Surviving The HVAC Market: Out With The Old, In With The New

There are some bizarre oddities going on in global market these days with some people having a record-breaking year, while others are down by the entire market. Sam Wakefield discusses this phenomenon and shares some good tips for surviving the HVAC market. He notes how the 22 refrigerant, being a thing of the past, should be replaced with a new system, and doing so can help grow sales despite the market scare. Sam also shows how you can have a new record-breaking year starting this summer with pent-replacements and doing a winning presentation for the new system!

Surviving The HVAC Market: Out With The Old, In With The New

We are going to talk about an interesting topic. Some crazy things are happening in the heating and air industry all around the world, not just in North America. There are some bizarre oddities going on in the market. Some people are having a record-breaking year, while most of most people are down by the entire market. When I say the entire market, I mean the entire regions of continents are down 20% to 30%. There are some weird things happening, but get ready because it is fixing to break loose and go crazy. That is what we’re talking about and I’ve got a good message with this that will help you out.

If you have it already, make sure to find our Facebook group. Go to CloseItNow.com, find our Facebook group, and join the group. There is some fantastic conversation going on in there. People like us, we are out in the field every day. We’re in this community of world-changers. We are changing the world. We’re saving the world one heatstroke at a time. We’re saving the world one frostbite at a time. We’re literally changing the way people live in their houses. It’s a fulfilling type of industry. This is a cool thing that we get to do, the way we get to serve people and help people and do it with honesty and integrity and a heart of service. That’s our mission.

The name of this show is Close It Now. We want to close it now. By changing the world, we make a ridiculous income because it’s possible. The only way that we can help people is if they buy what we’re selling. How do we become better at serving others by becoming better at influencing them and helping them make a buying decision? It’s not about convincing people. We don’t convince anyone into buying. We help them make an educated buying decision with two important elements, with us and right now. They make that buying decision with you right now to do the right project. That is through education. It’s through the psychological influence of helping them overcome their layers of resistance to saying yes to you while you’re in the house. That’s our mission. That’s what we are all about all around the world.

This show has gotten global. I want to say hello to all of our HVAC neighbors everywhere around the world. We’re up to too many countries to name. We’re at 30-plus countries that we’re in. Greetings and salutations to every single one of you. Join the Facebook group and conversation. We would love to have your perspective and your input into the conversation because it’s valuable together. It is a cool mastermind type of concept. Say we have twelve people in a group. If I share my experience from the last month, everyone gains one month’s worth of experience. If twelve people each share their experience, instantly we get a year’s worth of experience in a single conversation because we can learn from others. That’s the power of coming together as a group. That’s the power of coming together in the same place at the same time and sharing our experiences and sharing what’s working and not working. Join the Facebook group. It’s a cool place. I look forward to chatting with you. There, we do a lot of live videos and that kind of stuff. Let’s dive into the topic.

Our topic is something that’s been heavy on my heart because I see it affecting many people around the world. The numbers are pretty crazy. I know that most of the markets in North America are down by 20% to 30%. It has been for several months. It’s crazy. I don’t know the specific numbers for other markets around the world, but North American markets are down by 20% to 30%, which is nuts. Something else is happening too. We have coaching clients. If you don’t know, we have a coaching program. We have two different levels of the coaching program and it’s all virtual. You don’t have to go anywhere. We do it through a video conference once a week. We get together and learn the system. I have coaching clients who are breaking all kinds of records in their own markets too, which is cool. Generally speaking, they’re the anomaly because, for whatever reason, the market calls it a warm winter in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s been a warm winter in the Northern Hemisphere and that’s what caused the slowdown in the market, the sales in general.

What does that mean for us? I’ve got great news for you. The good news is that with the slowdown in replacements and in change-outs that we’ve experienced, that’s called pent-up replacement that’s out there. Normally, over several months, the systems that would have been replaced because it was that much slower weren’t replaced. There’s a lot of extra out in the world that is ripe for replacement. It’s ripe to have terminal failures, have cataclysmic failures that must be replaced. On top of the fact that in the United States, our 22 refrigerant is, as you know, a thing of the past. I know that there are some drop-in replacements, but we all know they don’t work as well. We all know there’s the best solution for a system that used our 22 refrigerants to replace it with a new system, with new refrigerants.

Surviving The HVAC Market: The warm winter in the Northern Hemisphere contributed to the slow down to the market sales in general.

The combination of all of this pent-up replacement that these systems needed to get changed that didn’t combine with the fact that we’re moving into the era of the new refrigerant, our 22 has gone away, that is going to make for a banner year. I’m predicting a record-breaking summer coming up because this has been a record high in most or a lot of the country. It is a record warm winter. I know places in the North are crazy cold and those are the places that are seeing some great numbers. Overall, as generally speaking across the continent with the numbers being down, I’m predicting an extra-long hot summer that is combined with the new refrigerant issues. With the new refrigerant, it’s going to be an awesome record-breaking year. Get ready and get prepared.

