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Rookie Sales Reps Are Skipping This Important Step...
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The SOLARPRENEUR podcast is here to help you close more deals in the solar industry, generate more leads and referrals, and hopefully, have a much better time and situation.
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Transcript
Introduction and Goals of the Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
Speaker
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.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you how 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, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Defining the Solopreneur
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a solopreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
Speaker
A solopreneur is a new breed of solopro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
00:00:41
Speaker
Hey, what's going on, Sorpreneurs?
Understanding Customer Agreements
00:00:42
Speaker
Today, we're going to be talking about something that might put you to sleep, except for in today's podcast, you're going to love it.
00:00:50
Speaker
But that is the big C word, contracts, except you should never be telling people contracts.
00:00:57
Speaker
It is a customer agreement.
00:00:58
Speaker
It is a forms.
00:01:00
Speaker
It is the paperwork.
00:01:02
Speaker
Never say the word contract, but we're going to be digging into the agreements today.
00:01:07
Speaker
and talking about why it's important that we understand these things and why we help our customers also understand.
00:01:13
Speaker
Okay, all that and a whole lot more.
00:01:15
Speaker
Thanks for tuning into the podcast.
00:01:17
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:01:19
Speaker
We're here to help you close more deals, generate more leads, and hopefully have a much better time in the solar industry.
00:01:25
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in every Tuesday and Friday where we bring to you fresh...
00:01:30
Speaker
new content and hopefully make your lives a lot easier.
00:01:35
Speaker
And this is a topic that I'll be honest, I did not care to really understand customer agreements or even read them.
00:01:44
Speaker
It wasn't until pretty recently that I actually read an entire agreement for the first time.
00:01:50
Speaker
And some of you might be thinking it's pretty sad.
00:01:53
Speaker
We should all understand the agreements.
00:01:54
Speaker
But those that know me know I am like
00:01:57
Speaker
the least analytical type.
00:01:59
Speaker
I just want to get things done, get them done now.
00:02:02
Speaker
I hate going through fine print, all this stuff.
00:02:05
Speaker
So that's why it's been a little bit tougher in my solar career to sometimes empathize with these analytical buyers, the engineers, the owls, as we call them.
00:02:15
Speaker
But I think it has helped me back a little bit because we all know that we're going to come across these engineers, these analytical types, and we need to know how to sell them.
00:02:25
Speaker
We need to know how to speak their language.
00:02:27
Speaker
And part of that is actually understanding the customer agreements.
00:02:31
Speaker
And so if you have not, that's the first to do for you after listening to this podcast.
Building Trust Through Agreement Transparency
00:02:37
Speaker
If you have not
00:02:38
Speaker
To this point, I've read an agreement, read what you're actually helping people sign up for, then maybe even turn off this podcast and go read it right now because that's the most important thing you could do and will just help you understand way better, answer people's questions a lot better by actually understanding the customer agreement.
00:02:58
Speaker
So that's the big reason.
00:03:00
Speaker
But on top of that, if that doesn't inspire you enough to actually start understanding these agreements, I've done...
00:03:08
Speaker
a few podcasts with some guys that have an insanely high close to install ratio.
00:03:14
Speaker
And some of you, you may listen to a podcast we did with Jack Pastrana.
00:03:18
Speaker
He is over here.
00:03:20
Speaker
I work with him actually here in San Diego, consistently installs over a hundred every year in San Diego, as we know, as a saturated market.
00:03:29
Speaker
And he does it mostly all self gen deals.
00:03:33
Speaker
And it's just super impressive to see him hit this year after year after year being pretty new in solar as well.
00:03:39
Speaker
And so he is the top installer, at least over here in our office.
00:03:44
Speaker
We asked him this, we asked him, Jack, what do you think you do differently?
00:03:50
Speaker
Or what do you think helps you avoid cancellations and actually get the glass to roof?
00:03:54
Speaker
And he talked about a few things.
00:03:57
Speaker
You can go listen to podcasts.
00:03:59
Speaker
He shares all his secrets.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yes, we can link that in the show notes.
00:04:02
Speaker
But one of the top things on his list was he actually goes through the entire customer agreement with people in the home.
00:04:11
Speaker
And I don't mean read every single word.
00:04:14
Speaker
But I mean, he actually goes to all the parts where they initial, all the sections where he thinks they could potentially have questions later down the road or when he leaves.
00:04:23
Speaker
He goes through with them.
00:04:25
Speaker
As he was explaining this to us, he says, yeah, none of my customers even open up their agreements ever again.
00:04:32
Speaker
because they know that I went through every single bullet point with them.
00:04:36
Speaker
I explained it.
00:04:39
Speaker
They trusted me completely because I went through every section that they're initialing.
00:04:43
Speaker
I explained it.
00:04:44
Speaker
The words are backing up what I'm saying.
