Tracie Harper: Early in life, I did get involved in sales, but I kinda resisted it at first. But through a series of events, I came to be in sales, kind of one job after another, and made a lot of career moves. But in the early 2000’s, I was in sales for an electronics company. Basically we put in security systems, camera systems, home theaters, which were very, very big 2005 or so. I was in that industry and unfortunately I had an owner that wasn’t taking care of the business, and I was pretty miserable. Prior to that, I’d been about 10 or 15 years selling radio advertisements. Those are two completely different things. So obviously I’m open to whatever interested me and was fun to sell.

So at that time, I actually knew the owners of Daffan. I was a Daffan customer myself, and they were my customers. I sold them camera systems and security systems for their building. And one of the owners in particular, he and I were friends from church. So I was really desperate to get out of the situation I was in. And like sometimes we pray for a miracle or a billboard on this side of the road that God just wrote do this. I didn’t know what I was gonna do, when one of the owners of Daffon called me and said have lunch with me. So we went to lunch and he had a gentleman with him that had started working with their company to try to help kind of get over the hump and take the business to the next level.

The owner had been doing all the sales calls and running all the leads. For a number of years, he tried promoting service technicians and different approaches and never really with much success. And so he was now at the point where he was running all the calls and it was just more than he could do and also be general manager of the business. So when he brought this gentleman in to help him get things kind of on the right track, he said, “do you know anybody that is a career salesperson and a closer?” And he said, “I do.” And he said “suppose they don’t have any HVAC experience?” And he says, “that’s okay.” And he said, “and they’re a woman.” He said, “that’s okay.” And I wasn’t honestly David, a young woman at that time. And his consultant said, “That’s okay, let’s have lunch with her.”

So when I showed up for lunch, they were both there. And I love to tease him to this day that he’s a better salesperson than me because we met, he started talking to me about the opportunity to come to work for him and sell heating and air conditioning told me all the wonderful things about Daffon’s, you know, us, you love us. You work with me. It’s exciting. It’s open ended as far as income and customer potential goes. But he obviously was a better salesman than me because he didn’t mention {inaudible 04:06} suits. He didn’t mention crawling under mobile homes. He did not mention that a Texas addict can be 145 degrees in August.

David Heimer: Just little things that he overlooked.

Tracie Harper: Yeah. He left out some of that stuff. He’s big on sizzle. So I just blind faith in him and the company and myself said, you know, I’m gonna go for it and that was in 2008 and I’ve been here ever since. And I will tell you that it was just the best move I ever made. I’m passionate about sales. I think everybody that knows me knows that. But what I’ve loved about what I do here is the opportunity is very intimate when you go into someone’s home, it’s not like they came to the counter at a big box store. I’m in their house. I’m hearing about their personal lives. I’m hearing about their pain points. We’re discussing openly, their finances, their credit, you know, it’s really a close relationship and I never dreamed how much satisfaction I would get out of this job from just helping people make a decision that in general they aren’t really excited about doing.

I mean, let’s face it. It’s not like buying a car or going on a great vacation. It’s not a sexy or fun purchase, but it is a necessary purchase, especially in Texas where we are, because we don’t like cold and we just flat out can’t be hot. So we run our system almost year round. So it’s been really, really rewarding to have that. And I overlooked the fact that I wear a headlamp and knee pads and, you know, sometimes I am in the attic and it cracks me up to think about what I look like. So I take a selfie and send it to my girlfriends just to remind them that this is my day, a day in the life, wouldn’t trade it. It’s a great career.

David Heimer: It is a great industry. I agree. And it’s sad that so many people don’t know about it, don’t understand what great opportunities people have in this and serving people, making their homes comfortable. It’s a wonderful thing.

Tracie Harper: You know, and that’s the thing. I’ve always been an ambassador for the sales profession. And I use that word ‘profession’ because I do feel like I’m a professional and through my education over the years and just life experience, there’s a difference in being just all the cliches of a salesperson. You know, there’s as many jokes about sales people probably as there are attorneys. And I know some great attorneys, but you know, the cliches about a salesperson are they’re selling ice to an Eskimo and pushy. And so I’ve been an ambassador most of my adult life to prove that that is not what a sales professional is and what one really should look like. And then once I came to Daffan I just became such an ambassador for the trades, I tell people we were essential before COVID, you know, in Texas, you need heating and air. So it’s a very necessary business and it’s a very servant business where you can really take care of people. And honestly, before I was in it, I didn’t think about it that way either. But I’m so glad I’m in it and I encourage people all the time to look at the trades because they’re necessary and they’re so valuable and can make a difference in so many people’s lives.

