EP: 209 Weldon Long w/ New York Times Bestselling Author - Mindset, Sales, and Growth Strategies Dissected
Apr 17, 2024
Evan Hoffman
We had a fantastic conversation with New York Times Bestselling Author and keynote speaker, Weldon Long. We delved into the importance of mindset, sales strategies, and creating success in the HVAC business.
Here are three key takeaways from our enlightening discussion:
1. The Power of Mindset: Weldon emphasized that mindset is crucial for success. He compared neural pathways in the brain to a highway system, where our thoughts run like cars. Changing our thinking can lead to different destinations, and it's essential to be mindful of the thoughts we're reinforcing.
2. Sales Process is Key: Weldon highlighted the significance of having a strong sales process. He discussed the importance of valuing the sales process and emphasized the need to focus on every lead, nurture it, and capitalize on every opportunity.
3. Specialization and Training: Weldon explained the importance of recognizing and leveraging individual strengths. He emphasized the need to let people excel at what they're good at and how attracting and retaining top-performing sales professionals or technicians can significantly contribute to business success.
Weldon Long's insights shed light on the profound impact of mindset on business success. By recognizing and nurturing the power of mindset, businesses can pave the way for sustained growth, resilience, and innovation.
We had a fantastic conversation with New York Times Bestselling Author and keynote speaker, Weldon Long. We delved into the importance of mindset, sales strategies, and creating success in the HVAC business.
Here are three key takeaways from our enlightening discussion:
1. The Power of Mindset: Weldon emphasized that mindset is crucial for success. He compared neural pathways in the brain to a highway system, where our thoughts run like cars. Changing our thinking can lead to different destinations, and it's essential to be mindful of the thoughts we're reinforcing.
2. Sales Process is Key: Weldon highlighted the significance of having a strong sales process. He discussed the importance of valuing the sales process and emphasized the need to focus on every lead, nurture it, and capitalize on every opportunity.
3. Specialization and Training: Weldon explained the importance of recognizing and leveraging individual strengths. He emphasized the need to let people excel at what they're good at and how attracting and retaining top-performing sales professionals or technicians can significantly contribute to business success.
Weldon Long's insights shed light on the profound impact of mindset on business success. By recognizing and nurturing the power of mindset, businesses can pave the way for sustained growth, resilience, and innovation.
Welcome to HVAC Success Secrets Revealed, a show where we interview industry leaders and disruptors, revealing the success secrets to create and unleash the ultimate HVAC business. Now your hosts, Thaddeus and Evan.
Evan Hoffman:
Hey, welcome back to another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed we have good conversations with good people and any good conversation worth having. Thanks It's worth having drunk We have Weldon Long on here at Epic at Disneyland. We're having a great time. Weldon is, for those of you that have not for some reason, heard of Weldon Long been in the industry for a very long time. Started it first, business 2001.
Weldon Long:
Started the business 2004.
Evan Hoffman:
2004, sorry. Sold that one successfully in 2010 and went around speaking, added a ton of value as the author of three books. The Upside of Fear Power of consistency and Consistency Selling. I had the pleasure of first seeing you speak at Hero X Hero something or other in Vegas when Epic was across the street, you came over and just dropped knowledge for a good hour, an hour and a half. So it was amazing how that worked out.
Weldon Long:
Yeah, that was a, it's amazing the difference in the different types of trade organizations and they're all useful. They all serve a purpose but that guy Victor's group, that's a younger, hipper, cooler group, and I'm old school and, the old timers. We do it the old fashioned way. We earn it, like I say but I'm very proud of the relationship that we have with EGIA. They've done an extraordinary job. In just five or six years, it just becomes so dominant in the industry and we're really pleased to be part of the faculty there. In fact, one of the founding faculty for EGA.
Evan Hoffman:
Absolutely. So we are in a legend status right now with with Weldon Long.
Thaddeus Tondu:
His only appearance on podcast while we're here. I actually don't know if that's true.
Weldon Long:
I don't either. I don't either. You have to ask Kristen.
Evan Hoffman:
I know we're coming in hot and heavy here and quick and dirty, but the one thing I really wanted to touch on was what we're dealing with right now in the economy. It's a little bit more difficult. We're dealing with the election year here. So advertising process are going to go way up as well. Just to add more fuel to the fire, more salt to the wound. You've been through it. You ran a business through 2008, 2009.
