Some of your prospects are going to take the time to do the research and figure out what they want before they talk to you. Some prospects aren't going to have a clue what they need. Knowing how to talk to them in different stages of awareness is going to make all the difference, to both them and you!
Text us at 817-345-7449!
We've got another fan question! Dan, a newer salesperson, would like to know how to talk to prospects in different stages of awareness.
He sells windows and window installation, and he's talking to prospects that range from doing tons of research and knowing —or thinking they know—everything about the process to people who have no idea where to even begin.
In every area of sales, you will deal with prospects in different stages of awareness. And each stage has different aspects that you have to account for when you're talking to them. If you can talk to them with compassion and acknowledgment of where they are and what they know, you'll build more trust and rapport with your prospects than the other guys will.
But it's not just about stages of awareness. Personality is a factor as well...
So check out this episode, and let us know what you think. Text us at the number above with thoughts, questions, or if you're interested in taking a DISC personality assessment.
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Welcome to the show everybody, Sales Throwdown, we are working from home as as everybody else. And on this, I'm in the office. Now that's true. That's true. Clint is in the office. He's being a productive member of society for like the first time ever, or since getting into Marine Corps since he's sitting in front of US Marine Corps flag right now. On this episode, we we've had a couple of questions from listeners, we want to go through those and talk about those and try to try to help out. The first one comes from a guy named Dan. And the question he has to keep it a little bit shorter is that he is new to sales and actually wants to stay in sales, which was kind of interesting. He wants to not be on the installation side of his business but wants to focus on the sales side, which is awesome, because most people want to go completely the other way of not having to do the sales thing at all and focus on installation. So good for you, Dan. And at the bottom here, the question is What advice can you give to someone who sees people ranging from, "I have no idea about windows or what I'm trying to buy," to they research everything and they're going to get three to four bids. So Clint...
That I think of is just asking questions, so important. So you know, sit back, listen and ask some, let them give you information, whether they want to do the installation, or they don't want to. Get as much information from them, and listen to what they are saying.
Good, Clint, on the on the far side of this, I mean, I think you have to deal more with the bids than anybody else on a more consistent basis. Yeah, any tips or tricks?
Yeah, so I'm getting people like that every day of my professional career, right that internet research the, you know, Google, how do you install an air conditioning system in your house? And how do you install it in the new office? And then when you show up to the job site is, oh, well, why aren't you guys doing the 18 seer? You know, it's like, Where did you get your information? Right? So what I've learned is, is really to be kind of humble. If I could give it a word and just, hey, that's some pretty good information. Where'd you you know, where'd you get that knowledge? So? DI, absolutely DIY it, you know, so these people are absolutely that, right, they got the DIY DIY knowledge from the Home Depot website, but they're gonna tell you as a professional installer how to do it. And you can, you can be the guy that tells them they're completely wrong. And you're gonna make them defensive. You can do that. It's not gonna work real well. You can, you can, you know, agree with them, and then you put in a shitty system, because they don't know what the hell they're talking about. But you did it because that's what they wanted. Or
And then it becomes, it becomes your problem then yeah,
Absolutely. Your name's on it. your name's on whatever you..
You stood up and why'd you let me Yeah, get into it.
So I know quite a bit about Windows and construction you know, let's talk about you know the actual problem at hand here you know somebody somebody puts in a new house and they say I want single pane windows because that's what the internet said. This guy's gonna say oh my god, haven't used those since the 60s, why would we put single pane windows in? You know, we have you know, we have air conditioning, we have heating. We got to keep all that stuff inside. That you know, you can say a you don't know shit about windows. So let me tell you all about how we do it and you're gonna be wrong. You can it's just not gonna work, right? You're insulting you're, you're coming off wrong. You got to humble yourself a little bit. You got to say hey, that's some pretty good information. I don't know where you got it, sounds like you're on the right track. Here's a little extra information for you from the side of the world that I live in every day right? So you got to be that information card of giving them the correct information. Don't tell them the wrong because there's only a negative way to go from there, hey, you're a piece of shit, you're wrong. I don't know where you got it, you're gonna end up on one side of the fence that you don't want to be on.
Can I ask you a question, Clint? So did it at that point, do you do a comparison study to kind of show them I'll let you look at and then what the other options are so that you can kind of throw all the all the possibilities out there and have that discussion.
