Sam Wakefield, Close It Now | Selling Without Selling

Meet Sam Wakefield

Featuring Sam Wakefield, founder of Close It Now.

For our second series of Comms Center Stories, we sat down with Sam Wakefield: founder of Close It Now. Our conversation with Sam illuminates a concept we’re seeing pop up a lot across the trades: removing unnecessary pressure around the most social aspects of your business.

Wakefield coaches and teaches a concept called “selling without selling” (Sw/oS, as we’ll abbreviate it here), wherein he encourages owners, operators, and reps to ditch the pressure commonly associated with sales entirely. Instead, Wakefield encourages you to help paint a picture of the future in contrast with the present alongside your potential client.

What selling without selling does

Selling without selling emerges as one of these core strategies that can anchor a 21st century business at a point beyond the limitations of an assertive, “take it or leave it” past across all industries. By removing the traditional push in sales entirely, Wakefield’s approach encourages us to treat the client just as you would want to be treated.

Ultimately, you want to work with someone who wants to work with you: not the opposite.

You likely wouldn’t be at a potential client’s house giving them a quote if they didn’t want to spend some money on your services in the first place – so why push them?

In action

Wakefield encourages those working in sales or adjacent to it to work with potential clients step-by-step in visualizing future changes from start to finish. In other words, you want to establish a commonly-agreed-upon baseline (your current conditions) and then compare it to a better-looking future. Importantly: paint the picture of what the project enables when it’s finished, not just the physical conditions of your work.

Instead of focusing on ‘we’ll solve your problem by prepping X, doing Y, and polishing Z,’ illustrate what’s unlocked: ‘when we’ve achieved XYZ, you’ll finally be able to achieve ABC.’

What this spells for the industry

Sw/oS as a concept is exciting because it represents a broader interrogation of service culture, particularly in the US; if we’re not serving the needs and interests of our customers, then are we truly service workers?

In shifting towards sales strategies that center our potential customers’ interests as something we explore together, it helps us as those serving them to know exactly what they’re looking for as early as possible.

Sales, reflected

Sales and how we approach it is an especially important consideration, regardless of your position internally at a company. Ultimately, what one interrogates here isn’t their ability to sell more things, but rather their ability to work well with other human beings. Sw/oS gives someone the ability to focus on building several low-pressure relationships with people with time working with them, not against them.

It’s not about forcing anything … it’s about being a person of character, and helping your potential client navigate outside of their comfort zone as they make a decision.

For us as Comms Center

Sam Wakefield’s work as a coach through his company Close It Now forms a shining example in what we’re seeing as newcomers to the trades and construction industry: that strong interpersonal relationships and passion for service have always been keys to a business’ success. However, there’s a caveat: whereas in the past the precedent revolved around the “strong, silent type,” professionals like Wakefield are reframing into a status quo that revolves around low pressure, friendliness, and patience.

After our conversation with Wakefield, it’s clear to us at Comms Center that low-pressure sales is more than a technique — it reflects an exciting shift in how businesses can choose to operate. It’s a shift toward leading with character, building a strong presence in the communities we serve, and centering the long-term client relationships that have always been the real foundation of a business’ success. As we pivot to the next generation of leaders in the trades and construction industry, that’s a future worth painting a picture of.

Check out Close It Now

Interested in learning from the man himself? Check out Sam Wakefield’s Close It Now website! You can listen to his thoroughly informative podcast, reach out for one-on-one coaching, and even book a talk hosted by Sam himself. Thanks again to Sam Wakefield for joining us on Comms Center Stories!