The Pink Headphone Close

As salespeople, closing techniques are your bread and butter. One particular and unique technique to make sure you’re remembered is the pink earmuff technique. Sam Wakefield, in this episode, gives a reality check on what the HVAC industry really is without holding back. Sam emphasizes the importance and impact of paying attention to your customer’s choice of words and their surroundings in building a solid rapport. Learn about the things that you should never do in a sale if you want to come out on top and close that deal as he breaks down some of the biggest mistakes people in the industry do.

We are going to have some fun. This is a cool topic because at the end of the day, if we’re not having fun doing this, this is one of the most fun professions you could possibly have. It’s getting to meet a million different people and you’re in all kinds of houses. You have to have some element to do sales in the HVAC industry, in residential sales. If you’re like me, and I know you are because this is what you’re doing, you have to like people. You have to like to people-watch. You enjoy observing people and learning about people, learning about the different personality traits of people, how people live, their belief systems, and how they run their lives.

I love it when I can go into a house and learn something new about maybe a different culture that I’ve never experienced or don’t know about. Maybe about religion. Maybe that’s something. The cool thing is if you build rapport properly, there is no such thing as a taboo topic, something you can’t talk about. This is going to be a fun topic. More importantly, it’s a close. I’m going to teach you a new closing technique to get people past. We got to talk about it. When they say, “We’re going to have to talk about this,” what do we do? We’re going to talk about exactly what to do that’s a lot of fun that will get you past that and get a close for you because we want to make a sale. That’s the topic. We’re going to talk about that. It’s going to be great so stick around.

Also, if you haven’t, go to CloseItNow.com and check out our coaching. The coaching group is growing crazy insane. If you want to up-level or supercharge your sales before the season hits, check out the next level of coaching. It’s High-Performance Coaching. It’s one-on-one with me and we will customize your sales system to you, your personality, organization if it’s your company or the company you’re working in and get you hitting on all cylinders. We’re going to turn you into a racehorse and the closer. You want to be the one that can drink coffee. You don’t want to walk into the sales meeting and want them saying, “Put the coffee down. Coffee’s for closers.” You want them to say, “Here, have another pot because you’re the one carrying the team.”

If you want to rise to the top, be the number one person in your organization. There’s no reason that you can’t but you’ve got to learn the right techniques, skills, and system so check into the High-Performance Coaching. It’s at CloseItNow.com and read a little bit about it there and pop me a message. We’ll absolutely get you set up and get you rocking and rolling. The cool part is it’s so affordable. It’s less than the commission on one great sale. It’s awesome. It’s a great program. People are seeing wild results from it. Someone who has never sold anything about the single-stage, on the first week of doing one-on-one coaching sold a top-of-the-line variable speed system from the first week from one conversation. That’s the results we get.

Learn From Other People

Let’s move into the topic. This topic is another closing technique that we’ve got to talk about. This is specific when this one comes up. All the different closing techniques, skills, and methods and we’ve talked about the Ping Pong Close in the past. Go back and read that episode. In that episode, I also cover how to use the porch light close effectively because both of those are tied together as for the same scenario and situation. People respond differently, so let’s set some context for how people communicate. Your job when you go into the house is to look, listen and learn. By that, I mean be observant of the surroundings.

It’s amazing how much you can learn. Every single time I go into a house and I see a bookcase, I always glance at the books on the bookcase. You can learn what type of person you’re communicating with by the books on a bookcase. You can learn what type of person you’re dealing with and how they communicate and how best to communicate back to them if you pay attention. What are some things we’re looking for? If you find out if they’re much more visual, they like to look at things, they like pictures, drawings, and examples, they’ll ask you, “What does it look like?” “What does the air conditioner look like?” If they want to see all of these things, they want to see visuals.

Communicate with that type of language. That’s when you tell them, “Would you mind if I show you this?” That way you know that they are going to receive it in the way that they’re communicating. If you get there and somebody is asking about noise levels, the sound is important to them. They say things like, “I’ve never heard that.” That’s when you start to communicate using language, surroundings, and words like hearing a sound. You start talking about how quiet the new system is going to be. You talk about the things you can do to quiet the whole house down or whatever it is. More importantly when you’re communicating and asking questions, instead of saying, “Would you like to see how?” you then start to communicate with, “Would you like to hear how this will help you with this problem? Have you ever heard about the different levels of equipment that are available?” Instead of, “Have you ever seen the different levels of equipment that are available?”