Absolutely. So in my in my world verse, you know, and probably in this this guy's world with the windows, right? It's like, Hey, we want this system and I'm like, Hey, you know, I see the upfront money savings, right? That's what most people would, you know, I got 10,000. Let's throw 10,000 at it, because that's what this system buys me. But hold on. Now you got a $700 power bill every month, right? Versus I need you to spend 11,500 today so an extra 1500 So that you have a $250 power bill for the rest of your life. Those are very big, different numbers, right? And the uneducated person doesn't know that stuff. So you have to educate, right? You can't give free consulting so that they go out and get you the three quotes. But what you, what you got to navigate and it's different in every industry is as you navigate those waters, there's a fine line between free consulting and correct information. There's a, there's a really fine line there, and how much you give and how much you you know. And it's all it's all personal, because I'm willing to give a ton of information. Because if I give you the information, and I really wrack your brain with the right information, and you choose to go with somebody else, Don't ever call me again. And I'm going to do that so many times I'm going to find the right person to do business with that calls me every time for a lifetime on every project. And that's just the way I do is there's a couple different ways you can do it. That's the way I do it. I kill everybody with information, the correct information. If you buy from me and we do you a good job, you're going to use me for lifetime. And that's the customer that I'm after.
Yeah, you brought up a key point there. And we do this a lot in in the office. Most of the patients have the provider cell phone numbers, right? So when you come in and we give you, you know, we're treating you for diabetes or heart disease or whatever, if something happens, you pick up the phone and call us, call us day or night, and you know, Nan's seen some of that. And people love that that ongoing communication past the sale, right. So when you connect with people, and now you're at a bit, a bit of a different, you know, creature there, Clint. And granted, you probably don't want to be passing your phone number, but the people you do business with, you know, shouldn't they be able to get in touch with you for questions or follow up, and you need to give that right up front to these patients. These people when you talk to them.
I don't want you to have any other phone number but mine to be honest with you.
Well I knew what the answer was gonna be But yeah,
I mean seriously though I don't want you to call in over my head or under my head in like the rank structure sort of thing. I want you to call the guy that can get the right decisions made for you to get the project moving along because that benefits me and you as a buyer and the seller.
And I think John should just put his number out on the airway.
You know, if you have a sales question 817-345-7449. If you have you if you have questions, if you want to talk about the assessments, if you have a sales issue at all text that number we'll talk about it here on the show.
Yeah, you know so hitting, hitting back on this this guy's original question of like, okay, the range of zero knowledge right to somebody that thinks they know it all and they're your customer. How do you navigate those waters? There's, you know, I said humble earlier. Compassion is truly the buzzword of this episode. For me in this situation, because some of us in depending on what DISC corner you're in, some of us have zero, some of us have 100%, right? And there's a mix of how much compassion you have. If you have too much, you let them think you're right. Or let them think that they're right. And you put in a crappy install, in this case, windows, if you don't have any, you push them so far away from you, they they're not going to buy from you, in any case, right? And anybody can swoop in and steal that sale from you just because they had an ounce of compassion versus you. Right? So there's a fine line and how you meet in that personality spectrum of, you know, adapting some compassion and just saying, hey, that's some great information. I appreciate you sharing that with me. Let me let me give you my side of the story or my two bits of information, let you process it, and you make the decision because you're the ultimate decision maker right. And and that all stems in for me that all stems in the compassion world that because I naturally don't have any I have zero. So
Clint hit on something, though, but so to go to the compassion, but you don't take away their control to make the decision, right? You you reinforce it though, right? And you so with or without compassion if you reinforce your clients ability to make a decision with like you said the good information and you don't steal their thunder or you don't over overbearingly you know, bring your thunder. I think you got the great, you know, a working scenario. I don't know that it works every time. But again, just don't take away their ability to control the things they should and would want to control.
