The Home Service Expert Podcast
Mastering Sales in 2025 - Winning Strategies with Sam Wakefield
Fri, 23 May 2025
Sam Wakefield discusses the importance of continuous learning in sales, particularly in the HVAC industry. He emphasizes building strong relationships with clients, understanding their needs, and the emotional aspects of selling. Sam shares his journey in creating Close It Now, a sales training company, and highlights the need for a shift in the home service industry towards better pricing strategies and valuing quality over cost. He also addresses common pitfalls in sales processes and the importance of starting with sales training early in business development. Ultimately, Sam advocates for a service-oriented approach that prioritizes the customer's experience and satisfaction. Don’t forget to register for Tommy’s event, Freedom 2025! This is the event where Tommy’s billion-dollar network will break down exactly how to accelerate your business and dominate your market in 2025. For more details visit freedomevent.com 00:00 Sharpening the Ax: The Importance of Continuous Learning 02:14 The HVAC Industry: A Foundation for Sales Mastery 04:00 Building Relationships: The Key to Sales Success 09:57 The Birth of Close It Now: A New Approach to Sales Training 13:54 Upleveling the Home Service Industry: A Call to Action 19:04 Pricing Strategies: The Value of Quality Over Cost 27:03 Common Pitfalls in Sales Processes: Building from the Ground Up 32:50 The Value of Service and Pricing Integrity 35:01 Essential Sales Advice for New Professionals 38:06 Understanding Customer Needs vs. Wants 40:01 Restoring Trust in Sales and Home Services 42:00 The Importance of Consistent Training 47:05 NLP and Its Impact on Sales 51:36 The Art of Follow-Up in Sales 58:11 Recognizing Buying Signals in Sales Conversations
Chapter 1: What is the importance of continuous learning in sales?
We sharpen our axe every single day. It's like we've forgotten that or never even learned that in order to be that expert, we have to constantly be sharpening the axe. It's something you have to do daily. You can't do it on Sunday and expect it to last all week.
welcome to the home service expert where each week tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing sales hiring and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business now your host the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello.
Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text notes, N-O-T-E-S to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299. one, two, nine, nine.
And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 States. Just go to elevate and win.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview.
Chapter 2: How can building relationships drive sales success?
All right, guys, today's going to be fun. I got Sam Wakefield here. He's based out of Round Rock, Texas. He's a sales and business expert. He's the founder of Close It Now Sales Training and Close It Now Podcast. The dynamic founder of Close It Now stands at the forefront of HX sales training, known for his high-octane approach and deep industry expertise.
a master in transforming the sales landscape. Sam's career is a testament to his innovative strategies and motivational prowess. His popular podcast, Close It Now, mirrors his passion, blending actionable advice to real-world examples that resonate with HVAC professionals. And by the way, HVAC. Is the godfather of all sales. I believe that.
I learned everything I know from HX Plumbing and Electrical. If you think back in the day, HX spells wealth around Ron Smith. Paved the way for guys like George Brazil and Frank Blau in the late 80s. And who else? Jim. What's another one? Jim. I'm trying to think of Jim. I never met him, but I'm brain farting his name.
But I'll tell you, HVAC is like, if you know HVAC sales, you know how to do chimneys and roofing and landscaping. And I do believe you get good at HVAC sales, you can do anything in life.
So, Sam, it's a pleasure to have you on. Thank you, man. It's such an awesome pleasure to be here. I love that you mentioned HVAC Spells Wealth. That was one of my very first books that I ever read in the industry. And it was just incredibly powerful to read through that book and learn that our goal is not to just get customers to keep them as well.
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Chapter 3: What inspired Sam Wakefield to create Close It Now?
I feel like that's something a lot of people have forgotten nowadays.
Yeah, that's the thing he said is that, you know, I got that in my bathrooms here. Get customers and keep customers. And I put that when I read that book. I get more customers. And the guy I was thinking of was Jim Abraham.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. So tell me a little bit about yourself, man. Where did you start? What are you working on? What's new? What's good? What's your passions?
Yeah. So, you know, I've been doing this in the trades almost 20 years now. So April is actually the sixth year anniversary for the Close It Now as a sales training company in the podcast. And, you know, one of the big things I've been working on, especially this last few months, is really deep diving into the internal workings of Really just people.
One of the ways that we close the show is work to become someone worth buying from. And as we go internal, we really get to up-level ourselves first. And as we put on our own oxygen mask, then we can help everybody else around us. In fact, a podcast I just recorded earlier today for my show was kind of the sales bearer.
