Welcome to the Barry Farah Show, serving you to sell more. Follow at Barry Farah. Hi, I'm Barry Farah. Welcome. This series is called Selling with Integrity. It's designed for those of you who sell in the home services sector, but the principles are transferable to just about anything. We'll talk about why persuasion matters when it's done the right way and how to prepare yourself before every customer conversation with a simple 90-second pregame checkup built around the three principles of selling with integrity. Then we'll walk through the four steps of the process. The outcome goal is simple. You will be able to sell more with clarity, calm, and confidence. The idea is similar to what golfers sometimes call effortless power. Now I'm not anything close to a good golfer, but I do know this. The harder you try to muscle the swing, the more tension you introduce, and the less consistent you become. But when your rhythm is right, the swing gets cleaner, the context gets better, and the result is stronger. Selling with integrity works the same way. Less pressure, more respect, better outcomes. I've been selling since I was in the third grade. My dad was in the ministry and he had these evangelistic tracks sitting on his desk. And on the back they had the bulk prices for churches to buy and then they would hand them out for free. Well, I didn't know any of that. I just grabbed a stack and went door to door selling those tracks at that bulk price until my dad found out. He was doing the very best he could to not burst out laughing. I guess you're not supposed to sell the gospel. By the time I was in the sixth grade, I had built a treble light made from a plunger head where the powerful bulb would rest and a cut-up broomstick where the electrical line would run through it to a male electrical outlet port that plugged into your cigarette lighter. I sold a bunch of those door to door throughout the neighborhood. In high school, I had four kits in my used Chevy. One to sell siding, another to sell vacuum cleaners for electrolux, and another for water treatment equipment, and then a final one for a home alarm system. These were cold calls. I'd make a quick assessment at the door, and then I would lead with whichever option I thought would fit best. You know, after I got my computer science degree, I sold computer systems for IBM to established businesses. Later, I got my MBA and I sold professional services to small businesses and built a business that stretched to 43 states and six countries. I remember my very first client. After a couple of hours of explaining the service, he asked how many clients I had. I said, you will be the first one. He liked that approach. In another business I built, our team sold massive computer solutions that could not afford to break. After selling those companies, my adult son made a pretty compelling argument that I should invest in a business for him, almost like a partial advance inheritance. It was outside my expertise, but the long story that's shorter, we landed on HVAC. And no small part due to his day-to-day involvement, in six years we've grown at 12x on top line revenue. We've also earned a number of awards, including the Dave Lennox Award, which is pretty exclusive, awarded to only 20 dealers in all of North America. As CEO, I handle the big picture culture issues. We have customer success principles that drive operations. I also run the sales training. I combined my selling background, primarily in the business-to-business arena, and translated it into the home services business. I didn't really like what I was learning about how most people were trained to sell in the industry. Too much hype, too close to manipulation, too pushy. You know, there's brain science and consumer psychology behind what supports my view of selling. When a customer feels respected, informed, and free to choose, trust increases and resistance decreases. When they feel pressured, cornered, or manipulated, they're less likely to think clearly and often they shut down. That's where a lot of cancellations are derived. So, selling with integrity is not just morally better in the long run, it's also more effective. Not only has selling with integrity helped us grow, it also fits directly into my customer success philosophy. That philosophy is simple. Give the team a purpose bigger than the transaction by proactively delivering an exceptional customer experience. Selling with integrity is the first step because the customer experience begins before the work begins. It begins with the touch points that lead the customer to call your company. Once the appointment's set, the next real experience is you. Each episode is about six minutes long, so you can listen between calls. They're also designed to work well on your phone with slides and graphics, and you can follow those without making it complicated. The episodes are designed to build in sequence, and that's why episode one starts with the mindset of positive persuasion. Before we talk about scripts, questions, diagnostics, options, or closing, we need to be clear on what persuasion is and what it's not. From there we move to the three pillars of selling with integrity and then step by step through the process, build rapport, discover issues, explain solutions, and close clean. Selling with integrity is warm, but it's not vague and it's not soft. It's professional, predictable, and it's a process that includes direct questions in the discovery and in the solution phases that many salespeople avoid. And when they avoid them, they lose business. But those questions are always asked with respect. If you're a business owner, my hope is that this series helps you strengthen your business. If you're a salesperson, I hope it helps you sell more with less effort and a clear conscience. Either way, the goal is the same proactively serve the customer well. And once you're in front of the customer, that experience starts with you. Thank you for listening. Follow Barry Farah on your favorite podcast platform at Barry Farah.