Yeah, and I tell you, I've got a quick I got a quick story that kind of relates to this whole deal that happened in the last 48 hours that I'm dealing with today. The very much goes into this. We had a, you know, we do, you know my company we typically work in big commercial buildings, high rise, hotels type of thing. So the small You know, when the smaller guy calls you to outfit his new auto shop that he built behind this house, it's very different worlds, right? You want to call a residential guy, but the residential guy doesn't know quite how to do that big auto shop. And we're dealing with this right now. Right? But, but now we're talking about money constraints, right? Because you want a commercial system in the back of your house and most people don't have 100 grand sitting in their bank account to put AC system in. And I ran into this the other day, not to mention, we're dealing with the, you know, just power constraints. Most residential properties are are powered with a certain power supply. But you want to put a commercial system in and you don't have that. So now are you going to pay the power company 80 grand to bring you a new feeder line in so this happens constantly in my world, we have to navigate these waters. And you know, one of the things that is we've talked about in, in prior episodes was, how do you figure out what their what a person's budget is? Right? How do you figure that out without being rude without, you know, bringing up the nasty money situation, right that nobody likes to talk about? Some people don't like that most people don't like to talk about it at all, right. How do you navigate those waters? And in this case, you know, I ran some quick, some quick numbers on my pad in front of them. And I just said, Look, man, you know, I don't know what your situation is. Honestly, it's, it's none of my business, but I'm gonna throw this number out there. And it's 80 grand, does this blow your socks off? And he just looked at me and he said, That's not what I was expecting. I was expecting 30 grand. And I said, and, and so now I have parameters to work with him. Right? But his answer was very telling, right. I expected 30, you're telling me 80. And of course you go, you know, it's that bracketing. You start here you he gets here. We can meet somewhere in the middle and actually do a project. But if he just said 10 grand, guys, I, there's nothing I can do for you. And you got to get out of that situation and and get on to the next because it's, you know, it's just, it's burn, there's nothing you can do. But now we're dealing with a real budget, now there's something I can design within I can design a whole system within you know, hey, what if I mentioned the middle at 55, 60 grand? Does that work out that you know what we could probably swing with that now I can design within those parameters, I know a budget, we've agreed on something. But if I don't ever ask that question, the whole job never moves forward. Or I do a whole bunch of free stuff. And and then I shock is you know, I shock them when I when I give them the quote and and the whole jobs a waste. So you know to this guy, you know, don't be afraid to talk about money. Yeah, you're not going to know the final price on the on the window install but you should have enough data doing this every day that hey, this is a 4000 square foot house. You know, you typically cost around 10 grand to put new windows in, you know, if you were thinking $800, why are we Why am I even here? Right? So, and that's the edge on education of the people that think they know, but they don't know. They look at a window on Amazon and they say, I can buy I can buy a house window for $45 on sale. Yeah, guys, okay. Yeah, and I have 10 windows. So there's 450 bucks. And the installer guy quotes you for 25 grand. How do you feel about that? You know, like, you got to bring those issues up. You just do.
For sure. And let's talk I mean, that was a ton of nuggets in value. But my I have a couple of questions and, and a couple things for me. I spend way more time talking about budget for my stuff because like as a consultant, like nobody really understands, like why I charge what I charge and you know, and these things, so it's funny. I spend more more time stretching budgets than than I ever have in the past. And it's not because they don't have the money. It's because there's a there's an expectation or a gap in the knowledge, right. So we have to, we have to get in there and you know, talk about that. But the other thing that I think really is, is interesting is that in your role, Clint, like, this is tried and true. Like this is just kind of normal. I feel like this guy with the windows situation. I think he might have ways around this. Right, because
What do you mean by that?
Well, because I don't I mean, I don't know a whole lot of people who are going to go get like three bids on home stuff, right? Commercial,
Oh man, I do.
Really? I want, on, on windows. Yeah, because I've been through that, you know, I had 6200 square foot house, that we were redoing. Stop bragging. And the, well, I'm what I'm saying. That's the dynamic and I walked into Holy shit. How do you replace all the windows and then put wood shutters? What does that look like? Well, that's 40 thousand dollars, you know, which blew my mind? Or you know, so what what we did was we found somebody reputable, they brought it the you know, hey, here's what it's gonna cost us. You know we can piecemeal it so they put it into you know smaller chunks for us. I mean it was a whole, I mean it was it opened my eyes, I'm like damn it.
I gotta, go ahead Clint, sorry. I've got an I got a nice little nugget as especially in construction whether it's windows, drywall, HVAC units, plumbing, whatever it is, I got a little nugget for you because I've I've lived through this a little bit and I find myself doing it is when you when you see a customer and the reason I thought of this, Doc, is you said 6200 square feet right? So you see that, you know let's say that little mansion on 50 acres and you see the all the things that they have and you see the you know the Rolls Royce sitting in the driveway and you think I can make all the money that I should have made on all my other jobs on this guy. Oh, and you load it up so bad that you don't get the sale. Right? versus being Oh, but but John, everybody else?