David Heimer: The owner, the person that was talking to you, that was Tom Peroqueno, right?

Tracie Harper: It was Tom Peroqueno.

David Heimer: Right?

Tracie Harper: He’s a good salesman.

David Heimer: And he ran a great company too. Contractor of the Year, very impressive guy and now working with us at Service Nation. What do you do now at Daffan?

Tracie Harper: I am the sales manager. Locally, I have two full-time comfort advisors and a sales coordinator in our office. But we also have two remote locations that have branch managers that are very similar to selling technicians. They basically do everything in their area from maintenance, service, sales, leads, all of it. So those four folks do all the hiring for sales, training, coaching, oversee our goals and our KRAS and KPIs. We have a full-time sales coordinator, she just keeps us going. But I work with her closely on lead rotation, lead qualification, our financing, offerings that we can give our customers. I also do some coaching with all of our service techs on communicating with customers, as well as how to transition from a repair to a potential sales lead, how to introduce the idea of replacement versus repairs. So I work real closely with them and then I still run calls. So I have the best of both worlds. I get to coach and train, which is a huge passion of mine. But then I also get to go out and sell, which other than my husband and sons, the love of my life is selling. It’s just the best job in the world. So I still go out and run calls. I have a call later today. Then I do whatever else they ask me to.

David Heimer: So you transitioned from being a salesperson to being a leader in sales, you’ve got sales people that work for you. What was that transition like? How did you navigate all that? Was that difficult?

Tracie Harper: It was a little difficult and a little bit challenging. And anybody that’s ever met me will tell you that I’m pretty transparent. So a lot of times I’m more inclined to tell you the things I did wrong than the things I did right because I think that’s where the learning happens. We really turned the sales department over when I took over. When I moved into that position, there was one gentleman working in the department, one salesman here that had been my peer and it didn’t work out well for me managing him. I had some real big ideas about what I wanted to put in place with Tom’s support and David Daffon’s support. I said, I’m going to stand this thing on its head and I did. So he left me, he didn’t want to work with those rules. So I basically started with my first year, which was 2020, when I took over the sales department. Up until that point, I’d been very happy to be a salesperson and a lot had changed over the years obviously. You probably know a little bit about the Daffon story and some of the folks listening might know as well.

But you know, we grew and got over one hurdle after another and things had changed a lot over the years. But I was very, very happy doing what I was doing. But it was time, again it was kind of the next step that we needed to basically replicate some of the success that I had had and you can’t always do that as a peer. So, I have a painting in my office to commemorate that I took over this role, you know, before they announced COVID. But 2020 was my first full year in the role and the existing salesperson didn’t stay. I interviewed and hired and promoted a service technician into the sales department. We brought on a branch manager and I trained him and then we already had a branch manager in another area, but Grandberry had always been handling his sales lead. So we trained him to sell on his own. And then last year I added another person, so I’ve been doing two years of coaching training and building the department. And it’s been blood, sweat, and tears, but I’ll tell you, I have a dynamite team.

David Heimer: Yeah.

Tracie Harper: They’re killing it. They’re four guys. They’re the age of my children.

David Heimer: So you’re like mom to them.

Tracie Harper: I’m like, mom. I’m Daffon mom. But I tell them just like, mom, I’m going to love you hard and I’m going to discipline you hard. So when they’re down, I build them up. When they’re outta line, you know, I pull them back in and we have a fantastic time and we are rocking and rolling. So I’m super excited to see with a full staff that’s trained and up and running and getting their numbers and just getting better every day. I’m very excited to see what 2022 brings.

David Heimer: That’s so cool. So you are a comfort advisor. You’re a well respected sales leader, outstanding sales coach. You are the consummate professional sales person and you’ve worked with a lot of sales people. I know that this is a broad question, but if you were just talking to a comfort advisor who is new to the industry, what advice would you give him or her? Just three items.