Weldon Long:
Yeah, that was a real real kick in the pants right there. It's funny not only did I get through 2008, 2009, but in 2006, I borrowed a couple of million dollars and bought some competitors because we were kicking ass, taking names. We were growing. I'm like, let's go borrow some money and keep going and consolidated. And so all of a sudden we had this much bigger company with a shit ton of debt and then 2008 hit and I'll never forget. I was actually on a plane on my way to Maui and it was a a Saturday night, that was a Friday night flight going out a Friday day going out there and all of a sudden I got seized with this. This was like mid 2008 seized with this panic feeling man, shit's fixing to hit the fan and we landed went to the house we had a place out there at the time and I couldn't relax. I got back on a red eye Saturday night, flew back to Colorado, got with my management team on that Sunday morning and said, guys, we got to get lean and mean. We spent the entire day reorganizing that company. It's a good thing we did the other thing we did is we got really good at selling. I think that's where I really cut my teeth on selling. We had to get so good because we had so fewer opportunities, not unlike today, by the way, we had so fewer opportunities that we couldn't afford to squander one sales lead and that's when I really learned like your sales leads are like your children. You got to know where they are, who they're hanging out with, where are they going? And so many companies I see in our industry, they complain about not having enough leads I'll come in. You got leads over here. You're losing leads over here. They'll slip into the cracks, and if you take the mindset that every lead is what you truly is, the lifeblood of that company and make sure and harness it, qualify it, set it, nurture it, put the right people on it that know how to sell and capitalize on every opportunity then you can thrive. You can prosper no matter how difficult times are listen, what I always say is that, I've written a couple of books, as you mentioned, the power of consistency and consistency selling the keyword there is consistency our sales performance should be consistent now that doesn't mean that you'll sell the same in November as you will, July, but your revenue per lead, the average money you generate on a sales lead, Should be the same in the summer it is in the winter, right? The slow season. Now during the summer you're going to run two or three times more leads, right? So top line revenue is higher, but your productivity on each lead should remain consistent. That only comes from having a process and Right now it's more important than ever organize around a process because we're running fewer leads, and that's one of the most important things we can do. I've got a new company I started four and a half years ago that company is budgeted for 15 million this year's fifth year, you know It's and I always tell people it's easy. It's just easier not to I just follow the process.
Thaddeus Tondu:
And so much of that is just a process right like in and especially and you've been around for such a long time that you've seen a lot, you know a lot, but you still just stick to the process.
Weldon Long:
Absolutely. It's like sports, right? You look at any championship team, what do they focus on? The fundamentals, right? Whereas as a fan of football, for example, we might see the quarterback drop a 70 yard long bomb and it gets exciting and all that. What do you think the coach saw on that play when they go through game film? You think he's watching the beautiful pass? No. He's watching the blocking, the tackling. Did the fullback pick up the blitz, right? Did the guy run the right route? They're looking at the fundamentals and whenever you get into a pinch, you get into a slump in sports and life and business, you got to get back to basics, man. Right? Basics in business, setting a lead, qualifying a lead, converting a lead, and obviously offering great service in those things. But listen, nobody gives a shit if you've got great service. If you don't have any customers, nothing happens till something gets sold. Nothing gets sold till you set a lead and one of the biggest weaknesses, honestly I've made a career on it, is that we don't really value the sales process in our industry the sales process is, ah, we'll get to that later, right? You would never take one of your accountants, I don't care how busy you are, you'd never tell your accountant or accounts receivable clerk, hey, can you run some service calls for me today? It'd be stupid, right? But when it comes to sales, you gotta pulse. You get a heartbeat? You're the sales guy. It's probably your brother in law who couldn't keep a job somewhere else selling. We gotta put the same emphasis on the sales process as we do service, installation, all those other issues.
Evan Hoffman:
So do you believe in the turnover process where we're sending in a comfort advisor to follow up the technician? Or do you believe in a selling tech?
