Gene Slade: Leading Questions

So still have the solo podcast released on Monday, and the interview podcast released on Friday, and today will not disappoint. I was so excited to connect with this gentleman. I know you probably saw it in the notes. So, Mr. Gene Slade is our guest today. Uh, if you’ve been around the HVAC or trades industries at all, you know, this man doesn’t really need much of an introduction.

He is a super tech, a lead ninja. Well, absolutely. His track record is 10. X-ing your service tickets? I mean, who else can say that with the amount of collateral to back it up in the testimonies and the history. So I’m not going to go on and on about this because we want to dive into the content today.

Gene and I have the opportunity to chat a bit a couple of times, uh, preparing for this podcast and it’s a topic that I know that you have all been wanting to, uh, wanting to hear more about. I’ve been getting a lot of questions about it, which is kind of a teaser into one of our main topics today. But you know, you hear me say a lot of times if you can tell it, or you can ask it as a question, always ask it as a question. Always use the problem with most people is you’re not using enough questions and there’s not a single objection. You can’t overcome this by asking more questions. So that is one of our main topics today. But before we get into all that, Mr. Gene Slade, thank you for being on the podcast today. I’m so excited to hang out with you for this bit

Gene Slade: I’m excited. I’m jacked, man. I’m ready to go. I mean, let’s do this. Absolutely. Some people, some stuff let’s make some people some money. That’s what I’m about, man. I want to help somebody out there more than one person. I want to help everybody we can to make more money but to work less doing it. And to be able to get home for dinner on time

Sam Wakefield: A hundred percent. That is a hundred percent our philosophy here. I love how it aligns, with this podcast. So yeah, let’s do it. So before we get into it, let’s get, give us a, I know every single time we talk or you speak or you’re on a recording, there is somebody listening to that doesn’t know who you are. So let’s give them a quick history, give them a super nutshell of who you are, why you’re here. What got you here and what, you know, kind of, what’s your focus?

Gene Slade: Absolutely. So guys, my, I grew up in this business, my father owned his own heating and air conditioning business. Um, you guys heard two chucks in the truck, right?

We were two Genes in a truck. We were the guys that literally we would do two or three air conditioners a day and we were, the beer can cold guys. Right? You grab a hold of the suction line. As soon as it’s called the beer camp, roll them up. Get out of that. And, uh, I didn’t ever hear of a micron gauge before you kidding me, but I was 11. My father needed some help with his business and so he recruited me and he said, boy, if you want food, you want clothes come to work. So it wasn’t really, there wasn’t really an option. You know, it was a family business. So I began to follow him around with his tool bag and take stuff out of the basement that he didn’t need anymore and eventually by the time I was 14, I would be well, 13, I’d be wiring up the outdoor system, leveling the pad, putting the disconnect on the wall. Like I knew the entire outdoor system. Fished, aligned, set into them from outside, and cut them the whole. All of it, you know, a little, whole hog, you know, try to knock me out. But, um, and then by the time I was 15, um, I was qualified to do the indoor system, the outdoor system, like everything and my dad was a perfectionist. That was the one thing that he really instilled in me was that if you’re going to do something, do it. Right. Right. So he hired, he bought another truck for himself. Gave me the old piece of shit. Chuck hired me a helper who was 25 years old and said, Gene, you’re now leaving. Sweet. Right. So shortly after that, I became an installation foreman at a mechanical shop. I wrestled at the University of Tennessee for a little bit, and then came back and got back into business.

And, um, so 19 I was a foreman at a big mechanical shop, 21, I got into sales and I never looked back. I mean, I loved sales. What pissed me off though, before I got into sales, I was an installer. And if you’re an installer out there, this, this show is for you. At least as far as I’m concerned, because that’s me, I’m an installer. So I’m making 42 grand a year as an installer. I heard that the salesman who sold the equipment that I was installing, who he couldn’t even install it himself. He’s just talking to the client that he was making like 120 grand. Yeah. I’m like son of a bitch, you gotta be kidding. I wonder if anybody gives me the opportunity to do that.

Right. So, um, I sent out 50 resumes to Michigan, 50 resumes to Florida traveled down to Florida for a week. Did a bunch of interviews, never heard of a maintenance technician position. Believe it or not. And that’s what everybody wanted me to take, but I’ve been selling multi-millions for years, right, three years in a row. And I was like, no, I don’t want to do that. So eventually I came down here and helped another company grow from a million and a half to $8 million in three years, that was in Tampa Bay. And, um, I was the general manager at the time and I gave this speech like I did every morning to 42 technicians, I would train them every morning. And one morning the owners both met in the back of the room and that was weird cause they didn’t like each other. So they were never seen together. I’m like something was weird. So they called me back, and told me my services were no longer needed because I had, I passed my mechanical contractors exam like accidentally. I didn’t take anything. And I got like a 78 on the test and they’re like, you, you pass, you can get a license. I’m like, holy shit. But my boss found out and he fired me. I was nowhere near, ready to start a company. I had a hundred dollars between four bank accounts because I was paying off all my bills.

Right. And the good thing is I had good credit.

So they fired me. I got a 50-mile non-compete, with this company, I got a five-week-old baby boy who had just been cut out of my ex-wife’s stomach. And, uh, you know, I, what am I going to do? So I went home and I said, Hey, listen, we’re moving to Florida. We’re moving to Southwest Fort Myers. I went and took as many credit cards as I could get out. But before I did that, I went to the bank of, or the dealership, on the exact same day. And I bought two trucks because I knew that if the bank realized I didn’t have a job, they wouldn’t give me the trucks. So within two hours of losing my job, I purchased two trucks, loaded them up, got caps on them, got a bunch of inventory. Oh, here here’s. Here’s the great thing. Um, I got approved for like 26 different credits. It was awesome.