Oh, gosh, it's.
And so what happens is right now you have zero dollars of revenue, because you tried to gouge them, because you thought that they had money versus being market fair, knowing what your costs are, knowing what you should make per the market. Maybe in this in your business, it's 25%, you know, cost plus 25%. That mine's not nowhere near that. Mine's more of in the 12 to 13% gross margin rain of what I should make it. But what happens is sometimes somebody will have a nice budget conversation with me and they'll tell me, oh, I have a million dollars, and I'm doing the bid, right? And I get to 800,000. I'm thinking, Oh man, I got $100,000 I can gouge this guy for because it's a million dollars. But what I don't know on the back end is that he got a second bid and And because I tried to gouge them, somebody came in underneath me. And I lost the entire sale because I was unfair versus having good conversations with the guy and saying, Hey, this is market fair. This is where we're at. Here's our cost open book it I always, I'm always open for open book, I have nothing to hide. My copy is this. This is what we make per market. And I'm not saying everybody should be that way. I'm just saying that's the way I do it. And I but I've learned my lesson on trying to gouge people especially on small sales.
Well, so then the answer me this when you open book it, how as a consumer, am I going to know this, that this is a real figure. It's like buying a car, right? You know, again. And now having said that, if we work and I'm talking about brand new guy that Yeah, I'm the new customer. Now again, if we did a job and repeat and I've got a couple of those things going myself. How do you how do you impress upon me that you're being honest with me? How do I how do I how do I know that I can trust you?
Yeah, and it's Mine in, especially in my industry is pretty common knowledge, right? Everybody has a share of the knowledge of what it should cost, right? So for example, in my, in my world, a lot of people will do square foot budgets, right, you have 10,000 square feet, it costs us, you know, $25 a square foot, this is what I should budget for, you know, Clint's side of the business, and then and then they asked me to bid it so they've already agreed to a higher authority that this is what it's going to cost. Now I have to live within that. But they get their knowledge from us all sharing and past projects. So you know, I can fluff it 10% plus or minus and probably not get caught too bad but eventually I will. But but at least in construction is pretty common, common knowledge of what everything costs.
But you're talking about like a big corporation that's spending a million dollars they put a team on it so they do a little research ahead of time. I'm talking about mom and pop. I'm wanting to do a an expensive renovation. Yeah. So how does a guy like me? How if you were selling to me in this guy's shoes, the window guy, right, Dan? If you were Dan and you're talking to me and I'm like, okay, pretty big project for me, which you know, I'm the customer so everything's gonna feel big. How do you how do I how do you impress upon me that I can trust you?
Well, I would tell you this if you are stuck to the money, let's say $10,000 just blows your doors off, right? Like Holy cow, you want to $10,000 and replace all my windows. And if you're honest, right, this is why I always push honest business. I don't do anything shady. I try to stay everything aboveboard. So that when I get asked about my $10,000, I can open book it right. And I will have no problem sitting down at the dinner table with you and saying, Okay, look, the windows take three hours apiece to you know, uninstall the new ones take an hour to install my Tech's cost this much an hour. You know, if we're truly down the Road enough to have that money conversation. I will absolutely have that for you. That when you get concerned or you should get concerned, especially as a buyer is when somebody says, well, it's just what it costs. Well, what do you mean? That's just what it costs? Now I have to go get another bid to check your number, or possibly two. That's what happens, right? Because enough people get screwed. And enough people have no idea what the cost is. That's why they go get three numbers because they have to compare you. But if you're open book, and you're not afraid to show your cost, And hey, if if the guy down the road does it for $25 an hour and you're 32 that's just what your cost is. That's your business. You know, show him Yeah, show it to him. I sure do. What do I have to hide? If you don't buy for me that's on you. Not me.
Mm hmm. I like it. Yeah, I like it a lot.