Weldon Long:
I've seen it work successfully both ways, and I've never been one of those guys, do it like me or you're an idiot and you're gonna fall flat on your face. It's like I've seen it work. You got to make sure, but you got to know what to look for. So I'm the turnover model, right? I want to have my service techs that do their thing and then, and I'll give you a perfect example. I won't name names, but we have a competitor in our town and we were just looking at these numbers. We pulled an equal number of permits. It was around 50 permits each for HVAC systems, right? They do electrical, we do electrical, right? Which can tell you a lot because we're in a heating, heating market. So on their 50 systems, they pulled seven electrical permits. Which means on those, because you got to pull electrical permit even if there's existing and they're just rewiring it. You got to pull a permit on both. They only pull seven electrical permits. on their 50 sales. What does that tell you? They sold a ton of furnaces. We pull the same number with over 30 electrical permits, which means we're selling full systems. The problem with selling technicians, they're in a hurry. We don't give them enough time. We don't have the training. So yeah, they're going to sell something. They're going to sell a basic solution. What I tell people is you cannot sell 20 or 25 or 30 quickly.
INTRO:
You can't do it. It takes time, right? Because you've got to build a relationship with that homeowner. Relationships are organic, right? They're controlled by the laws of nature. I can't rush a relationship. I can't say, Hey, that is supposed to be good friends. That happens, or it doesn't happen, right? So it's like a field of corn. If I'm a corn farmer in Kansas, I can't go out there to my corn field and say, let's grow faster. Let's do this. It grows according to the laws of nature where relationships are like that and if I'm going to sell 25 grand, I need to have a strong relationship. It's going to take a couple of hours to get that done for no other reason. Just to be there long enough to build a strong relationship with the homeowner. Service techs don't have that kind of time and in many cases, listen, I'll tell every owner, every manager out there, get your service techs together, put them in a room, say, Hey guys, we're going to do a game of word association. I'm going to give you a word. You tell me the first word that comes to your mind. The word is salesman, right?
Weldon Long:
And I guarantee you, I've done this a thousand times, two thirds of them, 60, 65 percent of the people will give a negative word, pushy, high pressure, all this different stuff. So I don't brother. All this negative stuff. I was doing an event at a big company, Northeast. This was years ago and probably 30 comfort advisors and selling technicians. I did that and this guy on the back row, she's writing down these words. I'm like, man, what are you writing? She goes, pushy, high pressure, sleazy, dishonest, lazy. I'm like, dang, what do you do here? She goes on the VP of sales. I'm like, that's a clue, right? So I'm just saying people, the reason they can't always do. What they really need to do in these situations is because they don't have the training, in many cases, don't have the disposition, and almost never have the right amount of time.
Evan Hoffman:
And that's, it comes back to the tech mindset, right? Like they, they want to come in and fix and repair. They're not there to sell.
Weldon Long:
It's biological. It's mother freaking nature. Their brains work different. That's why they can do technical things. They have brilliant technical aptitudes, right? I can't fix a furnace because the part of my brain that makes me a good communicator, makes me lousy on, in terms of you ever take an IQ test? I got a really low IQ. I'm not kidding. 103. I've had it tested three times. I was so disappointed. I was so disappointed in the results. So I had it done three times. 103, which is below average, right? But a huge part of the IQ test is mechanical aptitude and they give you this thing, it looks like origami all laid out, and you gotta decide what it would look put together. Can't do it. That takes a high mechanical aptitude, right? So a guy with a high mechanical aptitude, strong service technician installer, he can do it, right? But that part of my brain, just like his part of his communications brain, doesn't work much like mine, right? Listen, specialization is what we built this economy on, right? 200 years ago, you and I were neighbors, right? And you grew your own food, you shooed your own horses, you built your own barns. I did the same thing and then one day I noticed, man dang, you're way better at shooing horses than I am and I'm way better at growing corn than you are. What do you say? You shoo my horses and I'll grow more corn for you and we started learning the value of specialization and then as we moved in 100 years later, the industrial revolution, we really got into specialization with, Ford Motor Company and this, process oriented manufacturing stuff and of course, now we're in this strong service mindset economy, but we've learned the value of specialization people are not good at everything how many, we've known it for years, right? Jack of all trades, master of none. I want to be good at one freaking thing, and I want to be the very best at it. For me. It's speaking, training, communicating, motivating, whatever. But I'm lousy at so much other stuff. But when you try to make a technical gifted person with this beautiful mechanical aptitude, who could look at a furnace and he'd turn it on and say, what's wrong with it? The fact that guy can't communicate and he thinks he's a scumbag for selling. You can't hold that against him. Just shift that responsibility to somebody like me who enjoys it.
