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Whoever Cares Less, Wins the Sale image

Whoever Cares Less, Wins the Sale

E138 ยท The Solarpreneur
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61 Plays5 years ago

Speaker 1 (00:03):

Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and 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. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery. And you are about to become what's up. Solarpreneurs Taylor, I'm Sean here with another

Speaker 2 (00:45):

Episode, helping you conquer the solar industry. One deal at a time, and as always, we're here to help you make it easier to close your deals, easier to get referrals and easier to have success in this great industry. So I am back from Mexico. Have you heard the past, uh, was that a week and a half ago? I was down chewing I'm part of the wire I'm back the first week. I'm back to selling last week. And I will say, um, something that has always been an issue for me is just getting back into that flow of things when I'm gone. I know everyone struggles with it. Um, when I first started in pest control, I remember I took a week. I think it was a little over a week off to go on a cruise with my family. And, um, for those that have done summer sells, you know that if you take a week off in the middle of the summer, when you're only out there for 10 weeks or so, um, I guess more than that, but you know, three and a half, four months taking a week off can just kill your sels.

Speaker 2 (01:51):

So it's no different in solar. I mean, I'm doing this year around, but you got to get strategic with how you're taking things off and use those things as a motivation to push even harder. What I did that helped me a lot is I use this trip. I knew I had planned. I tried to push as hard as possible and luckily it helped motivate me. It helped me push harder than I would have. So I didn't let it affect myself before, but coming back, um, I'll be honest. It was sort of an issue last week. I struggled heading in as many appointments as I wanted to, um, only gotten I think three or so makes it tough to close if you're not getting in the amount of appointments that you need to. So have a plan. If you are taking time off, have a plan for before, and then after the trip, what are you going to do?

Speaker 2 (02:41):

How are you going to find that extra motivation to push hard? When you get back? It's a lesson I was reminded of. And now this week I'm ready to grind hard again. So what I wanted to go through this week that I knew it was going to help you Solarpreneurs out, um, have a little story. I was out on the weekend. I was at an appointment with one of our newer reps and some of these newer guys, they turn this, this game of sells and this sort of like a begging thing. How hard can you beg to get the customer to do your bidding? And we're with an older, um, older guy in his home he'd been in there forever. He actually lived with his mom. His mom was like in his nineties, he was in his like sixties. And what happened is they weren't really interested, um, in letting us inside the house, we had to kind of boil airway inside the home to get and do the presentation.

Speaker 2 (03:45):

And once we got gnome, he's like, man, I never let people inside the house. And then the mom pipes in and says, Hey, we're not signing up for anything. We don't want to do any home improvements. So at that point I knew it was going to be an uphill battle because she was technically the owner of the home, even though she was super old, wasn't really making many decisions for the home at that point. But the mistake we made and I sorta let the newer rep, um, you know, take more control, which I probably shou

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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.
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 fell.
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.

What is a Solarpreneur?

00:00:31
Speaker
What is a Solarpreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
Speaker
A Solarpreneur is a new breed of Solar Pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
00:00:42
Speaker
What's up, Solarpreneurs?
00:00:43
Speaker
Taylor Armstrong here with another episode helping you conquer the solar industry one deal at a time.
00:00:50
Speaker
And as always, we're here to help you make it easier to close your deals, easier to get referrals and easier to have success in this great industry.

Transitioning Back to Work After Vacation

00:01:00
Speaker
So I am back from Mexico.
00:01:02
Speaker
If you heard the past was a week and a half ago, I was down chillin in Puerto Vallarta.
00:01:09
Speaker
I'm back, had the first week back to selling last week.
00:01:14
Speaker
And I will say something that has always been an issue for me is just getting back into that flow of things when I'm gone.
00:01:21
Speaker
I know everyone struggles with it.
00:01:24
Speaker
When I first started in pest control, I remember I took a week, I think it was a little over a week off to go on a cruise with my family.
00:01:33
Speaker
And for those that have done summer sales, you know that if you take a week off in the middle of the summer when you're only out there for 10 weeks or so, I guess more than that, but you know, three and a half, four months, taking a week off can just kill your sales.
00:01:51
Speaker
So it's no different in solar.
00:01:53
Speaker
I mean, I'm doing this year round, but you got to get strategic with how you're taking things off and use those things as motivation to push even harder.
00:02:02
Speaker
What I did that helped me a lot is I used this trip I knew I had planned.
00:02:07
Speaker
I tried to push as hard as possible.
00:02:09
Speaker
And luckily it helped motivate me.
00:02:10
Speaker
It helped me push harder than I would have.
00:02:13
Speaker
So I didn't let it affect my cells before.
00:02:16
Speaker
But coming back, I'll be honest, it was sort of an issue.
00:02:21
Speaker
Last week I struggled.
00:02:23
Speaker
I didn't get in as many appointments as I wanted to.
00:02:27
Speaker
Only gotten, I think, three or so.
00:02:30
Speaker
Makes it tough to close if you're not getting in the amount of appointments that you need to.
00:02:36
Speaker
So have a plan.
00:02:37
Speaker
If you are taking time off, have a plan for before and then after the trip.
00:02:40
Speaker
What are you going to do?
00:02:42
Speaker
How are you going to find that extra motivation to push hard when you get back?
00:02:46
Speaker
It's a lesson I was reminded of.
00:02:48
Speaker
And now this week I'm ready to grind hard again.

