Good Luck Selling a High-End System…

When was the last time you sold a high-end solution, meaning one of your most expensive units? Remembering the experience, can you chalk it up to skill, luck, right-place-right-time, or what? Did you start the call knowing you’d sell it? Did you take your time with it or rush through it?

You simply cannot sell high-end solutions quickly. Let me clarify. You can’t sell high-end solutions on purpose, every time, quickly. Repeatable, successful sales of HVAC systems, especially high-end ones, requires a process. And quality time.

If you think back to your best calls where you sold a new system or even a thorough system rejuvenation (one with lots of preventative repairs), they likely took a long time. Why? Because there’s a direct relationship between the amount of time we spend with a homeowner, the amount of time we spend doing the diagnostic, and the average ticket. There’s a direct correlation.

We can go into software like ServiceTitan, for example, and look at the statistics. It tells us how long salespeople or techs are on the call. And that time stat links up directly with the amount of money they’re bringing in.

The longer the time, the higher the average ticket. It’s just a fact of life.

The Quick and Dirty

You’ll find that when a tech starts his career, he often goes in and finds the minimal repair and moves on. And then, when something fails 2 weeks later, the homeowner calls him to come out again because there’s a new problem, different from what he fixed on the first call. If this happens a few times, he will eventually have to suggest that the homeowner replace the whole system. That won’t go over so well, will it?

“Why the hell didn’t you say that the first time? It would have saved me a lot of money in repairs!”

It may feel like we’re doing the homeowner a favor when we show up and fix what they called about. But it’s really the opposite. It’s not in the homeowner’s long-term interest, is it? Fixing a minor problem and moving on is the path of least resistance. It’s lazy, and it serves no one.

The key to remember is that you need to spend the time uncovering these problems. If the problems are there, your thoroughness helps the homeowners, your business, and your paycheck. It’s what all the training tells us.

Inclusion or Bust

Another important factor in increasing the average ticket and turning more leads into sales is getting the homeowner involved with your investigation and your diagnosis. The more they see the actual problems, the more likely they will participate in the solutions.

If you find a problem and you go tell your homeowner about it, in many cases, they don’t really believe it. Why? Because we’re conditioned at a young age to trust what we see as fact, not what someone tells us blindly, especially someone who has something to gain.

And so homeowners will distrust us for that reason and because of the overall reputation of salespeople. This is no one person’s fault; it’s just an association that was made a long time ago and it’s a difficult assumption to change in people’s minds. There will be times when they don’t believe what we say unless they actually see the problem for themselves. And that’s okay.

So when you find a significant problem, bring the homeowner to the issue and involve him. If you’re in an attic or a crawlspace, just record a video of the problem and show him that instead. But the point is that they have to see the actual diagnostic.

It’s Not a Race

The value you deliver to the homeowner is your ability to use your diagnostic tools, discover the issues, and solve them. Leverage your experience, knowledge, and mechanical aptitude to show the homeowner you’re great at what you do. And that working with you will benefit them in the long run because you’re interested in helping them get back to a working unit. Your professionalism instills trust in you. Remember, people buy from those they like and trust. And you want to show that working with your company is minimal risk.

But your solutions only have value if they see it with their eyes. It’s what we call relative perceived value. And the word perceived is really important. That means they have to know about it. They have to see the problem and the diagnosis to connect the dots that they need to implement your suggestions.

In terms of increasing the average ticket, it’s really simple. It just takes more quality time and getting the homeowner involved.