I was 70-something thousand dollars in debt before I ran my first call and I had a bitch of a time getting my license. That’s a whole different story, but fast forward six and a half years later, I sell the company for a seven-figure profit. Uh, we were doing over $2 million a year in, um, just IAQ sales. And I had developed a radio show on talk radio, like Rush Limbaugh, like Sean Kennedy, those stations, that was bringing in two to three new, two to 3000 new customers a year.

Wow. So, um, it was amazing. And then I just, I felt like I was just done. I was burnt out and I just, sold it really quick. I sold it in two weeks and it was all cash. And I went into semi-retire semi-retirement. I had a two-week deal with the company that bought it. I said I’d stay on for two weeks. But after that, I’m out. Peace is gone and we have a little bidding war with him.

Sam Wakefield: I’m sure most of those two weeks, it was like, you know, moving the desk, moving their stuff out of the office. It’s not actually working.

Gene Slade: I didn’t move shit, man. I sold them. Everything, nothing I’m out peace. You can keep you keep phones and keep them. So, um, I’m sitting on my couch five months later and I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do cause I’m getting. And I was like, hell, I’ll sell that radio show to other people. And so I did, I took a 26-page script, put other companies’ names and it made sure they were willing to do the tune-up the way that I promised that I was going to do another radio. And then I bought the airtime forum and I just started to ring every time the phone rang.

So every time they got an appointment for a new maintenance on the weekend, and I got just, you know, in Dallas, I got 82 appointments in an hour.

Sam Wakefield: Oh, geez.

Gene Slade: 82 appointments in one hour. My very first show was in Tampa Bay and I got 42 appointments in an hour. And on January 6th, when you can’t sell air conditioning or tune-ups right, right? So we created this demand and then I ran into another problem. I’m sorry, this is going long. But I ran into the problem. And that was, that was that um, I was collecting maybe a hundred thousand dollars a year from each of these claims. Generating 2000 leads a year for them and their technicians weren’t closing deals.

Right? So if you’re paying, if you’re paying a quarter million dollars a year, maybe on radio advertising, like I was, and your, your guys aren’t closing deals, that’s a problem. Right. So I ended up eventually having to go out and teach everybody how to make money on tune-ups right. Not selling equipment because let’s face it, one of a 10 is an equipment opportunity. Sure. Right. Yeah. What do you do the other 90% of the time you get kicked in the balls? Right. You ended up with 0 tickets. Next thing you know, you’re feeling like shit, right? I didn’t want to do that and frankly, for the first two years that I operated my company, I didn’t tell you this. We didn’t even sell air conditioners or furnaces.

Sam Wakefield: No, Jesus, no equipment.

Gene Slade: We were 100% maintenance and service and we just sold the shit out of IAQ. Well, we sold a million bucks in IAQ within the first 18 months. So I’m like. Yeah. And, and that radio show, by the way, we did free tune-ups off of it. They were free. Yeah. We go out and do free. And our average ticket was $1,032 and 72.3, 6% closing ratio. You can tell I’m a numbers guy, right?

Sam Wakefield: If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it.

Gene Slade: So I ended up going out and starting to do on-site. I created a virtual platform, all the sales training I use with my guys to hit the INC 5,000, In three years, we had three awards. You’re the 59th fastest growing construction company in the country, and all industries, all construction. And privately held that’s that’s the key. Um, but, uh, yeah, now I teach people how to do that. I teach them how to add a million, 2 million, $10 million in indoor air quality sales, water, polluted water, and treatment sales to their tickets when there’s not an equipment replacement opportunity.

Oh. And I teach the ductwork, ductwork side too. Like if you guys aren’t selling ductwork at, you don’t know what’s going on, I’ve been still on two, 10, and $15,000 ductwork systems for:

Sam Wakefield: Absolutely a hundred percent, man. Yeah. I love that. You’re going through this cause that’s a lot of my background too, is, you know, for years. Some of the podcast listeners may know that some of them don’t, I owned a division of a home performance company, and I started it grew up for five years, and then sold it in, uh, up in the Texas panhandle. And that was our, that was our thing. You know, we did everything besides the equipment, you know?

Sure. We were partnered with the eight-track company also, but, you know, we were doing $30,000 projects that didn’t have any equipment in them.

Gene Slade: Dude. I was so blessed. The first HVAC job that I got and remember I said, I sent out a hundred resumes, the place that I went to, I didn’t even submit a resume to, I just called them out of the phone book. They had one of the bigger ads. It turns out they were the most expensive company in the area. And I didn’t know that they were 10, 15% more than everybody else. And I had no sales experience. Right. What a beautiful place to start. Think about that trial-by-fire learning. Yeah. Learning how to sell that way and we did the blower door there, so like that, I didn’t hope for home performance stuff constantly. And so I think that’s why I was able to jump into an air conditioning company. And so all this other stuff. Right? Slow pencils. Like, I mean, just amazing. Yeah. I love that side of the business and people don’t realize contractors out there. You don’t realize you’re only scooping up a third of the cash that the customers have for the HVAC.

Sam Wakefield: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. She is. There’s so much. And the industry has done such a poor job of educating people that don’t even know it exists until Google comes in and takes over owners, allowing them to take over our space.

Gene Slade: Elon Musk is doing it. Now, guys, he’s putting, he’s putting HEPA filters in the new additions of some of the higher-end Teslas, the new model S I’m looking at the plat edition myself, and that thing’s got to have a filter in it. Elon Musk is doing it. You guys we are idiots. We’re absolute idiots that we haven’t taken advantage of this and beyond today, if you don’t take advantage of it and beyond today, now that you have the information, it won’t be that you don’t know what you don’t know. You’ll have the tools and some guides today after we’re done with this, and if you don’t use it you’re a fool. Yep. Sorry. Right, right now it’s not your fault, but after this, it will be your fault.

If you don’t take action, you don’t do something.