Pay attention to how people communicate and once you hear and see how they communicate, reflect that back to them. This may seem like a small thing, but I guarantee you this is next-level sales right here. This is an example of some of the things that we dial in with the High-Performance Coaching and we work together on it. When you can start to recognize these little keys, it will unlock their instant rapport and trust with you faster than any amount of talking about golf or their car, anything you could possibly ever do. More importantly, it doesn’t derail from the track that you’re on because when you enter the house, you’re on one end of the track. It’s like a train going down the track and at the other end of the track is the sale. It’s closing the deal.

HVAC Closing Technique: Always look at the books in a customer’s bookcase. You can learn what type of person you’re communicating with by their books.

When you start having conversations about duck hunting or saving the whales, yes, those are awesome conversations, but it’s not the time or place for it. When you start talking about the price of tea in China, it doesn’t matter. You are derailing from the track that you’re on and you’re getting derailed off of the sale. This is how to instantly build rapport a little along the way on a subconscious level, which is much deeper than anything you can ever possibly do to try to artificially fabricate rapport. Our job is to be friendly not to be their friend. When you go to the doctor, they don’t expect you to take them out to lunch the next week. You’re not going to talk about all this other stuff. They’ll be friendly but they’re professionals. They have a mission and you have a mission when you’re at home. You are professional. You’re taking them down a set course with a known destination at the end.

It’s not a mystery. We’re not making this up. We’re not winging it. I’m a professional. That’s the impression that you give to them and we cross that rapport barrier so fast by communicating how we see and hear them communicate. When they say, “I need to see,” they start asking about pictures. You start using the words, “Have you seen this? May I show you what this looks like?” When they want to know about sound levels, add in their conversation, “Have you ever heard that?” That’s when you start using that type of language and ask about hearing, “Have you ever heard that?” “Would you like to hear about the different models?” “Would you like to hear about how we can solve this problem for you?” That is the key.

This is where the next level of sales comes in. This is the inner game. This is why when I walk into a house and all of my friends are top-level comfort consultants that are crushing it. People make $3 million, $4 million, or $5 million a year, those numbers. These are the things we talk about when we get together. We don’t talk about, “How do you present this?” The fun stuff is when you’ve learned your system and you get past the basics, you can start paying attention to, “Game on. This is a chess match.” This is the psychology that is a blast to play in this arena. Learn what makes people tick, think, and operate. When you can crack that code, that’s what this whole HVAC sales thing turns into fun.

If you’re not having fun doing this, you’ve got to find something else to do because that energy will come across every single day. People want to work. It may be a bad situation that you walk into. People may be upset at the situation, but they’re never upset at you. If they come across as being mad or angry at you, it’s displaced anger. They’re mad at the situation. A lot of times, people are mad that they let this type of situation come up and they’ll tell you every single time, “ We knew this was coming. We only failed to do anything about it.” Seldom is it a total shock that they didn’t expect. They’re mad at the situation, so what can we do? We’ve got to change their energy. We’ve got to get them out of that place of anger.

People who purchase out of a place of anger, a lot of times don’t make good decisions. You’ll also find that they’re hesitant to make the decisions if they’re still functioning in that place of anger and they’re mad. They’re mad at the situation and in the world. It’s going to cost them money, all this stuff. We’ve got to get them past that. How do we do that without being some weirdo comedian who comes in and starts cracking corny jokes? Absolutely do not do that. Do not go in and start cracking corny jokes. That is one of the worst things that you could possibly do in a home is go in and start telling dirty, bad, corny jokes or any kind of jokes. Don’t tell jokes in the house.

Pink Earmuff Close

We can bring fun to the house. We enter the world in the place that they’re at with the level of seriousness of, “We don’t take this lightly. This is a serious matter for us.” Through the course of the conversation, bring some levity into it. Bring some fun, joy, and laughter into the conversation because it increases their level from anger and being mad into lightening up a little bit. What is this close that I keep referring to? This is what I like to call the Pink Earmuff Close. The context is you’ve got two decision-makers at the table and they’re both sitting there. When you hear these words, this is when you turn the magic light switch on, “We need to talk about it.” This is not a Think About It conversation some people need to think about it. This is when someone uses the word talk. “We’ve got to talk about it.”