There's a couple of people who are doing things that are similar to me as like as far as like sourcing salespeople and, you know, working with them, coaching them and getting them onboarded and stuff. And, you know, the the circle that I run in, it's it's pretty small about the people that you can go to to go talk about these things where you don't know anything about it at all. So one of the very first things I do is I talk about the premium guy in the circle, the guy who charges the most, right. Because if you know about him, then I want to, I want to have a conversation about why you're not just running that way. Right? Because he's also the most well known, right? So most well known guy is also the most expensive guy. You know, Clint, I'm curious, why don't you just go work with him? Right? Because I want to know why you're not thinking in that way. Because if you've already made a decision, that that there's value in his approach, then we need to figure out if I have a shot at it, because I don't want to work with you just because I'm cheaper than he is right? My process is different. The outcomes are different, and there's a reason why I charge what I charge for that kind of work. But, you know, if you if I think the way to do that is you As far as like building the trust to the point is you don't like how do I explain this? I'm just going to assume that they're going to, right. If more people are going to do that, and you know that this is a common thing, and it kind of makes sense. Anyway. I'm just gonna like ask about it. Right? A lot of people I talked to we're going to go talk to three to four, five people. I'm curious, have you talked to anybody else? Yeah. Okay, who did you talk to? These guys? Okay, awesome. How far did you get? Well, we got about this far. Okay. What are your thoughts? Right? Because everybody prices things differently. Everybody builds their offering differently, and you might be skimping on your labor costs, but the windows are more expensive. There's there's always some trade offs in there and it's never apples to apples, right. So, go ahead.
So you have to get it to apples to apples. You have to have that conversation, especially in competitive sales when you you're not a one off right. You're not selling a brand of shoe that nobody else has or a type of watch that nobody else has. When you're in construction, especially windows, there's 500 brands of windows right. How do you separate yourself? And, and I will tell you this that you have to, education is huge on why your product is the way it is why it costs the way it does you know maybe maybe you make all your products in the US versus Vietnam, right? And maybe that's important to some maybe it's not right, but you got to you got to know that knowledge you got to have, you know why your tech costs more I use this all the time, in the fact that when somebody says oh, well, I went to John's, John's HVAC company, and they were going to charge half of what you're trying to cost me and I said, Okay, that's fine. That's fair. And if we're in that level of conversation, it's probably I'm already risk losing the job, right? You've already made up your mind that that a guy half my price is correct. When I work for a $4 billion company that does this every day. I should be the market, right? I'm the market that you should compare it to. So if somebody is doing, let's say, a million dollars a year, and you're comparing me to that that's a really hard comparison. And I'll say things like, Okay, if your whole building, you know, we destroy your whole building or the install does, what are you going to do? You're going to take his, you know, hundred thousand dollar house, his you know $50,000 band. What do I mean he's not insured you know there's all these things. That's why my company costs the way it does not to mention we put our guys through $300,000 worth of training a year, you know, we so you got to build on that. But you got to know that knowledge around why your company is the way it is.
You brought up something and a lot of people you know, the first thing that comes comes to mind is all you're doing is spewing features and benefits. But and a lot of people poopoo features and benefits. But at a certain point, once you've gotten past budget, you've got a good bonding rapport and you get to a certain point, don't lead with it. But once you've established that communication between you and your, your customer, and you know what their wants, what their problem is, then where did they sit in their mindset on, you know, this product versus that product, now's the time to go exactly where you're talking about. But not before then do features and benefits till you understand the lay of the land, right? It'd be like me trying to jump in a in a Tesla and go four wheeling, right? You know, it just they don't match up the features and benefits now, you know, it's a stupid analogy, but it but it holds value in the sense of too many salesmen and we all we've all done it. They the The first thing you go to are features and benefits. So no, no, no, no, keep the conversation, pain, budget, you know, all of these things need to coalesce. Now you get to the crux of, well, let's talk about why this is better and then this one and so forth.
I only talk about that stuff and it's a great, great way to put it but I only talk about this stuff when I get compared to somebody else and I get threatened on why my price is high right? Yeah, because I'm open book my service techs cost $98 an hour you know why they cost $98 an hour because they're the best techs in you know in Texas let's sir right there or however you spin it or sell it, but I'll put my text up against anybody because I send them to thousands of dollars worth of training every month to get certified and have all these certifications so that when I do your project, all the liabilities on us. You don't have to worry about thing you write the check we do the job we go home. Right, that's it.
