The Number One Sale You Have To Make In Order To Close!
Close It Now is a one-of-a-kind podcast that focuses on teaching you how to close a sale and boost your revenue specifically in the HVAC industry. Sam Wakefield is a six-figure earner and a million-dollar salesperson in the HVAC industry and home performance industry for the last decade. This show features ongoing conversations about HVAC sales, residential in-home sales, and how to crush it in the marketplace. Sam also talks about his milestone sale and how it influenced him to increase sales through a quick closing process. In this very first episode, you will learn the importance of becoming better first before everything else around you becomes better.
Welcome to the very first episode of the Close It Now HVAC sales podcast. My name is Sam Wakefield and it is my privilege to welcome you. In this podcast, we are going to have on-going conversations about HVAC sales, residential in-home sales, and how to crush it in the marketplace and I wanted to start this for several reasons. One, there is a huge need for this training, especially in the podcast arena. I could not come across a single other podcast, so if you would like to make a recommendation or referral for some other training for HVAC sales, I would love to hear it. You can email me at Sam@SamWakefield.com and let’s have a conversation.
For this episode, let’s start with the basics. We are going to start with the very first sale that ever has to be made before you can sell an air conditioner. We are getting into that so hang tight, stay tuned, this is going to be a wild ride with this podcast. The other thing that’s interesting, I realized the perfect time for me to record these is when I’m not doing interviews. We are going to have some rock star interviewers. I will tell you I will never ever have anyone train in this podcast who is not at least a million-dollar-a-year salesperson or higher and that’s my guarantee or my promise to you.
A little bit of my background, I have been a six-figure earner, and a million-dollar salesperson in the HVAC industry and home performance industry for the last decade. I have literally closed in house on the spot. On average, we do at least 50% as highest in communicating equipment year after year. One of the key principles and things about the sale system, the Close It Now sale system, we are closing it at the table, closing it now. How many times does your sales manager, the owner of the company, or if you are the owner of the company, you go out on a sales call and sit in with a client, you leave and you are like, “I wish I could have just closed it now?” I have totally been there and that is one of the principles of the Close It Now sales system. We’ve got to talk about how to do that.
An ongoing conversation about tips and tricks to be able to close the sale on the spot. Everyone that is closeable, we will close them and that’s fun because you can literally take people from first date to marriage for $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 projects, and more in less than an hour. It’s mind-blowing when you really consider that that’s exactly what we are doing every single time we go into a house. One of the things that I work on with my team is how to always have a higher ticket price with your sale and how to close it right then.
Also, just a blurb, I have started the Close It Now Facebook group. Join the community. I’m going to make sure that it’s searchable under Close It Now. The Close It Now Facebook group is a place if you are that HVAC sales rookie, if you are a seasoned professional, if you want to get better, if you want to find a support group or community. As you know, there are not a lot of people in the world that are like us. We are out there doing the grind. If you’ve ever walked into a sales call at midnight or 1:00 AM then you know what I’m talking about. If your wife, spouse, or husband or I definitely want to welcome you ladies to this podcast. If you are a female in the HVAC sales industry, I freaking love it. We need more women salespeople in this industry because I know that you absolutely will crush it and tear it up.
Closing A Sale: For things to get better, you must get better.
If your partner has ever said, “Okay, well,” like my wife, a good example, for the last several years. She has said, “Okay, I’m the air conditioning widow, it’s May again,” because we live in Houston, Texas, “I guess we’ll see you in October.” If you’ve ever had that conversation, this podcast is for you. If you are wanting to increase your sales, you want to double your ticket item, you want to sell $1 million, $2 million, or $3 million, these tips, and strategies that we’ll cover will accomplish that. Let’s dive into some meat potatoes. The very first sale that you ever have to make is yourself.
You have to sell yourself on the idea that you are a salesperson, the idea that you are a top earner, the idea that you are the expert walking into the house. I have a question for you. Every single time before you go into a sales appointment, one is, what do you do to prepare? How do you mentally prepare as you are walking into appointments? There is a question I always ask myself every single day, it’s, “Would I buy from me? Would I buy an air conditioner from me? Would I buy anything that I’m selling, anything that I have to say? Would I buy that from myself? Would I buy it from me?” If I didn’t buy from myself that day, I stop and get my mind right because if I’m not going to buy from myself, I know no one else is.