You know, what we've really been talking about on our show lately is, you know, when it seems like those objections kind of follow us around, The common denominator could be us. We attract who we are. So if I want to think about it a lot or I need three bids, it's time for us to examine our own buying habits and realize, oh, wait a minute, maybe I'm attracting this.
Do I have these things in my life that's causing that to mirror our clients when we go into our appointments? So that's what I've been working on lately. It's been a thought journey that's a lot of fun.
Dan Martell sat right next to me in this very room and said, when I started buying how I want to be bought from, everything changed. When I was indecisive and I had to make a deal with everybody and make sure I got the deepest discounted price, I was actually saying I'm not worth the full experience. I want you to give me discounted service.
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Chapter 4: What are effective pricing strategies in the HVAC industry?
The other thing is they need to know, like, and trust the company. And the third thing that everybody fails at is they need to feel loved. So how does a client feel loved? I asked them, well, how do you guys think a client feels loved? If you actively listen and you bring up things that they mentioned. Oh, you said you're a kid named Tommy that's five years old and he sleeps upstairs, right?
You actually care and you're actively listening. You're going, uh-huh. Wow, that's interesting. Tell me more. When did you know that she was going to be your wife? That's crazy. And I miss being in the garage. And for those in HVAC, you know, on the roofs or whatever, I miss the experience of just the client, the intimacy and just talking to them, learning about them.
100%.
Absolutely agree with that. When I'm coaching, I actually had somebody earlier, we were coaching on his service appointment. And I was like, well, how many people live in the house? Well, how many pets do they have? Do you know the pet's names? Do you know the kid's names? Do you remember the wife's name? Nope, nope, nope.
I was like, do you see, before we even get into the sales appointment, can you see where we might have a problem Because no wonder they didn't want to buy from you. They gave you the think about it because they didn't even know who you were. You didn't know who they were.
Yeah, 100%. And that's the most important thing is you should know exactly what the wife does for a living, the husband does for a living. You should know exactly where the kids go to school, the pets' names. Another thing I think you should do, and you'll like this one, is really, really, really spend a lot of time building your profile. If you're using software like ServiceTitan, it's great.
Send a great picture, send your pets, send, send your motorcycle and your wife and your kids and talk about how like you made it through an obstacle. Like training was tough. And when you got trained and how you fell in love with the industry and, and spend time for, let the client get to know you. And then offer something on the way.
If you just do these little things, you're like, I told my team, I said, you ever go to those classes? Sam, you probably had a class like this where the teacher says I'm giving everybody an A. You just sat down. Your first grade is an A. All you got to do is keep it.
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Chapter 5: What common pitfalls do sales professionals face?
Well, when you set the right profile and you offer the right stuff on the way and you knock the door and you're smiling, you've already got an A. And you're very considerate and you say, yes, sir, absolutely, sir. I appreciate that, sir. Would you like a glass of water? Absolutely, sir. Thank you so much, sir. And you just show this like you're winning already. Mm-hmm.
Go ahead. It's because I love this so much, too. That's funny. I saw a post earlier on social media. It was just asking. It was Everett over at his Sales Tales group. He was asking, have you ever received or said yes to anybody offering you something to drink in a home?
And, of course, my comment was like, man, I couldn't count the number of meals and drinks that I've had with people in their homes. You know, the number of dinners and lunches that they've served. When you build a relationship with people over time, it's incredible what happens. And it's not for, obviously, the free food. But just to be able to break bread with somebody builds a relationship.
You know, you really can't otherwise. So it's such a powerful thing when that really starts to happen. That's how you know that you're effectively, authentically making relationship instead of just trying to fake it.
Yeah, I mean, I remember people would always ask me to go to church with them, invite me over for Thanksgiving dinner. I mean, very rarely. It's usually the Latter-day Saints invited me to their church. You know, I'm in Arizona here, especially in the East Valley. But, yeah, no, I miss those days. I really do.
I miss getting to know people and hearing their stories and whether they were talking about George Clooney or – you know, politics or religion or their family or their profession, you know, or their favorite, you know, things to do on the weekend. It didn't matter to me. I just loved listening and learning. Some people had kegerators in their garage, and I'd be like, show me how that works.
And it was just cool, man. And I really do miss it.
I love it. Yeah. You get to meet the craziest, coolest people. And, you know, truly at the end of the day, we're changing lives, too. And that's that's the important part. You know, we literally can change the way somebody exists in their home with any type of home services, whatever we do. It's like they have a struggle. We're able to make their lives easier and better.
And and it's just so fulfilling. It is.
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Chapter 6: How can understanding customer needs improve sales?
you know, several thousand dollars a piece with the exact same slide deck from a training that I had taken 10 years before that. And I was like, oh, my gosh, throw that. They hadn't changed a single slide. I was like, throw that in the trash. Nobody buys like that anymore. And so I that's what I start. I said, well, if we looked around, I couldn't find a training that was the right fit.