And this brings this brings me to another point because I think it's a great segue whenever somebody you start down this road and you start to see them get a little little antsy or you know, pull away. I think particularly in construction, we do it some in our business. It's your your before You get to your features and benefits, you need to be perceiving something has not gone right in this person's world in construction before, right? So you challenge that you say, Hey, I get the sense that you've been screwed over a time or two on some of these home projects. Right. And I think Dan could use that to his advantage to get a story about why they're hesitant or why they want so much information or why they you know, for the guy that may not know anything, or why they may not act, right what why can't they make a decision? Well, part of this may be because they've made a wrong one in the past. They don't want to own up to it right off the bat of, Hey, I got screwed over on this deal. Let me tell you about it. But if you ask the question, people want to get that off their soul sometimes, right, about why they are who they are. Yeah, I think Dan could easily take all of this with a little bit of thought process of when he needs to say what he needs to say, at each juncture of the sales process.
I, you know that Because windows sales is probably I would guess in that kind of not quite door to door sales it's probably a little more I call you because I need some windows, but it's close right and you're probably going to be sitting in some dinner tables with some families that are you know, need new windows but maybe you know, that might be the only $5,000 they have in the bank is to replace new windows this year. Right so you're, it's a very the money topic is so touchy, but I will tell you this that everybody's sitting at that table, including the buyers, the one thing that they need to talk about is the money, right, because it is so important. You cannot try to sell around that. I don't know if you guys have ever done this or not. But I I bought when I was probably I think 20 I just got I just got married. We bought a Kirby vacuum. I don't know if you guys know what those are.
We had a Kirby vacuum as a kid. I got a good, I spent a summer selling them.
You know ,they got yeah Exactly so the door to door salesman, they caught me. You know, open the door is one of the hardest lessons I ever learned in my life to be honest with you. What tonight door? Yeah, well they knocked on the door right and then I let them in right because pretty nice guy. Hey, Yeah, come on in. Let's hear your sales pitch. And while we're talking, they vacuum my house. They they shampoo my carpet. And what the hell am I gonna do now? I gotta buy this $1800 vacuum, you know, and I and I got paid on it. I paid on that thing for like five years. You know? And I hated that thing. Every time I vacuumed. I hate it every time my wife vacuumed us. It just stop, throw that thing out, you know, but that was that.
I have a question for you Clint, though. How long before the pots and pans salesman showed up at your door? Yes. You know, they got it.
They're like, they're like a carny ring. Right?
Exactly. They put a little mark on your driveway. So everybody walking by knew you were a mark, man.
Exactly, I got you know, I got sold but I had buyer's remorse. You know, like I just I knew as soon as I walked out, I bought this just just junk, right? And it kills me because if that person and I couldn't afford it. So, you know, that was the other thing too. Like, I couldn't afford it at all, but I got roped into it.
Okay, I have some questions here, right first of all, do you do you have a conscience? I mean, I'm kind of shocked that somebody would come in and just vacuum your carpet and shampoo the carpet. You're like, Oh, hell, I'll buy the thing I can't afford. That seems like such a very, like, compared to the Clint I know who would,
I mean, he said he was young.
I was 20, I didn't know is that it was you know, it was my first place on my own, like it was my first time ever writing a check for rent like this was a lot of first time things. And I just got sold and I learned I learned a lot of valuable lesson probably, you know, what hardens me is situations like that. To be me today right is is getting burned by stuff like that is why don't put up with the things I do today. I'm a naive kid from the Midwest from a cornfield, dude. I don't know what a Kirby vacuum sales guy is, man. Let's hear him out. This guy's got to be honest. Right? Everybody's honest.
When I when I think of you coming out of the womb it's like with like middle fingers blazed and like, you know, screw the world.
So much the opposite. No, it's the opposite I'm I'm I'm more like Nan coming out of the womb and I've developed this hardened shell because I've been screwed and I've been pissed off and but but the thing you know... The point of it is if that guy ever would have had a financial you know, sit down with me, I wouldn't have bought it, he wouldn't have been able to sell it because it would have been too real. And I think as a good salesperson and honest salesperson. You have to have those conversations because it's just the right freakin thing to do.
