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Dealing With Different Cultures In Your Solar Sales
264 Plays6 days ago
In this episode, we'll go through some basic tips on keeping yourself both respectful and engaging towards the different cultures you'll meet at the doors. Cultural sensitivity is something we should all learn in solar, especially in today's diverse and ever-changing America.
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Transcript
Introduction to Solarpreneur Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail.
Generating Leads and Closing Deals in Solar
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, following up like a pro and closing more deals.
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solar printer you might ask? A solar printer is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to feed mastery and you are about to become one.
Cultural Adaptation in Solar Sales
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey solar printers, today we're going to be discussing how you can handle different cultures, different ethnic ethnicities, a lot of different types of people out there. So how do you adjust your presentation? We're going to be jamming on that and a whole lot more. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Today, we are here to help you close more deals, generate more leads and referrals.
San Diego Blitz Event Announcement
00:01:01
Speaker
and have a much better time in the solar industry. My name is Taylor Armstrong and ah hopefully you are having great results whenever you're listening to this. I wanted to roll out an exciting announcement before we dive into the contents of today's episode. And that is we are planning a blitz for the end of this month. We're recording this in February.
00:01:25
Speaker
So if you would like to get a taste of the California markets, San Diego, come out and learn from the best. We have a link for an application down below. We'd love to chat with you and love to potentially get you out here ah for this blitz or future blitzes. We have a few spots available. So click the link, apply below.
00:01:48
Speaker
and ah you want to go where the money's flowing.
Sales Strategies for Indian Families
00:01:53
Speaker
So check out the Blitz. um Love to chat. So ah today's episode, we actually just recorded some live contents. So um we're going to play a little bit of and those clips during the podcast today. But it just got me thinking, how do you adjust the presentation? OK, this particular close this evening was a Indian family.
00:02:17
Speaker
And a lot of us has done presentations for Indians, you know particularly families that are like middle east Middle Eastern, India. A lot of times you get that bartering back and forth. They want to feel like they're getting the best deal. They want to feel like they're not getting getting scammed. So what are some things we can do to help overcome those objections?
00:02:42
Speaker
But at the same time, make them feel like they're getting a great deal and not have this battle of bartering back and forth. Cause I have lost a lot of deals by getting them price battles with Indians where, um, you know, they want the best deal. So you got to make them feel, and that's just the culture. Hey, we're not being racist, sir, but it's just different cultures. You need to understand how their buying system is like in their countries of origin. And what are the differences?
00:03:10
Speaker
So it's helpful to understand that. It's just like it's helpful to understand different buying types, right? um Most of um the Indian families down here around San Diego, a lot of them are engineers. Most are super analytical. So that speaks to their buying type. You need to be prepared to show them figures.
00:03:32
Speaker
graphs, spreadsheets, whatever it takes, you should have all those handy and things that maybe you're not going to use in other appointments, other presentations. You got to be ready to use them for a particular these analytical types. So yeah, understand the buying types, understand the different buying cultures. It's going to help you tremendously in the deal.
Tips for Selling to Diverse Cultures
00:03:53
Speaker
Hey, but ah three things, three tips we'll give with um with dealing with different cultures here. The first one is be prepared to have references, be prepared to name drop a lot. What I've found is that a lot of times when you're selling people of similar cultures, they love seeing that someone of their same backgrounds, same ethnic ethnicity is involved in the program. So this particular presentation, I made it a point
00:04:28
Speaker
to go back and it helped that this was actually someone in their same neighborhood. I went and pulled up a photo of previous in the family that I've helped, that I'd helped in the neighborhood. There were also engineers, very similar backgrounds, uh, name dropped him. He ended up recognizing the particular family that I helped. I think it helped me build a ton of credibility, a lot of rapport just by pulling up this photo.
