The Power Of The Pause!

Oftentimes, being in the sales profession puts us in the spot of having to be the one talking. However, there is beauty and a lot of power when it comes to silence. Sam Wakefield talks about how you can build the silence muscle. Recalling some stories that taught these lessons, Sam shares the power of the pause and allows clients to resell themselves. There is great value in actually just listening and putting things in perspective so that nothing escapes the door.

I am really excited to talk to you about our topic and it is actually on the power of the pause. The power of silence, when to not say anything. Do you have the ability to sit through the uncomfortable silence and just let it be? That’s all we’re going to be talking about because it is a very powerful tool that you’ve got to have in your toolbox if you are in the sales profession no matter what you are selling. In fact, it is a great tool any time you are talking to anyone. Basically, the power of the pause, it’s the way that psychologically most people don’t have the intestinal fodder to the guts or the ability to sit through silence and look at each other. It’s a good way when you can practice this and build that muscle. You can overcome so many times when that conversation would be ruined by interjecting. We’ve all heard that whoever speaks first loses in the negotiation and that is absolutely true.

We are going to be talking about how to build that muscle, how to build the silence muscle a little bit. It’s not something that comes naturally, especially to most people, so you do have to practice it. It’s something you can learn, it’s something you can absolutely do, and it’s also something that if you work hard enough at if you master the skill it can be one of the most valuable tools in your closing toolbox. I want to give you a huge shout-out to all of the countries that we are being listened to. I am super excited and it just blows my mind how fast this podcast is growing, but at the same time, I know this is valuable content.

In fact, I talked to a guy who has got an HVAC shop, a small company near Chicago. I give a shout-out to Mark. It was a great conversation and I am working on some of the things we were talking about that will be available soon. It’s really awesome to know that there are other people out there that are looking for this kind of information. I’ve read a hundred of books on sales, every single thing that I could possibly get my hands on in the HVAC industry and just in the trade and in–home selling, in anything that has to do with sales at all. The psychology of selling all the things we talk about here. There are some missing pieces, there are some holes.

We do so much in-house training but it’s always nice to get a new perspective sometimes. We sent a couple of our newer people up to some training with an organization that is fairly renowned in the HVAC industry. It blew my mind because when they came back and showed me the PowerPoint slides from that training, they were the exact same ones from what I took to that class a decade ago. Nothing against this organization. Actually, we never mention who it is but more importantly ten years ago sales in the HVAC industry, and now it’s a different world. There are people who want different things. They buy differently, they research differently, their concerns are different and obviously, psychology tells us the same. To think that you haven’t stayed with the times in a decade that you are going to get the same results is just not true.

That’s why I started this podcast is to share the techniques, the skills, and the tips and to cover what is working right now, what is working in our industry in this moment. There’s so much of it going digital but so much of it at the same time is getting so far away from anything that smells like a salesman, a salesperson. Anything that just feels salesy at all, people can smell that from a mile away. The VS meter is a mile high and you absolutely get the door closed in your face. That’s why we’re focused on being authentic, real people, salespeople professionals on this podcast. That’s our story. The tagline I have in my head officially, and you tell me if I should do this, shoot me a message and let me know. I almost want to make the Close It Now the tagline “Stop being weird and start selling.” That’s what happens.

How many people do you know the second they enter their sales conversation their voice changes and gets all weird? Now they put on the salesperson voice and with that they start using words that they have never said before and all of a sudden they are, “It’s just gross. It grosses me up.” I was like, “Why are you using that voice? Stop it. Talk like a normal human being. Have a conversation with people.” That doesn’t mean that we are using all of these skills that we are talking about. It means that don’t be weird. Stop being weird and start selling.

I want to give a huge shout-out to all of the countries we are being listened to. We are in ten countries now. USA, of course, you’ve got the biggest listener base right now. I’m right here in Houston, Texas. Also to my friends in North Canada and New Zealand, you hold the number three spot for most listens. There must be a lot of hearing and actually sales going on in New Zealand. I got the Aussies down there, United Kingdom, New Zealand. You guys are the Kiwis. United Kingdom, is awesome. Colombia. We’ve got Morocco, India, the Netherlands, Bosnia and Herzegovina. I’m working hard on that. Welcome to our newest country listening to the Close It Now podcast, it’s Ireland. Welcome Ireland, thank you for joining me. If you are in those countries shoot me a message. I would love to meet you and have a conversation about what your market is like over there.

A Story On Silence

Thank you, Kelly. She’s one of my teammates. She was telling me about the story. I’m going to retell your story a little bit because it is so powerful, it really emphasizes how powerful the silence is. She is like, “I seemed like I stayed there forever listening to this couple.” She is in her home. The original call, it is funny because she was telling me about how the call escalated a step further and further and getting bigger and bigger. She followed the system, the process that we teach and she educated these homeowners on everything that is available to them. You see traditionally selling tax or a technician comes in or the basics in a salesperson would have gone in. Do you know what did the project needs you to know as far as the old style is? “This is broke. Let’s fix it.” From what the technician recommended they just needed an evaporator coil and a condenser replacement and that’s it. “The coil you find is fine. You just needed an evaporator coil replacement to move on down the road.” She gets there and goes through the process and she starts asking the right questions. Asking about how comfortable it is in the house, asking about their indoor air quality, allergies, and asthmas.