Thaddeus Tondu:
The selling techs are the ones that are really good are almost like unicorns.
Weldon Long:
They really are unicorns, right? And most of those guys end up opening their own company, becoming your competition. I've been through it a thousand times. We've had some, we've had some unicorns. They almost all become a competition eventually, or they move into your sales department, which we've done for several guys but, the reality is that people are good at what they're good at. You gotta let them excel at what they're really good at.
Evan Hoffman:
Love it. I do want to be respectful of Josh here. We were supposed to give him the stage in a couple minutes.
Weldon Long:
Nah. Hahaha.
Thaddeus Tondu:
At least give it to, we'll give it like five more minutes. Okay.
Evan Hoffman:
I feel like Weldon's going to give a very in depth answer to our last question.
Weldon Long:
Oh, okay. So you want me to skip it?
Evan Hoffman:
No. No. I feel like this is going to be a good one.
Weldon Long:
Man, you guys have been prepping. I'm getting stressed over I just came off the stage of Robert Irvine. I'm like, I'm chill. Now you guys got me stressed out. What are you fixing to ask, man?
Thaddeus Tondu:
It's all about the delivery. Oh yeah.
Evan Hoffman:
The buildup is a little bit bigger than the question. I feel like, but what is one question that you wished people would ask you more, but they don't?
Weldon Long:
What I wish they would ask me more. What I wish people would ask me more is, but they don't even know to ask this question, but I wish they would say, how important is my mindset? My expectations to my success and I would tell them it's everything. It's the one thing that changes everything and the mindset is, it's, listen, you guys know my story. High school dropout, 13 years in prison, living on the streets in a halfway house at 39 years old, right? The mindset changed everything for me. Your mind, imagine a highway system, right? And you got overpasses, underpasses, bridges, exit ramps, off ramps, right? And on those highways, we have what? We have cars, right? Cars driving on the road in your mind, in your brain, you have a similar situation. It's called neural pathways. It's a very complex system of highways. But instead of cars, you know what you have running down those pathways? Thoughts. Your thoughts are running down that pathway. Now, if I leave here, we're in Anaheim, California. I want to go back to Colorado if I'm driving. If I follow the roads to Colorado and I follow them properly, I don't get lost. How often do I actually get to Colorado? Every time. I never accidentally end up in Phoenix, right? Because those directions, those roadmaps, those roads, Get me to a very particular destination. It's the exact same thing here. Our thoughts are running down our highways and our brain every single day, and they're getting us to a very predictable location, destination, which is exactly where we are right now. Einstein said you cannot fix a problem at the same thinking that created the problem. So if my thinking, I look at my life and I'm making 50 grand a year, and I want to make 500 grand a year, what are the odds that my thinking that made me 50 grand a year is going to make me 500? It's impossible. I have to change my thinking. So if I want to go to Phoenix, what do I got to do? I gotta start following a different set of roadways. I gotta change the highway system up here that's what my book, The Power of Consistency, is all about. There's a reason it's a New York Times bestseller because it's simple and it's true. The reality is you have to change these neural pathways up here. You have to start thinking differently and when you start thinking differently, you start feeling differently. When you start feeling differently, you start acting differently. When you start acting differently, you get different stuff. It ain't rocket science. It is brain science, but it ain't rocket science.
Evan Hoffman:
It's no different than baking a cake, right? If you put the ingredients in the right order, at the right time, at the right temperature, you're going to get the end result.
Weldon Long:
Let me ask you this, when you woke up this morning here in the hotel, wherever you were, how quickly do you start thinking?
Evan Hoffman:
Immediately.
Weldon Long:
About anything? Like breakfast, sex, work, customer. It doesn't matter. You start thinking.
Thaddeus Tondu:
How quickly can I go back to sleep?
