Listening Between The Lines!

When you show up to a call, do you just offer what customers are asking for or do you dive in and investigate? This episode is about listening between the lines, and Sam Wakefield tells us how this will take you to next-level sales. Moving past beyond what people on the other line are saying, Sam talks about the need to actually hear and listen. He talks about the importance of asking questions and turning statements into one, and how to approach your clients. Listen intently to your clients and learn how to get them the best solution possible with some of these powerful tools you can have in your tool belt.

I want to also welcome a new country that has come online. Did you know that this Close It Now podcast is listened to in eight countries around the world now? Welcome Bosnia, thank you for joining me. This is a really incredible journey. It’s an ongoing conversation of what do we do in the house to serve clients. It’s about serving people. In fact, that’s the topic. There’s a cool quote, I’m sure you’ve probably heard it, by a former president of the United States Teddy Roosevelt, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”

The topic is going to be “Listening between the lines,” I like to call it. It’s our job to, because what happens so many times is you get a lead and it comes in and they’re asking for insulation for example. In fact, the one I’m headed to because I use my drive time university to record these episodes. It’s really cool. You’ve got to use your drive time. Use your drive time wisely. Don’t just jam out to music all the time. Grow yourself. Put on personal growth. Put on a podcast. Put on, and you are if you’re reading this, so congratulations for stepping up your game.

Audiobooks are a beautiful way to educate yourself and to grow and not just fiction stuff. Fiction is fine but there are some amazing books, business books, sales books, all the things that you can listen to get better, to up your game, to up your level. What I’m going to, the guy is asking for a dehumidifier. When you show up to a call, do you just offer what they’re asking for or do you really dive in and investigate? I’m here to tell you that is next-level sales, so closing out the month of June. We’ll share some numbers. What are your numbers? May, I had 64 points or something percent close rate. I finished June with 61 points something close rate.

In our industry, that’s not too bad, not too shabby. This next level of sales is what we’re talking about. I bring that up not to impress you but to impress upon you that these skills are powerful. These are powerful tools to tap into. The number of people that you’re seeing doesn’t have to change to dramatically increase your income and dramatically increase the bottom line by serving more people. Listening between the lines, having empathy, and the way that they know you care is the fact that you listen to what they’re saying, listen to what they’re describing. How do we do that? We do that by asking questions. Questions are literally the most powerful tool you have in your tool belt when you’re going into a house, when you’re talking to clients, talking to homeowners.

You’ve got to ask questions. I’m going to do an entire episode at some point on how to convert statements into questions and how to ask it in the form of a question but until then, just keep this concept in your mind. If you can tell it or you can ask it in a question, always opt for the question because it keeps them engaged. I’m going to give you one of the most important questions that you can ask the homeowner on any topic. It all depends on what they say they want and what the real solution might actually be something different. Back to our example, say they get, the request is, the lead is for insulation, “I need more insulation in my attic.” Do they need more insulation in their attic?

You get there and knock, “I’ve got a little bit, I need to add some more.” You go up in the attic and maybe they don’t necessarily even need insulation. You have no idea, but before you even do that, this question is so powerful. “Mr./Miss homeowner, I see on my notes that I’m here to look at your insulation. Is that right?” “Yes.” “Let me ask you something. What are you trying to accomplish by adding insulation? What would you like to accomplish by that?” Listen. Hear what they say. It could be, “Our bills are really high and we just think that this might be something to help out with that.”

It could be, their response might be, “There’s this one room in the corner of the house that is really hot all the time or cold all the time depending on your season and where you’re around. It’s one room of the house. It’s always the wrong temperature and we think that might be the solution,” or it could be a combination of them. There are a million things that they could respond but what you’re listening for is, because nobody needs insulation, nobody just wants to buy insulation for the sheer fact of buying insulation. When you go into a house and you approach it from that direction. Say, “You’ve got about six inches of insulation, and the current code in our area is about twelve to fourteen inches of insulation,” and you start talking about our values and all these stuff, it doesn’t matter. It does not matter to the homeowner. They don’t care about any of that.

What they care about is solving the problems that they have. Now in their mind, because they’re uneducated most of the time, they’ve translated their problem into, “Hopefully, maybe this will fix my problem. I just need more insulation.” It’s our job as educated professionals to get there and then ask the questions to unpeel that onion, to find out, “What are you trying to accomplish?” Insulating a house can cause problems if there are already some other things going on. There’s so much to surround that, but what we’re trying to do is figure out, are they after energy savings? Are they after a quieter home? Are they after fixing temperature imbalances?

Every single one of those could be a different solution besides insulation. If they truly needed insulation, it could turn into instead of just selling insulation, you could really ask the right questions and listen to what their real true concerns are. In offering your solution, it can sound something like this, say, “Mr. Jones, Miss Jones, the insulation is a part of what is going on here. You do have a lack of insulation but there are also several other things happening that when combined will be a much more effective solution for what you’ve got going on. Maybe this room is uncomfortable because it’s got some airflow issues.” You describe what those are and, “As part of the solution along with the insulation, we’re going to do this. You’ve got a loud house and that’s partly the old metal ductwork you’ve got. That’s what’s going on here. Along with insulating, if we insulate now, the access to change this later is going to be limited, why don’t we go ahead and do your completely new duct system? It’s going to solve all of these other issues like dustiness, allergens, molded mildews, and all the things you go through.”

It could sound like, “You know your big concern was your energy savings but I noticed that insulation will make a difference but also you’re running an air system that’s outdated and it’s 24 years old. This is your largest consumer of energy in your home. Would you be open to considering upgrading that at the same time? When we combine all of these together, you’re going to see an enormous difference versus this one thing.” Ask him, “Does that make sense?” What we want to do is serve the client. The things we want to accomplish are their concerns, not what they ask for. If they just ask for insulation, it’s more than likely when you get that lead, it’s not the case. It’s usually not the actual problem that they want to fix, that they want to solve.