In order for things to get better, we have to get better, I have to get better, you have to get better. Jim Rohn was a fantastic, amazing trainer and motivational speaker in just personal growth, thought leader and he used to say that. For things to get better, you have to get better and for things to improve you have to improve. The objective is always to grow yourself first. As you focus on growing yourself first and becoming someone worth buying from, the second you raise your level is the second that your clients are going to understand that you are more valuable. They will literally throw money at you because of the person you are not even necessarily because of what you are selling. That is a proven fact. I’ve proven it, my team has proven it because my day job is I’m a sales trainer and sales manager, senior project manager for one of the number one air conditioning residential add-on replacement companies here in Houston, Texas. My team proves that every single day.
Every single time someone gets into a slump, the very first question I ask them is, “What are you doing to grow yourself right now?” The answer always comes back to be, “I’m not.” “When did you read the last book you read? When did you jump to an audiobook and listen to an audiobook or a podcast or watch a Ted Talk? When did you grow yourself last?” The answer always happens to coincide with when their slump started. I say, “Here’s our homework. The very first thing you have to do is,” and I’ll make a recommendation or I’ll have them find something. That’s like starting to grow yourself now. Start right now, immediately, and as you start to grow yourself, your energy changes, your positivity changes, and your clients will absolutely feel that. They can sense that you are on the positive side of things.
They will buy from you and it changes every single time. The way to overcome and get out of a slump is to get into action, getting into action increases your energy and it always overcomes the slump. Here in Houston, Texas, it is starting to pick up business like crazy. Whatever part of the country or the world you are in, when is your summer? Email me and let me know. Let’s have a conversation. Join the Facebook group and let’s talk about that because we are fixing to start getting a lot of activity. With that activity, you can choose to let it drag you down if you are not in a slump or be positive. Positivity will change everything for you and if you are in sales and you are a top performer, you know this. If you have been through phases, seems like your sales have gone up and down over different seasons. I would be willing to bet if you would look back and track that sound you are going to realize that’s exactly why, when your mood and your energy changes, that’s it.
You hear Tony Robbins talk about working with Andre Agassi or some of the top athletes, that’s exactly what’s going on. They get into a slump and he’ll have them visualize what it felt like when they were at the top of their game, what did it feel like as a champion. When you can visualize what it feels like as that champion and establish some mental and we are going to talk about that in this podcast. How to establish that mental trigger to get your energy into that place as you walk into every sales appointment? There is a really famous quote by Winston Churchill that says, “Success is moving from failure to failure with no lack of enthusiasm.” That is so true when it comes to being a salesperson in the HVAC industry. You have to expect every single time you knock on a door that it’s going to be a sale and it’s going to be a close but not get disappointed when every single one doesn’t close.
Show me a person in this industry with a 100% close rate and I will show you someone who’s not putting their opportunity in front of enough people. They are not seeing enough people because no one is going to close 100% of the time. There are lots and lots of numbers, 50%, 60%, 70% closers in the industry which is amazing and it’s awesome and I love to see that especially when the industry average is 30% close rate. I want to know where you fall, and where your current numbers are because if you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it. The first question there would be, “Do you know what your numbers are? Do you know what your close rate is? Do you know what your average sale is, your average ticket price?” All these things you need to know where your lead source is coming from. If you start to measure things, you can manage it and just by the sheer fact of measuring something, it will improve. That’s absolutely proven in lots of different studies that have been done. Thank you for hanging out with me. Let me know where you are reading from. Do you travel and do sales? Do you do sales from behind the desk? Are you at home? How do you do it? Do you have to drive your own vehicle or is it a company vehicle? Let’s start the community, let’s have these conversations because it’s a lot of fun and we will work together to improve each other. There are more to come. I will talk to you soon.
Important Links:
- Sam@SamWakefield.com
- Close It Now Facebook group