Weldon Long:
But you start thinking, right? We go through all day thinking about our kids, thinking about our bills, thinking about our customers, thinking about this, thinking about that, thinking, thinking, thinking. How often do we stop to slow down and say, Hey, I need to stop and think about what I'm thinking about before I think about it. Because those thoughts are those highways running that road and they're getting you to this destination. If you don't like the destination. Hey, if your life's perfect, knock yourself out. But if there's something in life you want differently, the thinking that got you where you are is not the thinking that will get you there, right? It simply can't happen. You have to stop and think about what you think about. It's the whole basis of my book, The Power of Consistency.
Evan Hoffman:
It's interesting. There's another book that, that a lot of people reference, a lot of people talk about who have achieved big things, and it's not do more and get rich. It's not delegate and get rich, right? It's think and grow rich, right?
Thaddeus Tondu:
You mentioned something that they don't know to ask the question. Yeah. Walk me through that.
Weldon Long:
We don't teach it. don't teach kids. We don't teach kids that if you start telling yourself you're a loser, you're going to start feeling like a loser and acting like a loser. We don't teach kids, our moms would say, be careful what you wish for, right? So there was a little hint of it, right? People knew but the reality is we all have a box. It's just right here, right? And people put stuff in there when you're little. When you come into this world, you don't have any expectations, ideas, beliefs about anything. You're a blank slate the world, as you're a little kid, as you grow up, people put ideas in your box. Then what happens? We grow up, we're 18 years old. Guess what we do? We start reaching in and pull every thought out of the box. The same thoughts other people put in there. What if other people told us we were fat, lazy, irresponsible? Why can't you be like your sister? Why are you so stupid? You'll never amount to nothing all that shit goes in the box, and then we grow up and what do we do? We reach in that box and start pulling that out. I'm a loser, right? We have to, it's just not part of our culture. Listen, we believe in what we can see, especially here in the West, right? I can see it, I can believe it, right? The truth is, as, many famous people have said, including Wayne Dyer, I was a big fan of his. He said, it's not, you'll see it when you believe it. You'll, or not you'll believe it when you see it, you'll see it after you believe it and that's the truth. We're not teaching that to kids. Did you have a course in mindset in school? No. Hell no.
Thaddeus Tondu:
I didn't start learning that until I started selling Cutco knives. But I tell you one thing
Weldon Long:
that's a sales organization.
Evan Hoffman:
That's where we met.
Weldon Long:
I got a 3, 000 set of Cutcos in my kitchen. That's a sales organization. They are the best. They're the best, but they're also very sales driven and I'm going to tell you something. They're not in everybody's kitchen because they're the best. They're in everybody's kitchen because they have the best sales process. Yes. There are various sales driven organizations.
Thaddeus Tondu:
It's, you follow everything and when you don't have the results you just go look back to see what you're not following and then you start following it again and guess what? You get the results again and it's just it's a very simple product to sell when you follow that process and that's a lot of what we talked about. But that thing about the mindset is interesting because I'm going through this right now. I'm going to have a two and a half year old and a one year old but we're teaching them emotions. We're teaching them how to think about their emotions, but we're also making sure we're cautious of what they're thinking and saying to themselves, because they think out loud right now, everything, right? And so that's also another piece that I think a lot of people have missed, is that doing that with your kids and do pay attention to that, but I know we could probably keep going on and on, but I see they're about to start throwing us tomatoes. Those guys that service business mastery, they're like, get the fuck off the stage.
Weldon Long:
He didn't mean that, sweetheart because his daughter's in the room, he's smart enough to think it, right?
Thaddeus Tondu:
You got a kid, you'll do less. Oh yes, I'm sure. I'm sure.
Weldon Long:
Awesome, brother.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Pleasure, my friend.
Weldon Long:
Good to see you guys.
Evan Hoffman:
Likewise and until next time. Cheers.
Thaddeus Tondu:
Well,
Evan Hoffman:
That's
Thaddeus Tondu:
a wrap on another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Before you go, two quick things. First off, join our Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed. The other thing, if you took one tiny bit of information out of this show, no matter how big, no matter how small. All we ask is for you to introduce this to one person in your contacts list. That's it. That's all. One person. So they too can unleash the ultimate HVAC business. Until next time. Cheers.