Sam Wakefield: A hundred percent, hundred percent, so. Cool. Cool. Awesome. So let’s, let’s dive in. Let’s get into some stuff, actually, that segue what you were just talking about, segues into one of the questions that I wanted to ask you today, that was specifically. Surrounding when you started in a company that was 10, 15% higher. Because as you know, as a sales trainer, as a coach, you get this question probably more than just about anything else. How do I handle your price being so much higher? Objection at the end, everything was great, but the other guy is this much less. So I would love to hear your perspective just as a quick one on how you handle that.

Gene Slade: I am begging them to tell me it’s the money guys. You guys realize that you can’t handle it. I want to think of about it. Absolutely. That’s not an objection. And that’s the objection. No, it’s a fricking smoke screen. It’s a, I’m going to be polite and not tell you what I really want. I really think people are wired for cooperation. So it’s actually painful to not be cooperative, which is why they give you a brush-off. They’re trying to be polite. They’re trying to be nice. They don’t want to hurt your feelings and they don’t want to have conflict themselves. Right. So we’re going to think about it, we’ll call you is bullshit. If it were free, would you tell me you needed to think about it? Well, of course not. No. No. So then it’s the money. Yeah, a hundred percent. So I wouldn’t go at it from that perspective. But if somebody tells me that it’s the money, like I’m, I’m flabbergasted, I’m super excited that I got to skip all those other steps.

Cause usually I’ve got, I’ve got to, I’ve got to eliminate the veil that, you know, the, I want to think about it. Um, and here’s, here’s one other thing from Ron Smith when a man says, I want to think about it, he already thought about it and stopped thinking. Love it, but that’s, it don’t let that sink in for a minute guys. When a man says, I want to think about it, he already thought about it and stopped thinking holy shit. Right. So the first thing, first thing, if they tell me my price is too, I’m probably gonna repeat it back in the form of a question like Charlie Greer would, you know, they say your price is too high. My price is too high? And shut up. I won’t say more, right? Because you don’t, you don’t know what it is. Maybe, maybe it’s too high compared to what they were expecting to pay. Maybe it’s $12,000 and their budget was 10. And you need them to say that if they say that that’s wonderful, you get to, you get to go. Okay. Perfect. Would you like to look at something a little bit cheaper or would you just like to use one of our payment plans? Like everybody else for the extra two? Right, right. If they say it’s 12 grand.. shit my neighbor got one for 6,500. That’s a completely different process. Isn’t it. Right now. I got to say something like, would you like to know why more people choose us for this type of work, regardless of any difference in price? Or would you like to know why more people invest $12,000 on a new home comfort system with us when they can get a furnace and air conditioner down the street for 6k?

What are they going to say? Well, of course, I do. Yes. They’re going to give you an opportunity to tell them why you’re more expensive. And just for the record, y’all 84% of the population said, says, Todd Lyles, you guys might know him. He says that 84% of the population buys based on value, not on price. And at 16, 15 to 16% buys solely on price. The problem a lot of times too, is they ain’t even on the right product. I agree, the product doesn’t make them feel good product. Don’t make them feel good. You just go peddle a bunch of 13, 14 sear, 80% bullshit, trying to make people feel good with that. Right. There are no benefits in that stuff other than, um, oh, um, oh, that’s it. What’s there to get excited about? What’s there to get excited about?

Sam Wakefield: Exactly what we’ve talked a lot about is that people don’t care what the price is, what they care about is, how is it going to make them feel. They don’t care how it is. What they want to know is how is it going to make them feel.

Gene Slade: A hundred percent and you’ve got to transport them into that world before it even happens. Right. So here’s, here’s an example, your, your, uh, you know, so-and-so says so-and-so could give me one for nine grand. Sure. Awesome. Beautiful. Um, would you like to know why more people chose us for 12 grand instead of them for nine grand? No, of course, they’re going to say yes.

Now I’m going to hit them with features, advantages, and benefits. Right? We’ve all heard about features and benefits, but a lot of people miss out on the advantages part too. And we don’t have time to get into that today, but I’m going to say something like, well, we’ve been in business for 20 years or we’re in over 5,000 homes a year. That’s what I used to say. Cause we were a young company, right? I’d go we’re in over 5,000 homes a year, which means that we know the codes, the climate, the construction, the homes in the area, and we know what works and what doesn’t your, job’s not going to be a testing ground or a training laboratory, jobs going to get done right the first time, which is going to save you time and money. We’re going to use drug-tested techniques. Drug tests and technicians have clear heads, make your mistakes, and show up to work more often. Yeah, all of our guys are background, checked the jail, the number one and number two trades being taught in the prison, and plumbing with air pyro heating and cooling, which was the first company that I was with you, your family, and even your belongings are protected, right? I’m going to hit them with at least I’m going to be prepared with at least 25 or 30 reasons for them to buy from me. I’m not putting everybody else down. Right. Um, we prioritize our warranty calls most feet, and contractors only do warranty calls Monday through Friday, eight to five. When you use us, you get to speed past the front of the line and you get service right away, seven days a week. Right. I got to hit them with enough benefits to where it becomes overwhelming and they feel good enough to stop me. Cause guys, it’s rare that I get through 30 features in bed.

Sam Wakefield: Usually that’s enough.

Gene Slade: Well, yeah, they’ll do that. Or, and they do what you just did. They smile, their eyes light up their pupils dilate. Right? If you, and if you have this stuff memorized, if you can memorize your features and benefits and then give them to a customer from memory and not struggle to do so you can start to watch their body. You guys realize that 85 to 93% of communication is body language, tone, and inflection. Right? Right. I can see, am I getting head-nodding had nodding a buying sign? Am I getting pupil dilation? Did they smile? If they smile, what’s going on inside the brain? You guys realize that’s endorphins, right? I know they’re feeling good, they’re chemically enhanced time to ask them to buy. Cause all the sounds good to you. Does all this look good to you? Depending on whether or not they’re visual or auditory. And you do that by looking at their eyes and they go, we’re not going to get into that. Right.

Sam Wakefield: Oh, you know, I’ve done on tire podcast on that. Where I talk, we’ve talked about when you go in their house, if they have art hanging up, use, use visual stuff.