00:04:46
Speaker
So they don't feel the need to actually open up the customer agreement.
00:04:50
Speaker
Okay, how many of us have had customers who signed up, they open up the agreement later that they signed because we just said, hey, click all the yellow boxes.
00:05:00
Speaker
You don't need to read this.
00:05:00
Speaker
You'll get a copy.
00:05:02
Speaker
So they felt like, oh, you know, I better, I have no idea what I even signed.
00:05:06
Speaker
Let me open this up.
00:05:08
Speaker
And then all of a sudden they see five, six, seven things that they had no idea about.
00:05:13
Speaker
And hopefully you're not, hopefully even if your customers are, you know, skimming through it, going through the agreement quick, you should explain to them all the points.
00:05:22
Speaker
There should be no surprises in the agreements.
00:05:26
Speaker
Even if you were having them skim through, but yeah.
00:05:29
Speaker
At the end of the day, there's going to be little things I've had customers cancel for the most ludicrous, ridiculous things like them not knowing small details about the agreement and cause them to cancel.
00:05:42
Speaker
Right.
00:05:43
Speaker
I mean, and I'll go through a couple of sections of our agreement right now.
00:05:46
Speaker
We're using mostly Everbright.
00:05:49
Speaker
But, you know, things as simple as them not knowing exactly how it works when they move.
00:05:57
Speaker
I remember when I was when I was new to solar, them not knowing exactly how the financing works.
00:06:03
Speaker
And if you've closed a loan, a solar loan, you know that there's the truth and lending page where it shows what the total of their payments will add up to.
00:06:15
Speaker
And I remember so many people in the beginning when I was a new closer, I would not explain this correctly.
00:06:22
Speaker
They would see these bigger numbers that weren't explained and they would cancel.
00:06:28
Speaker
They'd look at it later.
00:06:29
Speaker
They'd get confused.
00:06:30
Speaker
They'd think I misled them or told them that something wasn't true.
00:06:33
Speaker
And really, I just didn't explain that, hey, these higher numbers are if you don't apply the tax credit and it's the worst case scenario, the total it's going to add up to.
00:06:43
Speaker
And I lost a lot of deals because of it.
00:06:45
Speaker
So make sure you understand the agreement and make sure you know, especially the more controversial points or sections like that where it could be interpreted as something negative or something bad.
00:06:58
Speaker
You definitely want to handle those points because we all know the best way to overcome an objection is to bring it up before the homeowner can, before the customer can.
00:07:08
Speaker
Hey, so very important points just before we get into reviewing some of everybody's agreement that we're going to do on here.
00:07:16
Speaker
Hey, just remember, that's what the top installers are doing is they are making sure their customers understand the agreements and they're going through the bullet points.
00:07:25
Speaker
They're going through all the initial the sections where the customers need to initial.
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah, I've started doing this and I have noticed
00:07:34
Speaker
my sign to install ratio has gone up just by doing this simple thing.
00:07:38
Speaker
So there's your two homework items.
00:07:40
Speaker
Number one, understand the agreements, even if you're not closing deals in if you're setting, probably still a good thing to understand.
00:07:47
Speaker
Just make sure you're not overwhelming customers.
00:07:50
Speaker
or overwhelming homeowners at the door.
00:07:54
Speaker
Don't give people too much information, especially if you're a newer setter.
00:07:58
Speaker
Then number two, from now on, as you are in homes, if you are closing deals, make sure you actually go through all the bullet points, all the sections where they initial.
00:08:12
Speaker
Don't make the mistake I made and say, hey, just click all the yellows.
00:08:15
Speaker
You don't need to read anything.
00:08:17
Speaker
You can read it later.
00:08:19
Speaker
It leads to cancels.
Tools and Resources for Solar Professionals
00:08:20
Speaker
So learn from my mistake, do it the right way.
00:08:23
Speaker
So some of you already know that I run my own door-to-door sales team here in San Diego.
00:08:28
Speaker
And as we are gearing up for the summer, I realized if we do the same thing we always did, we're going to get the same results.
00:08:35
Speaker
But if I want to increase my deal flow, I need to do something different to get an advantage.
00:08:39
Speaker
Then we discovered an app called Solar Scout.
00:08:42
Speaker
But it's not a door knocking app.
00:08:44
Speaker
It's a data platform that shows us who is likely to go solar in our market.
00:08:48
Speaker
It shows us who has previously applied for solar but later canceled the deal, who has moved in recently, and even how much electricity the homes are using in a given e-word.
00:08:58
Speaker
It's been working for a lot of teams across the country, and now I'm on board too.
00:09:02
Speaker
I'm going to be one of the first to use SolarScout in San Diego, so I decided to partner up.
00:09:06
Speaker
But I told them, hey, if I'm going to talk about SolarScout on my show, you need to give my listeners a great deal.