00:04:54
Speaker
lot of credibility. So I'll play a little clip of how I approach that would definitely recommend storing a photo album of previous customers. Photos, videos, footage just helps ah tremendously. So let me play a little clip here and you can hear how I approached it in this presentation here. Good to know. Um, yeah, I was trying to find One of the neighbors we helped, you don't know a guy named Ron, do you? No, by name, I mean, not but but but by face I will be knowing. So how much they're having? There he is. I don't know if you'd recognize them. They just had a baby. Oh yeah, the small baby. I know by i know by face, ah not by the name.
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So do you do, so he's one, we've got him approved and he's getting his installed up there pretty soon. Oh nice. Um, but yeah, same thing. He was being pretty conservative. So he, he just liked the idea with it with this, he can use a lot more power and he's that's all go crazy. So you got a bowl and I think, uh,
00:05:55
Speaker
Because they are just family of two and they be small and they are family of four. So our connection will be much more. So pretty straightforward, pretty simple. But again, just have a little photo album. So you can go back and I actually made a little mistake is I didn't have this guy's photo saved in my usual photo album.
00:06:16
Speaker
So I had to go scroll through a bunch of photos. He was actually kind of waiting and I was like, oh, let me find this guy. And it took me probably two minutes of kind of like going back and forth between my phone, trying to build rapport with this ah homeowner while I was searching for the photos. So learn from my mistake, be better and just have.
00:06:36
Speaker
Whether it's you or I've had a yeah virtual assistant access my iCloud account where she can go see all my photos and I said, hey, we go and just all the photos that are with customers, we put them in an album of ah customer photos, customer footage.
00:06:53
Speaker
and helps you stay organized and helps you just pull it up on the fly. So have something ready like that, especially with these different ethnicities, different cultures. It's going to help so much, I promise. Okay. And then two other tips before we wrap up here is, especially with these types of cultures, you got to remember that typically they're going to be bartering. Typically they're going to want to make sure they're getting the best deal.
Solar Scout App Promotion
00:07:19
Speaker
So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego. And as we were gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results. But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage. Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout. But it's not a door knocking app. It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:07:44
Speaker
It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later cancelled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given neighborhood. It's been working for a lot of teams across the country and now I'm on board too. I'm going to be one of the first to use Solar Scout in San Diego so I decided to burn her up. But I told them, hey, I'm going to talk about Solar
Preparing for Sales Presentations
00:08:05
Speaker
Scout on my show. You need to get my listeners a great deal. And they did.
00:08:09
Speaker
So go to solar scout dot app forward slash taylor And book a demo with them and you'll get 10 off your first month when you sign up That's solar scout dot app forward slash taylor Okay back to the show So just be prepared to maybe start the price a little bit higher, knowing that it's likely that you have to drop it a little bit. This one i actually didn't, but be prepared with that and then be prepared with just difference. Uh, maybe you have quotes from other companies. I'm ready to go.
00:08:41
Speaker
right We take the brokerage, the solar brokerage approach that we work with a lot of different lending options, a lot of different installers. So that's a way that helps us overcome people that are shoppers. But hey, I just got done reading ah Sam Taggart's new book, Eat What You Kill, great book for me, share a few things from it. But one of the tips he gives is when he was selling alarms, he would have ready just basically quotes from competitors. Um, so people that said, Oh, I'm Sam, I want to make sure I'm getting the best deal. I want to look at this company. And then he would be like, yeah, well, that's actually why people like working with me is we do the homework for you. And then he would pull up, he would pull out quotes that are the other people had gotten. So think about doing that with, uh, your solar presentations doesn't hurt, have some different quotes prepared. Even if it's not for that customer, you can pull up live examples. It's going to help you overcome things like that, ah especially for people that want to be doing the whole battle back and forth, the bartering. And then tip number three is just show as much proof with everything you're talking about as possible. So in addition to having a photo album with all your customers and previous clients,
00:09:55
Speaker
Definitely consider having a photo album with every single piece of ammo you could use that pertains to your presentation. Are you talking about rate hikes? Hey, ah you better have a tab saved with links, articles, proof that rates are going up. Have a photo album saved with the rates from 10 years ago. We have little charts that we save between our team and we do shared photo albums um between our team. So we once we find something interesting,
00:10:26
Speaker
We can screenshot it. We can save it in the shared photo album. And it gives us all ammo to use in our presentations. hey so So many different things you could use in there. um But again, little screenshots of ah ah rate increases going on. um What else? Pulling up mine here. Yeah, we have screenshots of things that are comparing the utility versus the solar options we have.