Do you use it, does this look good to you? If they have music stuff, does this sound good? Just pay attention to a:

Gene Slade: Hundred percent, hundred percent. You talked to them in the language that they liked. Send and receive information and then remember to talk to them in third to fifth-grade reading levels. Right. If the word’s got four syllables in it, don’t say it right. Make America Great, again. Okay. I think that makes one civil America, everybody loves America, right? So you’ve shared away.

Yeah. So guys like the price objection. That’s the one that you want. And if you don’t want it, it’s because you’re not prepared. You’re not having somebody like Sam or somebody like me help you or cutting down the fucking trees yourself to build the road. Excuse the vernacular. But you all right? I don’t want to cut.

I don’t want to blaze a new road if I don’t have to. I will, if I have to, but I’d rather drive on the man’s road. And pay a toll and speed up my learning curve. You guys can spend 20 years like I did, or 30 years, like I did to get where I’m at or a hundred percent pay a little bit of money and accelerate it.

I just spent, I’ve spent $40,000 in the last 90 days on my own personal education. Right. Why the hell would I do that? People pay me 50 grand to come out and work with them. Or 2,500 bucks an hour to do zooms like this, right? Why would I need to continue my education?

Sam Wakefield: Got it. Always be, always be growing, right?

You’re either growing or you’re moving backward.

Gene Slade: One of the two. Well, yeah, and if I don’t continue to learn, then I wouldn’t expect you guys to stick around.

Sam Wakefield: A hundred percent, man. Love it.

Gene Slade: It’s a good power for you.

Sam Wakefield: Good things come to those who go out and go out and fucking hustle. Love it. Yes. These birthday gifts and stuff all the time. I have a podcast coming while you’re taking a sip though, a podcast coming, you know, there’s something that people don’t do in our industry that I’m learning in other industries is go out and work. People complain all the time about what are we doing in the off-season. I might go knock on some freaking doors, man, walk down the street, and listen for the loud air conditioner. Knock on their door. Hey, I couldn’t help but notice your air conditioner.

Gene Slade: Instead they’ll make excuses. One of the other guys that I was in a mastermind with Ryan Stewman, he handed me a chip one time, I’m going to have them remade. It’s a poker chip and it’s an FYE on one side of it. And the other side, it said, fuck your excuse. Yeah. And I loved that again. Excuse me, for getting your attention with these F-bombs right. But after your excuses, you can make either make excuses or you can, you can get the learning, right? Yeah. You can’t make both.

So yeah, a hundred percent go knock on the fricking door. What the hell is wrong with you? You just got a call. If you’re not knocking on the three doors across from you and the two next to you, you’re fricking lazy anyways. And you’re suckling at the teet of the company. You’re not really actually. Being a super productive member of that company, unless you’re doing $7 million like Brent Buckley, right? Absolutely. But you want to, you want to learn how to go out and generate your own business guys. Some of you want to have a business one day, but you won’t go across the street and knock on the door and say, hi, I’m with ABC heating and cooling. Just as a part of our standards, we let everybody know who we are when we’re working in the neighborhood.

We couldn’t think of a good reason. You weren’t a client of ours.

Sam Wakefield: Love it.

Gene Slade: Right. I didn’t, I stole that. I stole that from John Young, right? Jim Abrams and John Young. That’s what he would do. I heard that 20 years ago. So just knock on the door. Hey, just wanted to let you know, we’re in the neighborhood. We’re doing a new air conditioner for, cause he has been clean lately. We couldn’t think of a reason you weren’t a customer of ours, did you? Did you have an existing agreement? Can we clean it for you for free? Just to show you how good we are today before. Nice. I mean, what, what do you get to lose? I told you I did free tune-ups for two freaking years and had $1,032 average ticket. Of course, maybe you’re not confident that you can do that, but again, accelerate your learning by purchasing stuff. Right.

Sam Wakefield: Brian Chosey, we can’t learn everything and we don’t live long enough to learn it all. So learn it from the, from other people.

Gene Slade: I’ve got two programs. I’m going to, starting tomorrow, there three days back to back.

One of them is $10,000 a ticket. It’s me and my girlfriend that are going she’s my, one of my business managers and the other one is like 5,000 a ticket. Right? We’re going, we’re going to be there. And as soon as I booked it, I realized shit, I got to get a hotel. All the hotels are sold out. Now I’m looking at $1,100 a night for a freaking hotel. So like there’s 25 grand guys. Why in the hell would I invest in myself? Cause I get it back, I make sure I get it back. Yeah. And people who pay, pay attention. Absolutely problem. I would make a way bigger impact on somebody. If I charged them $2,500 for this hour, then for it to be free. Hmm. Great.

Sam Wakefield: When I started coaching, I had, my prices were so low. Nobody was getting results. So I tripled them immediately and we started to see results and then I upped it again and now the results are like through the roof.

Gene Slade: So up it again, yeah. Right. So because people that pay attention, and if you pay 25 grand for a weekend, um, I promise you, you’re going to pay attention. You’re going to feel that and you got to fit. And guys that are out there that are not investing in themselves technicians and stuff. You’ve got bosses out there. I’ve heard a bit bullshit. Like my boss don’t put any shady player. Are you shitting me? Like I put in my own CD player two years ago into my work truck. Just take the damn thing with you. When you go, when seriously, you’re going to let a hundred dollars stand in between you and your, you, your success, your future. Don’t wait for your boss to invest in you. Take ownership. You’ll be, you’ll be, you’ll be waiting 10 years.

