The 2 ‘Must Haves’ To Make Every Sale!
Confidence is crucial to your sales career. People would rather have someone that is confident than someone who is wishy-washy when talking to anyone about a service or a product they are shopping for. It’s okay to not know everything, no one expects you to. What they do expect you to know is how to find solutions to their problems basically at your fingertips. In this episode, Sam Wakefield shows the importance of using powerful words and affirmative terminology to communicate with your customers in your sales appointments. Discover how using the right kinds of words and expressions boosts your confidence to make that sale.
We are talking about confidence. Do you have confidence in what you do? Do your words say that you have confidence? That is one of the most important things in making a sale. I would always rather have someone that is confident than someone who is wishy–washy when I am talking to anyone about sales, about doing a service or a product that I am shopping for. It’s the same thing with our clients. There are some words that are very important in communicating confidence and some of them are not so important. That’s what we’re going to talk about, very specific words that when you swap these around, you’ll see a massive difference immediately in your sales. Thanks for reading. First, I want to give a shout–out to my mom. Hi mom. It’s good to know that you’ve been enjoying the podcast. I know that my target demographic is a little bit different than you but thank you for supporting me.
Confidence. It’s so crucial to your sales career if you’re not confident. Here’s a fun and interesting story. I had got a call from a guy that was with my insurance company, my local insurance for auto and I’ve got some renter’s insurance and some different things. He calls me and says, “I am new to this office. The agent at the office wanted me to call you and make sure that you knew everything we offered and to make a connection with all of our clients. I’m going through the list and just talking to people.” “Great. What’s up? What’s going on?” He said, “One, I want to introduce myself. Two, I wanted to find out did you know that our insurance company offers life insurance?”
I said, “Yes, of course. I do. They’re an insurance company that offers life insurance.” He tells me, “I’ve been in the industry for a long time and I didn’t even know that.” Instantly, my confidence in his confidence went through the floor because with insurance companies, that’s one of the most common things they do, is life insurance. For him to say something like, “I’ve been in this industry for a long time and I didn’t even know that,” when it’s something really common, that totally lost my confidence in him as a representative for my agent. The same thing happens with us. There’s a difference in saying, “I don’t know the answer to that specifically but I can find out, and I’ll get right back to you,” or saying something like, “I’ve done this a long time and I’ve never even heard of that.” There’s a big difference there.
There’s a huge difference in that type of response and that is part of what I’m talking about. It’s okay to not know everything. It’s your demeanor and your confidence that comes across. If you’re unsure about even how to find out, that’s the difference. No one expects you to know everything. What they do expect you to know is how to find solutions to their problems. They expect you to know, basically at your fingertips, how to locate the solution, and how to locate the answer. Some of the keywords, and this is something I worked on for a long time. Go to the internet, use the search, and google something like power words or words that are questioning words. You can do all kinds of searches on the intensity of words.
Use Power Words
You can do searches on words that raise questions. There’s lots of psychology in sales and lots of different things that they have this list that are easily found on words that have power or words that have meaning. Those are the words you want to use when you’re in a sales appointment. Here’s a great example for you to stop using expressions that raise questions in a customer’s mind. A good example is, maybe you’re looking at a ductwork design with a homeowner and the problem is, let’s set this up with a context, it’s little Johnny’s bedroom in the corner of the house. The room is always too hot in the summer. You know the solution right off the top of your head.
You know the room needs some return and also maybe there’s a problem with the supply duct getting over to that room, maybe it comes off of a bad junction and is not getting any airflow. You’ve investigated it and you’ve done your due diligence, you’ve got in the attic or in the crawl space, wherever your ductwork is and you figured it out. You know what’s going on. You know what the solution is. Here’s where the problem arises. You get back with the homeowner and you say something along these lines of, “I think that if we were to do this ductwork this way, that’s probably going to be the solution.” Does that give any confidence in the homeowner’s mind? Because you’re one, you think. Two, you used the word “probably” which means there’s a chance that it couldn’t.