Work on your presentation. Work on having the right conversation with the homeowner to move them into better equipment. One great expression, if somebody is considering basic single-stage equipment, will be like, “You must be rich.” They’ll say, “What?” We’ll say, “This costs more to operate.” The higher up you go in the line, the higher you climb the ladder, the cheaper it is to run. Don’t you want to go with what’s going to be the cheaper thing for you? It’s the cost of operation. Your upfront cost is not the only cost. It’s the cost of operation. That is what makes a big difference. When you start having those conversations with people, they’ll realize, “At least we can upgrade a little bit into some of the better levels than the basic.” You can show them how in a matter of almost no time, it will pay for itself. That’s a topic for another episode.

I got this from my wife. She’s insightful and she wrote this note down for me because it’s an encouragement. “Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing the right thing.” It has to do with integrity. Never stop doing the right thing. Do the right thing even when no one is looking. Keep doing the right thing because if you are still doing it, so what if something goes wrong here and there? I know that a lot of you that read this have been in a slump. It’s the time of year where there’s a lot of, “I want to think about it.” There’s no urgency in the marketplace. People are like, “I’m tired kicking.” They’re looky-loos. They’re getting ideas about pricing, which is perfectly fine except for the fact that the way that most project managers, most comfort consultants are paid.

There are bonuses that are tied to our close rate and when you have a whole run of people who have zero urgencies to make a buying decision, at the end of the day, we’re not there to convince them. We’re not there to twist their arm and say, “You have to buy this.” We’re there to give a rockstar presentation and educate them. If we can incentivize them to go ahead and move forward, absolutely. There’s a handful of ways to do that, but some people have decided they are not budging on making a decision. It’s okay. Overall though, what I want you to know is keep doing the right thing even when things go wrong, even when things aren’t closing. Remember, this is a season and before you know it, it’s going to be insane out there. Put on your running shoes. Start getting in shape to be able to physically handle what is going to be coming this summer in North America because I’m telling you, this is going to be a record-breaking year for every single one of you out there if you follow a system.

There’s much pent-up replacement. It’s going to be a hot summer and the last few years haven’t been that. It’s time to crush it, especially when we tie and band together and we share insights, tips, tricks, and things to make us all better. If we can strive to be 1% better every single day than we were the day before, we’re going to take ten and we’re going to multiply it by 1% or 0.01. It would be by 1.01. We’re adding 1% to ten one time. It doesn’t add up to a whole lot. We’re going to do it again. It’s like 1.02, 1.03, 1.04. What’s starting to happen is that the same 1% number over time is going to start multiplying. We’re going to start hitting duplication. As that increases, all of a sudden these numbers are going to start getting bigger and bigger because it’s only a matter of time until the compound effect goes into place. What happens is that the number starts getting exponentially bigger and grows.

There’s a book by Darren Hardy, if you’ve never read it, called The Compound Effect. That’s where I originally got the idea and made me understand the value of consistency. The value of doing things consistently every single day over and over, even if it doesn’t seem like you’re getting the results that you need or want. When you start doing those things consistently, you get better at them. Practicing your presentation, greeting, how to handle objections, practicing all these things, and roleplaying with others. If you don’t have anybody to role play with, if you’re out there on your own, you need to get connected with us in the Facebook group and get in the group coaching. It’s your virtual sales meeting once a week. I lead you through all the training. We work on the closes. We work on how to handle this type of conversation. It’s a blast. We have a great time there, but you’ve got to work on this stuff. Record yourself and play it over and over in the car. Do it in the mirror, video yourself. Use the tools and technology we have because as you see yourself, you realize, “That was dumb what I said there or it didn’t make any sense the way I said that.”

How can I change it? How can I make it more simplified? We want to communicate on about a third-grade level because that is the level that most people listen to. As soon as you start to edge above that, you will start to lose people. You can look back across the presidential debate over the last 10, 20, 30 years. The person who communicated on the third-grade level is the one who got elected instead of the people who communicate at the 8th, 9th, 10th-grade level. I do this research every single time. The bigger words you use, that starts to get into technical speak. It’s cool to use big words and impress people with your vocabulary, but it’s not going to connect with people. How you stay connected is to speak on someone’s level and communicate it in a way they understand it.

Surviving The HVAC Market: Communicate on a third-grade level because that is the level that most people listen to.

The main thing is I want you to encourage you to get ready for 2020. It’s going to be an insane record-breaking a year. Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. Remember, the key is to never stop doing right. Do the right thing even when no one is looking and walk in that integrity. Don’t talk about having integrity. Walk-in it and you will see your life starts to change. We strive for integrity. The more that we practice it, it’s like this muscle that grows and people will recognize that in you. You’ll attract the right customers. You’ll attract the right employees, the right people to work with and the people to work for. That’s my message for you. Keep doing the right thing.

There are awesome times that will come in, be ready. If you’ve never gone through to see the slow season of time if you’re new to the heating and air industry, be prepared. This happens and this is a cyclical industry. It’s up and down. When we have slow times, don’t sweat it. Take your entire year and look at it as one big picture. Don’t microscope into a season and get discouraged. Zoom out and look at the whole year at once. When you do that, you’ll realize things will all reach out. They’ll work themselves out. This is going to be an awesome year. You, guys, go out and crush it. You, ladies, go out and crush it. I know you will. Go out there and save the world one heatstroke at a time. Save the world one frostbite at a time. I will talk to you again soon.