How To Handle The On The Fence Shopper To Make Them Buy?

It would be a waste to let go of the on-the-fence shopper, especially if what they need is that one little push to buy from you. How do you handle them and make them convert? Sam Wakefield has the answer, and in this episode, he shares the two things that really drive people to actually buy—the logic and the emotion. He walks us through the process and how you can frame your sales to get the results you want. Join Sam in this brief yet insightful episode to learn how to take your on-the-fence shopper’s foot off the brake and put it on the gas instead.

I wanted to discuss an important topic, especially in the spring and fall. When we’re in between peak seasons, it’s not crazy hot and cold. In fact, the weather is about near-perfect outside. What do we do to increase that urgency? What do we do when the leads that are coming in or things that are like, “I want to see what it’s going to be like, the ones we traditionally call tire kickers?” How do we get those tire kickers to buy when they think, “We’re getting prices for the fact of getting prices. We’re probably not going to do anything until maybe next summer or winter.” What do we do with that?

In our team, we’re having a rash of those appointments, but at the same time, there is a way to do that. First of all, what you have to understand is there are two things that drive people to buy. There’s the logical side and emotional side of the brain. The best analogy for this that I love to use and that makes the most sense when we are talking about sales, especially in heating and air is imagine you’re in a car, the logical side of the brain is the steering wheel. That logic will point the wheels in the right direction.

Logic is people are understanding that you are the person that they want to buy from, your company is the company they want to buy from, and your product is the product that they want to buy. Everything you’re recommending and the project is the right project that’s going to be the solution for the problems that you’ve uncovered through your investigation process. That’s the logical side of things. That’s the understanding and realizing, “All of these things are lining up.” However, logic is only the steering wheel. It’s only going to turn the wheels, but the emotion is the gas pedal. What do we do to help them take their foot off of the brake and put their foot on the gas to take action with those decisions and with the things that all of the solutions that you’re recommending as the steering wheel? What do we do to get them to put on the gas to take action right away and immediately? That way, you can start making those sales in the off-season instead of, “When is a good time to follow up?” They’ll tell you, “Maybe five months from now.” It’s like, “Why am I even here?” How do we do that? The best is to start with a good investigation process.

With that, I’m putting into the files of the Facebook group, the homeowner questionnaire that I have for you as a gift. As soon as Facebook will cooperate with me, look in the file section. Your homeowner questionnaire is the first place to start sitting down with people. Here’s a simple way to do it, especially for all you service techs out there. A lot of service techs reach out to me like, “All of this sounds great in a sales appointment, but how do I apply it to a service visit?” I know a lot of you guys may have smaller shops, you do the service, the sales, and all. The best way to roll into that is, “Mr./Ms. Jones, I understand that maybe your heat is not working. Before I get started, would you mind if I asked you a few questions that way I can serve you best?” Of course, they’ll always say yes. When you asked this, “I’m going to fix the problem why you called and we’re going to figure what that out is. Before I get started, would you mind if I ask you a few questions so I can help you best I can serve you best?”

With those questions, that’s when you start asking, “When some rooms are warm, are there others that are cold? When some rooms are cool, are there other rooms that are too hot? Who in the house is experiencing asthma or allergies?” Don’t ask, “Does anyone?” Ask, “Who does?” It’s because somebody always does. If they don’t, they’ll tell you they don’t. Ask who is experiencing those problems. Are your electric and gas bills higher than you would like it to be?” The answer is yes. Let’s start with this investigation process. This is the time of year that you’ve got to peel that onion on each layer of questions when they tell you, “My daughter’s room is a little colder in the winter.” That’s when you have to follow it up with, “How so? Tell me more about that. Can we go take a look?” Start to ask questions to uncover how bad the problem is like, “Is that a concern?”

I’m working with a guy and he was in a house with someone. The homeowner was a tire kicker person but raised this interesting problem is like, “My whole dining table area is always hot. What can you do about it? These two bedrooms are always hot. Is there a problem? What can be done? That’s why I called you.” This is important to understand. In the initial call, what it said on the lead log, the first part of the conversation that they were having was, “I’m getting some prices to find out how much it’s going to be when I decide to replace my heating and air system.” What was uncovered that he mentioned was, “I’ve got these problem temperature areas, is there anything that can be done with that?” There are two different ways you can go about it. You can start by asking yourself, “Why am I here? You’re not planning on doing anything for a few months.” That’s the lazy way out of this situation. That is the way to say, “Write it up to another tire kicker estimate.” The way to go about handling that and the way to capitalize on those moments would be to ask them more about it and take the time to figure out what the problem is and find out what the solution is.

We’ve talked about it so much. Yes, the lead came in as a tire kicker lead. However, if he’s bringing up problems that he’s having, that means he’s saying, “I want to fix this.” When they sit down at the dinner table, it’s always hot, capitalize on those moments and how to do that is this. This is how to grab a hold of the emotion of the sale. You figure out what the solution is because there’s always a solution for most things. In our case, talking about equipment to about $2,500 to $3,000 worth of ductwork, changes, modifications, air balance, all of this stuff.

The homeowner had even mentioned, “Maybe we could add a vent in here because there’s no vent in this dining area. We don’t want to blow it right down on the table.” The way to turn this conversation is instead of saying, “When you want to do the system, when it’s time for that, we can fix all these problems.” Increase the urgency and the emotion. Crank that knob up to have turned the conversation into, “That’s no problem. We fix this every single day. I’m glad you called us because we’re the right company.” Once you figure it out, say, “No problem. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to add the vent over here. We’re going to get rid of those silly triangle cheese boxes in your attic. We’re going to run everything consistently together into home runs. We’re going to put in dampers, do a complete air balance and we’ve got to do new plenums.” All these were the solutions for this specific situation.

Here’s the turning point. You’ve already gone through the emotional stuff, mentally, put them back in that place and be like, “Mr./Mrs. Jones, remember when you were sitting there in the middle of the summer and it was hot. You couldn’t even eat in the dining room on the hottest days because it was hot. Imagine what it’s going to be like once we’ve done this and it’s the 4th of July, you’ve got people over and you’re sitting here and it’s just as cool as the rest of the house. That’s going to be awesome. Let’s go ahead and get you on the books and get that taken care of now while we’re in the fall specials that are happening. We’ve got some killer rebates going on. Let’s go ahead and get it knocked out. That way, you can also stay warm during the winter. It’s going to even out the temperatures in the house and then every single time you sit down here, it’s going to be the same as the rest of the house. Why don’t we go ahead and get you on the calendar?”

That is tapping into the emotional side of the project. The logic side was, “We’re going to do this with the ductwork, or we’re going to do this and this.” They don’t care about that. You only have to explain that enough until they understand and check in with them. “Do you see how this is going to fix your problem?” “Yes.” You then turn the corner to the emotional side. You’ve steered the steering wheel with the logic. You put them in the right place and to the fact that they understand what is going to fix it, then you do the emotional side. That’s where like, “Remember when it was uncomfortable in here. We were talking about how bad it was and how bad you hated this part of the house. Imagine what it’s going to be like when you can sit here and it’s the same temperature. It’s exactly where you have it set. It’s as comfortable here as it is in any other part of the house, that’s going to be awesome.”