Sam Wakefield: That’s it take radical responsibility for your own life. Let’s let’s yeah, let’s get into the, kind of the bulk of what words were written to talk about today. And this is something that we, everybody says, okay, ask more questions, ask more questions. What do you mean by that? You know, there are lots of different types of questions we can ask, but the most powerful ones are,

leading questions. I’ve heard you do this and podcasts and some of your training I’ve trained on this a lot, but some actual practical examples and actionable items people can take and use a meeting. Yeah, that’s what I’m all about in my, in my podcast as well. So let’s talk about leading questions. How do we get the customers to be real? Basically, they have the epiphany on their own. We are asking the questions in a way that they realize where we’re headed before we get there, even though we’re, we’re leading them down that path and so it feels like their idea at the same time and they smile and they’re happy and will happily buy.

Gene Slade: It’s the, it’s the best way of educating a customer. I hate that term. I would never, ever, ever use that term or “I like to educate my customers”. Guess what? That’s somebody who doesn’t sell a lot. Right? Enlightening them is what Charlie Greer would have called it. Right. I lightened him getting them to come to a conclusion. Right. So the way that I do that is through the use of questions like you’re talking about, and I’m going to give you a simple sales/life hack.

You can use this with your kids. You can use it in your business. Right? As a matter of fact, I’ll give you six of them. Let’s pull this bad boy over here.

Sam Wakefield: Love it for this down for everybody. That’s listening to the audio. What, we’re on Zoom here and we’re recording this, uh, Gene has the super awesome new screen where he’s riding on.

And so it’s a, it’s a like a whiteboard timestamp. So the video will be posted for everybody to be able to come back and review this part visually as well.

Gene Slade: Cool. So there are six ways. Is it, is it forward or backward? We’re good words to me. So it would be forwarded to you. So, so, and I’m going to shut this off, so we get less of this.

Sam Wakefield: Oh yeah,

Gene Slade: that’s cool. Right there. Beautiful. So, so let’s do surge protection for instance and I’m sorry about the camera. I’m gonna have to hold this. This is the first time I’ve used this board in here. There we go. So surge protection. When I go onsite at these places and I do my two-day or my four-day classes, everybody’s the first thing I asked them to do is sell me a surge protector.

And inevitably people begin to puke all over. Like just give me information, information, and information. And if, if I’m lucky, they’ll ask me at the end, do you want one? Right.

What I do is information-based selling. I’m giving them information, but I’m going to give them the information to formulate questions. So here’s an example of search protection. The first thing you’ve got to do is ask them why in the hell they don’t have it. Yeah. All right. And you ask them in a way that is like, you see it everywhere you go.

Like you’d have to be a moron, almost not have surge protection. Right. So I’ll go. Why don’t you have surge protection and I’ll get the Eleven’s involved. You know what the Eleven’s are, right? He’s right here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. It’s one of these, these right here, squint. That’s called the 11. Does anybody who does Botox know that? I obviously don’t cause mine are still there. Right. But um, why don’t you have search protection? Why don’t you have a water treatment system? Why don’t you have a filtration system? Like, that’s the question, right? Why don’t you have a surge protection?

Sam Wakefield: We’re just making concerns that they don’t have it.

Gene Slade: Yeah. And for those of you who are scared about saying this to clients that you sold systems to, like another member of your team, did you’re afraid of the client going, why didn’t you tell me that when I put the system right? Just go, I don’t know. I wasn’t here. And then ask them a question alright? And that question should be something like this. I don’t know why I wasn’t here, but did you know that in Louisiana, we get over 800,000 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes a year? And when that happens, we get in-home surgery. All right. So I started, I gave him a piece of information.

Are you ready? Here’s the piece of information in Louisiana, we get over 800,000 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes a year. And when that happens again, now I’m preaching at you there, right? Very quickly. You’re going to shut me up. Your brain is going to shut off and you’re going to go on a day trip while I lay down and then push them back information.

Yeah. You’ll notice this look, it’s the glassy-eyed look, the deer-in-the-headlights look that a client gives you, right? If I continue to talk it, then that’s what’s going to happen. Instead. I said, did you know that when we get over 800,000 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes a year here, that when that happens again, in-home surges, they’re going to go?

No, they might even say that. Right. But in their mind, they will answer that question. No, many of the questions I asked I’ll ask in succession, like one right after another, and I know that their brain is answering it while I’m doing it. And they never even say anything and their, their, their body is moving. Right. Super cool. Yeah.

So second question would be, did you know that when you get an in-home surge, that your compressors and your motors can go cherry red on the inside? Do you think that’s good? What do you suppose that does to the reliability of your system? Can’t be good. How about the lifespan? Probably the same. Um, have you ever purchased a compressor before? They’re like, no. So then you weren’t aware that a new compressor could cost you as much as $3,500. No, I wasn’t. Can you see now why all of our clients just get surge protection instead of replacing expensive compressors and motors? And they’re like, yeah. If they say yes, that was a trial close by the way, guys. Right. Can you see now why all of our clients just get surge protection instead of, you can say that with a filter, can you see now? I, all of our clients just get good filters instead of letting their systems get all gunked up and having us clean them all the time and spending a lot more money on electric bills. Can you see now why I say that you’re paying for a filter, whether you get one or not? If I can get somebody to agree that they’re paying for something, whether they get it or not, I can get them to get it. All right. So here’s the tips. Here’s the hacks. You’re ready. Hopefully, the computer will stay good with us.

Number one, write these down, guys, write them down, put them in your truck, um, and practice these because these will make you millions of dollars. They have made me millions. Okay. Ready? Did you know? I’m going to go shorter on this. Were you aware? Those are two, the two questions that I just gave you in that script. Did you know this? Were you aware of that? You add these three words, did the beginning of the information that you’re going to give a client. All right. So stop talking at them. Put these three words in. Change the tone a little bit. And you’ll have a question that will keep your clients engaged and not allow them to fall asleep on you. Is it a good idea to allow them to fall asleep on you? Of course not. How many questions have I actually asked you guys in this presentation? How many questions am I asking you guys? And this is what I’m doing with you. The exact same thing that I’m talking about you doing with yours. Can you see that? I practice what I preach.

