giving you a reaction at all. It’s the same. You have to gauge and ask questions and get to it. Listen to the objections. It’s there any typical sales call. I don’t think it changes it or makes it harder or anything. My closing rates are the same. It hasn’t changed. We close about 80% at the time of the appointment. I don’t see that changing yet. Your competitors aren’t going to do a lot of this stuff, so they still want to come to the house. It eliminates a lot of your competition.
I’m at 50% close rate for the month. For our area, it’s solid. I do not see any type of drop-in numbers or anything either. It’s been awesome. When big things happen in the world, we can sit around and we can mope about and complain and gripe or you can grab it by the horns and say, “How can we make this an opportunity and not a problem?” That’s what we’re doing here. We’re making it an opportunity because like the great Jim Rohn said, “The winds of life blow the same on every single person. That’s how you set your sails. That determines if you’re going to get to your destination or if you’re going to get bashed into the rocks.” We’re setting ourselves for success here.
You can do most of it from home and never go there. It’s easier. To be honest, my guys love it. I can do this from a house or setting up rooms in their house with banners behind them, the Carrier, or you can use virtual backgrounds in Zoom of whatever product you’re selling. They are excited about they’re staying home with their families and selling.
At the end of the day, if your average appointment is about an hour or so, I can see more people. I did all day once, sitting right here in my shorts with no shoes on. In between I can hit the kitchen and grab a coffee or something and it’s great. I love it. This is honestly, in my mind, the coolest thing that’s happened in the industry since Wi-Fi. I am excited about this time.
I’m hoping we don’t go all the way back to the way we used to be. I hope this becomes a norm.
There was a call that in one of the other groups, Pete Ramsey’s HVAC Greatness, they hosted a call and had Weldon on. It was the guest speaker and he was saying the same thing. He’s like, “Every industry traditionally that when there was a move to virtual and online, a lot of times people were resistant to it until they found out how good it was.” Seeing the efficiency numbers go up, see everything go up. You compare those companies to the companies in the same industries that didn’t make the transition, they were left behind. There’s going to be a big shift in our industry where companies that aren’t embracing it or the people that are resistant to it, we’re going to see a lot more doors closed probably.
The companies that are embracing it are going to pick up the lion’s share of that difference. It’s exciting. In the Facebook group, if you have more questions, put them under the posts that had the Zoom link. Pop your questions in there. Aaron and I will jump in and answer your questions if and when they pop up. Otherwise, if you would like to start to participate in the group coaching that I’m doing for free until the end of April, it’s Monday nights and shoot me a message. You can also put that in the comments of that same post and I’ll make sure that you get the link to that. Thanks. Until we meet again. Save the world one heatstroke at a time.
Important Links:
- Aaron Courtney – LinkedIn
- Close It Now – Facebook group
- HVAC Greatness – Facebook
About Aaron Courtney
15 Years Plus in Residential Heating and Air Conditioning Services. I take pride in knowing with my experience comes working every position, from Installation helper all the way to General Manager. My strengths have always been on the Sales and Management side of the business. I have successfully grown business every year, I credit most of it to being able to create team atmospheres and building strong people in every position. Hardworking and very goal-orientated are my two strongest selling points.