So I decided to start it. And then the podcast started organically because back in – for everybody that listens, Drive Time University, the first probably 30 of my podcasts, I'm literally driving between appointments recording my podcast in a voice memo because I just had this message to get out. I knew if my team needed to hear it that other people did too.
And so that's what was the impetus that started the company because – I was like, the way people buying has changed so much, especially the second that the pandemic hit. And everything is so much more feeling and emotion driven. And everybody was stuck in the old days of, you know, the ABC model, always be closing and the hard sell and everything's logic, logic, logic.
And we've forgotten that people buy based on emotion. They justify it with logic, but they're going to justify that logic decision with another emotion. And at the time, I didn't find anybody that was was training like that. And so I said, well, you know, somebody has to lead the charge. So let's go.
Chapter 7: What role does consistent training play in sales success?
I do see a lot of people teaching the hard close. I do like the idea of, like, options when selling and, you know, whether it's magic moments and that stuff. I still think all that exists. But, like, you know, I never was really a hard close. I just am like, you know, I just want to do what's right for you.
And based on what you told me, I really feel like this is the decision I'd be doing for this for my mom's house. You know, I love my mom a lot. 100%. And just slowing down and listening and just being human with them. And telling them, look, I want to be your garage tour guide for life. If you're not keeping this house, I want you to call me in the next house.
100%.
Make eye contact the whole time. And don't stutter. And don't be afraid of no. I just treat them like a human being. And so many people are just afraid. And I think they're afraid because they don't have any self-esteem. I think a lot of people in the home service industry, they're not happy with their smile. You know, they're not happy with their bodies. They're not happy with their education.
And they know how to make great money in the home service space, but they have to kind of fake it until they make it. They don't get to be in their true skin.
Oh, that speaks to me so much. One of the things that I love to really emphasize that we talk about very, very often on the show is, and then every time I do, you know, coachings and trainings is, you know, with that whole idea of work to be someone worth buying from, we cover, you know, so many different elements of life.
You know, if you're not in integrity with yourself, with your own personal growth, with your own spiritual journey, Whatever that is, are you in alignment with doing what you know you should be doing? Your relationships at home, your nutrition, your fitness, all of these micro agreements that we keep with ourselves determine how we show up with our confidence, with our posture, with our certainty.
And proof that actually the sales skills is the least important of that. You can take anybody from any industry that's a top performer and pick them up out of that industry and drop them in another one. And then ask them, how long is it going to be until you're on top? And they're like, no, not very long.
And they're on top of the leaderboard again, even though knowing nothing about the new industry, but they're someone that people want to do business with because they've just worked to become that level of person. And that's, man, that's the heart cry of my company and my passion is helping people up level.
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Chapter 8: How can sales professionals recognize buying signals?
It depends on the position, of course. But I mean, if somebody is not making six figures, they're asleep. You know, they're just not in the right position at all. A six figure take home is kind of the minimum threshold, I would say, for most positions.
Unless you work at a company that pays hourly and really hasn't figured out the pay people what they're worth.
Correct. Correct. Absolutely. You know, obviously the startups and things, but, you know, any good company that charges the right prices, you know, yeah, it should easily be six figures.
What is the right price for a five ton unit?
Well, before I answer that, Tommy, do you mind if I ask you a few more questions to make sure it's the right fit for your home?
I'm going to tell you, I'd say the minimum is $12,000 to $20,000. Absolutely. There's a range there. It depends on where you live and the complications and the insulation. A lot of different things are going to go into that, what kind of unit you want and what kind of warranty you want with it. I think some people think that's highway robbery.
And I'm like, I sat down with a bunch of garage owners, Sam. This is five, six, seven years ago now. I don't remember exactly. And they said, how could I sleep at night for what I was charging? And I said, how many of you guys have more than 20 billboards on the road? When all the plumbers and HVAC guys do. I said, how many of you guys have PTO for at least a month of PTO?
How many of you guys, you know, a normal pay rate for your technician and installers is six figures? No hands, no hands, no hands. Wait a minute. How many of you guys get brand new vehicles out to every one of your techs and installers? How many of you guys pay for the tools, $6,000 for tools? How many of you guys get minimum of 10 weeks training before they actually practice on a client's house?
Wait a minute. There's not been any hands up for this. So wait a minute, you give your clients a really, really good deal so you can F over your employees? So you hold them down to making nothing but $50,000 a year and make sure they live in an apartment, could drive an old truck, and could barely support their family so you could give your clients a great deal? I said, I want to be innovative.
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