The right way to communicate that to the homeowner is, “I’ve investigated the problem. Here’s a picture. Let me describe to you what’s happening. It’s not getting airflow here and also it can’t circulate so it needs a return. That is the solution for this problem. Once we do this, it will fix the air, and the temperature problem in this room. Do you understand how that is going to make the situation better?” You ask the question at the end, do they understand how it’s going to improve the situation? At any point in that explanation, did you notice me use any words of question? I didn’t say, “Probably.” I didn’t say, “I think.” I said “This is the problem. This is the solution and once it’s finished, it’s going to be the benefits are the room is going to be the same temperature as the rest of the rooms around it.”
Clarify with them, “Do you understand how this is going to fix the problem? Does all of this make sense to you?” Any time you give new data, you always follow up with a question of, “Does that make sense?” Can you see how, with this type of language change, one, your confidence goes up? Try it when you hear yourself use words of the question, “I think this is probably the solution and well, this is probably going to or I think this is it. It’s probably going to work.” Those kinds of words and expressions, your confidence is even less.
When you change those around and you use words of “this is” and “We are going to solve this problem by doing this. Because of airflow design, this is how this is supposed to be.” Don’t be scared just because somebody bought a house, they don’t always expect that everything in the house has been done right. That’s why they called you. They’ve got a problem. Don’t be scared to use words like, “This was designed very poorly to start with. This is a bad design. I’m here to fix it because something was built that way from construction. We all know builder grade is builder grade.” Use those terms. Here’s a really great way to communicate to a homeowner, say, “Builder grade is just that. It’s called that for a reason because a lot of times, builders use installers. Builders use companies that may not necessarily can get work with real companies. They’ll work for builders so what you end up with is a result that is not at all what you would want. It’s not at all what makes sense with any type of design. You know you can go to classes for this or you can work for the builders.”
You could do a lot of things that you could use and let’s not say that they’re all bad. A lot of times, there are some great companies that work with builders. Most of the time, however, that’s not the case. You find really subpar installations. If a homeowner has something in their mind like, “This house isn’t that old. Why am I having these problems?” That question is, “It’s called builder grade for a reason.” Don’t be scared to use the term, “It’s the very lowest end, cheapest, bottom dollar project that the builder could get. That is a builder-grade, builder-level installation and that’s unfortunately, Mr. Homeowner, what you have here. What we do is fix that problem. We’ve taken the design classes. We know what it’s supposed to look like. This is the problem. It was designed poorly to start with and what it should look like is this. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
Making A Sale: Figure out the homeowners’ concerns, what their problems are, and then match your solutions to fit their problems.
That will instill so much confidence in the homeowner. You’re raising your value so when it comes to the dollar amount, “Here’s how much it is,” and their only thought is, “How soon can you get it installed? How soon can you get this fixed? I’m tired of dealing with this problem.” You say that, “Let’s fix this problem for good. This is the solution, so you never have to deal with it again.” You’ll find that people will write two checks left and right because they are tired of dealing with their problems. That’s part of the uncovering process at the beginning of, “What rooms are warmer than others when some rooms are cool? What rooms are colder than others when some rooms are warm in the winter? How so? How bad? Tell me about that.” Uncover that and then when you offer the solutions, make it much more of, “Here’s the problem, and here’s how we’re going to fix it,” in first person and as if it’s already on the calendar.
Use Affirmative Terminology
When you talk about the solutions, this is another very important principle. Many salespeople, so many project managers, Comfort advisors, Comfort consultants, whatever you call yourself, in fact, join our community. We’ll have the thread on that because I want to know what everybody calls themselves in the industry. Many people are scared to use the affirmative in the positive type of terminology when it comes to the project. When you’re talking to the homeowner and if it comes up, saying things like, “If you choose us to go with this project, if selected, then we will do this type of work,” you’re always leaving it hanging as if it’s a question of them choosing you.