The Pitfalls of Desperation in Sales

00:02:52
Speaker
So what I wanted to go through this week that I know is going to help you solarpreneurs out there, have a little story.
00:03:02
Speaker
I was out on the weekend.
00:03:04
Speaker
I was at an appointment with one of our newer reps.
00:03:08
Speaker
And some of these newer guys, they turn this game of sales into sort of like a begging thing.
00:03:15
Speaker
How hard can you beg to get the customer to do your bidding?
00:03:19
Speaker
And we were with an older...
00:03:23
Speaker
older guy in his home.
00:03:26
Speaker
He'd been in there forever.
00:03:27
Speaker
He actually lived with his mom.
00:03:29
Speaker
His mom was like in his 90s.
00:03:30
Speaker
He was in his like 60s.
00:03:34
Speaker
And what happened is they weren't really interested in
00:03:38
Speaker
in letting us inside the house.
00:03:40
Speaker
We had to kind of boil our way inside the home to get and do the presentation.
00:03:46
Speaker
And once we got in the home, he's like, man, I never let people inside the house.
00:03:50
Speaker
And then the mom pipes in and says, hey, we're not signing up for anything.
00:03:55
Speaker
We don't want to do any home improvements.
00:03:57
Speaker
So at that point, I knew it was going to be an uphill battle because she was technically the owner of the home, even though she was super old, wasn't really making many decisions for the home at that point.
00:04:08
Speaker
But the mistake we made, and I sort of let the newer rep, you know, take more control, which I probably should have jumped in more.
00:04:18
Speaker
But he starts, he starts basically kind of begging for it.
00:04:22
Speaker
Oh, well, you're definitely going to want to do it after we show you.
00:04:27
Speaker
You guys will love this.
00:04:30
Speaker
And then what it ended up doing by the end, I mean, that stuff works to a degree, but by the end, the more you like beg for the cell, the more you show that you're kind of desperate, it ends up backfiring on you.
00:04:43
Speaker
I've seen this time and time again.
00:04:45
Speaker
People beg, oh, please do this.
00:04:47
Speaker
If you're not doing it for me, do it for my dog, do it for my cat, do it for my wife, do it for my kids.
00:04:54
Speaker
It's some of Grant Cardone's closes.
00:04:56
Speaker
If you read his books, he has some closes like that.
00:04:59
Speaker
And those can sometimes be effective, but what you'll find in sales, people are turned off when you start begging like that.
00:05:10
Speaker
People want to do pretty much the opposite of what you're begging them.
00:05:15
Speaker
They can see the desperation.
00:05:17
Speaker
If you're out there with desperation, people are going to snip that out immediately.
00:05:20
Speaker
It's going to turn them off to the sale.