She starts asking about the humidity levels, the noise levels and starts asking about all of these things. How high are the utility bills? Are they interested in energy savings and really diving into the questions? From there she educates them on all of the different options. She is like, “We can do exactly what you are saying just replace this, what the technician said or if you don’t mind let me go ahead and take you through everything that is available and then guys can decide what is best for you. ” She goes through the process, and educates them on every system that is available. Educates them on the dark towards the changes that are needed and it’s the installation for the home it turns out. She says she went through all of that and then asked for the close and for them to make a bit of a decision, she said then she shut up and listened.

You can feel it in your gut. She said she shut up and listened to the husband and wife and they were bouncing back and forth. She sat there and they literally watched them sell themselves on the advantages of each step of the way. It went from a $5,000 coil condenser change and it stepped up into changing the complete system into the communicating equipment for $13,000. Then stepped on into a complete home performance package of changing the equipment for all communicating variable speed equipment, changing that complete dark system, insulating the house, and sealing the air leaks in the house. All of the things just to take the house to the next level. She sits and watched this project grow as these people were playing ping pong back and forth with each other. “If we did this we’re going to be here a while, so it makes sense to invest in the home. This is going to make it so much more comfortable.” “That’s going to make it so much more comfortable.”

Power Of Pause: Let your homeowners sell and resell themselves on the advantages of everything that you educated them about.

The Power Of The Pause

She sat and watched this happen across the table and sat in the silence and that’s where the power comes in. If you see these types of things start to happen, it happens more than you realize. Now that you know better, recognize it and do not interject unless they ask a question. Let your homeowners sell, and resell themselves on the advantages of everything that you educated them about. Obviously, the system has to be presented in the right order and the right information at the right time. When that is done properly, it’s almost like lighting a fuse and letting it just grow and watching that fire build and build until it hits this explosion of energy and excitement about what the conditions of the house are going to be like. What is it gonna feel like when this is done?

You start to describe the way the house feels. You start to describe the way that allergies are going to be different and waking up and not having that bloody nose because of pollens in the house and all these things. When you start to describe it and they get excited about the project and you let them resell themselves on exactly what they want to do and let it grow. That’s the power of sitting in the silence and letting it happen. I have talked about this with the water bottle closed. With the silence, we’re going to shift gears a little bit. The power of the pause, the power of the silence when you ask a question, force yourself to wait for an answer.

What happens a lot of the time too is when you are going through the process when you are checking in that’s why you have to check in with your homeowner very often. You check in with them the question you just asked them, “Does this make sense? Is it really accomplishing what you want to accomplish? Am I clear in what you are asking me to do?” All of these things you keep checking in with them. The power of asking so many questions is that it keeps them engaged, it keeps their mind engaged. If you are telling instead of asking, they got to check out, they’re going to mentally start thinking about the kids’ soccer practice. They got to take into whatever is going on with work and the projects that they’ve got to get done and there are dirty dishes in the sink and the laundry needs moved.

Their mind is going to go everywhere else if you don’t keep them engaged and keep them involved. You do that by asking questions really often and don’t plow through. Ask a question and then wait. Raise your hand if you’ve ever and say that’s me if you’ve ever asked a question and you find yourself as soon as you are asking moving on to the next thing without giving them time to answer. Is that you? If you have got kids, remember Dora the Explorer and when you are watching Dora. Dora asks the question on the screen and then there is that almost uncomfortable pause for Dora’s waiting for the kids to answer. “This is blue. It is a blue rectangle,” whatever she asks. That’s exactly what you have to do and wait to the point of being uncomfortable, play a game with yourself. Mentally start counting and see how long it takes them to wait. What you’re going to recognize is how long it takes them to answer because there are times you’re going to ask these questions. You almost see them shake their heads and snap out whatever their thought was and realize that you just asked them a question. That’s when you can visibly see that they had checked out.

Especially I watch people anytime I’m doing a presentation. When I could see they’re starting to check out, I would start asking them lots of questions in a row. I want to keep them engaged in the process. We’re going to do an entire episode on these. There is an order you present the material to ask the right questions. That’s going to be a whole episode but this is so powerful. Keep them engaged by asking the questions and then waiting for them to answer. Especially when you ask for the sale, sit in silence and let them resell you. Resell themselves on the project if you’ve done the right job educating through the process and you’ve got done the right job of establishing credibility for your company, credibility for yourself. Through the process, credibility for the project that you are offering at the end a logical conclusion is going to be them deciding to do it now and that’s where you’ve got to create urgency.