00:09:12
Speaker
And they did.
00:09:13
Speaker
So go to solarscout.app forward slash Taylor and book a demo with them, and you'll get 10% off your first month when you sign up.
00:09:22
Speaker
That's solarscout.app forward slash Taylor.
00:09:26
Speaker
Okay, back to the show.
00:09:28
Speaker
Okay, so that's the two tips.
00:09:29
Speaker
And I'm not going to go through an entire agreement right now because I know people could fall asleep to this.
00:09:38
Speaker
I've already been told that sometimes I'm a little monotone on the podcast.
00:09:41
Speaker
So if I just read this thing, it would definitely put you to sleep.
00:09:44
Speaker
But I just want to point out a few sections on our current agreements.
00:09:49
Speaker
And this may or may not apply to you.
00:09:51
Speaker
Here in California, we are primarily selling power purchase agreements just with a battery and nature of higher interest rates, things like that.
00:10:01
Speaker
In my opinion, it's the way to go in California right now.
00:10:04
Speaker
So we're using Everbright.
00:10:06
Speaker
and they recently changed their agreements.
00:10:08
Speaker
That's another thing to be aware of.
00:10:10
Speaker
From time to time, these lenders, these financers will update their agreements.
00:10:15
Speaker
They'll change little things.
00:10:16
Speaker
An example of that, in Everbright's case, if you are selling through Everbright, they recently changed where their power purchase agreement, the buyer, if the homeowner sells the home with the system,
00:10:32
Speaker
The buyer has to qualify for it now.
00:10:35
Speaker
Their credit has to pass in order to transfer the system.
00:10:38
Speaker
Where before, they didn't have to pass.
00:10:41
Speaker
There was just, if someone had bad credit, there was a $250 fee.
00:10:44
Speaker
It wasn't a big deal.
00:10:46
Speaker
So that's something that changed, something that could easily be missed by people if you're not reading your updated contracts, updated agreements.
00:10:53
Speaker
Okay, so I'm going to go through just a couple bullet points of things that I point out to homeowners in the close.
00:11:00
Speaker
And hopefully this inspires you to do the same, go read it, figure out if there's things that I thought I was explaining correctly, but I remember first time reading the contract word for word, there were several things that I think I wasn't explaining either enough or I was explaining partially incorrect.
00:11:18
Speaker
So very powerfully if you can read it.
00:11:20
Speaker
Hey, so Everbright's agreement.
00:11:22
Speaker
I mean, they have a bunch.
00:11:24
Speaker
The good news is use typically all these agreements.
00:11:27
Speaker
The first couple pages will just like bullet points, essentially summarize the entire agreements.
00:11:32
Speaker
So you can go through those and that gets you through most of it.
00:11:36
Speaker
But again, you should go through the places where they need initial after.
00:11:41
Speaker
So in the case of Everbright, we're doing a power purchase agreement.
00:11:45
Speaker
A one thing, the first point that it has them initial is that they're going to renew their agreement automatically if they do nothing.
00:11:53
Speaker
So what that means is if the homeowner doesn't send in written notice, doesn't call,
00:11:58
Speaker
Then after 25 years, they're going to renew their power purchase agreements automatically.
00:12:03
Speaker
Okay, so I go through that.
00:12:05
Speaker
Second section is if they need additional energy, they may have to buy it from the utility.
00:12:12
Speaker
Most of us know that.
00:12:14
Speaker
There's sections that talk about batteries.
00:12:17
Speaker
There's sections that talk about a performance guarantee.
00:12:19
Speaker
And here's another example of something that I was explaining incorrectly for a while until I, or at least leaving out details until I actually read through this and understand it.
00:12:31
Speaker
If you are selling Everbright, I believe it's the same for a lease or a power purchase agreement.
00:12:37
Speaker
But the way Everbright does it for their production guarantee is if the system underproduces,
00:12:45
Speaker
They won't get a credit for that energy that was underproduced until after a 24-month period.
00:12:52
Speaker
So it's not just like the month after they're going to get a credit.
00:12:57
Speaker
They have to wait 24 months because everybody is hoping that it's going to overproduce on other months and balance out.
00:13:06
Speaker
Um, so something to be aware of and something that you probably should be pointing out to your homeowners, because if you sign them up, you tell them there's a production guarantee, but you leave out that detail.
00:13:17
Speaker
Uh, they might not be the happiest campers when they don't get reimbursed after a year.
00:13:22
Speaker
They have to wait 24 months.
00:13:24
Speaker
Okay.
00:13:25
Speaker
And yeah, some people could, um, feel the need to leave that out because it's not the most, um,
00:13:34
Speaker
um ideal thing like we would love to have it reimbursed the month after but yeah you got to be up front with people um so that's the section and yeah not to get too much in the weeds but another section where the initial is just talking about arbitration we don't go to regular courts we don't get a judge we use an arbitrator
00:13:55
Speaker
Um, they have to opt out of class action lawsuits.