I want to caution you and this is something that most salespeople fall into this trap. Do not fall into the trap of falsely assuming that when someone says, “I need to think about it. I want to talk about it,” or any of those things that they mean it needs to be overnight and go to another. If you fall into that trap, what happens is you normally say something like, “Great. When would be a good time to follow up with you? Tuesday? Thursday? Tomorrow? This next week?” What you’re doing is totally taking the pressure off for one. You’re conceding that they’re not going to make a buying decision now.

You’re backing up. You’re shriveling up, backing away, and saying, “I give up. You’ve won. You’ve bested me. I guess I’m not a good salesperson. I’ll go and follow you up like a used car salesperson for the next 2, 3, 5 weeks, or 6 months, whatever. You can keep ghosting me and not responding to my text messages and not picking up the phone when I call and not responding to my emails until I give up.” It’s what you’re saying when they say, “I want to talk about it. I want to think about it.” When you say, “When can I follow up next?” That is the worst possible thing you can do. Stop it now.

HVAC Closing Technique: If you’re not having fun doing sales, you’ve got to find something else to do because that energy will come across every single day.

Here’s the thing, most of the time, we assume that it means a lot of time to think about it or talk about it but that’s not true. They don’t need that much time. People can figure it out right away. They can think about it. People think quickly. Even slow thinkers can decide pretty quickly. When someone specifically says, “We need to talk about it,” how fun is it if you reach down into your bag and you pull out if you’ve ever seen those super heavy-duty earmuffs for pilots, shooting range, or the hard plastic heavy-duty headphones that you can’t hear anything out of, but they’re bright pink? You say, “Okay, no problem. I came prepared for that.” You put them on your head and put them over your ear. Before you put them over, you say, “You guys go ahead and talk about it. I won’t be able to hear you. I’ll put these on and wave at me once you’ve talked about it.” You sit there and you write at the kitchen table and don’t move. You put these headphones on your head and make notes on your papers, shuffle your papers, and say, “Go ahead. You all talk about it.” Let them talk about it.

That is how to absolutely be memorable in the house for one because I guarantee you there is no one else unless they’re reading this now. There’s no one else in your town, city, province or probably even your state that’s doing this. Unless you’re in my state, of course. This is how to be memorable. This is how to do something different. When we back up and we look at our industry, it is the most boring industry on the planet. Everybody does the same thing. Everybody talks about the same thing. There’s a level of excellence that we work on that we’re higher than a lot of the companies out there but at the same time, you get all of the best companies in town in the same room, we’re doing the same thing. How can we do something different? How can we break the mold? How can we make an impression? How can we shake things up to the way that people are going to want to do business with you because it’s business done differently? How do we do that?

This is one simple, fun way to do it. All it takes is finding the right headphones. They don’t have to be pink, they can be purple or blue. Don’t make them black. Make them a bright color. Make them some crazy color to match your company logo, it doesn’t matter. Find some. Do this. This will be funny, and fun, but it will also be memorable. It’s amazing what happens. People have said, “We will.” They talk about it and a couple of minutes later, they wave at you. They’re tapping on the shoulder. You can’t hear them because those are good headphones and they’ve made a decision. They picked one. It’s so cool. Honestly, I feel like this is more than a one-percenter, but it’s a big one. How can we be different in the marketplace? Our industry is so stagnant when it comes to sales and it’s the most boring thing in the world now in all of the marketplace. How can we be different? Let’s change the way that we do business.

Email me at Sam@closeitnow.net. Go to CloseItNow.com. Email me if you have crazy ideas, let me know, and let’s turn it into a podcast so we can raise the level of everyone. This is such a fun conversation. Let’s change the face of our industry and do something different. This is a message to all of you out there who are tired of being boring. You’re tired of doing the same old thing and getting the same old results. Let’s do something different so we can get crazy different results. That is my message. Go out there, do the crazy, wild, different things, and make an impression because that’s how people will remember you.