Win Or Learn

A lot of it is just asking for the sale immediately. If you hesitate in presenting this will backfire because let me tell you, I experienced this. I’ll 100% own my mistakes as well. I had an experience that shook me. I went and saw this lady. Her system is down but we start talking about the project keeps growing bigger and bigger with all the things she wants to do in the house. While working on the project, she had something going on and I had to leave because her time constraint was up. I said, “I’ll get back right with you tomorrow and we can schedule a time for me to come back over and present.”

I called and she was like, “I’ve got something else going on. Could we do it a little bit later? Call again. I’m taking out the bids. I’ve got somebody else coming back. Can we do it later?” I called the next time, the third time and she said, “I just didn’t have time to wait around so I went ahead and went with somebody else,” before I could even get back and present. I was like, “We had talked about scheduling a time and you kept putting me off.” However, that was my bad. I should have made the time to present the first time. That’s why it’s so important in the beginning of your call to ask about, “Are there any time constraints that I need to be aware of because I want to be mindful of your time?” If you run out of time in the house and you don’t get the chance to present, this very thing could happen to you.

I literally lost this. Probably when I got the numbers together, it was about a $20,000 project. I lost it because I didn’t do the right thing. I didn’t check on the time constraints and sometimes we get complacent. We forget if we skip steps. Things can happen that escape the door and it opens for them to escape into, at this point, somebody else’s arms. We had a great rapport, it was a fantastic visit and I just didn’t get her the presentation in time. I didn’t check on the time frame upfront and she had to go, “We’ll get back the next day,” which totally didn’t happen. You’ve got to check on that. That’s a real deal holy field. That’s all I see is transparency happening right there. It’s okay at the end of the day because I didn’t lose, I either win or I learn.

You have to adopt the mindset to win or learn so you can guarantee a better bottom dollar. You think I’m going to skip that step but from now on absolutely not. I’m going to always check on the time constraints of the appointment, that way I know how to structure, and how long it’s taking me for each step of the way. This was another lady and we had a lot of conversation and rapport building at the beginning. She wanted to tell me all about how her parents and her grandparents who sold their ranch and ended up buying this big house and all these things that took up way too much of the visit. Had I known about the time constraint, I could have shortened that current part of the conversation and directed it better but I didn’t. I didn’t realize that she had a time constraint and so I was just letting it flow. We were on track but each step of the way took longer than it should have if I had known she had a time constraint.

Do not let that happen to you. In your intro, in your beginning, in your first part of the questionnaire, ask, “Are there any time constraints that I need to be aware of? That way I can properly manage the time. I want to be very conscious of the time that you have available and not abuse that.” Ask the question, “Are there time constraints?” That way you don’t end up running out of time and don’t get to present while you are in the house and that’s super point. The power of the pause, that is to ask the question and wait for an answer at every single time. As long as it takes for them to answer especially when you are asking for the sale, let them do the work. You’ve done the work up to them. Hand it over to them. Let them do the work by asking for the sale and then being quiet. That’s the way you trust me with this project and then just hush. Let them talk throughout, let them make the first move and then you are going to be amazed at what happens with that.

Power Of Pause: The power of the pause lets clients do the work.

Thank you for joining me. We have an awesome offer coming up here. I am finishing up the final details on The Close It Now coaching program. We’re going to be offering two different levels of coaching. First is private coaching with me. That’s going to be a one–on–one session once a week hour session. We’re going to deep dive into designing your very own specific sales system following the Close It Now method and techniques by designing it, and customizing it for you and your company. Then working hardcore to get you absolutely optimized into the skills that you have to have into the deep psychology. Learning every single step to start to finish to close the sale now in the house.

That’s going to be one level. The next level, what we’re going to be offering is a group coaching which is going to be a weekly call also but with a video conference style. There are lot of accountability there. It’s going to be weekly check-ins and reports. Both of those levels are going to be a lot of different packs and advantages with each one. Definitely, some sessions are giveaways. You’re going to first know about upcoming programs, packages, and offers and any events happening and also planning some fun, three–day boot camps. They are going to be hands–on, in–person to get you fast–tracked to success. You get your system up and running and getting you out of crushing it.

One of my success stories is one of my people. We are three, four months into her career, and had never done HVAC sales before. The first two months is learning the process and the next two months, she had 55% close rate. Now she is sitting at 60% something so far and killing it. I love to brag on my students who are making amazing strides because they are following the system and doing it right. That can be you. Do you need some help with your process? Do you need some help with overcoming some friction points in your process? Reach out to me. We’ll do a free discovery call. We’ll spend about an hour and deep dive into what’s going on so we can get you over your hurdles, over your humps, and then over the speed bumps of what’s keeping you from being able to see massively while success to close those $15,000, $20,000, $25,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 deals every single week. Our team does that all the time so there is no reason you can’t either. Reach out to me. Thanks for reading. I am so happy that you are here, that this is a growing community. Join the Close It Now Facebook group. I’ll talk to you, men and ladies, again soon.