00:13:58
Speaker
They can't do any of that.
00:14:00
Speaker
Um, roof penetration warranty is 10 years.
00:14:06
Speaker
Um, and yeah, another section is just, we have the right to take a picture of their system and call them.
00:14:15
Speaker
So keep in mind, all these things, they're mostly positive.
00:14:20
Speaker
OK, so we should not be scared to actually go through this agreement with people and be upfront about everything because most of it is in our favor and most of it is just backing up everything we say.
00:14:36
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, the other thing that Everbright recently started doing is they give a discount for...
00:14:44
Speaker
um people opting into auto pay which is great news so that's 15 off the amount that we tell them um 15 15 off their monthly payment which is great a lot of good stuff in here don't shy away from this um i rec i would recommend even going through the cancellation policy everybody gives them 10 business days to cancel so that's something i go through with all of my homeowners
00:15:10
Speaker
Explain to them, hey, after that, we're going to start making progress.
00:15:15
Speaker
And that's when we're going to start spending money on the projects.
00:15:17
Speaker
So I make it clear that they can't just change their minds the day before the install.
00:15:23
Speaker
And I believe that's another way to retain your customers.
00:15:27
Speaker
Don't make them think that they can cancel at any time.
00:15:29
Speaker
Don't cancel close.
00:15:30
Speaker
And then of course you have the welcome call.
00:15:34
Speaker
In Everbride's case, you have a welcome checklist.
00:15:36
Speaker
Most agreements will have something like that, either a welcome call or a welcome checklist that homeowners have to go through, which is another thing that just adds credibility to everything you're seeing.
00:15:47
Speaker
So yeah, I think that's all I want to go over.
00:15:50
Speaker
I don't want to go read the entire agreement here.
00:15:53
Speaker
Just got done in a close actually.
00:15:55
Speaker
So I went through this entire thing with homeowners just barely
00:15:59
Speaker
I think my brain is fried.
00:16:00
Speaker
I've been going through these a lot.
00:16:02
Speaker
And there's still things that sometimes I'll read through it again.
00:16:05
Speaker
I'll see little things that I could be explaining better.
00:16:09
Speaker
So don't just read it once.
00:16:11
Speaker
I would recommend reading it multiple times.
00:16:14
Speaker
And you don't have to be an expert.
00:16:16
Speaker
Know the ins and outs of every single little thing.
00:16:20
Speaker
But again, it will help you, especially with those analytical buyers.
00:16:23
Speaker
And it will help you
00:16:25
Speaker
separate yourself from competition because I guarantee a lot of just sales focus dealers and companies, they don't, a lot of guys don't even understand or read their agreements.
Community Engagement and Feedback
00:16:37
Speaker
So especially if someone is comparing or maybe sat with another company, if they see you're the professional, that you're actually going through the agreement, you're not shying away from it.
00:16:47
Speaker
You're not just telling them to click through things, then who do you think they're going to go with?
00:16:51
Speaker
Hopefully you.
00:16:52
Speaker
Hey, so let me know if you like more of this stuff.
00:16:54
Speaker
Personally, I, as you can probably tell, I don't, well, I'm not super entertained by customer agreements and all that.
00:17:02
Speaker
So we try to keep it pretty focused on sales, but this is an aspect that I thought we should bring up.
00:17:07
Speaker
So let me know if you like more of this content.
00:17:10
Speaker
Or if you have guests you want to bring on that you want to recommend, always looking for guests and people that are dominating in solar to come share with us all.
00:17:21
Speaker
So let me know if you have any suggestions with that.
00:17:22
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in the podcast today, and we'll see you on the next one.
00:17:26
Speaker
Peace.
00:17:28
Speaker
Hey, solopreneurs, quick question.
00:17:30
Speaker
What if you could surround yourself with the industry's top performing sales pros, marketers, and CEOs and learn from their experience and wisdom in less than 20 minutes a day?
00:17:40
Speaker
For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
00:17:52
Speaker
That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals and
00:17:58
Speaker
to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry.
00:18:03
Speaker
And it's called Solcite.
00:18:05
Speaker
This learning community was designed from the ground up to level the playing field and give Solar Pros access to proven mentors who want to give back to this community and help you or your team to be held accountable by the industry's brightest minds for, are you ready for it, less than $3.45 a day.
00:18:24
Speaker
Currently, Soul Society is open, launched, and ready to be enrolled.
00:18:30
Speaker
So go to soulciety.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
00:18:38
Speaker
This is exclusively for solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to soulciety.co and join.
00:18:45
Speaker
We'll see you on the inside.