Insights from Ryan Serhant on Sales Dynamics

00:05:24
Speaker
So I was listening to a podcast after that, another great podcast listened to.
00:05:29
Speaker
I should probably do an episode on all of that.
00:05:31
Speaker
the top podcast for sales guys let me know if you'd like to hear that but there's one really good one it's the school of greatness by Lewis Howes it's a big big podcast he gets top guys from all different industries I guess entertainment pretty much anyone that's influenced a lot of people he gets them to come on and share you know just their stories their successes
00:05:56
Speaker
So good podcast.
00:05:58
Speaker
And this last week he had on a guy named Ryan Serhant, which a lot of you have maybe heard of him.
00:06:02
Speaker
He does the billion million dollar listing in New York.
00:06:07
Speaker
One of the top real estate agents in the world has sold billions and billions in, you know, in revenue for real estate.
00:06:18
Speaker
And he was talking about just the new book he launched and just little tips, tricks, secrets that have helped him.
00:06:24
Speaker
One thing he said that is just going along with all this, he brought up the movie Ghost of Girlfriends Past.
00:06:33
Speaker
It's a 2009 Matthew McConaughey movie.
00:06:36
Speaker
And I actually watched this, I think, six months ago or something.
00:06:40
Speaker
It's kind of a chick flick.
00:06:41
Speaker
My wife sort of made me watch it.
00:06:44
Speaker
But he brought this movie up, and it reminded me of something.
00:06:47
Speaker
In the movie, Matthew McConaughey, the guy he plays, he's basically picking up all these chicks, and his dead