Do the questions keep coming? Do you see how good you can get at this? If you actually practice it. Did I just do it again? No, you weren’t aware. You see how I took this one. Were you aware? And then I flipped it. So you weren’t aware. I did that when I asked them if they’d ever purchased a compressor before and they said, no, And then I went, so you weren’t aware that a new compressor could cost you 2500 to $3,500. Do you want the eyes to get wide at that stage of the game? When the eyes get wide, we just justified what you’re talking about doing to protect their investment and stop bullshitting people and talking about your, you want to protect your investment? No, I’m giving you the script here. Don’t change it. Okay. I gave it to you. Rewind the tape, and write it down. Word for word.

I gave you the exact script to go out and make yourself at least another thousand dollars in revenue every single day. If you’re a performance pay technician, that’s 150 bucks a day, $750 a week, $37,500 a year. You can thank me later. Okay. Use it. I promise you. Those are the results that you’ll have. Uh, did you know where you were, so you weren’t aware, so you didn’t know? And then give them the piece of information. So you didn’t know that a compressor was going to cost you 2,500 bucks if you had to replace it. So you weren’t aware that just one 32nd of an inch of buildup on your blower wheel or reduce your airspeed by 20%. So you weren’t aware that people who drink chlorinated water are 90% more likely to get cancer than people who don’t.

Three different examples of three different trades for you right there. All right. I hope you guys see this shit works. And by the way, the proof is in the pudding. I know bullshit. I’d take people got two, $300 average tickets as service technicians who don’t sell equipment and turn them into $3000, $3500 average tickets. Yes. That’s average tickets. Okay. I can give you an example. After example after example, I can, I can name drop like a mother.

Sam Wakefield: Alright. Um, and this is all over these guys. This isn’t just one area.

Gene Slade: Yeah. I’ve traveled everywhere. Do you suppose, what you suppose that does to the reliability of your system? Do you guys remember that and the lifespan? Um, how about this? Did you, uh, and then would you believe? Okay, and then we want to follow it up with a trial close.

What does a trial close y’all? What is a trial close? Think about it. I asked this question all over the country. Hardly anybody gives me the right answer and we’re supposed to be communicators, right? We’re supposed to be, we suck, man. We suck. The good news is that we all suck in the beginning. Right. And then when you start to get the reps in, right? But frequency it’s frequency before greatness skies, frequency before greatness, if be, go out there and fail. Good. Keep doing it. Fail forward. All right. You’re not going to make less money than you’re making right now. I promise you so trial close is a question that if they answer it, yes, I can almost assume they’re ready to move forward.

Right. I can go ahead and give them my final question. Right. And in this case, it was, can you see that? Your clients just get surge protection rather than replacing expensive compressors and motors, possibly even the whole system. And they’re like, yes, if they say that, then they can, they can see why others have done it and they can see themselves doing it too.

All I got to do is go, you want me to do it for you then? And shake my hand. Yeah. Do you want me to go and do it for you then? And it’s herd and pack mentality, right? We’re calling it social proof today. The old term. Yeah. Heard of pack mentality, and people like to follow the crowd because there’s safety in numbers. If other people did it, I’m probably not going to get hurt or embarrassed. Right. People hate to be embarrassed. That’s one of the number one fears of a human being top two fears. So trial close would be something like this. Can you see now why I say, and then make a statement, like the ones you’re already fricking making. Okay. Um, so can you see now why I say that you’re paying for this, whether you get it done or not? Can you see now why our clients actually get surge protection instead of replacing expensive components? Um, and instead of saying, are our clients typically, even, even just using her bank mentality, our clients typically protect ourselves with search protection. Do you think that’s convincing enough? Absolutely not. Absolutely ridiculous. So there it is for you guys to take a snapshot on your phone right now. All right. I’ll try to, I’ll try to get it zoomed in well enough for you as perfectly as I can. All right. So now you can take a, turn your phone sideways in landscape mode. Everyone take a screenshot. Okay. You got 15 seconds to do it. No less than that. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Sam Wakefield: Cool, fabulous. Alright. Beautiful Gene. Beautiful. It’s just such a great formula for everything.

Gene Slade: Yeah, a hundred percent. I just had somebody ask me, they’re like this worked for everything. I’m like, yeah. They’re like selling me a drone. And I’m like, no problem. This, by the way, this is, this is only the first step of five steps that I use. Right. This is used to establish that there is a need to do something because guys help. You don’t know if the pressure-reducing valve is bad. If you’re. You need to be convinced and you don’t want to be sold. Right. Wouldn’t it be better if you could come to the conclusion on your own that it needs to be done and then tell somebody else to do it. People don’t like being told what to do. Do you like being told what to do? How do you feel? What do you, what’s your reaction when somebody goes, do this? Well, tell me what to do.

Yeah, no way. Pretty much everybody. So sorry I get, I get a little off track with that one but keep going.

Sam Wakefield: No no that’s good, I love. I love it.

Slade: what it was. I know what it was. So this is to establish a need for everything that is on the list. Um, and that’s the process for that, but it’s, again, it’s only one step. And what I was going to say was guys, all of you are out there trying to learn sales and all you’re focusing on is the value and the features and benefits. And you got people that don’t even want the shit you’re trying to put in front of them. You realize they do have to want it. Right. It means that they’ve got to want to do one of two things.

They’ve got to either want to experience pleasure or escape pain. What will people spend money on faster, experiencing pleasure, escaping pain, escaping pain, escaping pain. A hundred percent. So they have to feel some sort of pain. And in the surge protector strip that I gave you, they’re feeling the pain of a future loss.