00:10:56
Speaker
We have screenshots of the process that we're going to follow they where they're going to enroll. They're going to do a site survey. Um, should be, yeah, let me know. I'm willing to share some of this comes with the fee of sharing the podcast. But if you leave or serve you, if you share the podcast, then I'd consider sharing some of these photos with you. If you want to start your shared about photo album.
00:11:21
Speaker
But start something that has lots of tools you can use like that in your closes. And it's just going to make it so much easier um depending on the customer type, depending on the culture, depending on what their career is.
00:11:38
Speaker
You need to have things things handy. um You need to have arrows in your quiver that you can pull out at any ah given moment's notice to get the clues. So hope those things help. hey Number one, make sure you are using references. Make sure you have photo albums of people you've helped. um If you can get neighbors or people in the same neighborhood, people with similar but somewhere backgrounds, even better. Number two, consider starting the price a little bit higher if you have to barter.
00:12:08
Speaker
If you have to make them feel like they're getting a great deal, then give yourself some wiggle room to do that. And number three, just have proof for everything everything you're talking about. Hey, this presentation, this close that I got out of tonight, um we hit a lot on just the added fees that the utility is charging here. So I pulled out a copy of the bill. Someone else's copy.
00:12:31
Speaker
We turn to the page that breaks down all the fees and we just killed the bill. Make sure you're killing that bill. Just get them as angry as you can about all the fees that are added. hey Out here in San Diego, we got transmission fees, distribution fees. We got a competition transition fee that we're paying for everyone that has solar because the utility is losing out on revenue. So the more you can get those people upset, the easier it's going to be to get the close. If you don't have pain in your presentations,
00:12:59
Speaker
Then why will people why would anybody want a solution? if There's no pain. So hope those things help and these it's gonna help with any close case. Oh The
Future Trends with Michael O'Donnell
00:13:08
Speaker
title was how to handle different cultures But I think the reason I a title of that because it's even more important when you are dealing with these different cultures different ethnicities But really it's gonna work in all of your closes hey so hope that helps today and we've got a special treat coming up for next episode i had the privilege of interviewing michael donnell for the fourth time i believe he is our longest tenured guests on the podcast he keeps coming back for more i don't know why I'm just kidding. We love doing it. But you're not going to want to miss out on MOD Michael O'Donnell's podcast that is coming the next episode. And he talks a lot about the changes we've seen. Do we need to worry about what's going on with Trump? What are some things we need to think about as we move towards the future of solar? So tune into that one. You're not going to want to miss out. and ah thanks for tuning in to the podcast. Again, share the show if you have not, leave us a review if you have not, send me a screenshot and I will happily share some of the resources we use on our team
Top 10 Solarpreneur Episodes Cheat Sheet
00:14:11
Speaker
with you. um But until then, keep closing lots of deals, keep growing your company, keep growing your business, keep recruiting, and we'll see you on the next episode. What's up, solarpreneurs? Hope you enjoyed the episode. Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created it specifically for you in mind. One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start? What episodes should I listen to in the podcast? You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
00:14:48
Speaker
So what we've done we created the top 10 most downloaded most listened to and I would say widely accepted most useful podcasts that we've done here on solar printer. We put them together all in one sheet so you can go you can hit the ground running especially if you're new you do not want to not have this sheet.
00:15:10
Speaker
So go download it right now. It's going to be a top10.solarpreneurs.com. Again, that's top10, the number 10.solarpreneurs.com. Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs. We will have that in the show notes. Go download it right now. And especially if you have not listened to him, go listen to him and you can re-listen to him. That's going to show you how. So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.