Because I will tell you Kirby kind of effed up because Clint's not a fan of the word Kirby any longer, that's for sure. And there's a message in that too. You know, if you've got a brand Well guess what, if you want to grow that brand, you better be doing something right for your customers and you better be looking for some satisfaction on their side of the equation. And
I have mentioned that story is so many family get togethers or just friend get togethers, and we've laughed about it because it's funny. Oh, Clint got screwed up, you know, whatever. But it's funny because I can always look around the room. There's always one other person that has done that. And they put their heads down like, yeah, they got me too. I'm like, Yeah, exactly. You know what I'm saying? There's a guy, but that's but that's why salespeople have a terrible reputation in the in the workforce because of shit like that.
Exactly. We do not want to be that salesperson. That's just greediness.
There's a guy from the Kung Fu school who has a AC business right on the on the residential side, and we're talking about sales one day and he was like, man, I Got the easiest sell on the planet? And I said, What do you mean? He's like, dude, I just gotta wait. And I said, What? And he goes, I our AC stuff's expensive, right? And everybody balks at the price. And I'm like, Yeah, okay, because I just had to go through this whole process. And he goes, I'm just gonna sit there with you. Because you know what? As hot as your houses, it's hotter than being in your garage or on your roof or on the side of your house. So like, this is not that bad for me. And I'll just watch that one bead of sweat and I'm like, I'm getting so close.
It's true. That's true.
Absolutely. So we're, we're at time actually. So Dan, I hope this helps. You know, good on you for wanting to stay on the sales side because not a lot of people do. It's kind of the first thing that a lot of people want to get off their plate. Honestly,
But it but I think Dan comes from a great area because he's done the work not just selling a product. He's he understands installation. Hey, Dan, you've got all the key components because you know the physical process. You know, what the labor looks like and the time and the man hours along with probably, you know, a lot of the different window installs. Some may take a little bit more labor some a little bit less. So you're in you're in the sweet spot of, you know, selling which is kind of happened to me too. I don't mean to pat myself on the back, but I came from the clinical environment into medical sales, right? So it scared the shit out of a lot of other reps are like, Man, you have this and that What are you doing here? And I'm like, taking your job, bitch.
I mean, I mean to that point, Doc, I'm the exact same product right? I came out of the field. I put piping systems in, I put ammonia systems in. I I gained this knowledge I got into the sales side. And the reason I became a good salesman is because I had the technical knowledge to sit down and talk with people so that when they bought something, they felt confident in whoever I worked for. And it was funny because it would say, I could always say this one line. Well, why don't we put this system in? I'd say there's a reason I worked for this system. Right? Yeah. And because they knew me as an installer, or because they had the background as an installer that said, well, the guy put them in for years. He's got to be right. Yeah. Why would he? Why would he want to sell a piece of crap system?
And that's where Dan can take that. Trust when you say, hey, before I used to come to people I used to come after the sale was made, right? I was the guy doing the screwing in, pulling the old stuff out. And here's here's what I know about this. And then that is such a trust builder when somebody can talk about that.
How many times have you had a you switch from let's say Dish Network to AT&T right? And the installer comes he says, I used to work from I used to work for Dish. Those guys screw you on everything. Let me tell you about the AT&T system, you know, yeah. But you can be that guy because now I have a lot of rapport with the the AT&T guy because hey, if you used to work for Dish and tell me all the ins and outs, now AT&T may have the same exact things, but I have a level of trust with that guy and now I instantly hate Dish. You know, it's just the way it goes. Yeah, use it.
You know, I, I kind of have that same thing, right I work in tech and I'm a robot with no feelings or emotions. So you know, I get the best. I get the best of both worlds as well. I'm just like Al.
Only not as handsome and not as smart.
True, true.
Oh shit, I don't know about. Yeah, no, you're not as old, so don't confuse intelligence with age. Age will get you there. Right? You will know more at 56 than you did at 30 guys, it just happens. whether you want to or not.
We're gonna end on that nugget right before Clint gets another barb in there. If you have a sales question, if you're hung up on something, if you're not sure what you are, if you want to take the assessment, shoot me a text 817-345-7449. We'll talk about in the show we'll get you hooked up. Also, if you just want alerts about when the stuff is coming out. We're gonna start having some guests. We talked about that. So if you want to be a guest on the show, let me know. Shoot me a text. Follow us on all the social media. Everything is at Sales Throwdown. If you're watching this on YouTube, thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed my hat and Clint's flag, and we will see everybody next week. Thank you so much, everybody. Cheers.