Change that terminology to things like, “What we’re going to do is change this ductwork here and we’re going to do this with the project. Here’s what we do when the guys are out. They’re going to change this flue pipe and they’re going to do this new platform.” Change it to the positive. Assume the sale from the very beginning in your words and in your communication with the homeowner. Make it, “On the day of installation, here’s what it’s going to look like. Here’s what that day looks like. They’re going to call you to let you know when they’re going to be here. This day is going to look like this. When we do the installation, here’s what to expect,” every bit of your communication as if they’ve already decided they’re using you before you even got there. When you function in that, assuming sale at the end makes it so much simpler because they are already in the mode of, “We might as well use these people. They are so confident that they’re going to do the job right and we’re going to get exactly what we want that this is a no brainer. It’s a no-brainer to pull the trigger with this company. It’s a no-brainer to say yes, let’s do it.”
The end result has nothing to do with the brand of equipment. It has nothing to do with if it’s adaptive or modulating or single-stage. Who cares how many stages? What it has to do with is your confidence that their benefits, their end result is going to be exactly what you say it’s going to be. Using expressions like, “I’ve seen this situation hundreds of times or thousands of times,” only be truthful. “I fixed this specific problem 842 times across the last couple of years. I know exactly the solution for this problem.” When you start using that kind of terminology, “No problem. This is something we see all the time. You called the right company. We know exactly how to fix this.” Those terminologies, instill so much confidence in the homeowner that they will totally let down their guard and tell you about the concerns they have, and the things they’re experiencing in the home. They’ll open up and of course, every single one of these things is increasing your percentage of earning the sale because that’s what it is. It’s not about making a sale. It’s not a luck. It’s not a number game. Every single house you step into, you’re earning the sale. You’re earning the sale from the homeowner. You’re figuring out, uncovering what their concerns are, what their problems are, and then matching your solutions to fit their problem.
I went to three appointments. Two of them were basic cut and dry, one appointment closed it on the spot. The third one that I went to was a job that we don’t want. It was a renovation project that does not fit my company’s wheelhouse. Could we do it? Absolutely. Would it be a big project? Sure, it’s probably going to be about a $35,000 project. However, it’s not something that fits within our spectrum of what we’re good at, so I gave him a lot of education and gave him a lot of good information. We parted as friends and basically said, “We’re not the company for you because it’s way too far outside the scope of what we’re expert at.” It’s okay to say that. It’s okay to walk away from a job. I was even confident in that and said, “Here’s how to do it right. If it were my house, here’s what I would do. When you’re talking to companies to do this project, ask about this handful of things and those are the steps that anybody who does this is going to do to it right. We’re not your company. I wish you the best of luck and I hope you find one.”
It’s okay to walk away from a project if it’s not what you know can be awesome. If it’s going to take too much time out of your busy calendar when you can do. This job would take an entire week with a crew where I could do maybe five projects in that same amount of time and have 2/3 greater revenue because my crew is tied up for that amount of time. No, it doesn’t make any sense to do that. That’s the project our company would take on possibly in a completely dead-off season, maybe not even then because it’s not what we’re experts at. I hereby give you permission right now to walk away from jobs that are not what you do, that you’re not good at. Sam Wakefield from Close It Now has given you permission to say no. You don’t have to install every single thing that comes your way. You don’t have to do that project. It is not always in your best interest.
Everything that is, we’re going to Close It Now, but that’s a fun little side. You don’t have to do every single thing that comes your way. Some of those projects are better suited for somebody else and it would only cause you heartache and misery. Don’t do it. Don’t do it to yourself when you have that gut feeling of, “This probably isn’t good for me.” Trust that feeling and go with it. Just because there’s maybe big numbers attached to it doesn’t always mean it’s the right thing. That’s the lesson for the day. Use confidence words. Use words that are positive, words that communicate to the homeowner that you’ve seen this problem before, you and your company know exactly how to fix it, and here’s how we’re going to do it. “During the installation, the guys are going to do this, this, and this, and that will be the solution. At the end of the day, you’ve got exactly what you’re asking for and it’s going to be even better than you thought possible.”
When you communicate like that, that’s when the homeowner whoops out their checkbook and says, “How soon can we get started?” I’m living proof it happens all the time. Thanks for reading. This has been the Close It Now HVAC Sales Training Podcast, your source for all things HVAC-related, all things sales-related so you can go out there and sell in this new age. Dominate your marketplace. We want to work less and sell more. Increase your income by working less. How does that sound to you? Connect with us at CloseItNow.com and I will talk to you again soon.