They’re feeling the pain of being unprotected. There, there is fear that sets in with that. Are you using scare tactics? No. I’m telling the truth. I’m sorry that the truth is scary. Okay. There’s a difference between giving someone the truth and using a scare tactic, right? Always use truth. Um, so yeah, boom. I would do that. Establish a need. People gotta want to get them to come to the conclusion they need it. And then they should be a lot easier. And then when they say, what should I do, bring in her in the pack mentality and go see, you want to know what our other clients do. Right. They’re like, they’re like, yeah. Alright, well, most of them do that. Right. So now you’re bringing her in a pack mentality that makes them feel safe. And if you need to later, you can go over features and benefits and stuff. But most of you guys are losing sales because your clients don’t feel like there’s any urgency whatsoever. Right? There is urgency, when I ask these questions to a client. When they’ve got mold in their system, it’s critical that I go, did you know that this causes depression? Ear aches, ear infections, sinus infections or trips to the bathroom or time waiting and waiting and spending time writing examples, being both being proud of being told what to do a lot of time running around for prescriptions, and more time off of work for follow-up visits and like itchy, watery eyes and, you know, loss of sleep, loss of taste, loss of smell, uh, irritability, fatigue, rashes, poor gamification.

Holy crap. Yeah, exactly right. So like, again, that all started out with a question, did you know that it causes this and then boom, I rattle off a bunch of negative side effects. That’s what I’m famous for, by the way, all the air quality stuff.

Sam Wakefield: Love it. So I answered the first question of this is fantastic. What a great, great topic. It’s one that I thank you for articulating it a little bit differently than I do, because it just reinforces so much into well, and I’ve learned something today as well. Man.

Gene Slade: When are you going to go sell to other people, but good for you?

Sam Wakefield: is known for R and D. Right? How many times have we quoted other people?

Probably duplicate, but if we say it differently, maybe if we’re, even if we’re saying the exact same thing, maybe somebody out there will hear it in a way that actually impacts them and they take action on it. It’s not enough to know it. It’s you, success happens at the speed of implementation. Take action on it. Love it.

Gene Slade: And maybe it may be, maybe it will be somebody who has heard something from their boss and didn’t choose to take it in and accept it, but then boom, they hear from us and they’re like, you know what, maybe the boss isn’t such a dumb ass at all.

Sam Wakefield: Yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh. Love it. So a couple more questions here.

We’re we’re getting moderately close to time here. Um, a couple of things I was curious to know, one is. If you, you know, one

Gene Slade: thing, hang on one second. I got to holler at these kids and they’re just a mom. I’ve got five boys. The nanny just brought the boys back from the community pool. Oh, let’s got them out of the house course, but brought them back too early.

Sam Wakefield: That’s all right. No worries. Um, then that’s one thing that’s cool about my podcast is where everybody knows we’re real live here. So we don’t normally clip things like that because don’t flip it. It’s cool. Yeah. And that’s, that’s one of the values that Gina and I share with everybody, and I know you shared. Is what are we doing this for? We’re doing this for our lives, for our families. Not at the expense of our families, not at the expense of our lives. So if you’re out there working 12, 14 days, you know, 12, 14 hours a day, six, seven days a week. Sure. You could be making all the money in the world, but so what if it’s at the expense of everything you actually care about? Uh, so that’s why we’re all about working less than selling more.

Gene Slade: Amen.

Sam Wakefield: Yep. Good stuff. So, one question one, what is one thing you wish you had known when you began your career? So this is for all of the new guys, things that you know now, one thing,

Gene Slade: Oh man, um, I think it would probably be a tie. Um, something that I recently have really just learned that has helped me to help others. And that was something I mentioned earlier, frequency before greatness. We have a generation that’s coming up that is able to get things quickly. Right. Like on the internet, these boards, these tablets, all the other stuff that we have.

I think it’s something like 90% of all the information that’s on the internet has been put on there in the last two years right now. Right now. Um, so like understanding that every overnight success takes 15 years would have been something that would have helped me. Um, Immensely right with my patience level. Um, so be willing to put in the work is something that I, I was always willing to do, but, um, I think just knowing that it was going to take repetition frequency and lots of, lots of reps, it’s like when you’re working out to build a, a big muscular body is going to take a shit ton of reps, millions of reps. So, and to not be discouraged. And then also, um, I, I really, I got fortunate with my career because, within the first two years of my career, I found Charlie Greer. Yeah. Right. And

Sam Wakefield: the years ago, watching, putting in every morning, we put the VHS of tech, daddy and, you know, Watson.

Gene Slade: And, uh, I mean, like at the time, like he was, he was about all there was for that kind of stuff. Right. So, um, that, that was one thing. I think that’s probably the thing, just knowing that I’m going to have to put in reps, um, and that it’s going to take time. Um, instead of, you know, assuming that I was going to get there overnight, you know, we’ve got these big plans and dreams and goals and everything. Shit. I mean, it’s been seven years now that I’ve been doing this and I thought it would be further than I am right now. Right. Be patient, um, and just know that it’s going to take a lot of repetition. You’re going to have to fail a lot. In order to really get where you want to be.

Sam Wakefield: A hundred percent, a hundred percent, I love it. That’s a good one. That’s a really awesome one. Um, okay. Here’s a question. If you could step into my shoes as the interviewer, what would you have asked yourself today that I haven’t?

Gene Slade: All these interesting questions. These are like, we should really go over these questions beforehand. Start to come up with an intelligent answer.

What should you have asked? Um, is there

Sam Wakefield: something you think we, that was missing in our conversation? Maybe there’s a way to rephrase that.

Gene Slade: That’s a really good question. Um, the first thing that came to my mind was something like, what outside of like ordinary sales training, have you done that has had an impact on your business and or life maybe? Oh, well it would be what I would ask what outside of, you know, the normal Brian Tracy’s Zig Ziglar, like studying the business and what other things have you experienced or training have you taken? Um, and, uh, if I had to answer that, I would say that, um, in 2019 I spent well over 300 hours with a company called Landmark Worldwide, and they’re a deep, psychological type of company. Um, they’re not, it turned this board off real quick.

They’re, they’re not licensed psychologist, right? They can’t claim that because there’s all kinds of lawsuits and stuff with that. But they helped me to understand myself in my mind, um, better than anything else I’ve ever encountered. They helped me to get past breakdowns and walls and stuff that were in front of me and really if I could try to, if I could try to summarize it for you, I’ll do the best job I can. Um, we are meaning making machines, anything that happens in our life. We make it mean something, right? We interpret everything and you’ve got something like 40,000 thoughts a day. Oh my God, how do we do it? Right.