Tracie Harper: Okay. Well first, thank you for your kind words David. If I had to just say maybe my top three, one, I would say the absolute key is to work on your communication and I don’t just mean talking. In the sales profession, you need to become a great listener. We emphasize a lot of questions to the customer based on what they answer me, I follow up with another question. The more you can find out from the customer, what their needs are, what their fears are, what their concerns are, what their situation is, what their plans are, the more you can customize and deliver what they really want and it becomes obvious to them that they should buy it from me. That I’ve come up with a solution. I just have found over the years that if you ask and then listen, people will tell you what they want and how you can provide it. So that’s huge for me is communication with an emphasis on listening.

Secondly, I’d probably say about this business is, you need to put the work in and stick with it. Our industry, especially where I am and it’s similar around the country, I think. I work with people all over the country. You know, it’s very much a seasonal or circular sales cycle, obviously from April to August in Texas, we are crazy busy, but then there’s some shoulder season that’s down. And then we have the winter in the middle, which is still not like the summer here. And part of my training is that I really feel like as a salesperson, you’re like a professional football player. You know, they have a season and they have to capitalize during that season, but they don’t quit working out. You know, now that the Super Bowl’s come and gone, everybody’s not gonna just go away on the beach and do nothing until the season starts back up. That’s the time that I think you need to be studying, doing courses, reading books, listening to podcasts, finding yourself a mentor.

You need to use the downtime to sharpen your skills. And the more, you know, the better equipped you are to take care of your customer. So I would say put in the work and stick with it. There’s gonna be times that you’re gonna say why, oh my gosh, am I doing this? But it is way overshadowed by the success you can have in this business. So put the work in and stick with it. And then I alluded to this earlier, but the biggest thing to me is to be a sales professional, and not an order taker. Unfortunately, in our business we have a lot of competitors that are order takers. They just come out, they do the same thing with every customer. As far as making recommendations, they say, oh, David, you’ve got a this size house. You probably need a this. And they just wanna write it up and go. I’ll tell you a brief story of how I got my mindset about sales.

So when I was a young woman, I happened into a job that I didn’t really even know what it was, but I needed a job. And a friend had referred me as it turns out I was hired to be a recruiter for a secretarial and administrative help business in Dallas. So my job was to meet with business owners. They would tell me what kind of office staff they were looking for, very specific and say, Tracie, bring me five candidates that match this criteria. So I work very, very closely with the employer and get to know them and what they wanted and what they were looking for. What was a good personality match and skill set. And then these men and women would come into the office, looking for jobs and looking for help with placement. So I would work with them on imaging and interview skills, resume, how to present themselves, how to just communicate and talk. And then I would match my five best people with that employer. He would interview and if he hired one, I got paid. So everybody’s kind of familiar with that story. But I was young and I told you I had resisted sales jobs early on because I thought I like people. I don’t wanna be pushy. I don’t wanna be one of those people. So here I was in a sales job and didn’t even know it. I mean, when you get paid for commission, when a match is made, that’s pretty much what sales people do right?

So anyway, I’ve been there a year and it was a big corporation in Dallas. They had multiple offices and they had a huge gala Christmas party at a very, very nice hotel downtown. My husband and I were youngand we were just so excited just to go to this hotel and we go to the dinner and there’s hundreds of people there and sitting at round tables and they start doing the awards and they get up and they said, “and our salesperson for the year is Tracie Harper.” And I had no idea that number one that I would win anything or I was even in contention for anything. And secondly, I had no idea David, I was a salesperson. So I went up, and I accepted the award. It was just really a crazy moment for me. And on Monday, when I got back to the office, my manager called me in and she said, “Tracie, I knew it was a possibility, but I’m so thrilled for you. I’m so proud of you, great job.” And I said, well, “Kathryn, I was stunned.” And I said, “I don’t understand. They said, I was salesman of the year.” And she said, “well, you are in all the branches.” And I said, “I know, but they said salesman. I don’t know what they mean by that.” And she said, “well, what did you think you were doing here Tracie?” And I said, “I thought I was helping people get what they want.”

David Heimer: Yeah.