Creating Exclusivity and Urgency in Sales

00:06:55
Speaker
uncle appears to him.
00:06:56
Speaker
And the line he tells Matthew McConaughey, it's not his name, but whatever his name is in the movie,
00:07:03
Speaker
He's like, hey, the power in the relationship lies with whoever cares less.
00:07:11
Speaker
And that's like his big secret for picking up chicks.
00:07:14
Speaker
And at the end, you know, moral of the story, he sees that it's not just about getting all the chicks and that doesn't really cause the happiness.
00:07:22
Speaker
But Ryan Serhant in this podcast interview, he brings that up and he said, sells is no different.
00:07:29
Speaker
The person that cares less has the power in the transaction.
00:07:34
Speaker
And that just reminded me of that.
00:07:35
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, that's so true.
00:07:37
Speaker
Because so many examples I've had where I have kind of turned into that beggar on the doors, beggar in the presentation.
00:07:46
Speaker
And homeowners just hate that.
00:07:48
Speaker
They lose their interest every time.
00:07:51
Speaker
Hey, another great book that goes along with that is Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff.
00:07:56
Speaker
He's basically all about using these takeaways, just flipping the script on the homeowners and really making your product the prize, making it seem like, hey, this is exclusive.
00:08:09
Speaker
Tell me why you guys should qualify for this.
00:08:11
Speaker
Tell me why we should even consider you guys.
00:08:14
Speaker
So you're not necessarily saying those things, but I've realized that the more you can have that attitude in your presentations, in your door approaches, the more you can have it be something exclusive that the homeowner they should be begging you to get.
00:08:28
Speaker
If you can come across with that attitude,
00:08:32
Speaker
you're going to see so much more success.
00:08:35
Speaker
Every single time, the more takeaways I can do, the more ammo I can load up to have the homeowner, you know, make it believe or make them believe that it's exclusive, that we're not helping everything.
00:08:49
Speaker
They want it more.
00:08:51
Speaker
And same thing, I mean, you can see it anywhere in your relationships when you're in high school, the more exclusive you made yourself.
00:08:58
Speaker
The girl's always one of the guys that were hard to get, right?
00:09:01
Speaker
Guys always one of the girls that were hard to get.
00:09:04
Speaker
Same thing in everyone.
00:09:05
Speaker
It's just our human psychology.
00:09:08
Speaker
It's the way we're built.
00:09:09
Speaker
People want what they can't have.
00:09:12
Speaker
So just a good reminder for me, start to notice that.
00:09:15
Speaker
Are you coming across a beggar in your presentations?
00:09:19
Speaker
Are you coming across as that person that has to, you know, get on your knees and kiss their feet for them to do things?
00:09:26
Speaker
Or are you loading up the proof that this is something exclusive, that people are dying to get in on this, that you have limited availability?
00:09:36
Speaker
You don't need to lie to them, but bring up examples.
00:09:39
Speaker
Here in California, we have our net metering that we have with utility companies.
00:09:45
Speaker
They do change the fees that are included in with that.
00:09:48
Speaker
Okay, so something we do is we say, Mr. Jones,
00:09:53
Speaker
They are changing how the net metering works out here.
00:09:55
Speaker
So good news, all the homes were getting approved.
00:09:58
Speaker
They're letting us grandfather it in at what the current net metering plan is.
00:10:02
Speaker
So that way any changes, any increases in the rates, you guys are still on the old program.
00:10:07
Speaker
Okay, that's something.
00:10:09
Speaker
Tax credits.
00:10:10
Speaker
How can you build the urgency?
00:10:11
Speaker
The tax credit, Mr. Homeowner, it's at 26% right now.
00:10:15
Speaker
Luckily it got extended because of COVID, but it is going down.
00:10:19
Speaker
These things are disappearing.
00:10:21
Speaker
There's a ton of other things you can use to build urgency, to build that exclusivity.
00:10:26
Speaker
I mean, you look at other states, of course, we're talking the US here, so all our Australian listeners, Canadian, sorry, it's a little bit different.
00:10:36
Speaker
But there's always things you can do to build that exclusivity.
00:10:39
Speaker
If you look at like Hawaii, for example,
00:10:42
Speaker
Their whole net metering program changed drastically down there.
00:10:48
Speaker
So there's much more need for batteries.
00:10:50
Speaker
It's more expensive because of it.
00:10:52
Speaker
Same thing in Utah, where I'm from.
00:10:54
Speaker
I think it was last year they changed their net metering to where the utility company is only buying back something like half their energy.
00:11:02
Speaker
They'd have to pull up the exact changes to it.
00:11:05
Speaker
But they had a big change to where it's affecting people.
00:11:08
Speaker
They need to put up quite a bit more solar to have more protection.
00:11:11
Speaker
production than they were having before to cover what the usage they need is.
00:11:17
Speaker
So all these things you can bring those up as examples say Mr. Homeowner I'm from something I use hey I'm from Utah what happened there is they changed the structure so now people are having to pay way more for their solar because they need to put up more panels to get the production they need.
00:11:34
Speaker
And also they need to buy batteries.
00:11:36
Speaker
Batteries are expensive, 10 grand.
00:11:37
Speaker
They need to put these in just to be able to produce for them because all the net metering change there.
00:11:43
Speaker
So it's something that is, they're trying to have it happen in California too.
00:11:48
Speaker
These people are losing money.
00:11:50
Speaker
So the reason why all their neighbors are trying to get in on it is because we're grandfathering all these things in.
00:11:55
Speaker
They're protected by the old plants.
00:11:58
Speaker
That way they don't have to spend more to get their solar.
00:12:01
Speaker
So think of things like that.
00:12:03
Speaker
Go today, write out three things you can use to build urgency, exclusivity.
00:12:08
Speaker
Write those out and then build stories around them.
00:12:12
Speaker
The more you can give real life examples, the more you can say it coming from a neighbor's perspective, not just yours.
00:12:18
Speaker
It's gonna make it way more believable, even better if you have a video.
00:12:23
Speaker
This is something I've started to implement now.
00:12:25
Speaker
Have testimonial videos of customers, preferably on their same street, is the best case scenario.
00:12:32
Speaker
If you can pull up that you're having a conversation with them, they recognize them, it's going to be so powerful, blow their socks off.
00:12:40
Speaker
So look for ways you can build that urgency, exclusivity.
00:12:43
Speaker
It's going to help you.
00:12:44
Speaker
It's going to be a game changer and teach your new reps to do it.
00:12:47
Speaker
We're not beggars out there.
00:12:49
Speaker
We're professionals and we should be treated with respect.
00:12:52
Speaker
So make the homeowners respect you.
00:12:54
Speaker
You got to earn that though.
00:12:56
Speaker
And that's how you do it.
00:12:58
Speaker
So that's my thoughts.
00:12:59
Speaker
Okay, hope it helps you share it with your team.
00:13:01
Speaker
Let me know what you thought of this.
00:13:03
Speaker
And let me know if you guys have other questions or needs that you want me to get someone on or talk about and keep crushing it.
00:13:11
Speaker
Let's start second quarter with our best quarter ever.
00:13:14
Speaker
All right, we'll talk to you in the next one.
00:13:18
Speaker
Hey SolarPrinters, quick question.
00:13:20
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?

Introducing Sol Society

00:13:29
Speaker
For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite solar professionals
00:13:35
Speaker
and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
00:13:41
Speaker
That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new solar learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with the top performers in the industry.
00:13:52
Speaker
And it's called Sol Society.
00:13:54
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?
00:14:09
Speaker
Less than $3.45 a day.
00:14:12
Speaker
Currently Sol Society is closed to the public and membership is by invitation only, but solopreneurs can go to solciety.co to learn more and have the option to join a waitlist when a membership becomes available in your area.
00:14:26
Speaker
Again, this is exclusively for Solopreneur listeners, so be sure to go to www.solciety.co to join the waitlist and learn more now.
00:14:38
Speaker
Thanks again for listening.
00:14:40
Speaker
We'll catch you again in the next episode.