But let’s just say for instance, um, here’s, here’s something that could happen to somebody. Um, their brother could be in business with them and could steal some money from them. Right. And they could come to a conclusion or create a story for their life. Based on that circumstance. He stole from me. I can’t trust my family. I can’t trust anyone. Right? Now I’ve created this story, which is an interpretation and caused by something that happened to me in my life. And I used to live inside that story and was trapped inside those stories but because of Landmark, I was able to an, and because I still have a coach that I pay more, more than my attorney every week. Like I’m constantly in training to get better. Um, I’ve now been able to separate what happened in my life from the stories that I created about it. Because of the stories that I created about it, or what held me back, right? We have all this baggage and shit from our life and we walk around carrying it in front of us. So we, everybody else have got their baggage. And so we bump into each other’s baggage and shit instead of each other. And, um, it took my communication skills to an entirely different level of my understanding of human beings, my empathy for human beings, because of what we are all trapped in inside of our minds. And this is one of the things that has taken my coaching to an entirely different level.

When I’m with a human being, I’m able to listen to them on a completely different level now, and I can hear things that they can’t see and I can help them to remove blocks by asking them more questions. Right. And getting them to come to the realization on their own about what they made. Right. So it’s an entirely different level of stuff. It will, people will be paying me a hundred thousand dollars a week for it within the next two years.

Sam Wakefield: I love it. I love it. That vision is also powerful, so fantastic, man, who I think was probably the last one for today. I’ve got a whole other topic that we’re not going to cover. Cause we don’t definitely don’t have time,

Gene Slade: but, um, I’ll make the time whenever you want. So, um, let’s schedule another appointment. Yeah, we definitely will. We can do the math to help out. And guys, one of my mentors Grant Cardone says that you shouldn’t have to ask people to share a stream or to share a video. Right. So I don’t care. I’m going to ask you if you got any value out of this to give it to somebody, right?

Because this is, this is a business of, like you don’t know something until you’ve taught it and you don’t really get any massive rewards out of this industry. In my opinion, until you start teaching other people how to do what you’re doing, the amount of fulfillment that comes from helping another human being is huge guys. You can have anything in life you want if you just help enough other people get what they want. All right. So other people enhance their lives by sharing Sam’s podcast.

Sam Wakefield: Appreciate it. So as we wrap up here, thank you for that. Um, where one, how can people get ahold of you? And two, is there anything specifically that you are excited about promoting? I know you’ve got a lot of different products and different programs and things. Oh, what’s your focus right now? And what do you want people to know?

Gene Slade: Um, my focus right now is massive, massive expanse. Um, I’ve got, uh, you guys are gonna start seeing a lot more. Um, I’ve got a videographer and video editor that I’m hiring.

Um, I’ve got a new building that we’re working on. Um, I’m going to be speaking with Grant Cardone on stage in Vegas in October. Um, we’re doing this awesome private jet and mansion trip with a bunch of my clients, uh, coming up in November. Um, I mean, like there’s so many events that are getting ready to happen. I can’t even tell you, um, one that I here’s, here’s what I’ll do.

I’ll promote this one thing, cause it’s not released yet. And this will play a little bit later and the timing might work for you. It might not guys, but I’m going to do a follow-up event. It’s going to be three days and it’s probably going to be $25,000 for a VIP ticket. There might be one or two tickets underneath it, but there’ll be a follow-up class where you bring in your existing leads that you did not actually close on and I show you how to figure out why they didn’t buy and get them to buy. The goal of the program is for you to sell at least a hundred thousand dollars in those three days of business that you wouldn’t have otherwise gotten. And you’re going to see people do it right in front of your eyes. So we’re going to teach CSRs, office people, people that have got good communication skills, how to call back after the second mission and secure another a hundred thousand dollars minimum every single month for the company. So we’re talking about adding 1.2 million minimum to any company that I would say any company that’s running a million and a half or more, we could do that with.

Sam Wakefield: Wow. That’s powerful, super excited about that.

Gene Slade: They can reach out to me on Facebook. They can go to leading into the system.com or they’ll lead ninja.com, but a DME, whatever. Um, if I can’t help you, I’ll get to the right and get you to the right team members. Okay.

Sam Wakefield: Perfect. Well, I love it, Gene. Thank you for being a guest today. You’ve been fabulous as always, and we’ll definitely, I see a lot more happening in the future, so we’ll definitely stay in touch, stay in contact, and art. Everybody hopes you got some value from that. Like Jean said, if you did share. Um, also, this is going to be posted in a lot of places. Go in at one. I’m going to ask for this, please. Um, leave me some reviews on the podcast. That’s the number one thing that I need right now is a lot more reviews on the podcast. So whatever platform you listen on, if you’re in Apple podcasts, if Google or Spotify, wherever you’re at lever may review. I appreciate that.

Gene Slade: And think about the time commitment that Sam has put in and think about the time.

Just this one-hour time commitment, you should be able to do 30 seconds worth of a review, right? It’s two sentences, man. And hit the five stars.

Sam Wakefield: Appreciate that. Yeah, absolutely. So also, um, the very last thing here is we’ve got some cool things coming up in the Facebook group. If you didn’t know, every Friday I do a one-hour Q and A, live Q and A. So hop into the Facebook group, join the Facebook group. Um, it’s a great it’s. I keep it a hundred percent positive. If people start throwing shade in there, we, they get the boot because it’s a community to build each other up. It’s not like some of the Facebook groups where if you ask a question, a thousand people just tear you down for it.

It’s only a positive environment. So join the Facebook group. It’s a lot of fun. And the very last thing, like we always end every episode. Is everybody go save the world one heat stroke at a time. We’ll see you soon. See you guys.