Tracie Harper: And she said, “and if you think that, you will have a career in sales, the rest of your life.”

David Heimer: Yeah. Great story.

Tracie Harper: To me, David, that’s it, you’ve gotta want to help people. If you’re coming in, going, ‘I gotta make my car payment’, ‘I gotta close this deal’. Or my boss is breathing down my neck because I haven’t closed the last three calls. People know they can smell that on you.

David Heimer: Yeah.

Tracie Harper: So you gotta lay it all aside when you pull into the driveway and get your head on that, I’m going in here to see what I can do for these folks. Because I know Daffan can do it better than anybody else and I need to convey that to them. So I would say helping people be your mindsets, the best advice I can give the new guys.

David Heimer: Wow. That is great advice and a great story too. So Tom has got you to be a coach with Service Nation Alliance Premier. So what are you gonna do as a coach?

Tracie Harper: I think anybody listening, probably now can tell that I’m just super passionate about sales. So my number one objective is, and I’m currently working with some people, it’s really fun to work with people around the country. I can never get the time zones right. They tease me because they’re like Tracie, “your time, we’re meeting at this.” But I’m working with people that have various levels of sales people. So through the process that we use here and I’ve been using for years, we have a very specific sales process, we have a way of surveying and gleaning that information from the customer. We train on offering options, handling objections, closing the sale at the table, which I’m passionate about, and the finance mindset. I just try to pour everything we’ve learned over the years here directly into a new salesperson so they can accelerate their success.

I’m working with people who are new to sales, new to HVAC but have sales experience. And I’m also coaching people who have been doing it a while, but want to get to the next level. I can have the ability to coach with selling technicians because that’s a little bit different. You go to the house, the customer’s expecting you can fix it for us. And then you have to go say, well I can’t or I shouldn’t and how do you transition from the service tech to the comfort advisor or the equipment specialist for salesperson and how they literally have to change hats and how to make that smooth. So I’m working with that. I’m also talking with some owners about how to manage your sales people, and how to hold them accountable.

David Heimer: Oh yeah. That’s a new topic.

Tracie Harper: So I’m working with a gentleman, he’s a service manager and they want more leads generated out of their service department, which honestly that’s the best source for sales leads. And so I’m about to start working with him on how to train his techniciansto have those conversations with the customer on, you could repair it, but maybe you shouldn’t, here’s why. There’s a way that that conversation needs to go to be a win. And so I’m working with him and I’ve also worked with some folks on how to recruit and hire sales people in our industry. And I’m living proof that you do not have to have an HVAC background to sell it. When Tom hired me, I even told him, I don’t even know where to change my filter, you guys take care of that. I will tell you when I started in this business, I hadn’t studied that hard since college, our youngest son was still at home. He was a senior and he and my husband would come home from work and say “what’s for dinner?” And I’m like, “I don’t know, I’m studying static pressure y’all are on your own.” It was, you know, really challenging, but very fun. So those are the kind of things I do. But anything related to a more productive sales department, that’s where my passion lies and I think I have something to offer.

David Heimer: You’ve got a lot to offer. This is great stuff. I don’t wanna make this an advertisement, but for those of you that are listening, if you’re interested in the Service Nation Premier Program, you can call 8 7 7 2 6 2 3 3 4 1 that’s 8 7 7 2 6 2 3 3 4 1. You can send an email to success@serviceroundtable.com, success@serviceroundtable.com. Just tell them you’re interested in the premier program and somebody will get back with you and, and explain it all to you. You get to work with an outstanding coach like Tracie. Tracie, this has been fantastic.

Tracie Harper: David, thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to visit with you.

David Heimer: It’s been a great story. You gave us great advice. I mean, it just doesn’t get better than this.

Tracie Harper: Thank you. Thank you so much.

David Heimer: Alright. Well, I look forward to seeing you again in the future. Thanks again.

Outro: We’re always looking for good ideas and interviews for our podcast. If you have an idea or maybe you think you should be interviewed, just shoot an email to profilesinprosperity@serviceroundtable.com. That’s profilesinprosperity@serviceroundtable.com. If you think what we’re doing has any value, it would be very helpful if you had give us a great rating on iTunes. Thanks for your support. Hope to see you again soon. Bye.